The New York Times-20080129-Guards at New Jersey Jail Face Disciplinary Charges

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Guards at New Jersey Jail Face Disciplinary Charges

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Guards at the New Jersey jail from which two men escaped last month failed to conduct random searches of cells for at least two months before the escape, a preliminary investigation has concluded.

Two guards and three supervisors at the Union County Jail face dozens of disciplinary charges as a result of the investigation into the Dec. 14 escape of Jose Espinosa and Otis Blunt uncovered numerous security lapses, officials said. The two inmates have been recaptured.

If, in fact, the corrections officers on that unit had done their work, there would not have been an escape, the prosecutor for Union County, Theodore J. Romankow, said at a news conference on Monday.

Mr. Romankow said that he would not pursue criminal charges against the officers but that they would face a disciplinary hearing that could result in their being fired. The officers are currently suspended.

Two weeks after the escape, a guard who worked in the unit, Officer Rudolph Zurick, apparently committed suicide. Mr. Romankow said that Mr. Zurick, who the authorities said shot himself in the head hours before he was to be interviewed by investigators, had also been lax in performing his duties.

He would have been charged, Mr. Romankow said, adding that Mr. Zurick sometimes left his post improperly for meals and would go to a jail exercise room when he should have been on duty.

The authorities had earlier released a note from the two inmates that sarcastically thanked Officer Zurick for allowing them to escape.

Mr. Romankow said Mr. Blunt told investigators that he paid Officer Zurick $1,000 for a metal valve that he and Mr. Espinosa used to break through the cell's cement blocks. But the prosecutor said that he was extremely dubious of Mr. Blunt's assertion and that there was no way of proving it.

Mr. Espinosa, 20, and Mr. Blunt, 33, wriggled through the hole they had made and jumped from a roof to freedom. Mr. Espinosa was captured on Jan. 8 in the basement of a house about a mile and a half from the jail. Mr. Blunt was arrested in Mexico City the following day.

Mr. Romankow said that his office had interviewed nearly three dozen people at the jail.

None of the officers interviewed ever recalled conducting a random cell search, Mr. Romankow said, adding that the last time all cells had been checked was Oct. 4. According to jail policy, cells should have been checked roughly every eight hours.

He said that one supervisor did not know the number of cells in the unit where Mr. Blunt and Mr. Espinosa were housed (there were eight). One guard did not know how many inmates were housed in the unit at the time of the escape (seven). Guards failed to accompany inmates who distributed meals to inmates.

Jail officials said that steps had been taken to secure the jail, and Mr. Romankow said he was confident that security procedures were now being followed.

James Mets, a lawyer for the correction officers' union, said that if officers had done anything improper, it was the way that they were taught how to do it.

Mr. Romankow also released a second letter, which Mr. Blunt had left in his cell, in which he said officers were either too lazy or crazy to ignore all the bangin' -- a reference to the weeks of noise that prosecutors said was generated by the effort to break through the cement blocks.