Man who plotted to kidnap Letterman's son arrested again

Kelly Allen Frank, the Montana man who plotted to kidnap David Letterman’s son in 2005, was arrested outside Helena on Wednesday on a parole violation.

According to Lewis and Clark County Undersheriff David Rau, Frank was taken into custody at about 3:44 p.m. by deputies assisting the Lewis and Clark County Probation and Parole Office. Rau said Frank was cooperative and did not resist.

“He was arrested at a residence on Tizer Drive (northeast of Helena),” Rau said. “It appears that is not his residence. He was probably there being hired to be a painter or something like that.”

Annette Carter, a supervisor with the Probation and Parole Office, said Frank was arrested Wednesday for violating the employment and travel conditions of his parole. Carter did not know exactly how Frank had violated his parole, but did note that he is restricted from entering Cascade County.

Frank was paroled in September 2014 after spending nine years at the Montana State Prison. He was arrested in March 2005 after a longtime friend, Robert Gondeiro, told authorities that he and Frank had discussed plans to kidnap Letterman’s son and the boy’s nanny, and hold them for a $5 million ransom.

Frank worked as painter at Letterman’s Teton County ranch, and allegedly told Gondeiro that he had a key to the ranch house and knew a way to sneak in.

Though Frank was initially charged with two felony charges of soliciting a kidnapping, his attorney argued his client was not serious about the plan. In July 2005, Frank pleaded guilty to felony embezzlement for overcharging Letterman for the work he was doing, to poaching a mule deer that was found at Frank’s residence in Simms and to obstructing law enforcement officers.

District Judge Marc Buyske sentenced Frank to 10 years at the Montana State Prison. However, less than two years into his incarceration Frank and another inmate, William Willcutt, escaped.

In June 2007, Frank and Willcutt drove away from the prison ranch between Deer Lodge and Anaconda, using a prison truck that had been assigned to Frank to move irrigation pipe. The two men were spotted four days later bathing in a creek near a campground in the Swan Lake area.

Willcutt was arrested the following day. Frank was apprehended one day after that, after he apparently walked 10 miles through the Mission Mountains without any socks or shoes.

The prison escape added 10 years to Frank’s original sentence. He became eligible for parole in May 2011, and was released in June 2014.

Frank is being held at the Lewis and Clark Detention Center.