Fugitive back in custody in Port Angeles after escape from Clallam County jail

Law enforcement officers are searching for Anthony Joshua Freitas

Law enforcement officers are searching for Anthony Joshua Freitas

PORT ANGELES — A man who escaped from Clallam County jail Saturday was back in custody by Sunday evening.

Anthony Joshua Freitas, 25, of Port Angeles was in the custody of the Port Angeles Police Department and was on his way back to jail Sunday evening, said Sgt. Luke Brown, a Clallam County Sheriff’s Office corrections supervisor at the jail.

City police took Freitas into custody at 4:30 p.m. Sunday after receiving an anonymous tip that Freitas was at a location on Caroline Street, Brown said.

Freitas was arrested and booked on an additional charge of second degree escape, a class C felony, and will be arraigned in Superior Court today, he said.

Sheriff’s officials said Freitas does not have a violent history and was being held at the jail on $5,000 bond for investigation of taking a motor vehicle without the owner’s permission and third-degree malicious mischief, both of which are nonviolent property crimes.

Freitas had escaped Saturday from the kitchen of the jail. Kitchen staff reported Freitas’ absence to corrections deputies at about 3 p.m. Saturday.

He had last been seen about 15 minutes earlier, officials said.

Details on how Freitas was able to escape were not available Sunday.

The jail was placed into lockdown for a complete search of the inmates’ work area and the housing unit to which Freitas was assigned.

At about 3:05 p.m., a second search confirmed the inmate was no longer inside the facility.

A search of the area using officers on foot and a tracking dog was unsuccessful.

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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.

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