3 caught with prison escapee face charges of helping him

Three people found inside a Bucks County motel with escaped prisoner Oscar Alvarado face felony charges of hindering apprehension and conspiracy, while Alvarado has been slapped with an escape charge, authorities said yesterday.

The three are Kamilah Alvarado, 22, Alvarado's sister, of Philip Street near Ontario, in North Philadelphia; Dean Ortiz, 33, the sister's boyfriend, of 7th Street near Butler, in Hunting Park; and Crysta Otto, 27, a woman with whom Alvarado previously had a relationship, of Barnett Street near Erdrick, in Mayfair, police said yesterday.

Alvarado, 27, accused of murdering a woman in October 2008, escaped from the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, on State Road in Northeast Philadelphia, on Thanksgiving.

He was captured Monday by U.S. marshals in a room at the Neshaminy Inn, on Old Lincoln Highway near Route 1, in Trevose - about 11 miles from the prison.

After being questioned at Northeast Detectives, Alvarado, also of Philip Street near Ontario, was locked up again yesterday afternoon at CFCF, but this time in the administrative-segregation unit, which is the "most secure section of the Philadelphia prison system," prison spokesman Bob Eskind said.

In that unit Alvarado is locked up 22 hours a day and has no cell mate, Eskind said. He is let out for about two hours a day to shower and exercise.

Jim Burke, supervisor of the U.S. Marshals Service's Fugitive Task Force, said Alvarado was believed to have taken a train to New York's Penn Station the Friday after Thanksgiving from Philly's 30th Street Station.

"We do believe he came back into" Philly, Burke said yesterday, declining to elaborate. He said the Marshals Service determined on Monday that Alvarado was at the Neshaminy Inn.

Burke said that marshals knocked on a motel-room door, a woman answered, and Alvarado was found "hiding in the bathroom. He didn't put up any physical resistance," Burke said.

Police Capt. John McGinnis, of Northeast Detectives, said yesterday that Otto was paying for the motel room.

"He has a history of using females," McGinnis said of Alvarado.

McGinnis said that the investigation into how Alvarado escaped from CFCF is ongoing. McGinnis expects more people to be arrested.

Philadelphia Prison Commissioner Louis Giorla has said Alvarado slipped away sometime between 3 and 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving after having obtained an unauthorized pass to go to the prison's visiting area - a large, open room in which inmates chat with visitors. Alvarado did not have a visitor sign in to see him that day.

Eskind confirmed last week that the prison has reassigned eight correctional officers who "were at some point in the path" that Alvarado would have walked from his cell in the general-population section of the prison to the visiting area. The reassignment was a routine measure, Eskind said, adding that "disciplinary action could be forthcoming" against one or more officers.

Eskind said Giorla did not want to give further details of the prison's investigation into the escape, because "we don't think at this moment that we want to issue a primer on how to break out of jail. The other issue is, to the best of my knowledge, the police investigation is still open and we don't want to compromise any of that."

McGinnis said yesterday that police believe that Alvarado "was driven in a vehicle" with more than one person inside when he escaped from the prison on Thanksgiving. The three people who were arrested with Alvarado in the Neshaminy Inn were not in the escape vehicle, McGinnis said.

Alvarado's escape was the first from the prison since it opened in 1995. Alvarado is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Municipal Court on the escape charge next Wednesday.