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LOS ANGELES - A jury imposed the death penalty Tuesday on the ringleaders of a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme targeting rich Russian immigrants whose bodies were found in a Northern California reservoir. Jurors deliberated less than a day before reaching their vote on sentences for Iouri Mikhel, 41, and Jurijus Kadamovas, 40. Last month, the federal jury convicted both men of three counts of hostage-taking resulting in death and three counts of conspiracy. The death penalty verdict is binding on U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian, who is scheduled to formally sentence the two men March 12. The case will be automatically appealed,...

LOS ANGELES - Two men were convicted Wednesday of orchestrating a ruthless kidnapping-for-ransom scheme targeting Russian immigrants that resulted in the killings of five people whose bodies were found at the bottom of a Northern California reservoir. A federal jury found Iouri Mikhel, 41, and Jurijus Kadamovas, 40, guilty of three counts of hostage-taking and three counts of conspiracy. Both could face the death penalty. Neither defendant showed reaction. Relatives of some victims sobbed and held each other as the jury's decision was announced. During the 4 1/2-month trial, federal prosecutors portrayed the two defendants as the leaders of a...

LOS ANGELES (AP) Federal investigators are again searching a Northern California reservoir where investigators several years ago found the bodies of five Los Angeles-area victims of an alleged Russian mob scheme, authorities said Wednesday. The murders in 2001 and 2002 were tied to an apparent kidnapping-for-ransom scheme. Five men and one woman with roots in the former Soviet Union were arrested on federal charges in the case and a seventh suspect remains at large, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles. The FBI has been searching the New Melones Reservoir in the central Sierra Nevada...

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - Four reputed members of the Russian mafia are under arrest for alleged kidnapping schemes that may be linked to the discovery of five bodies in a Sierra Nevada reservoir.</p> <p>The men, who were arrested last month, are accused of hostage-taking and other federal crimes in a March 5 indictment issued in Los Angeles.</p>