Guard Fired After Allegedly Helping 5 Escape From Jail

A guard at the downtown federal Metropolitan Detention Center was fired amid allegations that he smuggled a pair of hacksaw blades to five inmates who escaped from the high-rise jail last month, authorities confirmed Wednesday.

Two inmates involved in the escape now contend that the guard, who was not identified by federal officials, accepted $5,000 to smuggle in two diamond-tipped blades that were subsequently used to grind through a metal mesh enclosure on the eighth-floor exercise balcony, officials said.

In an interview with The Times, one of the inmates, Victor Age, 31, who was recaptured after the escape, described the guard’s role in the breakout attempt and said prisoners persuaded another employee at the jail medical facility to unwittingly give them access to a supply of bedsheets, which they strung together to descend eight floors to the sidewalk.

As dozens of inmates in the unit kept watch over the sole guard on the floor--who apparently was watching television--two men filed away at the metal mesh for nearly three hours, Age said. Shortly after 10:30 p.m., five inmates, including Age, rappelled down the west side of the building, where a pickup truck waited for them.

“We got on the freeway and got the hell away from there,” Age said.

Lyn Croasmun, spokeswoman for the detention facility, said an investigation is under way to determine whether the guard, whom Age identified as a part-time employee who worked on weekends, was involved in the escape attempt. Authorities are also investigating allegations that he smuggled drugs into the facility, she said.

“That is a possibility, and we are investigating it,” she said. Though no criminal charges have been filed, “that’s a possibility, too,” she said.

Sources close to the investigation said it would be difficult for visitors to smuggle in contraband to the prison because of heavy security, including metal detectors, in the visitor section. “So it’d just about have to be staff,” one source said. “It’s a well-known feeling that they do not pay those detention officers well,” the source added. “So there is, in my opinion, all the room in the world. They are good targets, I should say, for bribery.”

The $36-million, 10-story detention center opened in December, designed in part to safely handle pretrial prisoners who were considered too risky to house at the Terminal Island federal prison facility, said by officials to pose more security problems.

Age, who faces a minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum of two life terms for his conviction as an armed career criminal, scoffed at the idea that the new jail is an improvement.

“They said this building is, like, escape proof,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. You know what I think they should really do with this place is turn it over to a chain of hotels, and build themselves a new prison.”

One of Age’s fellow escapees, Lester McDougherty, 31, broke his leg during the descent and was apprehended about five hours later within blocks of the Alameda Street facility. Age was arrested June 24 in Anaheim after a woman said he had dragged her into his truck and raped her at knifepoint. Age has not been charged in the rape, but officials are investigating the allegation.

Photo on TV

Six days later, Costa Mesa police arrested Kevin Greene, 32, after a woman who saw his photo on television identified him as the man living in a travel trailer near her home.

Two other escapees--suspected of kidnaping and attacking a patron at a Wilmington bar on the night of the escape--remain at large. Officials identified them as James David Wilson, 31, and Robert Garrison, 43.

Croasmun said extra security measures have already been adopted at the downtown detention facility, including an increase in the number of officers in the eighth-floor unit, camera surveillance on the exterior of the jail and a new armed guard posted outside the jail. In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons has approved 48 new guards for the Los Angeles facility, Croasmun said.

Age said the original mastermind of the escape--who later declined to join in--approached the guard more than two months before the escape and offered him $5,000 to smuggle in the blades. The guard agreed to meet a friend of the inmates on the street outside, where he was handed the money and the blades, Age said. “He just simply walked them in. He brought them in and gave them to us.”

The decision to make the escape on the night of June 17 was “pretty much a spontaneous thing,” Age said. At first, everyone on the floor wanted to go. Then several changed their minds.

The U.S. marshals supervisor, William Woolsey, said investigators believe that all four escapees who made it away from the jail were at the Barrel House cocktail lounge in Wilmington a little over two hours after the escape, when Wilson allegedly attacked and kidnaped a patron at the bar. The patron told authorities that Wilson forced him to drive him and Garrison all over the Harbor area until his truck ran out of gas.