Otay Mesa

An inmate who stowed away in a laundry van Thursday became the first prisoner of the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility to escape from the Otay Mesa prison’s medium-security area.

Rodrigo Torres, 39, was still at large Thursday night, several hours after the morning escape, said Lt. John Sandlin, a prison spokesman.

An all-points bulletin was issued to local law enforcement agencies, and teams of prison staff members were combing nearby fields and neighborhoods to find Torres. He had been serving a nine-year sentence for possession and sales of a controlled substance and possession of weapons and destructive devices.

Torres hid in a laundry truck parked on prison grounds and was driven out unnoticed, said Sandlin. When the truck made its first stop about 9:45 a.m. at Edgemoor Geriatric Hospital in Santee, Torres jumped out of the back and ran to a waiting car, he said.

Torres was transferred to the Otay Mesa prison from the Los Angeles County Department of Corrections in November, 1989.

Security at the prison was not increased after Torres’ escape, but officials are scrutinizing the prison’s laundry program, Sandlin said. Torres is the first inmate to escape from the prison’s medium-security area. Two other inmates have escaped from a minimum-security area.

The 4-year-old facility, designed to hold 2,200 minimum- and medium-security inmates, now houses about 4,600 prisoners, Sandlin said.