Inmate who walked away from work detail charged with escape

Deshawn Phillips, 31.
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Miller County prosecutors have formally charged an Arkansas prison inmate who walked away from a work release job in August.

Five hours of freedom could mean an additional three to 10 years behind bars for Torey Deshawn Phillips, 31. Phillips was working at Mr. Speedy Car Care Center in Texarkana Aug. 18 when he clocked out for lunch and headed out of town.

According to a probable cause affidavit, investigators were able to find Phillips hiding in a house in his home town of Hope, Ark., hours after he escaped by monitoring phone he made to his mother. Phillips told his mom he planned to turn himself in the following day. But members of the Arkansas State Police and Arkansas Department of Correction Internal Affairs Unit didn’t wait. They arrested him in a house in the 800 block of Southeast Second Street that day.

Phillips was serving time for several Hempstead County, Ark., drug convictions at the time of his escape. In 2014 Phillips was sentenced to 15 years for possession of cocaine and methamphetamine and for maintaining a drug house. Phillips is no longer in a work release program. He is being held in a maximum security unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction in Tucker, Ark.

The ADC Website lists Tucker’s parole eligibility date as April 2019 but that is likely to change in light of his new charge in Miller County.

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