Two Layton men who spent 50 days in the Iron County Jail have been found not guilty of charges they kidnapped a California woman they believed had jumped bail in Davis County.
A 5th District Court spokesman said an eight-member jury deliberated nearly six hours before delivering a verdict of not guilty Tuesday night.Lance Charles Winters, 31, and James Gus Kallas, also 31, each faced a second-degree felony kidnapping charge stemming from an incident that occurred on Sept. 12.
Kallas was released from custody Tuesday, but Winters remained in jail Wednesday, held on $450 bail on a traffic warrant out of Ogden.
The men were arrested Sept. 12 on I-15 near Cedar City after a woman called Cedar City police. She told them she was approached at a rest stop 11 miles south of the city by a handcuffed woman who said she had been beaten and kidnapped.
Winters and Kallas were charged with kidnapping 26-year-old Cheryl Watson, of Dijorgio, Calif.
Cedar City Police Officer Kelvin Orton said Kallas was Watson's ex-boyfriend. He said Kallas and Winters went to California to bring Watson back to Utah, where she had jumped bail on two misdemeanor charges.
Orton said neither man was a licensed bail bondsman, nor had they been authorized by a bonding company to go to California to retrieve Watson.