Columbia criminal defense lawyer Jack Swerling said he was “taking the necessary precautions” after learning that a former client who kidnapped and terrorized his family more than a decade ago had escaped from prison for the second time.
“Things have been quiet for the last number of years, but he did it again,” Swerling said during a phone interview July 5.
Swerling was having dinner with his family in 2002, when he said Jimmy Causey entered through the back door of his home with a gun and an accomplice. They tied up the terrified Swerlings, then ransacked their home searching for cash.
“That night I thought my family was going to be killed,” Swerling said in a prior interview. “For a long time, I had a fear both for me and my family. … I carry a pistol when I’m leaving the office late at night. I have concealed weapons permits just so those kinds of things don’t happen again.”
Several years after the kidnapping, Causey escaped from the Broad River Correctional Institution by hiding in a Dumpster that was hauled away. He was caught after three days on the lam.
The details of Causey’s most recent escape from the maximum-security Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, which is about 80 miles outside Columbia, had not been released as of press time. Causey was serving a life sentence for kidnapping and robbing Swerling and his family.
Swerling defended Causey twice in the early 1990s, when he faced charges that included burglary, larceny and fleeing police, and was able to get his sentences reduced. But testimony during Causey’s kidnapping trial indicated that he was unhappy about having to serve any prison time, according to the Associated Press.
“You don’t like the idea that the guy is out there,” Swerling said. “There’s no question about that. You just have to take the necessary precautions.”
Follow Phillip Bantz on Twitter @SCLWBantz