CROWN POINT, Ind. (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The Lake County, Indiana government sent a bill to a Wisconsin prisoner transport company whose driver is alleged to have been negligent when a prisoner escaped in Gary in December.
Lake County commissioners sent a letter to REDI Transports, based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, demanding payment of more than $30,000 for expenses incurred during the two-week manhunt and recapture of Leon Taylor, as well as repayment of the company's original charge to transport Taylor to Lake County from Texas.
The letter identifies the following costs: Lake County Sheriff's Department, $25,684.58; Lake County Prosecutor, $1,038.53; Gary Police Department, $884.88; and amount previously paid to REDI Transports, $3,150 — a grand total of $30,757.99.
County commissioners wrote in the letter there is "very little doubt," based on visual evidence and the inconsistent statements of the transport officer, that REDI Transports and its employee were "grossly negligent" in transporting Taylor to Lake County.
Leon Taylor was arrested Dec. 2 in Texas in connection with a murder in East Chicago. Taylor also is a suspect in five armed robberies spanning Northwest Indiana.
He was picked up from O'Hare International Airport and was to be transported to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana. Taylor was supposed to be locked into a belly chain with handcuffs and a leg brace while REDI Transports' custody.
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The REDI Transports driver stopped at a McDonald's drive-thru in Gary, before heading to the jail in Crown Point; and the prisoner was seen on surveillance video opening the back door of the van and running away.
That contradicted what the driver had told police.
Taylor was captured two weeks later.