according to his website<\/a>, that \u201cwas just the beginning of many more wilderness rescues to come.\u201d That morphed into what the website described as the \u201clargest no-kill, care for life animal sanctuary in the world.\u201d<\/p>\nGrillo\u2019s alleged intended victim, Adriana Duarte Valentines, began working as an animal caretaker at the sanctuary in June 2017.<\/p>\n
The criminal complaint does not identify Duarte by name, referring only to a \u201cVictim 1\u201d who had sued Grillo\u2019s animal sanctuary and obtained a $6.7-million judgment. The Times identified her through Los Angeles County court filings.<\/p>\n
In her lawsuit, Duarte said she worked Sunday through Friday, helping feed the animals and clean their cages.<\/p>\n
After having a baby in February 2020, Duarte said Grillo told her she had been replaced, \u201ceffectively terminating her,\u201d according to the lawsuit, which she filed the following year.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Duarte] was left embarrassed, ashamed, emotionally broken, and in financial desperation for having been directly discriminated and retaliated against for having a pregnancy related disability, and needing and requesting a reasonable accommodation, despite outstanding and loyal service,\u201d her lawsuit stated.<\/p>\n
In a deposition, Grillo said he fired Duarte because he believed she was stealing cat and dog food, janitorial supplies and personal items \u2014 which she denied.<\/p>\n
A jury found in favor of Duarte in November 2024, awarding her $5.7 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. A judge later reduced the total amount to $2.9 million. The sanctuary filed for bankruptcy in May 2025.<\/p>\n
In December, according to the criminal complaint, Grillo made a phone call.<\/p>\n
A kidnapping plot<\/p>\n
A man \u2014 identified in the complaint only as Cooperating Witness 1 \u2014 told FBI agents that Grillo, a former client, left him a voicemail discussing the recent lawsuit loss.<\/p>\n
Grillo, he said, told him he was working on a few different \u201cprojects\u201d and wanted the witness to work with him. The witness told agents Grillo was deeply concerned about possible surveillance and often talked in coded language.<\/p>\n
The witness said he agreed to fly from his home in Arizona to meet with Grillo at the equestrian center that same month. Once there, he said Grillo had him write a five-digit number on a piece of paper that Grillo later said was the street number of Duarte\u2019s address.<\/p>\n
As the pair walked through the horse stables, Grillo brought up the civil lawsuit, which he felt was unfair and politically driven, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
Grillo allegedly asked the witness to use his contacts in Mexico to learn more about Duarte, who is a Mexican immigrant, and said he was willing to pay for the information.<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, the men met a second time at the Burbank equestrian center on Jan. 7. The witness said Grillo began speaking in \u201ccode,\u201d referring to a \u201cmovie\u201d or \u201cdocumentary\u201d that he wanted to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cGRILLO stated that in this \u2018documentary,\u2019 he wanted the woman who had sued him to be kidnapped along with her young child and for them to be transported to Mexico and held against their will,\u201d the FBI agent said in the affidavit. \u201cWhile in confinement, the woman would be forced to cooperate with GRILLO regarding her lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grillo allegedly told the witness he was willing to pay $100,000 to make that happen and said he wanted the woman and her child to be flown out of an airport in Lancaster.<\/p>\n
The witness told authorities that Grillo said once Duarte was held in Mexico, he should do whatever was necessary to make her cooperate. Grillo was allegedly willing to make a down payment of $30,000 or $50,000 to effectuate the kidnapping plot.<\/p>\n
Grillo allegedly wanted the kidnapping to go down before a settlement conference that was scheduled for the end of February or early March this year.<\/p>\n
After that second meeting, on Jan. 31, the witness reported the possible kidnapping plot to the FBI. According to the complaint, the witness is a target of a separate FBI investigation into alleged fraud and is working with authorities in hopes of receiving favorable consideration in connection with that case.<\/p>\n
The witness agreed to help law enforcement investigate Grillo.<\/p>\n
An FBI operation<\/p>\n
According to an affidavit by FBI Special Agent Robert McElroy, Grillo and the witness met several times under FBI surveillance and discussed how they would get Duarte to Mexico. McElroy said the men spoke in code, with Grillo referring to the \u201cproduction\u201d and continually asking the witness what the plan was to convince Duarte to go willingly.<\/p>\n
