Jailbreak Suspect Pleads Innocent to Planning Escape

Michael Lee Taylor, a suspected armed robber and jewel thief whose escape from Orange County Jail last year triggered a national manhunt, pleaded innocent Thursday to charges that he planned the daring breakout of five inmates from the jail roof.

Taylor, 36, entered innocent pleas to charges of felony escape, kidnap and robbery and was ordered to appear before Municipal Judge James M. Brooks in Santa Ana on July 19 for a preliminary hearing on the escape-related charges. He was being held without bail.

Robbery, Assault Counts

Taylor is scheduled to return to Municipal Court in Westminster today so a preliminary hearing can be scheduled on the charges that put him in jail originally: seven counts of armed robbery and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon in jewelry store robberies in four county cities.

Prosecutors said the preliminary hearing on the escape-related charges may be combined with the preliminary hearing on the original charges.

Taylor is accused of taking more than $100,000 in gems during the county robberies. He is also charged with other crimes, including allegations of raping a robbery victim, while fleeing cross-country after his escape.

Taylor and four other inmates escaped from the recreation area of the men’s jail in downtown Santa Ana by rappelling down sheets from the top of the four-story building. Two inmates were captured shortly after, and two others were caught two weeks later in Denver.

One deputy was fired and another was disciplined shortly after the escape, and jail officials admitted that security had been lax.

Taylor, meanwhile, eluded arrest and eventually was the subject of an “America’s Most Wanted” TV program May 7. Shortly after the broadcast aired, several viewers in western South Dakota called the Fox Television Network and said they had spotted the fugitive.

Authorities tracked Taylor down to Rapid City, S.D., after he tried to pawn diamonds that police believe were stolen from a Chicago jewelry store.

Ever since his capture, Taylor has maintained that he was forced to escape from the jail because of its poor living conditions.

He told a Times Orange County Edition reporter this week that since his return to the jail he has been threatened by deputies but not physically harmed.

Taylor said the deputies told him: “If you look the wrong way, you’re going to be smothered with us.”

He added: “I just don’t want to be beaten in here and never get out alive.”

The Sheriff’s Department’s spokesman, Lt. Richard J. Olson, said Thursday that Taylor, who also goes by the name Anthony M. Gianetti, has been placed in a high-security cell.

Olson denied Taylor’s assertions about jail deputies.

Staff writer Eric Lichtblau contributed to this report.