A Perry County grand jury has indicted the four inmates who escaped the Perry County Correctional PREP Center in Uniontown on May 30, along with the Selma woman accused of picking them up outside the facility and hiding them at her apartment, according to Perry County Circuit Court records.
The indictments were returned Aug. 25 during the grand jury’s August term and filed in circuit court Sept. 11. Marquavious Billingsley, 24, of Selma; Kevin Gunn, 19, of Selma; Johnny Dave Harris Bush Jr., 30, of Anniston; and Jaden Christopher Maxwell, 21, of Valley Grande are each charged with one count of escape in the first degree, a Class B felony.
Each of the four indictments charges that the man escaped or attempted to escape from the facility, identified in the indictments as the Perry County Correctional Facility, and that in the course of the escape he used physical force on a correctional officer, overpowering her and placing his hands on her in order to get away.
Keivona Shabrion Lewis, 29, of Selma is charged with permitting or facilitating escape in the first degree, a Class C felony, and four counts of hindering prosecution in the first degree, also a Class C felony, one count for each of the four men. The indictment charges that Lewis intentionally aided or attempted to aid the four in escaping from a penal facility, and that she hindered the apprehension and prosecution of each man by transporting him from the facility to her apartment in Selma, where he changed clothes and hid from law enforcement. Hindering prosecution in the first degree applies when the person assisted is accused of conduct amounting to murder or a Class A or B felony.
Lewis was arrested May 30, the day of the escape, and was released July 16 after bond was set at $60,000, according to court records dated Sept. 11. The Times-Standard-Herald reported in July that she was being held without bond.
Bond for Bush and Maxwell was set at $100,000 cash each, court records show. The records list the arrest date on the Perry County escape charge as June 1 for Maxwell, who surrendered the night of May 31, and June 2 for Bush, who was arrested May 31 in Midfield during a traffic stop.
No bond amount was listed for Billingsley or Gunn as of Sept. 11; the records list June 25 as their arrest date on the escape charges. The two were captured June 24 after a standoff at a Selma apartment complex, ending a search that had lasted nearly a month. As of Sept. 11, circuit court records listed all four men as jailed.
The district court complaints in the five cases were sworn by a Dallas County Sheriff’s Office commander, court records indicate. As the Times-Standard-Herald reported in June, the complaints alleged that the four staged a medical emergency inside the facility about 1:29 a.m. May 30, forced their way out and left in a vehicle Lewis had waiting outside. Billingsley, Gunn and Maxwell were Dallas County jail inmates housed at the state facility under an arrangement that dates to the closing of the Dallas County Jail after the January 2023 tornado in Selma.
Arraignments are set for Oct. 16 for Billingsley, Bush and Lewis and for Oct. 28 for Gunn and Maxwell, court records show.
Escape in the first degree is a Class B felony, punishable upon conviction by two to 20 years in prison. Each of the Class C felony counts against Lewis carries one year and one day to 10 years.
All persons arrested or charged with a crime are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
