Lawyer Says Men Involved in Fatal Break-In Were Not Bounty Hunters

PHOENIX (September 6, 1997 05:09 a.m. EDT) -- The men said they were bounty hunters looking for a bail jumper. That was why, they told police, they broke into a house and mistakenly killed the young couple inside.

But the bond for the fugitive they sought had expired four years ago, and a lawyer for his bail bond underwriter says the men were acting on their own.

"What I told the Phoenix Police Department two days ago was the people involved in this crime are either lying about being bounty hunters, which I'm certain is the case, or they're the world's biggest idiots by looking for a defendant that they would not receive a penny for if they found him," lawyer Mark Bernstein said Friday.

Five men wearing ski masks, body armor and black military-style clothing broke down the door of Chris Foote's home early Sunday. Foote fired at the men as they kicked in his bedroom door and the men returned fire with assault rifles, killing Foote and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Spring Wright.

Two of the men, Michael Martin Sanders and David Brackne, had worked as bounty hunters in the past and told officers that's what they were doing on Sunday, police spokesman Mike McCullough said.

He said Sanders had worked as an informant for several police agencies in the Phoenix area.

"We are not the ones saying they are bounty hunters," McCullough said. "Could it be something different? Absolutely."

Sanders, Brackne and three others -- including Brackne's son and Sanders' brother-in-law -- have been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault and unlawful imprisonment.

They gave police documents indicating they were bounty hunters looking for a man who had skipped out on a $25,000 bond in Los Angeles.

But the bond for that fugitive -- drunken-driving suspect Victor Rodriguez Alcantar -- expired in 1993, said Bernstein, who represents Pete Brito Bail Bonds of Pomona, Calif., which provided it.

Not only does that mean that no bounty hunters could have been authorized to look for Alcantar but that even if Alcantar were found, the finder would not be paid, he said.

Sanders' background also raises questions, said Stephen Krimel, vice president and general counsel for WEST-PAC Bail Bond General Agency in Tollhouse, Calif. He was in Phoenix as a representative of the bail bond industry in California.

"It had nothing to do with bounty hunters," Krimel said. "It had to do with a police informant who was out of control and allowed to get out of control."

Sanders was fired after one month as a county jailer in Texas in 1981, then was charged with plotting to kill sheriff's investigators involved in the probe that led to his firing. He later pleaded guilty to retaliation against a witness and served a two-year prison term.

After his release, Sanders made his way to Arizona, where he worked as an informant for law enforcement agencies such as the Maricopa County Attorney's office, which paid him from 1985 to 1987, spokesman Bill FitzGerald said.

Sanders was charged with assault when he tried to barge into the wrong house while acting as a bounty hunter in 1990, but he was never prosecuted.

By MATT KELLEY, The Associated Press