COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — A man has pleaded not guilty to charges that he killed a sheriff’s deputy and wounded another while escaping from an Iowa jail.
Online court records say 24-year-old Wesley Correa-Carmenaty filed the written pleas Tuesday to charges of murder, attempted murder, escape, kidnapping and other crimes. His trial in western Iowa’s Pottawattamie County is scheduled to begin July 25.
Authorities say Correa-Carmenaty had just been sentenced on May 1 to 45 years in prison in an unrelated murder case when he managed to grab one of the deputies’ guns while being transferred to the county jail in Council Bluffs. He shot them both and used the jail van to escape.
Authorities say he was recaptured after he carjacked a woman at gunpoint and forced her to drive to Omaha, Nebraska.