DENVER — The Denver District Attorney filed charges Wednesday against a Denver Sheriff’s deputy who allegedly helped an inmate escape from the downtown jail last week.
Matthew Andrews is charged with one count of aiding escape, said DA spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough.
Andrews was working at the detention center on April 7 and “assisted [Felix] Trujillo, who was being held as an inmate, to escape from custody,” Kimbrough said.
He was released from custody on a $10,000 bond and will appear in court again on April 22.
Trujillo, a longtime criminal who was being held for aggravated robbery, turned himself in three days after his escape.
According to his arrest affidavit, Andrews told co-workers that someone had threatened to kill him and his family if he did not cooperate with Trujillo’s plan to escape.
According to the affidavit, surveillance video showed Andrews walking out of the jail with Turjillo around 7 p.m. Trujillo was wearing a Denver Sheriff’s baseball hat and winter jacket.
Andrews returned to the jail and told coworkers that he’d driven Trujillo to 84th Avenue and Washington Street in Thornton, where he let him go. He told other officers that there was a “contract” on his family and he had no choice, the affidavit stated. He would not say who had threatened him.
Investigators found Trujillo had hidden out at a friend’s mother’s house on Sunday night. The woman, 48-year-old Marilyn Reeves, told police she was afraid but helped Trujillo because “he was her son’s best friend.”
Reeves was arrested April 10.
Trujillo’s friend, whose name has not been released, told police Trujillo had given him a list of phone numbers belonging to different women. He was supposed to call those numbers in order to find where to meet Trujillo later on.
Police believe Reeves rented Trujillo a hotel room near 120th Avenue and I-25 and allowed her son to use her car to meet Trujillo at a Perkins restaurant. She was also arrested Wednesday.