By Dan Lawton, Bay Area News Group

HAYWARD — A Harvard-trained lawyer and former Marine, alleged to have been the mastermind behind a cinematic kidnapping in Vallejo last spring, pleaded no contest on Friday to charges stemming from an unrelated Dublin home invasion, after first collapsing in court.

Matthew Muller

Matthew Muller, 38, sat behind a dark-glass partition as Judge Joseph Hurley accepted his plea and found him guilty on charges of attempted robbery, burglary and assault with a deadly weapon. He faces a maximum of 11 years in prison.

Minutes earlier, Muller had been splayed on the ground, his gray socks and brown sandals sticking out from behind the partition as medics rushed in to assist him.

When executing a search warrant at the South Lake Tahoe cabin where they arrested Muller, investigators found zip ties and gloves similar to those left at the Dublin house, as well as three sets of swim goggles with black duct tape covering the lenses.

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