Casey McClain returns to the Warren County Jail following his preliminary hearing.

One of three men charged with conspiring to escape from the Warren County Jail had a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

Casey Charles McClain, 28, of Sheffield, is charged with conspiracy (escape), escape, a weapons possession charge, and institutional vandalism. His co-defendants in the same incident, Joshua Darryl Wightman, 30, of Warren, and Joshua Paul Morgan, 31, of Warren, were charged in July for the same offenses, with Wightman facing one additional charge of institutional vandalism. Wightman was held for court on July 12, and Morgan waived his right to a preliminary hearing according to a July 13 WTO article.

According to the affidavit of probable cause, Warren City Police were dispatched to the WCJ on June 23 for a reported attempted escape. Police met with WCJ Warden Jon Collins and Deputy Warden Rusty Barr, who showed investigating officers items that had been seized following an internal investigation of a hole in the wall of the third floor dormitory bathroom.

Barr testified Wednesday that he was contacted early on June 23 by the Sergeant on Duty that there was a hole in the wall in the third floor dormitory bathroom. He said that he conducted an internal investigation after arriving at the WCJ that morning, which included inspecting the damaged wall and items found inside the hole as well as interviewing seven of the 22 inmates who were residents of that dormitory.

Once he had gained enough information that he felt reasonably sure that a crime had been committed, he contacted City of Warren Police and handed the investigation over to Detective Tony Chimenti, Barr said Wednesday.

In addition to a work light, pieces of metal, and a two-by-four discovered inside the hole, said Barr, commissary-obtained bags that originally held coffee had been used to ferment fruit into a homemade “hooch.”

All of the items with the exception of the hooch had been found and/or altered once access had been gained to the inside of the wall, Barr said. Barr said that interviews with fellow inmates implicated McClain as well as Wightman and Morgan, who was one of those inmates interviewed.