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Convicted felon arrested after escape from Cal Fire camp near Beaumont

Authorities arrested a convicted felon on Monday, who walked away from a minimum security Cal Fire camp just north of Beaumont.

Julio Cesar Lugo, 27, was last seen in his assigned dormitory at the Oak Glen Conservation Camp on August 25 around 1 a.m., according to the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation.

Agency officials said that when staff conducted an informal head count shortly before 3 a.m., Lugo was nowhere to be found.

“Staff immediately began searching the surrounding areas,” according to a CDCR statement. “Notification was immediately made to local law enforcement agencies. Within minutes, agents from the Department of Corrections’ Office of Correctional Safety were dispatched to locate and apprehend Lugo.”

The convicted felon was transferred to the camp in May after he was approved to train and join a Cal Fire inmate hand crew for wildfire season.

He was convicted in Riverside County Superior Court a month earlier of auto theft. According to court records, he was sentenced to two years and was scheduled for release in March 2019. Those records also say he has prior convictions for petty theft, possession of controlled substances and theft of public utilities.

Lugo is among more than 100 inmate-firefighters stationed at the camp, located on U.S. Forest Service land in the vicinity of Yucaipa, roughly 10 miles north of Beaumont.

On Monday, around 4:00 P.M., the Riverside Sheriff’s Department-Felony Warrant Enforcement Team (FWET) located Lugo at an address in the 1300 Block of N. Murray St., in the City of Banning.

FWET personnel, with the assistance of Banning Police Department, the Cabazon Sheriff’s Station K-9 unit, and Riverside Alternative Sentencing Program (RASP) deputies responded to the location and arrested Lugo as he tried to evade officers by running into the backyard.

Lugo was booked into the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility, in Banning.

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