Crime Time

Flashdancer owner's federal indictment is pushed back amid hopes for plea bargain

Federal prosecutors and the attorney for the owner of an Arlington strip club who is accused of targeting Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck with a murder-for-hire plot have agreed to push back the deadline for an indictment.

According to court filings, Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Wolfe and J. Warren St. John, who represents Flashdancer Cabaret owner Ryan Walker Grant, agreed to extend the deadline to indict to July 19. The filings say that the two sides are conducting discovery as well as negotiations that could lead to a plea bargain.

Under the Speedy Trial Act, federal indictments must be filed within 30 days of the arrest. Federal agents detained Grant  on April 9, meaning today would have been the deadline.

Grant is accused of trying to hire men from Mexico through an intermediary to kill Cluck and Dallas attorney Tom Brandt, who represents Arlington in cases involving sexually oriented businesses. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cureton ordered Grant held without bail on April 20.

St. John declined to comment through his office. Wolfe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

-Patrick M. Walker

Couple out $300 in fake ransom scheme

The phone call left them skeptical. The Louisiana couple was told that their grandson, who lives in Arlington, Texas with his family, was being held for ransom in another country over an unpaid debt. Pay up, the couple was told, or their grandson would be killed. But the kidnappers seemed to know a lot about their grandson. And when the couple couldn't reach him for hours, they wired the money. Later, they learned it was all a scam.

Fla. honors student pistol-whips mom, demands sports car

A Florida teen bound for an Ivy League school was arrested after she allegedly forced her mother to co-sign for a car loan at gunpoint.

Naples Daily News reports that Rachel Hachero, 17, is accused of pistol-whipping her mother and forcing her to drive to a local dealership to buy a Nissan 350Z convertible.

Her mother initially refused to co-sign for the car when she threatened to kill her and later that day, returned home with a 9mm Sig Sauer handgun to prove her point.

She pistol-whipped her mother in the head and pointed the gun at her head and stomach and demanded that they drive to the dealership.

While Hachero was in school at the exclusive Canterbury School in Fort Myers, her mother rummaged through her bedroom and found the gun and some drugs.

Hachero was arrested and faces charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, unlawful possession of a firearm and battery.

Hachero's mother declined to prosecute because of her honor student status and acceptance into several Ivy League schools with scholarships.

-Chance Welch

Ex-FBI agent accused of threatening boss, estranged wife

A former FBI agent in Dallas has been arrested on charges that he threatened to harm or kill is estranged wife to kill the head of the Dallas FBI office.

Carlos Ortiz Jr. was taken into custody and his the wife is under protective guard, Channel 8 reported.

Ortiz already had been on leave and was under investigation for domestic violence, Channel 8 reported.

-- Lance Murray