Thirsty for liquor and possibly lured by a full moon, at least one inmate sneaked out of a miniumm-security prison in Folsom early Sunday (February 20, 2000), threatened three people, hijacked their car and stole booze out of a liquor store, according to Folsom city police.

After such a night, you might think a criminal would make a quick getaway. Instead, say authorities, Robert Lemos tried to sneak back into the Folsom Prison Minimum Support Facility before guards noticed he was gone.

He failed.

Prison officials say Lemos, serving five years for a previous carjacking charge, could have become a free man in December 2000. Now he is looking at five felony counts that could put him behind bars for years.

Meanwhile, police and prison investigators were trying Sunday to identify two other inmates who might have joined Lemos and been more successful in their attempt to sneak back into Folsom.

“We are all sitting around shaking our heads,” said Folsom Police Sgt. Pat Wilson. “They commit a crime, come back and let themselves be observed entering the prison. As we know, criminals are not known for their intelligence.”

Separate from the main state prison in Folsom, the Minimum Support Facility houses 375 “low-risk” inmates behind a single 15 foot-high fence. Sunday’s incident wasn’t the first time that one of them escaped.

Since 1995, at least three others have wandered out, only to be apprehended later. Prison officials couldn’t provide precise numbers Sunday but said Lemos’ escape was the first in memory that led to a reported crime.

Prison officials say the facility accepts only first-time offenders who have fewer than two years left on their sentences, have no history of sex offenses and have demonstrated good behavior.

Lemos and all the other inmates were accounted for at 1:00 a.m. Sunday, said Lt. Michele Taylor, spokeswoman for the prison.

Soon after that, Lemos and possibly two other inmates sneaked out of their dorms, scaled the fence and walked a quarter-mile to Observation Point, part of a popular state park on Folsom Lake, authorities said.

There, Lemos and two other men encountered Travis Gruber, Ryan Fleming, 20, and Fleming’s 17 year-old girlfriend, who were hanging out at the park, throwing firecrackers into the lake.

According to Fleming, the three men bummed some cigarettes and seemed nice at first. Minutes later, one of them hit Fleming on the head and threatened to pull out a gun and knife.

One of the men stayed with Gruber while Lemos and the other man forced Fleming and his girlfriend to drive them to a liquor store on Main Avenue in Orangevale, Fleming recalled. Lemos then threw a cinder block through the window, an act captured by the store’s security cameras, police said.

To Fleming’s amazement, Lemos returned with only a package of cigarette lighters and four bottles of liquor. The two men then instructed him to drive back to Observation Point.

At the time, Fleming says, he realized the three men - all dressed in prison garb - “weren’t real bright.”

Even so, he said, “We were really scared. . . In the car, they kept acting like they were going to explode. Every time that happened, I told them I was going to throw up and then they seemed to calm down.”

According to Fleming and Folsom police, the three men were last seen walking down a service road toward the minimum-security prison about 2 a.m.

Fleming called 911 about 2:10 a.m. and reported the burglary and carjacking to Folsom police.

At 2:55, guards found Lemos missing from his bed. Ten minutes later, they found the 29 year-old inmate inside the prison grounds. Then they counted the rest of the inmates and found no one missing, according to Taylor.

They also found a bottle of rum, a bottle of gin and two bottles of vodka - one empty - in some grass near the fence, Wilson said. Those bottles matched the ones taken from the liquor store, he said.

Investigators spent most of Sunday trying to sort out whether Lemos’ partners were inmates. Through a series of lineups in the prison, Folsom police were convinced they had identified his two cohorts.

On Sunday afternoon, however, prison officials still were theorizing that people outside the prison might have helped Lemos. The inmate faces five felony counts - robbery , burglary, kidnapping, car theft and escape.

Prison officials believe Lemos was planning a party, but Fleming questions why it had to come at his expense.

“It doesn’t make any sense, said Fleming. “Why would anyone so close to leaving prison do something like that?”

Story courtesy of Stuart Leavenworth and the Sacramento Bee.