Getaway driver pleads guilty in O.C. jailbreak
A Costa Mesa man pleaded guilty Thursday to helping three men escape from an Orange County jail last year, an incident that sparked a weeklong manhunt that extended from Southern California to the Bay Area, prosecutors said.
Loc Ba Nguyen, 51, will serve one year in jail for his role in the January 2016 escape at the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Nguyen admitted to smuggling wire cutters, cellphones, a knife and other items into the jail — tools that helped the escape carried out by Hossein Nayeri, Bac Duong and Jonathan Tieu, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Nguyen was given a list of items for the jailbreak plot when he visited Duong at the facility on Jan. 9, 2016. He also admitted to serving as the getaway driver after the trio broke out weeks later, early on the morning of Jan. 23, prosecutors said.
A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to say exactly what the wire cutters and knife were used for. Previously, authorities said Nayeri, Duong and Tieu used a “cutting tool” to saw through layers of metal and rebar, giving them access to plumbing tunnels that led to the jail’s roof.
They then rappelled down the side of the building, where Nguyen was waiting with a car.
Jail staffers did not learn of the escape for nearly 15 hours. Law enforcement officials have said Nayeri, Duong and Tieu kidnapped a cab driver and drove to San Jose.
Their plan fell apart when Duong and Nayeri became embroiled in an argument over whether to kill the cab driver. Duong eventually drove back to Orange County, released the driver and surrendered. Nayeri and Tieu were arrested in San Francisco the next day.
Earlier this year, the Orange County grand jury released a scathing report blaming lax supervision within the Sheriff ’s Department and improper inmate counting procedures as key factors that allowed the trio to escape and helped prolong their time on the run.
The Sheriff’s Department has yet to issue an after-action report on the incident because of the ongoing criminal case, according to Lt. Lane Lagaret, a department spokesman.