By Suleman
The Star-Ledger
UNION COUNTY, N.J. — Three weeks after a pair of inmates made a brazen escape from the Union County Jail, one of them is poised to turn himself in to authorities through the Rev. Al Sharpton, officials said last night.
Otis Blunt, who broke out of the lockup with Jose Espinosa on Dec. 15, has been in contact with people who asked Sharpton to “facilitate his safe surrender,” the civil rights leader said in a statement last night.
“Through my attorneys, I strongly urged him to surrender and I will play any role that I can in facilitating his surrender and assuring his safety upon his surrender,” Sharpton’s statement said. “Our only purpose is to facilitate his safe surrender and that he be able to deal with whatever legal matters he must face once back in custody.”
A Sharpton spokeswoman declined to elaborate last night on when and why the inmate had reached out to the civil rights leader, or when the surrender would take place. The spokeswoman, Rachel Noerdlinger, also would not comment on whether Sharpton knows Blunt’s location. Sharpton has reached out to law enforcement, the statement said.
“There’s a lot at stake,” Noerdlinger said. “For safety, and because of the sensitivity of this, we can’t divulge more.”
The announcement came a day after Blunt and Espinosa’s Hollywood-style break made it to the small screen, when the two fugitives were featured on “America’s Most Wanted” Saturday night.
The show resulted in tips for investigators, Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said yesterday.
“We’re pretty optimistic; the show has resulted in 971 arrests,” said Romankow, who appeared in the FOX television show that aired Saturday. “We’re hoping Blunt and Espinosa are 972 and 973.”
Romankow could not be reached for comment on Sharpton’s statement last night. Earlier yesterday, he said investigators believe Blunt and Espinosa are still in New Jersey, adding there have been sightings of Blunt in Essex and Hudson counties.
Investigators at this point also know Blunt and Espinosa did not devise the escape from the county jail in Elizabeth by themselves, the prosecutor said, though he declined to explain what assistance they received.
“Most times, prisoners think about escaping and have no plan afterward,” Romankow said. “We believe one of them had a plan. They absolutely did have help from the outside. And they continue to have help from the outside.”
Romankow added investigators learned the iron valve handle used by the fugitives to pulverize concrete blocks from a cell wall came from a maintenance closet that all eight inmates in the high-security unit could reach. “They shouldn’t have had access to that,” he said.
Espinosa, a 20-year-old Bloods gang member from Elizabeth, was to have been sentenced this month for aggravated manslaughter in a 2005 drive-by shooting. Blunt, 32, a Toms River resident who earlier tried to escape, was awaiting trial in the shooting of a Hillside convenience store manager.
The pair pulled off the daring jailbreak on Dec. 15, managing to burrow through the jail’s exterior wall and leaping over a 30-foot razor-wire fence. They covered their escape by leaving stuffed dummies in their beds, and hiding the hole in the wall with magazine pinups.
The escape garnered wide media attention, and it was the producers of “America’s Most Wanted” who first contacted Romankow’s office with the idea of highlighting the case, he said.
The show has profiled a number of cases from New Jersey before, including the “Hat Bandit” who targeted banks and the Aug. 4 schoolyard slayings in Newark. It has netted success, too; the convicted killer of Paterson police officer Wayne Smith was arrested at a Bronx apartment based on a viewer’s tip.
“America’s Most Wanted” currently has 105 active cases out of New Jersey, said show spokeswoman Michelle Sigona. After the Saturday episode aired, tips on Espinosa and Blunt came over the show’s hotline, and were reviewed by Union County Police Chief Dan Vaniska, who was at the show’s Washington headquarters, she said.
“Law enforcement all over the U.S. are looking for Blunt and Espinosa,” Romankow said, “and nationally, their faces are plastered everywhere.”
The hunt for both men has involved his office, the Union County Sheriff’s Department, officers from the Union County Jail, Newark police, U.S. Marshals and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he said.
“We’ve had upwards of 25 to 30 people working on this at any given time,” Romankow said. “It’s been difficult, frustrating.”
The investigation into the jail escape found that Espinosa and Blunt, who previously had attempted to escape, got a 10-pound handle to a fire sprinkler shutoff valve from a maintenance closet in the area of their cells, Romankow said. “They opened the door, and took off the valve wheel,” he said.
The handle broke up two blocks the men removed from jail walls, one from a common wall between their third-story cells; the other led to the outside.
Adding insult to injury, Romankow said the probe found Espinosa and Blunt would do chin-ups on exposed pipes in the area, with the sheets they later used for the decoys jail guards found in their beds.
Since the breakout, the jail’s security has been reviewed and upgraded, Romankow said, including additional razor wire on its perimeter, and plans to install video equipment.
Copyright 2008 The Star-Ledger