HERNANDO, Miss. (AP) – A former employee of a Mississippi prison has been arrested and charged in the June escape of Joshua Zimmerman, an inmate who fled to Chicago and was captured there last week after a 15-hour standoff with police at a restaurant just steps away from the Democratic National Convention.
Ronnie Hunt was charged with transferring items useful in the escape of a prisoner, Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Bailey Martin said Tuesday. Martin said “additional costs are likely.” She did not respond to a question about whether Hunt is represented by an attorney.
The DeSoto County Sheriff’s Department said Hunt, 32, has been fired from his job as a deputy jailer. WREG TV reported. He was being held about an hour’s drive away at the jail in Lafayette County, Mississippi.
The U.S. Marshals Service said Zimmerman escaped June 14 from the DeSoto County Courthouse in Hernando, Mississippi, where he was being held on charges of attempted murder and armed robbery. He was also awaiting extradition to Houston, where he faces murder charges, the Marshals Service said.
Investigators said last week they believe Zimmerman worked at the seafood restaurant where he was arrested. The restaurant is located about a half mile from the United Center, where the political convention was held. The Marshals Service said there was “no connection or threat to the event or those attending.”
Zimmerman wore street clothes, not prison overalls, when he escaped in Mississippi. A screenshot of courthouse security video showed him wearing khaki pants and a white shirt, without handcuffs.
According to court records in Harris County, Texas, Zimmerman is accused of fatally shooting a woman, Keyanna Mercer, at a Houston motel on September 2, 2023. The two were asked to leave the motel after multiple complaints of fighting and then staff members checked the room to see if they had left. They found Mercer’s body with a gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Court records also show that Zimmerman was arrested in Connecticut in 2022 on charges of sexual assault. He pleaded not guilty and was released on a $200,000 bond, but a warrant was later issued for his rearrest.
DeSoto County Sheriff Thomas E. Tuggle II told WREG-TV after Zimmerman’s escape: “The idea that he had help is false. The idea that he had an extra set of clothes is incorrect. This is a career criminal. He knew what he was doing.”
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