Escapee’s New Life Crashes Down After 14 Years of Freedom

Fourteen years after Ray Brown walked away from a North Carolina prison to a new life in California, and after he survived three extradition attempts, Brown thought he was safe in his Los Angeles-area home.

But this time he was wrong.

Brown, 39, who was arrested Monday on a North Carolina escape warrant, now faces completion of a 10-year prison term for a store break-in that netted him $300 in beer and cigarettes. He had served about a year of the sentence when he left Craggy Prison in Asheville during a weekend furlough in 1971.

During his decade in California, Brown married, became a self-employed car mechanic and avoided entanglements with the law.

“He’s just an ordinary guy,” his attorney, Susan Guberman, said after his arrest. “He’s not a hero, but he’s not a punk.”

In 1981, in what both believed was the final word in the case, former California Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. decided not to extradite Brown and placed him on informal parole.

But California authorities late Monday arrived at Brown’s home with an extradition warrant signed by Gov. George Deukmejian that would return him to prison.

North Carolina Gov. Jim Martin is not likely to commute the sentence, an aide said.

The current extradition proceedings resulted from a 1982 rape charge of which Brown was acquitted, authorities said.

“I think that’s rotten,” said Guberman of San Jose. She has defended Brown since the late 1970s. “The two states in this case have been playing with this man like a cat playing with a mouse before it kills him.”

Guberman said California authorities did not notify her or Brown before his arrest Monday. Now there is little she can do to prevent his extradition, she said.

Brown is being held in Los Angeles County Jail awaiting arraignment next week.

“Neither one of us had an inkling,” said Brown’s wife, Angela, 31. “It was totally out of the blue. We thought everything was fine.”

North Carolina officials, who first learned that Brown was in California through a routine traffic check, continuously sought his return. But extradition orders in 1975 were lost in the bureaucratic shuffle until 1978, when North Carolina authorities began the process again.

In 1981, then-Gov. Brown allowed the fugitive to remain in California under conditions of an informal parole.

“It got very emotional,” Guberman said of the rare governor’s hearing, in which Ray Brown’s stepchildren testified. “Everybody in the room was in tears or on the verge of it, including some very hard-bitten lawyers.”

But in March, 1983, the North Carolina governor’s office got a letter from then-Dist. Atty. Robert Philibosian, who said Brown faced rape charges in Los Angeles County.

“You should be aware that California has a new governor (Deukmejian) with more conservative policies toward all law enforcement issues,” the letter said.

Former North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt signed a warrant for Brown’s return on July 1, 1983.

A Los Angeles jury had acquitted Brown of rape on May 31 of that year. California parole officials reported that development to Hunt in June, 1983.

Michael McGuire, an attorney in the California governor’s office, said Deukmejian signed an extradition warrant more than a year later, Aug. 16, 1984. McGuire said Brown should be returned to North Carolina within 10 days.

In North Carolina, Brown faces the escape charge as well as the remainder of his prison sentence. Roger Knight, an assistant to Gov. Martin’s legal counsel, said Martin has authority to grant Brown clemency if Brown applies for it.