3 Named in Drug Case Jailbreak : Helped in Escape of Reputed Kingpin, Affidavit Alleges

Two alleged Los Angeles-based drug traffickers and the brother of a reputed Colombian drug kingpin helped the kingpin escape from the Los Angeles County Jail two years ago, according to a federal court document.

A law enforcement affidavit filed this week in U.S. District Court contends that 31-year-old Carl Croom of Rialto and Croom’s brother, Kenneth, arranged the Aug. 25, 1987, escape of William Londono from the Central Jail, just east of downtown. Londono’s brother, Jose, traveled to the United States from Cali, Colombia, and offered the Crooms 60 kilograms of cocaine and $100,000 in four installments for the job, the document says.

Jose Londono, 35, was arrested last Friday in Los Angeles along with Carl Croom on charges that they conspired to distribute 23 kilograms of cocaine. Jose Londono, according to the affidavit, allegedly passed the cocaine along to Crooms as partial payment for arranging the escape.

Kenneth Croom, 34, is in state prison on a 1988 drug conviction. He was not included in the charges against his brother and Jose Londono.

Plans Outlined

The affidavit, filed in support of the charges, outlines some of the plans for the escape of a second jail inmate that apparently was never carried out. The Crooms allegedly were planning to pay $25,000 to an unidentified jail employee for his or her role in that plot, the affidavit said. It was not clear from the document whether the payment was ever made.

The sources of the information in the affidavit are unidentified informants and an FBI special agent. No one has been charged with aiding the escape.

William Londono, 24, is still a fugitive and, according to the affidavit, may be in Colombia. Prosecutors have described him as a member of the Cali drug cartel and a high-level “cog” in a local money-laundering ring through which $48 million in profits from cocaine sales passed on its way to Colombia.

At the time of his escape, William Londono was being held on $3-million bail awaiting trial on drug charges that grew out of a massive, nationwide investigation called Operation Pisces. That investigation resulted in 240 arrests.

Londono walked out of the Central Jail, apparently after someone, possibly a jail employee, put an unauthorized “release message” for him on the jail’s internal computer system, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

It took deputies six days to realize that Londono had left the 7,000-bed jail.

Normally, an inmate would have had to go through nine security checkpoints from the jail’s maximum-security area, where Londono was housed, to the jail entrance, one floor below. Investigators, however, found that Londono passed through only one checkpoint, a guard station, before retrieving his street clothes and vanishing.

The affidavit quotes the informants as saying William Londono slipped into Mexico immediately after his escape, and then went to Colombia.

The alleged payments to the Croom brothers took place in parking lots and restaurants in Culver City and West Los Angeles over a six-month period, the affidavit says.

Sheriff Sherman Block has acknowledged all along that the jail’s security system had been compromised, almost certainly with the help of an employee or with an inmate familiar with the jail’s computer.

Authorities have also speculated that William Londono, who had access to huge amounts of money, may have bribed a jailer. Londono had $500,000 in cash on him when he was first taken into custody, police said.

No Comment

The Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday referred all inquiries about the case to the FBI. A spokesman for the FBI said he could not comment on the case.

Croom was ordered held without bail Monday. Jose Londono was scheduled to be arraigned on Friday. Federal prosecutors have until Sept. 25 to obtain a grand jury indictment in the case, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas Bienert.