FBI: Lyft driver terrorized by escaped Georgia inmates before she was rescued in Florida ...Saudi Arabia

By JEFF MARTIN

ATLANTA (AP) — Three inmates who escaped from a jail east of Atlanta, including a murder suspect, commandeered a terrified Lyft driver’s car to reach south Florida before she was rescued and they were captured, according to details revealed in court records.

The driver told FBI agents that the men used a fake name to order the ride, put a rope around her neck from behind her, dragged her into the backseat and threatened to kill her, according to a court affidavit filed late Tuesday and obtained by The Associated Press.

The inmates were able to “compromise” a portion of a cell inside the DeKalb County Jail to make their escape, said DeKalb County Chief Deputy Temetris Atkins. He didn’t provide more specifics because jailers don’t want other inmates to know the facility’s weaknesses.

“We repaired the area that was compromised, and we’re looking at other areas that are similar to that to fortify them to make sure that they are not compromised in the same manner,” Atkins said at a Tuesday news conference.

DeKalb County Sheriff Melody Maddox described the jail as an “aging facility that’s deteriorating right before our eyes.” The jail is in Decatur, about 10 miles east of downtown Atlanta.

The escape was discovered early Monday during a routine security check, authorities said. After jailers realized the three were gone, investigators listened to recordings of conversations they’d had on recorded phone lines. They learned that one of the inmates had contacted people on the outside who helped them evade capture after the escape, U.S. Marshal Thomas Brown said.

The inmates were picked up by an unnamed man and taken to one of their girlfriends’ homes, Brown said. Then, a Lyft ride was ordered using a fake, female name.

Officers tracked the car as it traveled to south Florida with the aid of license plate readers, devices that can alert law enforcement to the locations of wanted vehicles. When they caught up with the car and tried to stop it, one of the inmates jumped out and ran but was arrested along with a second inmate, according to a court affidavit.

Investigators also learned that the men used the Lyft driver’s credit card for a short-term rental of a home in Miramar, Florida, where officers apprehended the third inmate and rescued the driver, court records state.

The driver told investigators that she was held in the car for six to 10 hours as they tried to gain access to her phone and online banking records. After trying to escape once, she endured “increased threats of being shot, raped, and tortured,” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit.

“As you can imagine, the Lyft driver is very traumatized by this,” Brown said.

All three inmates were charged with kidnapping as well as the escape, according to criminal complaints. The court documents did not yet list the names of any lawyers who might be able to speak on their behalf.

The inmates range in age from 24 to 31, with the youngest one charged with murder and armed robbery. The other two inmates face charges that include armed robbery and arson.

The sheriff’s office had warned that the men might be armed and were considered dangerous after their escape.

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The inmate accused of murder and armed robbery, Stevenson Charles, 24, has had several run-ins with law officers in Georgia and Florida. He had been sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to multiple counts of kidnapping and bank robbery, a federal agent wrote in a Monday affidavit regarding the recent jail escape.

After being sentenced, the agent wrote, Charles was turned over to DeKalb County authorities on Dec. 5 to face the murder charge, details of which were not immediately available. A federal criminal complaint charging him with the escape does not list an attorney who could be contacted to comment on his behalf, and it wasn’t clear whether he has one at this early stage of the case.

In one of multiple cases involving Charles in South Florida, he is accused of meeting a man through the Grindr online dating application and then pulling a gun on him when they met in person at a Miami residence in 2022. Charles then drove the man to various Miami area banks, withdrawing money from the victim’s accounts, court records show.

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