By Steven Henshaw
Reading Eagle
READING, Pa. — New details have emerged about the escape of a Berks County Prison inmate from a constable’s van in Lower Hiedelberg Township who then ran into the woods of Blue Marsh Lake before he was found hiding up a tree.
Lower Heidelberg police on Monday said that James B. Ciaramitaro was able to slip out of his handcuffs and unlock his leg shackles on Aug. 18 by using a piece of an ink pen that he hid in his mouth prior to departing the jail.
While riding in the back of the transport van in the area of Rebers Bridge and State Hill roads, Ciaramitaro, 38, swung his legs up and kicked out the rear driver’s-side window and rolled out of the vehicle, police said.
Ciaramitaro then ran into a nearby wooded area of Blue Marsh Lake and eluded law-enforcement officials for about two hours.
During his brief time on the lam, police said, Ciaramitaro broke into and ransacked a house in the 400 block of Rebers Bridge Road and called a taxi to pick him up at that location.
His plan was foiled when officials learned a cab had been summoned, and an officer hid in the taxi before it arrived.
Police provided this further account:
Once the taxi arrived, the driver honked his horn to announce his presence. Moments later, Ciaramitaro ran out of the back of the house to the woods carrying a child’s book bag.
Officers gave chase and located him up a tree. He refused to come down until he was offered two cigarettes. He was wearing the homeowner’s clothes when taken into custody.
In the home he ran from, police found a broken basement window. The home was ransacked, with multiple open liquor bottles scattered throughout the house.
Investigators also found a handcuff belt restraint on the living room floor and a Berks County Prison-issued jumpsuit in the laundry room along with Ciaramitaro’s court papers pertaining to the hearing he had attended that day. Cut hair was found in the upstairs bathroom sink.
Police searched the book bag that Ciaramitaro was carrying and it contained more than $2,000 in cash along with jewelry.
When he escaped, Ciaramitaro of Easton was on his way back to the prison in Bern Township after waiving a hearing on burglary charges before District Judge Ann L. Young in her South Heidelberg Township office.
Constable Dennis M. Moyer said that he had just traveled through the intersection of Brownsville and State Hill roads - at which point Brownsville becomes Rebers Bridge Road - shortly before 12:30 p.m. when Ciaramitaro kicked through a rear window of the vehicle and threw himself onto the road.
Ciaramitaro is accused of breaking into a home in the 400 block of Wilshire Boulevard, Spring Township, on Aug. 19, 2014, after escaping from Wernersville Community Corrections Center in South Heidelberg Township.
Police said he took more than $2,000 worth of jewelry. He is also accused of breaking into an Alsace Township home the next day.
Ciaramitaro was arrested in Michigan as a fugitive from Berks.
Lower Heidelberg police last week filed new charges including escape, burglary and related counts pertaining to the events of Aug. 18.