2nd Man Arrested, Another Sought, in Kidnap and Robbery Plot

A second man was arrested yesterday in connection with a weekend Maryland kidnapping and bank robbery scheme so brazen that even the hostage who thwarted it compared the experience to a Hollywood thriller, police said.

Yosef Tadele, 23, of Silver Spring was arrested just before 5 a.m., joining Yohannes T. Surafel, 24, of the District in jail in Prince George's County, police said. Both men face kidnapping and other charges related to their attempt to abduct a bank manager and her family, hold them hostage in their home overnight and force the manager to withdraw money from her bank in the morning, police said.

Police said they are close to arresting a third man, whom they did not identify.

"We feel very, very confident that we'll pick him up in the next day or so," said Capt. Brian Cedar, commander of criminal investigations for the Maryland State Police. "We know who he is and where he frequents."

On Friday night, police said, Tadele dropped Surafel and the unidentified man off at the Clinton home of 40-year-old James Spruill. The pair forced their way inside, holding Spruill, his sons, ages 8 and 11, and his 39-year-old wife hostage overnight, the police said.

The men told Spruill's wife that in the morning, they would force her to withdraw funds from a Silver Spring SunTrust bank, where she worked as an assistant manager, police said.

Cedar said no one in the family knew any of the abductors, even casually. He said investigators were still working to determine why the family was targeted.

Cedar said the men must have been watching the woman's daily activities as she went to and from her Clinton house and the bank.

The men's plan went awry on the way to the bank Saturday about 7:30 a.m., when Spruill, who was driving the family car occupied by his wife, sons and Surafel, saw a Maryland state trooper in his rearview mirror, Spruill said Saturday. On the Beltway near Route 1, Spruill began to swerve, prompting the trooper, Barrington Cameron, 22, to pull him over. After handing Cameron a bank card instead of his license to indicate something was amiss, Spruill lunged into the back seat, pinning Surafel's hands while he yelled about the gun, police and Spruill said. When Barrington pulled his own weapon, Surafel surrendered.

"It was like in the movies," Spruill said Saturday. "You just had to think it all through and figure it out. I wanted to keep us all together."

After Surafel's arrest, police surrounded the Spruill residence, concerned that the man they believed was inside might have taken another hostage. When they stormed the house about four hours later, the man was gone, police said. He remains at large.

Surafel gave police multiple fake names and tried to hang himself in a cell at the state police College Park barracks Saturday, police said. He was held overnight at Prince George's County Hospital Center, and his identity was released yesterday, when he was taken to the jail.

Surafel has not given police any information, Cedar said. He said investigators located Tadele using a network of people connected to Surafel.