LAS VEGAS — The grandfather of a 6- year-old Nevada boy who was abducted for four days last month was accused Monday of squirreling away millions of dollars skimmed from a U.S.- Mexico drug smuggling operation.
Clemens Fred Tinnemeyer, 51, and his girlfriend, Terri Lynn Leavy, 42, were charged with interstate and foreign travel or transportation in aid of racketeering enterprises — a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The two were being investigated by federal drug enforcement agents when the boy, Cole Puffinburger, was abducted Oct. 15, according to a criminal complaint unsealed during their initial appearance Monday in U.S. District Court.
Police had said two gunmen who posed as police officers tied up the boy’s mother and her boyfriend and took the boy when they couldn’t find money that Tinnemeyer allegedly stole from Mexican drug traffickers.
The boy was found unharmed late Oct. 18 on a Las Vegas street.
Tinnemeyer was arrested Oct. 17 as a material witness in the kidnapping by federal agents in Riverside, Calif., who found about $3.5 million in cash bundled in suitcases, footlockers and a handbag in a storage locker, according to the criminal complaint.
Neither Tinnemeyer or Leavy was asked Monday to enter a plea, although their court-appointed lawyers said outside court that they intended to fight the federal racketeering charges.
Federal Magistrate Judge Robert Johnston deemed Tinnemeyer and Leavy flight risks and a danger to the community and ordered them held in federal custody without bail pending a preliminary hearing Nov. 17.
