2nd Inmate in Week Escapes From County Jail in Castaic

For the second time in a week, an inmate at Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho broke through wire-mesh screening over a maximum-security jail recreation area and escaped from the Castaic compound, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported.

Kirk Anderson, 27, of Van Nuys remained at large Monday after escaping from the 1,780-inmate East Facility between 8:30 and 9 p.m. Sunday, Sheriff’s Lt. James Valdez said. Anderson had served about three weeks of a one-year sentence for carrying a concealed weapon and an unrelated conviction for filing a false financial statement, said Deputy Roger Hom, a department spokesman.

Anderson was scheduled to appear Aug. 14 in Van Nuys Municipal Court on a burglary charge, Hom said.

Valdez said Anderson broke through the wire mesh while standing on an exercise bench that he had placed atop a weightlifting device in the courtyard recreation area. He pulled back the screen where it meets the courtyard wall, climbed through the opening, walked along the roof of the structure and jumped at least 12 feet to the ground, Valdez said.

He then scaled a 12-foot-high chain-link fence topped with razor wire that encloses the East Facility and climbed over a second, smaller fence that surrounds the entire three-jail Pitchess compound, Valdez said.

Valdez said other inmates were playing volleyball nearby and may have helped Anderson escape from the lighted area. After Sunday’s escape, officials planned to seal the edge of the wire mesh to the wall firmly so that it can’t be pried back, he said.

The escape was similar to one that occurred July 30 at the 1,600-inmate North Facility, considered the compound’s most secure structure. Rodolfo Corona, 22, remains at large after he cut a hole in wire mesh over an enclosed recreation area, jumped off the building’s roof and scaled a 20-foot-high fence topped with razor wire, authorities said.

Corona was awaiting a preliminary hearing on robbery and kidnaping charges. He faced up to 30 years in prison, authorities said.

Valdez said he did not know whether Anderson copied Corona’s escape. Inmates have access to newspapers and television. “If it was on the news, certainly they would have seen it. There’s no way for us to tell,� Valdez said.

Valdez said the last escape from the East Facility was in March, 1985, when seven prisoners, including a murderer, used a pipe to force open a steel screen on a window and lowered themselves to the ground with bedsheets that had been tied together.

All seven were captured soon afterward.