Department of Justice
For Immediate Release
Jefferson County Man Gets Nearly 5 Years for Jail Escape, Gun Charge
ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Ronnie L. White on Tuesday sentenced a man who escaped from the St. Ann jail while awaiting trial on a gun charge to four years and nine months in prison.
Jason W. Woolbright, 48, of Jefferson County, arranged for the purchase of a 1996 red Ford Mustang in June of 2021, and then had Christina Louise Deal stash it near the jail. On the night of July 9, 2021, he and two other inmates escaped through a window.
The U.S. Marshals captured all three inmates within 24 hours.
The felon in possession of a firearm charge stems from an Oct. 1, 2020 traffic stop by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Woolbright, who was on supervised release after being sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison on a 2013 drug charge, told the officer he only had prison ID, not his driver’s license. The officer also spotted a Xanax pill in the van and found a loaded Colt handgun under the driver’s seat.
Woolbright pleaded guilty March 9 to the escape charge and a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Deal, 47, pleaded guilty in April to a charge of assisting an escape and is scheduled to be sentenced in August.
The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Marshals Service and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle T. Bateman prosecuted the case.
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