Girlfriends face jail in alleged prison escape try

By Matt Pordum

Thursday, March 17, 2005 | 10:57 a.m.

Two inmates' alleged second escape attempt could lead to their girlfriends going to prison -- again.

Danielle Tito and Michelle Garoian are both scheduled for revocation of probation hearings in the coming weeks for allegedly trying to help their respective boyfriends, Jack McLaughlin and Joseph Antonetti, escape -- for the second time in two years.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo said McLaughlin and Antonetti's plan was to slip out of their shackles and jump the guards as they were let out of the High Desert State Prison prisoner transport van upon arriving at the District Court prisoner entrance at Bridger Avenue and Casino Center Boulevard.

Through letters and phone calls to Tito and Garoian, they had arranged to have a getaway driver named "Tara" standing by with fake identification for the pair, authorities allege.

Although both inmates succeeded in getting out of their cuffs, the driver stopped at the Clark County Detention Center instead, and McLaughlin and Antonetti decided to put their cuffs back on and try the plan out at a future date.

DiGiacomo said the escape plan may have never been discovered if not for an inmate turned "snitch" who was riding down from High Desert with McLaughlin and Antonetti.

That inmate told authorities what he had seen and heard and that led to a review of McLaughlin and Antonetti's mail and telephone calls, in which the plan had been discussed by the two inmates and Tito and Garoian, according to DiGiacomo.

Although the prosecutor said the attorney general's office would ultimately decide if McLaughlin and Antonetti will be charged for allegedly attempting to escape, both Tito and Garoian are now subject to prison time pending separate revocation of probation hearings.

District Judge Lee Gates had given Tito and Garoian each a suspended prison sentence of 4 to 10 years and placed them on probation after they pleaded guilty to one count each of aiding a prisoner in attempt to escape for trying to help McLaughlin and Antonetti escape from the Clark County Detention Center in September 2003.

As a condition of probation neither were to have any contact with McLaughlin or Antonetti and pending the results of their respective revocation hearings both could now serve four to 10 years in prison.

Tito is scheduled for a status check before Gates on March 23 at which time a date for her revocation hearing is expected to be set. A court date for Garoian has yet to be scheduled.

In rejecting a bail motion made by Tito's attorney, Thomas Pitaro, Gates said there was no way he was releasing Tito "especially with what's happened lately with dangerous criminals doing what they're doing."

Gates was referring to alleged rapist Brian Nichols, who was accused of overpowering a corrections officer on Friday and using her gun to kill a judge, court reporter and a deputy at a courthouse in Georgia.

On Sept. 17, 2003, McLaughlin and Antonetti, with the help of two other inmates, John Knecht and Charles Smith, broke the glass out of Knecht's ninth-floor cell window and lowered a makeshift rope made out of sheets to the ground.

There Garoian and Tito attached hacksaw blades, gloves and rope to the sheet. The inmates then lifted the tools back to the cell where the hacksaw blades were used to cut through the metal bars in order to escape through the window.

DiGiacomo said authorities also discovered the conspiracy of McLaughlin and Antonetti to commit murder against Godown through jailhouse conversations between McLaughlin and Tito.

McLaughlin and Antonetti face charges of attempted escape, possession by a prisoner of tools to escape, and conspiracy to commit murder, and were on their way for a hearing on the case when they were planning to escape last month.

Antonetti is already serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Mary Amina, 20, the attempted murder of her boyfriend Danny Stewart, 30, and the attempted murder of his former roommate, 34-year-old Suzanne Smith.

McLaughlin is currently serving prison time for attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon.