Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 29, 1994 TAG: 9411290113
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
All the inmates were arrested in the Richmond area. The prison is about five miles north of Harrisonburg and about 140 miles northwest of Richmond.
Richmond police arrested two inmates late Saturday and early Sunday morning, while Henrico County police took the three others into custody late Sunday night.
The inmates escaped during a prisoner count at the Harrisonburg Correctional Unit No. 8 early Friday morning. They overpowered two guards and stole a Jeep.
It was the state's worst prison break since five inmates broke out of the Nottoway Correctional Center on Thanksgiving in 1984.
Henrico County police Sgt. James I. Medlin said officers received an anonymous tip Sunday night that three of the men were driving a green pickup truck. Officers followed the truck for about five minutes before pulling it over, he said.
Police arrested George E. Cozino, 21, and Wayne G. Weis, 20, both of Richmond, and Charles W. Mongold, 23, of Baker, W.Va. The pickup's driver, whose identity was not available, also was taken into custody.
Medlin said the men, who were not armed, were arrested without incident. He said all four were squeezed into the front cab of the truck and looked tired.
``We were just lucky,'' Medlin said. ``It was a simple thing.''
The two other inmates were arrested separately in Richmond.
Wayne C. Anderson, 21, of Winchester, was arrested Saturday night but gave a false name and was not identified until a fingerprint check Sunday morning, Richmond police Lt. Arthur Carroll said.
Phillip W. Hayes, 19, of Richmond, was arrested early Sunday morning near his parents' house in the city, Carroll said.
Richmond police Officer Timothy L. Smith was on patrol duty Saturday night when he tried to stop a car with expired license plates. Two men were in the car.
After a five-minute chase, ``they started opening doors while the car was still in motion,'' Smith said. ``I found the driver in the bushes, hiding down by the tennis courts at the Country Club of Virginia.''
The car's passenger fled, but police said they believed it was Hayes.
Smith said Anderson is charged with forging a state document, attempting to elude police, driving under a suspended operator's license, and being a fugitive from justice.
Hayes was arrested ``outside or near his parents' home,'' Carroll said. Richmond police Lt. Paul Kiniry said police responded to the house after receiving an alarm report from a security company.
Hayes was taken from Richmond to the maximum-security Buckingham Correctional Center Sunday night. It was not known where Anderson spent the night.
Cozino, Weis and Mongold were being held overnight at the Henrico County Jail, Medlin said. He said they would be turned over to the corrections department today.
All will be charged with escape, a felony with a maximum sentence of five years, corrections department spokesman Jim Jones said today. Other charges, stemming from an assault on guards, are pending, Jones said.
by CNB