Court Papers: Woman Arrested In Driving Orange County Jail Escapees Around
SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — A Huntington Beach woman arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting three Orange County jail escapees told police she drove the men around as they tried to buy a used car, court documents showed.
According to an affidavit, Ly Hoa Le said she was unaware the men were fugitives when she got a call from Bac Duong asking for a ride on the day of the jailbreak. She took them to meet friends at a sandwich shop in Westminster.
The documents showed Duong has known Le for 10 years and calls her "mom." He turned himself on Jan. 29 after being on the run for a week. Hossein Nayeri and JonathanTieu were captured the following day.
Le told police she did not give them money, refused when they asked her to buy them a car and never saw a gun, the court documents said.
She said in the affidavit that she "wasn't paying attention to where she was going because she was scared and nervous that they would kill her." The fugitives eventually let her go.
Le posted bail one day after her arrest. There are no records showing that the Orange County District Attorney's Office had filed charges against her.
Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens fired back Thursday at the sheriff's deputies' union, which recently sued her department and the county alleging that staffing cutbacks contributed to the jailbreak from the Orange County Central Men's Jail in Santa Ana.
In a statement to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, Hutchens said claims that she is not moving quickly enough to respond to the causes of the escape are "blatantly false."
"From the moment we learned of the escape, I directed my staff to examine every area of vulnerability inside the jail," said Hutchens. "Some improvements have already been made, and many will continue to be made throughout the course of this investigation."
Hutchens is scheduled to address the Supervisors in a closed session meeting on Feb. 23.
