Two dangerous inmates were able to walk out of the D.C. Jail and into the posh Hill East neighborhood thanks to a “corrupted staff and the negligence of correctional employees,” a blistering internal review found.
“The June 3, 2006 escapes of Joseph Leaks and Ricardo Jones were neither opportunistic nor spontaneous,” internal investigators at the jail write in the report, “but rather the outgrowth of a calculated, deliberate plan, arranged and orchestrated.”
Released to public officials late last week and obtained by The Examiner, the internal review is the fullest picture yet of the daring escape. And it shows a disturbing pattern of incompetence by the jail’s staff.
The escape terrified neighbors in the wealthy Hill East neighborhood because many of them had to learn about it from media reports: The jail’s siren, which is supposed to sound in the event of a jail break, didn’t go off.
Leaks and Jones were awaiting trial for a homicide when they escaped. They were supposed to be separated and kept under maximum security.
But shortly after Leaks’ classification was mistakenly changed from “maximum” to “medium” — because an administrator wasn’t aware that Leaks had escaped custody in 1992 and didn’t think the accessory-to-a-homicide charges were all that severe — another employee approved a pass that put Leaks on a work detail, the report states.
Once on the work detail, Leaks roamed about the jail and made contact with Jones to plot the escape — under the eyes of guards who were supposed to be watching them, the report states.
On the morning of the escape, Leaks was on a cleaning detail on the second floor of the administrative section of the jail, the report states.
He told the guard supervising the work detail that he should leave “because something was about to happen,” the report states. The guard — who had been smuggling contraband into the jail — complied with the request.
Leaks then made his way to the Southeast One cell block and met up with Jones, the report states.
Jones was carrying a pass to the infirmary — even though he didn’t have an appointment there — but it was soon replaced by a work pass, according to the report.
The work pass had been confiscated from a third inmate about three weeks before the break. The guard who confiscated the pass didn’t write up the event as required, the jail report states.
Reunited, Leaks and Jones made their way back to the administrative side of the jail and took an 80-pound floor buffer to the warden’s office suite, the report states.
They were also carrying a change of clothes — two blue jumpsuits, a blue jacket, a blue Department of Corrections baseball cap and a pair sunglasses.
As earlier reported by The Examiner and confirmed by the jail report, a female guard left the outfits for the men under a liner in a trash can in the female guards’ locker room.
Once in the warden’s suite, Jones and Leaks used the buffer to bang open a door and smash out a window, the report states.
They scampered down a canvas awning to the ground and ran off toward the Stadium-Armory Metro station.
There, they hopped a bus to Northeast and were picked up by “a citizen” who drove them to meet Leaks’ brother, David. The group drove to Baltimore, where Leaks and Jones stripped their blue outfits and dumped them in a trash can near Inner Harbor, the report states.
Leaks was caught in the wee hours of the next morning in a Virginia hotel. Jones was arrested the following day in Prince George’s County.
Ten jail employees have lost their jobs as a result of the jail break and at least two others could face corruption charges.
But many District officials on Sunday remained troubled by the escape.
“We need to know if there’s any other situations like this waiting to blow up,”said District Council Member Kathy Patterson, D-Ward 3. “People’s lives are in danger.”
Phil Mendelson, D-At Large, is chair of the District Council’s Judiciary Committee.
He said he’s trying to schedule a meeting with newly appointed jail director Devon Brown to discuss reforms.
“It is shocking,” Mendelson said of the jail report. “If there’s two employees who got caught in this, how do we know there aren’t three more that we’re going to find in the next jail break?”
