SAN ANTONIO - Five federal prisoners, including one identified as a high-ranking member of a Mexican gang, escaped Friday from a privately run lockup near San Antonio.

Officials said the men apparently escaped while they were outside for an hour long recreation period at the Correctional Services Corp. facility in Pearsall, about 50 miles southwest of San Antonio. Two perimeter fences were cut, Lionel Trevino, Frio County sheriff, said.

"There was a lady that was driving down the street and saw them getting out from underneath the fence," Trevino said. "They just walked down the street and kept going."

Authorities launched a search for the inmates using helicopters and dogs.

John Butler, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said the prisoners were in the pretrial custody of the Marshal's Service office in Laredo, which uses the jail under contract.

Officials at Correctional Services Corp., headquartered in Sarasota, Fla., did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The prisoners were identified as Reymundo Flores Alaniz, 46; Manuel de la Fuente, 33; Luis Angel Garcia Esparza, 23; Jorge Arturo Castaneda Silva, 22; and Victor Hugo Nava Franco, 28.

Flores Alaniz, who is charged with heroin possession, is a high-ranking member of the Mexican Mafia with a previous conviction for murder, according to Department of Justice officials in Houston.

 

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