Woman In ‘94 Escape Gets New Sentence

The only inmate to escape from the state women’s prison has been sentenced to one to five additional years in prison.

Sixth District Judge Randy Smith said Monday that the sentence would have been five years fixed if Sharon Jorgenson had not behaved herself while she was on the run for 2-1/2 years.

Smith said he was, in a sense, rewarding Jorgenson for good behavior.

Jorgenson, 45, had only been at the prison a few weeks in June 1994 when she cut the security chain on a 6-foot ladder and used it to scale a 12-foot security fence.

She was captured last March in Georgia and returned to Pocatello.

At the time she escaped, Jorgenson was serving time in prison for two counts of forgery and a previous escape. She escaped from the Department of Correction work center in Boise on Sept. 1, 1993, and was recaptured Oct. 5, 1993.

Jorgenson still has about five years of prison time to serve for her previous crimes in addition to the new sentence, Boise defense attorney Howard Belodoff told Smith.