Charges Dropped in Endangerment Case

The district attorney’s office in Pomona on Friday dropped felony charges against an Albuquerque, N.M., man accused of endangering six boys when he took them on a trip to California.

The case was dismissed because the boys’ mothers told authorities that the man was innocent and refused to testify in the case.

Gary Steven Davis, 37, had been arrested July 27 after one of the boys, Robby Criner, 11, was discovered by a sheriff’s deputy as the boy was trying to sell candy in a Diamond Bar K mart parking lot. After interviewing the six children, authorities believed that Davis had forced the boys to sell candy in exchange for a trip to Disneyland and that Davis had neglected to feed them and lodged them in a Pomona motel frequented by prostitutes, drug dealers and gang members.

But shortly after Davis was released Aug. 3 on $1,500 bail, the boys recanted parts of their stories, contending that Davis followed through on his promise to take them to Disneyland and never neglected them, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Yglecias. One of the boys’ mothers described Davis as a “trustworthy” man who had kept the boys out of trouble, prosecutors said.