Her pet rescue owed her ex-employee millions. Rather than pay, the feds say he hatched a plan to kidnap him

Former actor Leo Grillo met the man at a campground at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank.

“They have them,” said the man. He showed Grillo a photo of a zip-tied couple, with tape attached to the woman’s mouth, according to the federal indictment.

But the plan backfired, he said. The kidnappers needed another $10,000.

Little did Grillo know as he wrote the check that this was all part of an FBI sting.

Within seconds, agents arrested Grillo, 77, who had starred alongside Katherine Heigl in Zyzzyx Road, which has been called the studio’s lowest-grossing film in history. Grillo is charged with attempted kidnapping and, if convicted, faces up to 20 years in prison.

Grillo’s deputy public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The complaint noted that Grillo denied to FBI agents that he had paid for the kidnapping.

Grillo’s alleged $30,000 settlement for the kidnapping plot was a civil lawsuit filed by a former zoo employee who claimed she was wrongfully terminated and discriminated against because of her pregnancy.

An LA County judge ruled in favor of the woman in November 2024, awarding her $6.7 million.

Instead of paying his former employee, federal authorities say Grillo hatched a plan to kidnap him and take him to Mexico.

The case

Grillo is a well-known figure in the animal rescue world. He founded his non-profit wildlife rescue organization, Dedication and Everlasting Love to Animals, decades earlier. He previously told the Times that his epiphany came on a road trip in 1979, when he rescued a lost black dog in distress in the Angeles National Forest.

He named the dog “Delta” and, according to his website, that was “just the beginning of many more wilderness rescues to come.” That turned into what the website described as “the largest no-kill, animal-friendly facility in the world.”

Grillo’s alleged victim, Adriana Duarte Valentines, began working as an animal caretaker at the sanctuary in June 2017.

The criminal complaint does not identify Duarte by name, referring only to “Victim 1” who sued Grillo’s pet property and received a $6.7 million judgment. The Times identified him through Los Angeles County court filings.

At his trial, Duarte said he worked Sunday through Friday, helping feed the animals and clean their cages.

After giving birth in February 2020, Duarte said Grillo told her he had been changed and “cut her off,” according to a lawsuit she filed the following year.

“[Duarte] “She was left humiliated, ashamed, emotionally broken, and financially desperate as a result of being directly discriminated against and retaliated against because of her pregnancy-related disability, and in need of and begging for reasonable accommodations, despite outstanding and faithful service,” her lawsuit said.

In the deposition, Grillo said he fired Duarte because he believed he was stealing cat and dog food, grooming supplies and personal belongings – which he denied.

A jury found in Duarte’s favor in November 2024, awarding him $5.7 million in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. A judge later reduced the amount to $2.9 million. The sanctuary filed for bankruptcy in May 2025.

In December, according to the criminal complaint, Grillo made a phone call.

Kidnapping plot

The man — identified in the complaint as Cooperating Witness 1 — told FBI agents that Grillo, a former client, had left him a voicemail discussing a recent loss.

He said Grillo told him he was working on a few different “projects” and wanted the evidence to work with him. A witness told agents Grillo was very concerned about possible surveillance and often spoke in written language.

The witness said he agreed to fly from his home in Arizona to meet Grillo at the equestrian center that month. When they arrived, he said Grillo asked him to write a five-digit number on a piece of paper that Grillo later said was the street number for Duarte’s address.

While the two were walking through the horse stables, Grillo filed a civil lawsuit, which he felt was unfair and politically motivated, according to the complaint.

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 information.

According to the complaint, the men met a second time at a Burbank equestrian center on January 7. A witness said Grillo began talking in “code,” referring to a “film” or “documentary” he wanted to make.

“GRILLO said in this ‘documentary,’ he wanted the accused woman kidnapped and her young child taken to Mexico and held against their will,” the FBI agent said in the affidavit. “While in custody, the woman will be forced to cooperate with GRILLO in relation to his crime.”

Grillo is said to have told the witness that 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 Lancaster Airport.

