Inmate's Quick Escape From Pinellas Jail Prompts Sheriff's Review

CLEARWATER, FL — It took just 26 seconds for an inmate to scale the wall of the Pinellas County Jail, slip through the razor wire along the top and escape from the recreation yard.

However, freedom was fleeting for 25-year-old Cody Jondreau. He was back in custody within 10 minutes and is now awaiting extradition to Ohio on charges of murder, felonious assault and endangering children in connection with the death of his 9-week-old son.

During a news conference Thursday, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said there hasn't been an escape from the Pinellas County Jail, 14400 49th St. N., Clearwater, in 25 years and said he plans to make sure it doesn't happen again.

"It's troubling; it's concerning, and we'll take a look at it. I can't think of a time anything like this has happened in 25 years," Gualtieri said. "It's very unusual. It was the perfect storm. He timed everything just right."

Jondreau was arrested on May 11 in Polk County on a warrant issued in September 2020 in Williams County, Ohio, after the death of his son was ruled a homicide.

Jondreau was transferred to the Pinellas County Jail by the United States Marshals Service May 28 to await transportation back to Ohio. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office has a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to house federal inmates, and Jondreau was one of about 300 federal inmates at the Pinellas County Jail at the time of the escape.

Gualtieri said Jondreau was housed in the maximum security wing of the jail on Wednesday when he and fellow inmates were released into the recreation yard at about 10 a.m. The inmates are watched by an armed detention deputy from a catwalk above the recreation yard. Gualtieri said the inmates indicated to the deputy that they wanted to go back inside. The deputy left the catwalk and walked into the tower of the jail to call his fellow detention deputies and notify them that the inmates were ready to go back into the jail.

As soon as the deputy walked into the tower, Gualtieri said Jondreau ran to a door in the wall of the recreation yard. He used the door handle, awning above the door and a conduit to hoist himself to the top of the wall. He then placed his inmate-issued orange shirt over the razor wire along the top of the wall, so he could climb over the top of it.

Gualtieri said Jondreau ran across the roof of the jail and jumped 14 feet to the ground. Deputies nearly caught him when he scaled a second 11-foot-tall fence topped with razor wire that separates the jail from the county courthouse.

But Jondreau managed to elude them. He jumped to the ground and fell on the courthouse side of the fence. Deputies tried to subdue him with a taser, but he managed to get up and run to the parking lot of Golf Car Systems, 5325 140th Ave. N., Clearwater, where deputies used a taser on him a second time before taking him into custody.

"He was never out of sight," Gualtieri said. "He was taken into custody within 10 minutes and there was never any danger to the public."

Jondreau was taken to the hospital where he was treated for a broken heel sustained during one of the leaps from the fencing and received 80 sutures for lacerations from the razor wire.

A surveillance video followed his 26-second escape over the recreation yard wall as the other inmates continued shooting hoops.

"He said the decision to run was spontaneous on his part," Gualtieri said. "He said he didn't like being in jail and didn't want to go back to Ohio."

Gualtieri said Jondreau is now back in the maximum security wing. Gualtieri isn't sure when the inmate will be transported back to Ohio, but noted that Jondreau will not be visiting the recreation yard again.

In the meantime, the sheriff said his office will review the escape and how it was handled.

"We'll be looking at all of our procedures and practices to see if everything was done properly and make sure it doesn't happen again," said Gualtieri.