A 33-year-old Kona man pleaded guilty Monday for his role in a violent jailbreak almost two years ago at Hawaii Community Correctional Center in Hilo.
A 33-year-old Kona man pleaded guilty Monday for his role in a violent jailbreak almost two years ago at Hawaii Community Correctional Center in Hilo.
Ryan James Jeffries-Hamar pleaded guilty to first-degree escape, kidnapping, second-degree robbery, second-degree assault against a law enforcement officer, unlawful imprisonment, auto theft and criminal property damage, as well as second-degree escape for a previous unrelated escape from Hale Nani Correctional Facility.
He will be sentenced at 8 a.m. Jan. 12, 2015, before Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura.
“He’s looking at anywhere from 10 to 20 years,” Deputy Prosecutor Rick Damerville said Monday afternoon. “Some of these cases could be (sentenced) consecutively.”
Jeffries-Hamar and 37-year-old Jarvis Naoki Higa are accused of attacking an unarmed 63-year-old corrections officer Dec. 5, 2012, stealing his keys to the facility and then stealing the car of the facility’s law librarian, a 49-year-old woman.
According to court documents, Jeffries-Hamar told the librarian: “I won’t hurt you, just give me that keys.” Documents state the librarian, Wendy Osborne, gave Jeffries-Hamar the keys because she feared for her safety.
Osborne was unhurt in the incident but was described as “traumatized” by state Department of Public Safety Director Ted Sakai. The guard, Roberto Paulino, was treated at Hilo Medical Center and released for face and neck injuries.
At the time of the jailbreak, Higa was awaiting trial for attempted murder, for a July 18, 2012, incident in which he allegedly shot at and missed another man in a Keaukaha apartment complex parking lot. Jeffries-Hamar was incarcerated for the Aug. 14, 2012, escape from Hale Nani.
Jeffries-Hamar and Higa dumped the stolen car in the nearby Sunrise Ridge subdivision in Hilo, police said.
An islandwide manhunt ensued. Higa was arrested two days later in the remote Ka‘u community of Ocean View. Jeffries-Hamar was on the lam for eight days before being nabbed at a Hawaiian Beaches home.
Higa is scheduled for trial March 23, 2015, on the attempted murder charge and April 13 next year on charges stemming from the escape.
Both are in custody without bail at Halawa Correctional Facility on Oahu.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.