Search Continues for 3 Inmates Who Escaped From OC Jail

Deputies investigate January 23 after three inmates charged with violent crimes escaped from an Orange County jail.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department released these photos of Jonathan Tieu, left, Hossein Nayeri, middle, and Bac Duong, right, on January 23, 2016.

The jailbreak sparked a manhunt for the three men throughout Orange County Central Men’s Jail and the city of Santa Ana, but officials said the men appeared to have fled the area. Preliminary reports say they were last seen sometime early Friday morning.

Lt. Jeff Hallock with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Saturday that the inmates were last seen at 5 a.m. Friday at the Central Men’s Jail.

All three inmates were in custody for violent charges, the Sheriff’s department said.

How they escaped has not yet been disclosed by authorities.

Nayeri and Duong were ineligible for bail, while Tieu’s had been set at $1 million, Hallock said.

Prosecutors allege that while driving to the desert, Nayeri and two other men burned the dispensary owner with a blowtorch and cut off his penis.

The third fugitive, Bac Duong, 43, has been held without bail since last month. Tieu faces charges for murder, shooting at an inhabited home, a criminal street gang enhancement and attempted murder.

The audacious get-out is the first of its kind at the 900-inmate prison in more than 20 years.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities are continuing to search for three inmates who escaped from a Southern California maximum-security jail by cutting through half-inch steel bars and rappelling from the roof by a makeshift rope.

Nayeri has been held since September 2014 in connection with the kidnapping of a California marijuana dispensary owner in 2012.

Hallock says the three are very risky and anyone seeing them should call 911. As Sheriff, my utmost concern and primary responsibility is the safety of each Orange County resident. “We have dedicated all available resources to this search and investigation so that we may bring all three inmates back in to custody”.

The men cut through steel bars and used plumbing tunnels to get access to an unsecured roof, authorities told CNN affiliate KABC.