Three and a half years have been tacked on to a 45-year-old Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail inmate’s sentence for attempting to escape the jail two years ago.
Kendell Omar Serrette, of Williamsburg, was sentenced Wednesday to three years and six months for assaulting a correctional officer with a homemade “shank” while escaping the jail with an 18-year-old inmate, according to documents from the Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court.
After his release, Serrette will be on supervised probation for ten years. His sentence totals 15 years, all of which is suspended except three and a half years active time.
Serrette was convicted June 20 of assaulting a law enforcement officer, possessing a deadly weapon as a prisoner and possessing a tool to aid escape from jail. At the time of the assault conviction, prosecutors also dropped two charges of prisoner escape and malicious wounding.
Court documents state Serrette and another inmate, now 20-year-old Raekwon Jones, attempted to escape the jail on Aug. 29, 2015. At the time of the escape, Serrette was serving two years for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, records show.
During the jailbreak, Serrette and Jones assaulted a 45-year-old correctional officer with a toothbrush sharpened into a weapon. The officer sustained minor puncture wounds to his arm.
“He initially grabbed the officer and held the shank to his throat demanding his keys. The correctional officer was able to defend himself until other correctional officers came to his aid,” according to a Sept. 8, 2015 news release from James City County Police.
After the incident, Serrette told officers there were “problems with his family” and he was “trying to get out.” Investigators also found a handwritten map of the jail in Jones’ cell during a post-incident search, the release said.
Serrette has previously been convicted of 15 other crimes, including forgery, larceny, possession of a firearm by a felon and driving offenses, according to court records.
For his role in the jailbreak, Jones pleaded guilty March 17, 2016 to one count of attempted escape and one count of assaulting a correctional officer. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison with all but eight months suspended.
WYDaily archives were used in this article.
Fearing may be reached at [email protected].
