Trickery on a Test Drive : Escapee Flees in Car After Asking Salesman to Change Places; He’s Caught After Chase

A prison escapee talked a salesman out of a new Corvette convertible while on a test drive Monday and led police on a chase through three cities before he was captured trying to run into a Costa Mesa office building, authorities said.

Before the man was captured, the Corvette was involved in three separate collisions involving a total of four cars, but no one was injured, Newport Beach police said.

Arrested on suspicion of grand theft, auto, was James Robert Hruby, 22, who was wanted on an arrest warrant for a recent escape from the state prison at Chino, Newport Beach Police Lt. Don Chandler said. He said Hruby’s driver’s license indicated that he lived in Mission Viejo before he was sentenced to 2 years in state prison on conviction of multiple counts of grand theft.

Because syringes and insulin were found on Hruby and he claimed to be a diabetic, officers transferred him to the Orange County Jail, where he was being held in lieu of $10,000 bail.

According to Chandler, a man posing as a customer drove a Corvette out of MacPherson Chevrolet in Irvine about 4 p.m. with a salesman riding along. A short time later, the customer asked the salesman to drive because his foot hurt. When the salesman got out of the Corvette to change places, Chandler said, the suspect sped away.

“He didn’t use force or a gun. He just faked the salesman out of the car,” Chandler said.

Newport Beach Police Officer Kirk Jacobi, who had heard a description of the stolen Corvette broadcast over his police radio, first spotted the car on Coast Highway near the Rusty Pelican restaurant and followed it while he double-checked the suspect’s physical description: long, curly blond hair tied in a pony tail. The car had paper dealer plates.

Jacobi, a rookie in his first week on patrol, turned on his lights and siren on Brookhurst Street just north of the highway, but the driver sped away, Chandler said. A Costa Mesa police helicopter entered the chase and officers from various cities joined in as its driver traveled back and forth through Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

Before he was caught, the suspect drove the wrong way on Newport Boulevard, ran into four cars and also banged up both sides of the white Corvette as officers chased him for 17 minutes.

The stolen Corvette first collided with a car at Adams Avenue and Mesa Verde Drive, then hit another car at a filling station at Harbor Boulevard and Adams Avenue.

At 5:10 p.m., at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Sunflower Avenue, the Corvette’s driver careened into two cars in the parking lot at Digital Equipment Corp., where police said the suspect jumped out and tried to run inside the office. But employees kept the suspect out by holding the door shut, and officers who arrived moments later handcuffed him.

The Corvette had a flat right-front tire and damage to a fender. Police did not know exactly how many miles the chase covered, but the Corvette’s odometer read 163 miles.

Officials at MacPherson Chevrolet declined to discuss the theft and would only estimate the Corvette’s value at $35,000 to $40,000.