The State - News from Dec. 22, 1986

Two inmate lovers who used a helicopter to flee from a federal prison say they were forced to escape because of a death threat made to one of them, according to attorneys for the pair. “There’s only one defense, and that’s it,” said Los Angeles lawyer Stephen Grohs, representing Ronald McIntosh, who flew a helicopter into the Lompoc prison Nov. 5 and flew out with Samantha Dorinda Lopez, who claims she was the target of a death threat. Neither Grohs nor Lopez’s attorney, Federal Public Defender Geoff Hansen, would say who supposedly made the threat, but they implied that it came from someone in the prison system.