$20,000 reward offered in case of escaped Twin Towers inmate

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is offering a $20,000 reward in connection with the search for an inmate who walked out of a county jail nearly two weeks ago.

The board unanimously approved the reward Tuesday for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Christopher Lee Brown, a 37-year-old fugitive who escaped downtown L.A.’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility the night of March 12.

Brown was sentenced earlier that day to four years and eight months in jail for stealing computer equipment from an Alhambra medical center, compromising the personal information of an estimated 729,000 patients.

He was in the jail’s Inmate Reception Center about 10 p.m. when he somehow “impersonated another inmate” and left, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

“The inmate was able to escape through the jail Inmate Reception Center release area door,” Sheriff’s Cmdr. Mike Parker said in the statement.

Jail officials did not discover Brown was missing until later that night, when a count “revealed the inmate was not where he was supposed to be,” the sheriff’s statement said. The jail was searched but closed-circuit television footage showed Brown “leaving through the release area.”

Parker pointed to a lapse in security, saying it “appears that mandated security practices may not have been followed.” He said the “identified security concerns were immediately remedied.”

Authorities issued another appeal Monday for the public’s help in finding Brown, who is now wanted for felony escape from a jail facility.

Sheriff’s officials described Brown as a 6-foot-3-inch 200-pound transient with multiple prior arrests, including two assault convictions.

Anyone with information on his whereabouts was asked to not approach him and instead call the Sheriff’s Department at (323) 267-4800.

[For the Record 7:17 a.m. March 26, 2014: An earlier version of this post at times incorrectly listed Brown’s first name as being Chistoper and his last name as being Lee. Also, Mike Parker’s rank is commander, not captain.]

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