Diamond

Bail would be set at more than $1 million for each of the defendants: Jamshid Daniali, 58; Parviz Daniali, 62; Hayame Lalezarian, 60; and Zhilla Lalezarian, 58. They would plead not guilty.

Zhilla Lalezarian is free on bail after the judge dropped the amount to $100,000 because she is undergoing chemotherapy. The defense planned to seek reduced bail for the others Tuesday, but Tuesday evening, the motion had not been acted upon, and they were still being held in jail.

The District Attorney's Office alleges the defendants "lured" Bension Vardi -- an Afghan Jew who moved in recent years to Los Angeles from New York and used connections in the Jewish community to solicit investors in his diamond business -- to the Lalezarians' Tarzana home with the promise of a big buyer.

An hour later, a neighbor called the police, saying he saw Vardi carried into the house and heard cries for help. Vardi told authorities that if they "had not responded to the location, he would have been in pieces."

"This may have started as a dispute," said district attorney spokeswoman Jane Robison, "but we have evidence that he was roughed up and held against his will for a ransom of $4.5 million."

Alaleh Kamran, attorney for Zhilla Lalezarian, claims Vardi deliberately set up the defendants, that he arrived at a meeting they had called to get their investment back and then had his fiancée call police and claim that he had been kidnapped. The defense also claims that Vardi made the same accusations this year against a Beverly Hills woman who had asked for her investment back, but then dropped the case when he failed a polygraph test.

Documents from the case involving the Beverly Hills woman were given to the judge and prosecution Tuesday, but they were not made public. The Beverly Hills detective who provided the information to the defense did not return a call for comment. Messages left last week on Vardi's cellphone also were not returned.