San Diego

Bernard Striar, the La Mesa commodities dealer accused of bilking hundreds of San Diego County investors of nearly $10 million, was described Monday by a federal prosecutor as a “master at vanishing” who should remain in custody without bail. Although the question of Striar’s bail will not be resolved until Thursday, Assistant U.S. Atty. William Braniff told a federal magistrate that the 60-year-old former financier, sought by the FBI for 13 years, has made running from the law “a science.” Striar was returned to San Diego by federal marshals earlier Monday, a week after he was arrested in Cincinnati and a year after the U.S. attorney’s office here issued a federal complaint charging him with mail fraud in connection with D&B; Investments, his La Mesa-based commodities trading firm. He was known here as Eldean (Don) Erickson.