Escaped Prisoner Arrested in Rape

One of five federal prisoners who escaped from Los Angeles’ downtown Metropolitan Detention Center by rappelling down the side of the building was arrested Sunday in Anaheim on suspicion of rape, police said.

Victor Age, 31, was arrested at 12:30 a.m. at a motel in the 1700 block of South West Street after Garden Grove police were notified that one of the escapees was staying at the motel, Anaheim Police Sgt. David Severson said.

The pickup Age was driving matched the description of one driven by a man suspected of raping a woman at another motel in the 1200 block of South Harbor Boulevard last Monday, 24 hours after the escape, Severson said.

Age and four other prisoners sliced through heavy metal mesh lining an eighth-floor recreation balcony last Sunday and lowered themselves down the outside wall with a rope made of bedsheets, authorities said.

A guard saw the escape and chased the inmates, one of whom was captured a few blocks from the detention center. He had fallen behind the others because he suffered a broken leg during the escape, officials said.

Age, of Santa Ana, had recently told the prosecutor in his case that the detention center, designed in part to quell a rash of escapes, was far from escape proof.

“He was bragging about how the facility was not a secure facility,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Carol L. Gillam. Age said the “facility was not designed for the hardened street criminals who know how to break out of prisons.”

Age, who was to be sentenced July 17, was facing the possibility of two life terms--and a minimum sentence of 15 years--for his conviction under the federal armed career-criminal statute.

He had twice been convicted of battering custodial officers while in the California Institution for Men at San Luis Obispo and had previous convictions for armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon when he was arrested in possession of three assault rifles, Gillam said.

Anaheim police set up surveillance of the motel and saw Age getting into the pickup, Severson said.

Age was arrested and booked on suspicion of rape, as well as the fugitive warrant and several outstanding warrants for drunk driving and traffic violations. He was being held in Anaheim without bail.

Three other inmates who escaped with Age remain at large.