Miss Arizona contestant Kumari Fulbright, 27, has been charged with multiple offences over the kidnap and torture of an ex-boyfriend.
Miss Arizona contestant Kumari Fulbright, 27, has been charged with multiple offences over the kidnap and torture of an ex-boyfriend. Picture: AP/www.title2media.com
She also allegedly bit him during his ordeal, in which he was tied up and threatened over a ten-hour period in two different houses in Arizona, USA.
Meanwhile two brothers who allegedly helped her in the deed are fugitives from justice.
Authorities have an arrest warrant for Micheal and Robert Ergonis, 44 and 46 respectively, who are believed to have fled Arizona for Colombia.
Ms Fulbright has been charged with including armed robbery, aggravated robbery, kidnapping and two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The three are accused of attacking her former lover on December 8.
Police told America's ABC News that Ms Fulbright asked a former boyfriend to come to her Tucson apartment.
She said she was going to take a shower, when the Ergonis brothers entered the residence armed with handguns.
Robert Ergonis was identified by police as another former boyfriend of Ms Fulbright's.
"With guns, they tell him get down on the floor," Sgt Fabian Pacheco said. "They begin to accuse this victim of stealing some jewellery, according to Fulbright. She comes out of the shower and she begins to participate in this whole incident."
The Ergonis brothers drove the victim to another home in Tucson, where a third man, 40-year-old Larry Bruce Hammond, allegedly became involved.
Mr Hammond has since been arrested and charged.
"There were some tools. The victim sees these tools and he thinks they're going to use them on him," Sgt Pacheco said. "He honestly thinks he is going to get killed."
The victim told investigators the three men involved then left the apartment, Sgt Pacheco said, instructing Ms Fulbright to "watch" the victim with a handgun.
By this point, the victim had freed one of his hands and when she approached, he managed to grab the gun from her hand. The weapon reportedly discharged.
"They began to fight over the gun and the victim managed to get out of this apartment," Sgt Pacheco said, adding that a neighbour called police after hearing screams as the man ran from the house.
"They're still on the run," Sgt Pacheco said of the brothers. "We have reason to believe they have international ties."
Ms Fulbright, who was released on $US50,000 ($56,000) bail, had reportedly served as a law clerk for a US District Court judge while she attended the University of Arizona's law school.
She is listed as a member of the editorial board of the campus law journal, according to Arizona's Daily Star.
Ms Fulbright will appear in a 2008 calendar for Subguns.com that features women in bikinis brandishing firearms.
Ms Fulbright is Miss May, according to Jeff Hawley, a founder of Title2Media, the company that produced the calendar for Subguns. In her photograph, Ms Fulbright is pictured carrying an HK 51 machine gun.
"We were really shocked to see the story," Mr Hawley told ABC News. "She was a very nice individual; she had modeled professionally."
Prosecutors in Pima County, Arizona, cite Ms Fulbright in the indictment documents. "(She) specifically bit him several times while he was bound, stuck a butcher knife in his ear said she was going to kill him (and) pointed a pistol at him."
The documents, which were obtained by the Arizona Daily Star, accuse Ms Fulbright and the three men of taking the victim's wallet, cell phone, briefcase and hundreds of dollars in cash.
At one of the two houses, according to search warrant documents filed in court, police recovered a spent bullet, as well as ammunition, plastic gloves, marijuana and the victim's wallet and briefcase. At the other house, authorities recovered duct tape.
Tom Hartzell, Ms Fulbright's lawyer, has claimed the ex-boyfriend's criminal history may compromise his credibility as a witness.
"We're eager to see the process through, and for the truth of this matter to come to light," Mr Hartzell said. "My preliminary investigation indicates the alleged victim is not the most savoury individual, and will be coming to court with a whole lot of baggage of his own."
The victim, who has not been named by authorities, was charged with assault and disorderly conduct in March; those charges were reportedly dismissed last month after he completed a court-sanctioned program.
It is the policy of the Tucson Police Department not to name the victims of violent crimes, Sgt Pacheco said. "If they're listed as a victim, we don't release any of their information," he said. "We can't really talk about what the victim may or may not have been involved in with the law."
http://www.news.com.au/
Kumari Fulbright is shown in this undated photo provided by the Tucson Police Department in Tucson, Ariz. Fulbright, 25, was indicted with three men Dec. 18, 2007, by a Pima County Superior Court grand jury on charges of kidnapping, armed robbery, aggravated robbery and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, the Arizona Daily Star reported. Fulbright, was Miss Pima County in 2005 and Miss Desert Sun in 2006, and sought the title of Miss Arizona during those years.
(AP Photo/Tucson Police Department)
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