THOUSAND OAKS : Retrial Sought in Drive-By Shooting

The Ventura County district attorney’s office will seek to retry four alleged gang members accused of plotting a drive-by shooting in Thousand Oaks.

After a six-week trial, a Superior Court jury last week acquitted four defendants of all charges but deadlocked on the conspiracy charges filed against four others: Adolfo Alvarez, 18; Wade Caddin, 19; Joseph Cruz, 23, and Scott Kastan, 18, all of Thousand Oaks. The jury also was deadlocked on an assault charge against Kastan.

No one was hurt in the April 27 incident, in which shots were fired outside a house on Greenwich Drive. But district attorney’s officials said the trial was an opportunity to wipe out a gang known as the Small Town Hoods.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter Brown said he will ask Judge Allan L. Steele on Wednesday to set a new trial on the unresolved charges. He said he expects a second trial to last only about two weeks and said the presence of fewer defendants and attorneys will help the jury follow the case.

At the first trial, he said, “the jury got so confused they couldn’t do anything.”

Brown, who interviewed several jurors, said they had split about evenly on the unresolved charges.

Defense attorneys have filed motions opposing another trial.

All of the defendants except Kastan have been released on bail. Kastan remains in Ventura County Jail with bail set at $250,000 because of an unrelated murder charge pending against him.