Case Dropped Against Jail Clerk in Escape

A Municipal Court judge Wednesday dismissed charges against a Los Angeles County Jail clerk accused of aiding a suspected drug dealer in his escape, authorities said.

The case against Glenda Louise Bell, 39, of Los Angeles, was dropped after prosecutors determined that they did not have enough evidence to continue when a key witness, a jailhouse informant, refused to testify.

Bell’s husband, four daughters and a friend sat among the courtroom spectators and cheered when Judge Candace Beason announced her decision concerning the senior clerk, who was suspended from her job at the Men’s Central Jail for allegedly accepting a $30,000 bribe.

Bell had also been charged with computer fraud and aiding a prisoner’s escape in the August, 1987, escape of William Londono, described by federal narcotics investigators as a key figure in a Los Angeles-based money-laundering ring.

The ring allegedly conducted business with Central American cocaine cartels and brought $48 million into the United States from profits of drug sales in Panama and Colombia, authorities said.

The dismissal came five months after Bell was arrested in her office at the jail’s inmate reception center. Larry Forbes, an attorney representing the clerk, said she expects to be reinstated in her job and given full benefits and back pay for the time she has been suspended.

The Sheriff’s Department declined to comment on the case.

District attorney’s investigators decided to dismiss the charges after an informant who provided them with evidence allegedly incriminating Bell refused to testify, Deputy Dist. Atty. Herb Lapin, the prosecutor, said. The informant also failed to cooperate with federal investigators who sought to incriminate other members of Londono’s alleged money-laundering ring.

Lapin said the unnamed informant, a suspect in an unrelated narcotics case, was one of at least six intermediaries between Londono and Bell, who were allegedly involved in a conspiracy to bribe the clerk for help in arranging Londono’s escape.

Sheriff’s officials alleged that Bell doctored computer records to show that Londono had been approved for release. Officials, unaware that the release orders had been falsified, allowed Londono to walk out of jail. Londono is believed to be in Colombia.