Pot Grower Pleads Guilty To Kent Jail Escape

A Boeing engineer who became a marijuana grower has become the third of three federal prisoners to plead guilty to charges of escaping from the Kent City Jail.

Martin J. Macauley, 35, pleaded guilty Thursday to charges of escape and of possessing money from a bank robbery that another escapee committed in Salt Lake City while the three were on the run.

When he is sentenced Aug. 21 by U.S. District Judge Carolyn Dimmick, Macauley also will be sentenced on the marijuana-growing charges to which he pleaded guilty before the March 10 escape.

Another escapee, Gerald Zachow, 44, pleaded guilty last week to robbing three banks last year in Renton, Tacoma and Everett. Zachow was on parole for two 1985 bank robberies during those three holdups.

He also pleaded guilty to robbing a bank in Salt Lake City on March 21, in which he took more than $30,000.

Zachow also pleaded guilty to a firearm charge and to the escape, in which he, Macauley and Anatoli A. Federov, 38, cut their way out of the jail with a blow torch with the help of outside accomplices.

Macauley was captured April 30 in Springfield, Ore. He told U.S. Magistrate John Weinberg he didn’t know Zachow was going to rob the Salt Lake City bank, but accepted money from Zachow knowing it had been stolen.

Zachow was captured last month near Loveland, Colo.

Federov, a Russian immigrant, was captured April 2 in Southern California. He and two other Russians were acquitted of extortion charges by a federal jury in Seattle recently, but Federov faces a prison sentence after pleading guilty to the escape.

Three accomplices who earlier pleaded guilty to aiding in the breakout also are awaiting sentencing.