Edition: U.S. / Global

Update; 2 Convicts Who Escaped Plead Guilty in Connecticut

Published: November 22, 1992

Two convicts who cut their way out of a maximum-security prison in Connecticut last New Year's Eve, setting off a three-state manhunt that ended in the parking lot of a New Jersey shopping mall, have pleaded guilty to escape charges as their trial was about to begin.

Frank Vandever and Ronald Rutan entered their pleas on Wednesday in State Superior Court in Vernon, Conn., just as a jury was about to be selected.

In return for their pleas, escape conspiracy charges against the men were dropped. An assistant state's attorney, Patricia Swords, said the state will ask that each be sentenced to the maximum of 10 years in prison. Sentencing is set for Jan. 14, 1993.

Mr. Vandever, 38 years old, a former stockbroker from Guilford, Conn., is serving a life sentence for killing a client who discovered he was looting his account. Mr. Rutan, 34, is serving a 19-year sentence for a string of burglaries in the area around Old Saybrook, Conn.

The men were working in the kitchen of the Somers State Prison when they sawed through barred windows and then cut their way through two perimeter fences without triggering electronic alarms. They fled to nearby Enfield, where they tied up a man and his wife and fled in the couple's Jeep.

Mr. Rutan was arrested on Jan. 16 at a Spring Valley, N.Y., motel. Mr. Vandever, who had been at the motel but eluded authorities, was captured two days later at the Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J.