Last 2 Escapees From L.A. Jail Seized After Minnesota Robbery

The last two of five federal prisoners who escaped last month from Los Angeles’ new downtown Metropolitan Detention Center--allegedly with help of a guard--were being held without bail Tuesday in Minnesota, accused of staging a bank robbery in St. Paul.

FBI agents and St. Paul police arrested escapees Robert Garrison, 43, and James Wilson, 31, as they were about to leave a Holiday Inn parking lot Friday. The arrest came hours after the two robbed a St. Paul bank of an undisclosed amount, FBI spokesman Byron Gigler said.

Authorities said they believe the two men conducted at least three bank robber ies as they fled Los Angeles and made their way to Minnesota.

“Since their escape, they pulled off bank robberies in Los Angeles, Louisiana and St. Paul,” said Inspector William Woolsey of the U.S. Marshal’s Office in Los Angeles, relating information from FBI agents.

Garrison and Wilson were awaiting trial on a bank robbery charges last month when they escaped from the 10-story detention facility on Alameda Street in Los Angeles. The $36-million jail had been built in part to stem a flow of escapes by federal prisoners from older detention facilities, particularly one on Terminal Island.

A guard at the facility has been fired amid allegations that he accepted $5,000 to smuggle in two diamond-tipped hacksaw blades that the inmates used to cut their way out.

Gigler, the FBI spokesman, said Garrison walked into St. Paul’s Western State Bank shortly after it opened Friday, announced to a teller that he was armed and instructed her to fill a bag with money.

‘Calmly Walked Away’

“She did, and he calmly walked away,” Gigler said. He could not say how much money was involved, nor comment on Wilson’s alleged involvement in the heist.

Later, acting on a tip, FBI agents and St. Paul police staked out a Holiday Inn where the two had spent the night and cornered them.

On Monday, the two escapees went before U.S. Magistrate Floyd Boline, who scheduled a hearing for Thursday to arrange for their return to Los Angeles.

Three other escapees who busted out of jail June 18 with Wilson and Harrison have since been apprehended.

In an interview with The Times last week, Victor Age, 31, who was recaptured at an Anaheim hotel, claimed a guard had played a role in the jailbreak, and told how prisoners persuaded another unwitting jailer to give them access to a supply of bedsheets, which they strung together to descend eight floors to the sidewalk.

Authorities confirmed they are investigating Age’s scenario.

Lester McDougherty, 31, broke his leg while rappelling from the facility and was apprehended five hours later a few blocks away.

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 his home.

Age was arrested the next day by Garden Grove police and booked for investigation of a rape that occurred after the escape.