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 Hours after the last two fugitives were captured, Orange County
Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said she had ordered an investigation into
how the trio broke out of a maximum-security jail in Santa Ana and
went unnoticed for about 16 hours, according to a letter her office
released late on Saturday.
“I have been very clear from the onset of the jail escape
investigation that I am deeply concerned about the length of time it
took to recognize that three maximum security inmates were
unaccounted for,” Hutchens wrote in response to a letter she had
received from the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs about
the escapes.
“I have initiated an internal administrative investigation to
determine the facts of what occurred, contributing factors to the
escape and inmate count procedures,” Hutchens continued in the
letter, which she later disclosed in an emailed statement.
 The last two men who escaped on Jan. 22 were arrested on a tip from
a man who saw their stolen van in the parking lot of a San Francisco
Whole Foods supermarket, authorities said on Saturday, the day after
a third escapee turned himself in.
Hutchens said the department had taken immediate action to ensure no
repeat of the incident. But she said it had not made any personnel
changes as of yet because of the escapes.
Hossein Nayeri, 37; Jonathan Tieu, 20; and Bac Duong, 43, made their
getaway by cutting through steel grating inside the jail, climbing
through a plumbing conduit to the roof and lowering themselves four
floors to the ground with bedsheets, authorities said.
The search for the escapees came to an end when Nayeri and Tieu were
apprehended in San Francisco's park district about 375 miles (604
km) north of the lockup.
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The third escapee, Bac Duong, 43, gave himself up on Friday in Santa
Ana, officials said.
Nayeri, the presumed mastermind of the breakout, was in the Orange
County jail on charges stemming from the 2012 mutilation torture of
a kidnapping victim.
Tieu was facing murder charges, and Duong has been charged with
attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, among other
crimes. The pair is reputed to be connected with Vietnamese-American
street gangs.
Nooshafarin Ravaghi, a writer who taught English at the Orange
County jail, is accused of furnishing the inmates with Google Maps
information that included overviews of the jail rooftop and
surrounding areas.
Ravaghi, who was arrested on Thursday, is expected to be arraigned
on Monday.
(Additional reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Editing by
Frank McGurty and Jonathan Oatis)
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