Courthouse Beefs Up Holding Cell
The Santa Monica courthouse wall that a prisoner crawled between last week, eluding police for 28 hours, is being prisoner-proofed.
Workers are installing a so-called escape-proof liner that officials hope will make it impossible for anyone else to disappear into the bowels of the building the way felon D’Marc Lee did.
Lee faced two consecutive 25-year-to-life prison terms under the state’s “three strikes” law when he kicked a hole the size of a big screen TV in a first-floor holding area last Thursday. In order to capture him, sheriff’s deputies ripped dozens of tiles off the first- and second-floor ceilings, leaving a mess that crews were still trying to clean up Tuesday.
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