Escape case nets another deal

By Barry Porterfield
Staff Writer

June 27, 2008 10:43 am

— Yet another deal has been struck in the case of a failed escape attempt from Garvin County’s jail nearly a year ago.
This time prosecutors came to an agreement with Kenneth Ray Preast, 26, of Wynnewood during a recent hearing in Garvin County District Court.
Preast becomes the fourth of five inmates, each formally charged with trying to force their way out of a local jail, who agreed to a plea deal.
The five inmates were accused of using broken pieces of metal from a vent in a jail cell to chisel away at the welds behind a toilet in an attempt to escape through a wall last August.
The move proved unsuccessful as each later received a felony count of attempting to escape.
Plea bargains for three of the defendants came earlier this year. The first was in February while two others were finalized in April.
DeWayne Deone Austin, 22, of Pauls Valley is the only suspect with no closure in this case.
A warrant for Austin’s arrest was issued in April when he failed to appear at a court appearance in Garvin County District Court.
As for Preast, his guilty plea resulted in a prison sentence of 3 1/2 years with all of that time suspended except for the first 60 days.
Preast was given credit for time already served and ordered to pay restitution and fines. He was given a two-year period to be supervised through the district attorney’s office.
The deal for Preast comes two months after he was charged in the escape attempt.
Court records show that on Aug. 9 a detention officer in the jail found several metal pieces during a routine cell check.
The following day deputies learned the objects were meant for an escape attempt and not a stabbing.
Inmates later described how they filed the pieces to a sharp point as a way of using them to chisel away at the welds behind a toilet.
Once the metal was filed down the inmates are alleged to have started working in shifts.
After chiseling through the welds the inmates were able to pull the toilet away from the cell wall.
Reports show they weren’t able to pull the fixture far enough away to get themselves between the toilet and wall.