Quawntay Adams

Quawntay Adams (born September 30, 1975 ) is an American convict who was known for a spectacular prison break in 2006.

Criminal offenses

Adams was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in 1993 for attacking a law enforcement officer with a lethal weapon. He had attacked a female officer with a can of beans wrapped in a sock in October 1992 at the Chaderjain Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton , California . He was released in mid-1994. In January 1996 he is said to have sold cocaine , which is why he was convicted again in 1997 for violating the Narcotics Act.

In January 2004, he and two other men were arrested again while trying to operate a van loaded with 100 kg of marijuana by the police . While he waited for his trial, he undertook yet 2004, two attempts to escape from the St. Clair County Jail in Belleville , Illinois . In December 2008 he was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for attempting to escape, the successful escape in 2006, possession of drugs with the intention of reselling them and conspiracy to launder money .

Outbreak 2006

Adams was relocated to the Alton City Jail in Alton , Illinois, opened in 2002 because of his escape attempts in Belleville on December 21, 2005 , from which an inmate has never been able to escape. There he was housed in the high-security wing, where every single cell had video surveillance and intercom and searches were carried out daily.

He had an accomplice send him a saw blade hidden in a book that, for security reasons, had been addressed to a fellow inmate. If he had refused the unexpected book shipment or had discovered the saw blade, the plan would probably have failed prematurely. After a week or so he got hold of the book, pretending to borrow it, and removed the saw blade.

In the corner of the toilet that was blind to the camera, he was able to cut through the steel roof in five days and needed another three weeks to cut out a suitably large hole. He covered the visible cut marks with a color-coordinated mixture of soap and toothpaste. He was now in a space where he could work with a metal piece of the ventilation system through the overlying concrete ceiling with insulation material. So he got into the ventilation shaft, cut his way through the ventilation grille and roped off on May 2, 2006 with the sheets tied together.

A 43-year-old woman whom he had met while in custody was waiting outside the prison and who was now driving him to a motel in Wentzville , Missouri . Adams' absence was noticed after a short time and his escape assistant was also located. This did not withstand the interrogation and revealed the whereabouts of Quawntay Adams to the police, who was then arrested again after only six hours of escape.

He was then taken to the maximum security prison in Victorville , California. In Alton there was a tightening of security measures. An episode for "Prison Breaks: The Real Stories" was filmed about his escape.

Web links

• United States v. Quawntay Adams, 11-2111
• Warrenton woman sentenced for assisting in jail break
• PEOPLE v. ADAMS