Last of 5 O.C. Fugitives Is Caught in S. Dakota : Alleged Mastermind of November Jailbreak Arrested at Pawnshop

The inmate who last year allegedly masterminded one of the largest jailbreaks in Orange County history was arrested Saturday in Rapid City, S.D., while trying to pawn diamonds that law enforcement officials believe came from a Chicago jewelry store heist.

Michael Douglas Taylor, 35, was the last to be captured of five inmates who escaped from Orange County Jail Nov. 20 by rappelling from the top of the four-story building in downtown Santa Ana. One of the men broke his leg and was captured immediately. Another turned himself in on Thanksgiving Day, and the last two were caught 2 weeks later by FBI agents in Denver.

Taylor, who was using the alias Michael Anthony Prescott, was captured by police exactly 6 months to the day that he broke out of jail. While he was out, police said, his trail can be traced by robberies and kidnappings.

FBI agent Bucky Cox credited the Fox television network program “America’s Most Wanted” for producing the first significant tip to Taylor’s whereabouts. After the May 7 broadcast showed a photograph of Taylor, FBI agents were told that he was using the alias Prescott, carrying a Nevada driver’s license and traveling in a van with his wife, Lisa, and their children, a boy, 6, and a girl, 2. The tipster also said Taylor was living in Portland, Me.

When agents checked the address in Portland, Taylor had already left.

Agents put all the new information about Taylor into the National Criminal Information Center network. That told police that the Michael Prescott who was trying to sell diamonds to a pawnshop dealer in Rapid City on Saturday was really Michael Taylor.

Rapid City Police Sgt. David Walton said Taylor’s wife, their two children and another unidentified man who was with Taylor when he was arrested were all taken to the Police Department. Walton said he expected that Lisa Taylor would be arrested on suspicion of harboring a fugitive. The man, who was not identified, was being questioned, he said.

Taylor was suspected of more than two dozen robberies in Southern California when the jailbreak occurred last November. Police said that since then, Taylor is suspected of numerous jewelry store heists in Chicago, his hometown. He was also wanted on a federal fugitive warrant.

Los Angeles Police Detective Jim Barry said he has connected Taylor to at least 10 robberies committed in 1988. In Huntington Beach last year, Taylor entered Designer Jewelers with two accomplices and stole more than $100,000 in gems, according to court records. During their getaway, the store owner fired a shotgun blast through the rear of their rented car. When Taylor was arrested for that robbery, an officer involved in the arrest wrote, “Given a chance, he will escape.”

In the Chicago jewelry store holdup earlier this year after Taylor’s escape, store manager Elsa Pacini, 42, was abducted from her west Chicago home and taken at gunpoint to her brother’s jewelry store in River Grove, police said.

Before they arrived there, the abductors stopped at a motel and ordered Pacini to call the store’s alarm company to have the system disarmed for 10 minutes on the excuse that she had forgotten something and wanted to go in. The company honored her request, but the dispatcher became suspicious and called police.

The River Grove police dispatched three patrol cars, but by the time they arrived, the robbers had forced Pacini to open the safe containing the jewels and gold and escaped with $450,000 in gems. Police said they missed Taylor and his accomplice by minutes.

After the robbery, Pacini was gagged and tied to a chair in the motel room. She managed to escape and flag down a passing patrol car.

Authorities attributed dozens of armed robberies of jewelry stores to Taylor last year in Los Angeles and Orange counties. They say the stones and gold taken in the heists may total $2 million.

In South Dakota, employee Darcy Knight at the Fair Deal Pawn shop became suspicious when Taylor tried to sell diamonds.

“It was a pawnshop,” Walton said. “Right there, someone with diamonds in a pawnshop just doesn’t add up. We have enough jewelry stores up here.” Knight eventually called police.

“He told me these two guys were in with some diamonds and were trying to sell them and he didn’t think it was right and we should check it out,” Walton said.

It was unclear where Taylor had come from and why he had found his way to the small city in southwestern South Dakota along Interstate 90.

“I think he was just passing through,” Walton said. Taylor “thought it might be an easy-pickings town. Obviously he made an error.”

Taylor had made the list of the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives. Police searching his home on Puget Sound, Wash., found a photograph of him posing in front of an FBI poster with his mug shot. An earlier newspaper story about Taylor said he has a reputation as a self-confident thrill-seeker who has been an extraordinarily successful outlaw because he is also cunning and a perfectionist. The jail escape, a brazen attempt, fit Taylor’s profile.

Two guards were accused of not doing their jobs and were blamed for the November breakout. One of the guards was fired and one was disciplined.

The five inmates rappelled from the four-story roof while one of the two guards assigned to watch the roof area was away from his post. There were 68 inmates on the roof when the escape took place.

Others involved in the escape were Richard Lawrence Fluharty, 26; Steven Wilson, 26; Eleazar Gonzales, 20, and Hung Ly, 22, who broke his leg in the escape.

Rapid City police said Taylor, who has used a long list of phony names, including Mike Sloan and Anthony Michael Gianetti, looks about the same as his earlier photographs: balding and with rather intense eyes. Police said he had shaved off his mustache.

A victim of one of the jewelry store heists described the robber as cool and a perfectionist.

“He is not an emotional robber. It’s a business for him. I was in the Army Rangers in Vietnam, and we were taught to do everything click, click, click. He was that kind of methodical guy. He knew what he was doing . . . and he was good at it.”

At the time of his arrest Saturday, Taylor was dressed in casual clothes and wearing a baseball hat. Police said his wife and children were not with him and were found later and taken to the station.

Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Bob Rivas said Taylor “has done a lot of things” since he escaped, including the Chicago heist, several crimes in Colorado, and, “I believe he’s wanted out of Albany, near Sacramento. It may have involved a kidnap.”

Rivas said Taylor was the mastermind behind the jail escape and a dangerous man.

Rivas said his department is going to try and extradite him to California.

“Everyone will want him,” Rivas said. “I don’t know who will get him at this point.”

But, Rivas continued, “there’s going to be a lot of relief all over now that he is in custody.”