Three-Strikes Defendant Escapes From Santa Monica Courthouse

A three-strikes defendant escaped from a secured area at the Santa Monica Courthouse during a recess in his trial Wednesday, dashing by stunned jurors and police officers in a hallway before disappearing outside, authorities said.

Santa Monica police and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were searching for George Lawrence Allen, 49, after he escaped about 11:30 a.m. during a break in jury selection.

Allen was being held in lieu of $850,000 bail and faced multiple robbery charges after his arrest in April 1995, said Sgt. Robert Stoneman, a sheriff’s department spokesman.

Sheriff’s deputies were uncertain how Allen made his way out of a secured area behind the second-floor courtroom, where he was being kept during a recess.

Stoneman said Allen managed to open the holding area’s metal self-locking door and escaped through an adjacent empty courtroom before running down a hallway filled with his own jurors and police officers waiting to testify in another case.

One of the jurors recognized Allen--who was wearing street clothes at the time, including a light-colored shirt, dark pants and tennis shoes--and reported his escape to deputies, Stoneman said.

Police were scouring the area, including abandoned buildings and Allen’s apartment on Pico Boulevard, about two blocks from the courthouse. Allen has three felony robbery convictions and another for discharging a firearm, Stoneman said.

He is the second defendant to escape from a holding area at the Santa Monica Courthouse in just over a year. In July 1995, a convicted carjacker facing two 25-year-to-life prison terms kicked a hole in a first-floor holding area and scurried through the building’s duct system for 28 hours before he was caught.

Following that incident, court officials installed supposedly escape-proof liners in the building.