Inmate Flees U.S. Prison in Lompoc : Escapes: His partner is captured. The convicted kidnaper has broken out of nine other jails and prisons.

A convicted kidnaper who has escaped nine times from prisons and jails around the country was being hunted by authorities Saturday after cutting through the bars of his cell and scaling two fences at the federal penitentiary in Lompoc, authorities said.

Russell Hamilton, 34, who was serving a 90-year term, was being sought by about 250 officers from the prison and Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department. Authorities used four helicopters and five canine search squads as they groped through fog that blanketed the rugged terrain surrounding the prison.

Using a tool made in the prison’s cable factory, where he worked, Hamilton cut the bars to his cell and fled through the compound with cellmate Harmut Graewe, 46. The pair used a makeshift, plastic tube ladder to climb one of two security fences before setting off a detection device about 3:40 a.m., penitentiary spokesman Todd Craig said.

Graewe was captured as the pair crossed a 10-yard patch of razor wire, Craig said. Hamilton continued to flee, scaling the 12-foot outer chain-link fence as prison guards subdued Graewe.

Hamiliton, who is in the sixth year of his sentence, is considered dangerous based on the violent nature of crimes he has committed after his repeated escapes, Craig said.

He was caught most recently in 1985 after escaping from the Dodge Correctional Facility in Chester, Ga. He and a partner abducted a Georgia woman four days after the escape, took her to Missouri and abandoned her.

The woman told St. Louis authorities that she had been sexually abused by her abductors, and Hamilton was later arrested. He was assigned to the federal penitentiary in Lompoc in April, 1989, after being convicted of kidnaping, rape and escaping from a state prison.

“He is extremely sophisticated and has a long record of successful escapes,” Craig said. “A person of this criminal magnitude and history of violence, it’s a safe bet he will arm himself at some point.”

Authorities advised travelers in the area about 40 miles north of Santa Barbara not to pick up hitchhikers. Hamilton is described as 6 feet tall, weighing 180 pounds, with hazel eyes and dark brown, medium-length hair. He was last seen wearing either green or khaki prison fatigues and work boots or sneakers.

Graewe, who is serving a life sentence for a drug distribution and racketeering conviction, was quoted by prison officials as saying that his escape attempt was a “spur-of-the-moment thing.”