
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 14, 1993                   TAG: 9312140195
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JAIL ESCAPEES PLEAD GUILTY, COULD GET 5 YEARS

For two inmates who escaped briefly from the Roanoke City Jail in July, about five minutes of freedom will cost them up to five years in prison.

Timothy E. Jackson, 23, and Larry C. Robinson, 44, pleaded guilty Monday to escape charges in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.

They will be sentenced later, and face a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Bondurant said Jackson, Robinson and a third man, Shawn Perkins, plotted a July 26 breakout from a rooftop recreation area on the jail's fifth floor.

The men wrapped bedsheets around their waists and concealed them under their clothing before taking their weekly visit to the recreation area.

They then scaled a 15-foot concrete wall, broke through a wire-mesh screen over the area, and jumped down to the fourth-floor roof.

From there, they knotted the sheets together, tossed them over the edge and slipped down the makeshift rope.

Perkins and Jackson made it to the ground and fled, but the sheets broke before Robinson could go.

"Go, man, go," Robinson yelled at the men before turning back, Bondurant said. As he attempted to climb back into the recreation area, Robinson fell and broke his leg.

Jackson and Perkins were captured about five minutes later.

At the time of the escape, Robinson was being held on a federal bank-robbery charge. He has since been convicted and is awaiting sentencing. Jackson is awaiting trial on federal charges of a drive-by shooting in Danville.

Perkins, who was facing a state charge at the time, was not prosecuted, because officials were seeking to have him returned to New York to face a murder charge.

In a routine question put to all people who plead guilty to crimes in federal court, Judge James Turk asked the men to explain, in their own words, what made them guilty.

Robinson and Jackson seemed to be at a loss for words, so Turk helped them out:

"Nobody pitched you out of the window against your will or anything like that, right?" the judge asked.

by CNB