BURBANK : Man Pleads Not Guilty to Abducting Estranged Wife

A Burbank man pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he abducted his estranged wife after she filed for divorce, then bound and gagged her before raping her at knife-point.

Jose Mario Del Campo, 41, entered his plea in Pasadena Superior Court. He is scheduled back in court May 22 for a pretrial hearing. He is being held on $500,000 bail.

Del Campo was arrested Feb. 3 at Scripps Hospital in San Diego after he allegedly attacked the woman and she begged him to take her there for treatment.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Elizabeth Abbott-Siegmund said Del Campo faces charges of kidnaping, spousal rape, false imprisonment by violence, terrorist threats and assault and battery.

He is accused of attacking and abducting his wife after picking up the couple’s 9- and 17-year-old sons.

Abbott-Siegmund said Del Campo dropped the boys off at a movie, went back to their mother’s home, tied her up, gagged her with duct tape and put her in a closet. The woman had filed for divorce two months earlier, after 14 years of marriage.

Del Campo intended to put her in his van and drive her to Tijuana for medical treatment, prosecutors contend, but she talked him into stopping in San Diego.