Inmate charged with escape for fleeing NC prison camp during coronavirus outbreak
A federal prosecutor filed an escape charge Friday against an inmate who fled a prison camp in Butner. The inmate said he feared death from a coronavirus outbreak.
The charge comes a day after Richard R. Cephas, 54, told The News & Observer he fled two weeks ago from the federal camp because he has a compromised immune system and feared catching the virus would be “a death sentence.”
Prison officials said they discovered he was missing on the early morning of April 2.
Cephas, originally from Wilmington, Del., said he has a medical condition called neutropenia, which causes a low white-blood-cell count. He has gone without his medication since he escaped, however, and told the N&O on Thursday he is considering surrendering.
The N&O interviewed Cephas by phone and through FaceTime. Cephas did not disclose his location to The N&O.
“Mr. Cephas’ decision to escape federal custody is nothing more than an opportunistic move to use the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to cut his prison term short,” U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon Jr. said in a news release on Friday. “He is a fugitive from justice and federal law enforcement will find him and bring him to Court here in the Eastern District to answer these charges.”
Higdon, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, said Cephas had started planning his escape on March 30, and had email communication with “at least one family member” that day. Two days later, Cephas contacted another family member about his plan to escape, according to the federal complaint.
The N&O reported on April 9 that Cephas had fled the prison, about 30 miles north of Raleigh. At the time, Butner officials had described Cephas as a “non-dangerous offender” serving a sentence for drug offenses.
On Friday, Higdon said that the public should consider Cephas to be dangerous “and they should take caution if they encounter him.”
“The public should also know that anyone who knowingly harbors or assists Mr. Cephas in avoiding arrest may be in violation of federal law as well,” Higdon said.
Butner has had one of the biggest outbreaks of coronavirus in the federal prison system. As of Thursday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons had reported 66 inmates and 25 staff at Butner had tested positive. Four of those inmates have died; all of them had had other serious medical complications.
Cephas was one of nine people from Delaware arrested as part of an investigation prosecutors called “Operation Bear Trap.” Prosecutors said in a news release at the time that it involved two different drug conspiracies with overlapping participants, one to sell methamphetamine brought in from Mexico and one to traffic cocaine.
Court records show Cephas was sentenced on June 22, 2017, in U.S. District Court in Delaware to 5 1/2 years. He said in Thursday’s interview with The N&O that he spent two years in a federal prison in Lexington, Ky., before being transferred to Butner in August 2019.
The escape charge carries a fine and a prison sentence of up to five years. In the news release, Higdon urged Cephas to turn himself in.
“Should Mr. Cephas choose to turn himself in, he may do so at any law enforcement office; to the United States Marshal for the Eastern District of North Carolina (call 919-856-4153); or to the United States Marshal in any federal district in which he is currently located (call 877-WANTED-2),” Higdon said. “Otherwise, federal agents will pursue his arrest.”
Cephas told the N&O that prison conditions raised the risk for catching the virus. He said the camp was running out of soap, social distancing was impossible, and masks and gloves had not been handed out. He also said he had received no word on his requests for early release.
About a week after he fled, bureau officials said their efforts to identify and release inmates early at Butner would be elevated because of the outbreak there. Bureau officials have said they do not know how many inmates have been released or identified for release.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s criteria for early release under the federal stimulus law, known as the CARES Act, includes the inmate’s age and vulnerability to the virus, the security level of the inmate and whether the inmate has a history of good behavior in prison.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 3:03 PM.