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Justice Center Escape Save Email Print
Posted: 10:24 PM May 14, 2008
Last Updated: 11:07 PM May 14, 2008
Reporter: Max Seigle

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For the second time this Spring, a suspect successfully escapes from the Winnebago County Justice Center. First it was from this courtroom and on Wednesday afternoon from a holding cell. 29-year-old Christopher Potenziani of Roscoe was placed there after a combative warrant arrest at his home for a misdemanor theft. "During the course of that event, he tried to escape out a window and he was tased by one of the officer," said Dominic Iasparro with the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office. Once he was brought to the justice center, deputies handcuffed one of Potenziani's hands to a bench in the holding cell. Officers came in and out interviewing him. The trouble started when they headed out. Iasparro said at one point, one of the officers left a door open. That's when the suspect somehow removed his handcuffs, took off down a hallway and escaped out of this back door at the justice center. Authorities say Potenzianai ran away on foot, southeast of the justice center. He was caught about 4 and half miles from there Wednesday evening in the area around South Main Street and Iroquois Avenue. As the evening went on, undercover deputies talked to neighbors as part of the investigation. Authorities will also investigate what they're calling an employee mistake by leaving that door open in the holding cell. "Those detectives and officers were certainly acting in good faith trying to do their job there but the door in that holding cell is there for a purpose, it wasn't closed and should have been closed," Iasparro said. Potenziani was a passenger in a car driving near South Main Street and Iroquois Avenue when police found him. They say, unlike his initial arrest, he was cooperative when taken into custody at the Winnebago Couty Justice Center.

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