A man is charged with breaking into a Montecito mansion on Fairway Road last Friday. Billionaire Ty Warner owns the home and was there at the time. Neighbors were shocked.
"You think, well, this is paradise. Nothing could possibly go wrong here," said Sam Hersh.
He and his wife, Jan, live nearby and say they first noticed something was wrong when Channel Drive, which runs behind the home, was blocked off.
"I thought, 'Wow, what's going on? I've never seen that before," Hersh said.
According to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office, they received multiple calls about the incident.
"When deputies got on scene, that's when they were able to get that face-to-face contact and figure out initially what was going on," said Raquel Zick, Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office public information officer.
A woman was injured in the invasion, and she was identified in the criminal complaint as L. Malek-Aslanian.
According to the sheriff's office, 42-year-old Russel Phay barricaded himself in a bathroom in the mansion.
He was taken into custody when he tried to escape through a second-floor window.
"He's now being held at the main jail without bail," Zick said.
Phay is a Nevada resident and also has an outstanding warrant in San Luis Obispo County for allegedly threatening an Arroyo Grande couple.
"He is charged with attempted murder [and] first-degree residential burglary with a person present. He is charged with kidnapping and assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. There is an enhancement for actually having caused great bodily injury," said John Savrnoch, Santa Barbara County District Attorney.
Phay is scheduled to make his first court appearance on June 2.
