Oak Park robbers tied to carjacking

By Sylvie Belmond belmond@theacorn.com

Sheriff’s deputies arrested two local men who carjacked an Agoura Hills resident at gunpoint on Feb. 7. The two men also are suspects in the Feb. 2 armed robbery of the Candy Cottage store in Oak Park.

"This certainly made me more paranoid," said the carjacking victim, an Agoura Hills real estate agent.

At about 7 p.m., the man drove his wife’s new Mercedes to the 7-Eleven store at the corner of Lake Lindero Road and Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Oak Park.

As he entered the store he noticed that the man walking out seemed agitated. "But I didn’t give it a thought, and went on to buy milk and got back into my car," the victim said.

As he was driving out of the parking lot, a green Land Rover with the two men inside blocked his path. While the victim tried to back up to let the vehicle in, a man from the Land Rover knocked on the side window with a gun and told the driver to get out of the car or he would shoot.

The victim then noticed it was the same man he had seen earlier at the 7-Eleven.

"My feeling is that he was there to rob the 7-Eleven," the man said.

While the carjacking victim fled back to the store to call 911, he saw the suspect get into his car. But it didn’t move.

"It seems in his haste he didn’t know how to get the car into gear," said the Agoura man.

The carjacker abandoned the Mercedes and got back into the SUV and the duo fled, he said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene within a few minutes and arrested one of the suspected carjackers at a nearby shopping center on Canwood Street.

Detective J.T. Manwell of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station said Ryan Patrick Madden, 18 was apprehended near the stolen Land Rover parked at the Milanos II restaurant.

The suspect accused of wielding the gun, James Ashley Hartley, 19, was arrested a few hours later at a relative’s home in Oak Park.

"The kids have local connections in Malibu and Calabasas," Manwell said.

The suspects were booked into Los Angeles County jail for a myriad of felony charges that include car jacking, car theft and gun enhancements, the detective said.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said the same suspects might be linked to the armed robbery at the Candy Cottage in Oak Park earlier this month.