Testimony Begins in Northridge, Canyon Country Bank Heists : Crime: Branch officers and their families were taken hostage. Women were forced to let robbers into branchs.

A federal prosecutor told a jury Tuesday that a Santa Clarita man held two bank officers and their families hostage overnight and then forced the women to help him steal more than $200,000 from their banks--money that later allowed him to buy two cars and travel to Mexico.

The allegations began the trial of Alex Yepes, 25, who stands accused in the June 11, 1993, robbery of a TransWorld Bank in Canyon Country and the Sept. 17, 1993, theft of a Coast Federal branch in Northridge, authorities said.

He is the first of five suspects to be tried in the heists, which authorities said took bank robbery to new extremes. Two others have pleaded guilty and two remain at large.

During opening statements in the trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Assistant U.S. Atty. David R. Fields detailed events surrounding the separate but nearly identical robberies. Each allegedly began with Yepes, along with several accomplices, holding bank officers hostage in their own homes: TransWorld officer Toula Demosthenous and eight others were held in her Canyon Country home; Coast Federal officer Terry Duranso and four others were captured in her Canoga Park home.

Fields alleged that Yepes helped guard the bank officers and their family and friends until morning, when Yepes and some of his accomplices accompanied the women to their banks and forced them to open the vaults and automatic teller machines. In all, Yepes and the other men stole about $214,000, Fields said. Nobody was injured in either robbery.

Jurors were told Tuesday that evidence will show that after the robberies Yepes used his share of the money to buy two used cars and to take a trip to Club Med in Cancun, Mexico.

Fields also said that Yepes confessed to his brother-in-law that he had robbed the TransWorld Bank, and that one of Yepes’ accomplices, who has pleaded guilty to his involvement in the robberies, will testify against him during the trial.

Moments later, Gerald Scotti, an attorney representing Yepes, told jurors that evidence will show a different picture from the one painted by Fields, contending that his client was with friends during both robberies.

“Yes, two terrible crimes were committed. . . . but, no, Alex Yepes wasn’t present at either of them,” Scotti said.

Scotti acknowledged that Yepes was friends with the men who robbed the banks and that they had invited him to participate in the robberies, but the attorney contended that his client declined and yet they still turned him in.

“Their first way out of it was to point the finger at Alex,” he said.

Scotti said that on the night before the Northridge heist, Yepes was at a rock concert with friends and that ticket receipts, cellular phone records from calls Yepes made that night, and auto club records from a flat tire he got on the way home will be presented to prove his client went to the concert.

The attorney also told jurors that the trip to Mexico had been planned in advance as had the purchase of the cars, one of which he said his client bought with money from a business investment.

Authorities also lack physical evidence to tie Yepes to the crime scenes and a search of his home produced no evidence, Scotti said.

Yepes, who has pleaded not guilty, is the first of five suspects charged in the robberies to stand trial.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Last month, Chad Pelch, 24, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to robbery and kidnaping charges stemming from the TransWorld robbery in Canyon Country.

Darren Patrick Towers, of Saugus, who is expected to testify against Yepes, pleaded guilty in December to his involvement and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Pelch’s brother, Brett Pelch, who is charged in both robberies, and Donald Sallee, who is charged with participating in the Coast Federal robbery, are both 26 and have not been caught.