Prisoners escape with dummy in bed trick

One rearrested, uncertain when the pair fled

A white supremacist has been apprehended after he and a fellow inmate escaped from an Arkansas jail earlier this week.

The word came Wednesday that Wesley Gullett and Christopher Sanderson had disappeared from Jefferson County Jail, but they may have escaped as early as Monday, according to Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Kevin Sanders.

The fugitives fooled guards into thinking they were still there with a simple ruse.

“We know they fashioned dummies and placed them in their beds … so as the guards went by to check, it appeared (they were there),” Sanders said. Their method of escape was still under investigation, but Sanders said the jail’s surveillance cameras were not working at the time of escape. He declined to comment on whether jail officials were under investigation.

The U.S. Marshals Service announced Gullet’s capture Thursday near the Ozark National Forest, while Sanderson remains at large.

Gullett, 30, is believed to be president of the New Aryan Empire, a white supremacist gang involved in distributing methamphetamine.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Arkansas painted a brutal and bloody portrait of the gang’s operations in February, when they announced a second round of indictments in a racketeering investigation that involved the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; and state and local officials.

The NAE began as a prison gang but expanded with some members moving into meth distribution, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors allege that Gullett and others enlisted NAE members and associates in an unsuccessful attempt to murder a confidential informant. In 2017, members and associates of the group “kidnapped, stabbed, and maimed” two people for providing information to authorities. The victims were forced to write a letter of apology to an NAE member and his girlfriend.

During the investigation, “agents made 59 controlled purchases of methamphetamine, seizing more than 25 pounds of methamphetamine, as well as the 69 firearms and more than $70,000 in drug proceeds.”

Gullett, along with 53 other suspects, was hit with a superseding indictment in February, and faces eight charges, including being a felon in possession of a firearm, distribution of meth and attempted murder in aid of racketeering.

Sanders said Gullett was arrested along a highway after a police officer spotted Gullett on the side of the road.