Fugitive Ex-Officer Caught by Marshals

A former Los Angeles police officer who escaped from a federal prison camp in Texas last month while serving time on a cocaine-related conviction appeared before a magistrate Monday but held off on entering a plea.

Modesto Benigno Perales, 40, was captured Friday night by U.S. marshals at a Palm Springs house. Perales had escaped from the Big Springs prison camp with the aid of a woman who drove him away from the unfenced facility, said Marshals Service Inspector William Woolsey. Authorities would not describe the woman’s relation to Perales.

The owner of home where Perales was found was arrested on suspicion of harboring a federal fugitive, but was released for lack of evidence, Woolsey said.

Perales was a member of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1975 until January, 1988, when he was fired for using police computer systems to provide confidential information to a friend, Woolsey said.

Perales was convicted in June, 1988, of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine and was sentenced to four years and three months in prison. He had served one year when he escaped.

If Perales is convicted of escaping the federal prison, he could be sentenced to an additional five years, Woolsey said, adding that Perales probably would spend his remaining sentence in a high-security prison.