INFORMANT'S ARREST POTENTIAL CREDIBILITY BLOW.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - The case against six people accused of kidnapping and raping an informant in a murder case took another blow with the arrest of the informant on suspicion of robbing a sandwich shop.

The informant, a 23-year-old Palmdale woman, was arrested Thursday, the same day prosecutors dropped a murder charge against a man whom the woman had linked to the murder.

The kidnap and rape case had been dismissed in August by Judge Steve Ogden, who expressed doubts about the victim's credibility, but prosecutors refiled the charges for a hearing before Judge Carol Koppel, who ruled there was enough evidence to warrant a trial.

``The credibility she had before was subzero, and now it is so far in the depths that I don't think they can proceed further on any case that's going,'' said James Bates, the attorney for Thomas Sylvester Murray Jr., one of the six defendants in the kidnap case.

Bates said defense attorneys might not be able to use the woman's arrest to challenge her credibility if she is not convicted.

``Her credibility has been been attacked on so many different fronts, it doesn't really make a difference,'' said Bates, noting that authorities had paid out at least $5,000 in food and lodging for the woman as part of the witness protection program in the murder case.

Deputy District Attorney Lisa Chung said she will pursue prosecution of the kidnap case. Chung acknowledged that while getting arrested doesn't help the victim's credibility, it doesn't mean the kidnapping and rape didn't happen.

``It's never a good idea to pick up other crimes. It doesn't help her credibility,'' Chung said. ``Just because somebody commits a crime, it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It has nothing to do with facts arising out of the kidnap rape case.''

Homicide Detective Mike Scott said the woman's kidnap and rape allegations were corroborated by physical evidence.

``We can't pick and choose our victims and witnesses,'' Scott said. ``When things happen, we have to deal with it on the individual case.''

The woman was arrested Thursday along with a 21-year-old Palmdale man in connection with the Nov. 2 robbery of a Subway sandwich shop in the 500 block of East Palmdale Boulevard.

Citing insufficient evidence, prosecutors on Thursday dropped a murder charge against Murray, 24, one of two young men accused in the slaying of a woman cab driver who was burned to death in her taxi.

The informant told detectives Murray had confessed to her that he set the cab on fire, then walked to his mother's house and watched the vehicle burn, but Bates said Murray's mother lives at least five miles away from the murder scene.

Murray, who lives in Palmdale, had been charged in the Jan. 6 slaying of 28-year-old Crystal Angelica Stahl, whose body was found in the back seat of the burning cab in a church parking lot in the 37700 block of Palm Vista Avenue.

Also charged in the case is Stahl's 18-year-old ex-boyfriend, Ryan Willis of Palmdale, who has pleaded not guilty.

Murray still faces charges that he, four other men and a woman were involved in the kidnap and rape of the informant in the murder case.

In the kidnap and rape case, prosecutors said the informant was kidnapped twice over the Memorial Day weekend and raped once. She was kidnapped a third time on June 5 and raped again.

After the first preliminary hearing, defense attorneys said the informant told five different versions of the events she claimed occurred to five different deputies within a two-day period.

Defense attorneys have said statements from other witnesses were inconsistent with what the informant was alleging. Some witnesses indicated that the informant might have left voluntarily as opposed to being taken by force, they said.

They also said the informant was staying at a local hotel as part of a witness protection program because of the murder case. The woman invited people to the hotel, some of whom were witnesses and defendants, before the alleged offenses occurred, attorneys said.