A witness told authorities that Grillo said that once Duarte was arrested in Mexico, he should do whatever it took to cooperate with him. Grillo was allegedly willing to pay $30,000 or $50,000 to carry out the kidnapping plot.

Grillo is said to have wanted the kidnapping to stop before the conference scheduled for the end of February or the beginning of March this year.

After that second meeting, on January 31, a witness reported the kidnapping plot to the FBI. According to the complaint, the witness is the target of a separate FBI investigation into the alleged fraud and is cooperating with authorities in hopes of receiving favorable consideration in that case.

The witness agreed to help law enforcement investigate Grillo.

FBI job

According to the affidavit of FBI Special Agent Robert McElroy, Grillo and the witness met several times under the watch of the FBI and discussed how to get Duarte to Mexico. McElroy said the men spoke in code, with Grillo referring to “manufactured” and repeatedly asking the witness what the plan was to convince Duarte to leave voluntarily.

Grillo said Duarte would want cash, making it easier to work with him to defraud his 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 fly Duarte to Mexico, funds that McElroy said Grillo understood would go toward the cost of keeping him in Mexico.

On Feb. 19, a witness received a package from Grillo containing a USB drive and a check from one of Grillo’s nonprofits for $20,000, according to the affidavit. The memo on the check reads “Production.”

In a Telegram phone call to the FBI’s Phoenix field office, according to the affidavit, the witness told Grillo that she wanted to make sure they were on the same page and that “they can voluntarily take her and her husband to the airport and at that point they’re leaving whether they like it or not.”

Grillo asked more questions about phone line security, McElroy wrote, before replying: “Okay, we’re good.”

After the men hung up, Grillo came back asking why that had to happen.

The witness explained that he needed to make sure they were on the same page.

“The problem with that is that if something is picked up, that puts me in the middle of it,” Grillo replied.

Fake photo

Grillo and the witness last met at the ranch around 11 a.m. Tuesday this week, according to the affidavit. FBI agents equipped the witness with video and audio equipment to capture the conversation.

The witness told Grillo they “found them” and showed him what McElroy described as a “fake photo” of a woman and a man in custody. He told Grillo that it went according to plan and that Duarte and her husband “voluntarily went to the airport and did not go voluntarily.”

Duarte and his family had been kidnapped, the witness told Grillo, but the captors could not take them to their intended destination in Mexico. The couple was in Lancaster, he said.

“They didn’t leave Lancaster? Oh my God. They caught them in Lancaster?,” Grillo replied. “Their sons are twenty years old, they can call the Sheriff.”

The witness told Grillo that the kidnappers needed “ten more big ones.”

According to the affidavit, Grillo spoke to witnesses about the implications of Duarte’s kidnapping in his pending case. Grillo is said to have said that if the appeal is successful and the case will be retried, “there is no plaintiff!”

According to the affidavit, Grillo wrote a check for $10,000, addressed to “Doc Invest.”

McElroy said Grillo thought about what he would say “if I ever got caught by the Feds about this.” According to the affidavit, Grillo told the witness “I have a bunch of smoking pictures,” to cover up the kidnapping plot, including “filming, making a documentary about the whole thing.”

At the end of his meeting with the witness, FBI agents entered and searched Grillo, finding two guns, one on each side of him.

After his arrest, Grillo agreed to speak with FBI agents who showed him a photo of the kidnapping that a witness had given him earlier that day.

When asked about the photo, McElroy said Grillo identified the person in the photo as Duarte and discussed his case against his sanctuary.

“GRILLO agreed that, if the case was retried and Victim 1 could not testify, that would be a positive development for DELTA Rescue,” McElroy wrote.

But Grillo repeatedly insisted that he paid the witness for his participation in a film unrelated to Duarte and not for kidnapping, according to McElroy.

When told by The Times on Wednesday about the alleged plot, Armen Manasserian, the lawyer representing Duarte in the money laundering case, said “my jaw is on the floor right now.”

“I think it’s now clear that it’s not just talking bad about him in the press or manipulating the judicial process to make sure he doesn’t get paid, it’s something much worse,” said Manasserian. “I have no words.”