A February trial date was set for four adults accused of torturing a 16-year-old boy and holding him captive for more than a year inside a Tracy home.

“I am concerned about this case getting a little stale, and authorities would like to see this move along,” said San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Terrence Van Oss in a brief hearing today.

The judge also extended until October a deadline for attorneys to file any pretrial motions, including those challenging a 17-count indictment handed down by a grand jury in March that accuses the four defendants of brutally torturing, cutting, beating and starving the teenaged victim, called Kyle Ramirez in court records. So far, defendant Michael Schumacher's attorney John Casanave is the only one to have filed a written challenge.

The four defendants are Kelly Lau, her husband Schumacher, their houseguest Carén Ramirez and their next-door neighbor Anthony Waiters. If convicted on the charges, the four could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

Nearly 1,000 pages of transcripts of witness testimony from the grand jury hearing earlier this year details the horrific abuse allegedly inflicted upon the teenager. The four adults allegedly beat the boy with baseball bats, burned him, sliced him with a meat cleaver and openly plotted his murder.

The defendants were ordered back in court on Nov. 9, when their attorneys will present their arguments challenging the indictment.

The trial is set to begin on Feb. 1 and last about two months.

•Contact Tracy Press reporter Jennifer Wadsworth at 830-4225 or jwadsworth@tracypress.com.