After a weeklong manhunt, a dangerous convicted felon who walked away from a halfway house in Orange County was captured in Mexico.
The man was identified as Ike Souzer, 20, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
At the time of his escape, authorities said Souzer was considered “extremely dangerous and violent” and should not be approached.
On March 20, Souzer was released from custody after pleading guilty to felony vandalism. He was sentenced to 90 days in county jail and placed on probation for two years afterward.
He checked into a halfway house that day, called Project Kinship in Santa Ana, but left the premises and never returned. He did not notify his probation officer of where he may have been headed.
On March 27, Souzer was located in Rosarito, Mexico where he was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials.
When he was initially released to the halfway house on vandalism charges, prosecutors had “strongly objected to the 90-day credit time served sentence” due to Souzer’s criminal history.
Souzer had stabbed his mother to death when he was 13 years old, attacked three correctional officers, and manufactured a shank while being housed at the Orange County Jail, according to the DA’s office.
In 2021, over prosecutors’ objections, O.C. Superior Court Judge Gary Pohlson reduced felony charges to misdemeanors and gave Souzer 160 days of credit time served for attacking three correctional officers while he was incarcerated.
In October 2023, prosecutors objected to a three-year split sentence after Souzer was convicted of making and possessing a shank in jail.
Instead of the three years in custody sentence prosecutors argued for, Souzer was sentenced to one year of custody time and two years of supervised release. With 50 percent good time/work time credit, he was released from custody three months later in January 2024.
Just days after his release, Souzer was arrested by the Orange Police Department for spray painting graffiti on an underpass underneath the 55 freeway while giving officers a false name.
Souzer had previously walked away from Project Kinship in April 2022, after being released on electronic monitoring from jail.
After a countywide manhunt during that incident, he was eventually located and arrested at a homeless encampment in Anaheim.
“My prosecutors have spent years and years trying to do everything they can to keep this violent criminal behind bars, and at every turn, the very judges who are elected to protect public safety have done little to do so and instead have given him break after break after break,” said O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “This is not someone who deserves a break; he has turned every opportunity to turn over a new leaf into a new opportunity to break the law and defy law enforcement. He did not simply walk away and forget to check in with his probation officer. The second he was out of custody he set a plan in motion to flee to a foreign country in yet another attempt to escape the consequences of his actions.”