Grillo said Duarte would be desperate for cash, making it easy to gain her cooperation to then extort her lawyer, according to the affidavit. Grillo agreed to send the witness a check for $20,000 to arrange for a pilot and a plane to transport Duarte to Mexico, funds which McElroy said Grillo understood would also go to the cost of holding her in Mexico.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 19, the witness received a package from Grillo containing a USB drive and a check from another of Grillo\u2019s nonprofits for $20,000, according to the affidavit. The memo on the check read \u201cProduction.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a Telegram call at the FBI Phoenix field office, according to the affidavit, the witness told Grillo he wanted to make sure that they were on the same page and that \u201cthey can get her and the husband to the airport willingly and at that point they are going whether they want to or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grillo asked more questions about the security of the phone line, McElroy wrote, before responding: \u201cAlrighty, we are good.\u201d <\/p>\n
After the men hung up, Grillo called back to question why that phone call needed to happen. <\/p>\n
The witness explained that he needed to make sure they were on the same page.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem with that is that if anyone picked that up it puts me right in the middle of it,\u201d Grillo responded.<\/p>\n
A fake photo<\/p>\n
Grillo and the witness met for a final time at the racetrack around 11 a.m. on Tuesday this week, according to the affidavit. FBI agents outfitted the witness with audiovisual recording equipment to capture the discussion.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772664309_294_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A fake image that was presented in the court indictment that was used by an undercover agent to convince Leo Grillo that two individuals had been kidnapped.<\/p>\n
(US District Court)<\/p>\n
The witness told Grillo that they \u201cgot \u2018em\u201d and showed him what McElroy described as a \u201cfake photograph\u201d of a woman and a man tied up. He told Grillo it had gone according to plan and that Duarte and her husband \u201cwent willingly to the airport and then they did not go willingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Duarte and her family were held captive, the witness told Grillo, but the kidnappers couldn\u2019t take them to the place they had originally intended on in Mexico. The couple were still in Lancaster, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey haven\u2019t left Lancaster? Oh my God. They\u2019re holding them in Lancaster?\u201d Grillo responded. \u201cTheir sons are in their twenties, they can call Sheriff.\u201d<\/p>\n
The witness told Grillo the kidnappers needed \u201canother ten grand.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the affidavit, Grillo talked to the witness about the effects of Duarte\u2019s kidnapping on her pending lawsuit. Grillo allegedly said if the appeal of the verdict were successful and the case were to be re-tried, \u201cthere\u2019s no plaintiff!\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the affidavit, Grillo wrote a check for $10,000, for \u201cDoc Invest.\u201d<\/p>\n
McElroy said Grillo mused about what he would say \u201cif I ever get busted on this by the Feds.\u201d According to the affidavit, Grillo told the witness \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of smokescreens,\u201d to conceal the kidnapping plot, including \u201cthe movie, make a documentary about this whole thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of his meeting with the witness, FBI agents moved in and searched Grillo, recovering two firearms, one on either side of him.<\/p>\n
After his arrest, Grillo agreed to speak with FBI agents who showed him the fabricated kidnapping photograph that the witness had presented him with earlier that day.<\/p>\n
When asked about the photo, McElroy said that Grillo identified the person in the photo as Duarte and discussed her lawsuit against his sanctuary.<\/p>\n
\u201cGRILLO acknowledged that, if the lawsuit was retried and Victim 1 was unable to testify, that would be a favorable development for D.E.L.T.A. Rescue,\u201d McElroy wrote.<\/p>\n
But Grillo repeatedly insisted he had paid the witness for his participation in a documentary unrelated to Duarte and not a kidnapping, according to McElroy.<\/p>\n
When reached by The Times on Wednesday and told about the alleged plot, Armen Manasserian, a lawyer representing Duarte in the bankruptcy proceedings, said \u201cmy jaw is on the floor right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s now clear that it\u2019s not just about bad-mouthing her in the press or manipulating judicial process to ensure she never gets paid, but something a lot more sinister,\u201d Manasserian said. \u201cI don\u2019t have the words.\u201d<\/p>\n
Times editorial library director Cary Schneider contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former actor Leo Grillo met the man in a camper at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1138,1146,1139,1140,1137,1143,1135,8,1145,1142,1141,215,9,1144,1147,7,1136,234],"class_list":{"0":"post-827","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-affidavit","9":"tag-check","10":"tag-civil-lawsuit","11":"tag-criminal-complaint","12":"tag-duarte","13":"tag-fbi-agent","14":"tag-grillo","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-kidnapping","17":"tag-man","18":"tag-mcelroy","19":"tag-mexico","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-plan","22":"tag-sanctuary","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-witness","25":"tag-woman"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116173335644531653","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}