WESTMINSTER, California – A California taxi driver who was kidnapped and held hostage for a week by three prison inmates is suing Orange County and its Sheriff’s Department.

The independent taxi driver, Long Hoang Ma, said he answered a call to pick up three passengers in his Honda on the night of January 22. He found out later that the three men had escaped from the county-operated Central Men’s Jail in the city of Santa Ana.

All three men were eventually recaptured.

Ma’s attorney, Hoang Huy Tu, said on Monday that the taxi driver was taken by force and held at gunpoint for several days.

He said Ma, now 72, was wrongly deprived his portion of the county’s reward money promised to those who helped lead to the re-arrests of Bac Duong, Hossein Nayeri and Jonathan Tieu.

The $150,000 was split by four others: a San Francisco homeless man who spotted the van the men were in at one point, a man who said the inmates stole his van while they were on the run, and two Target employees who recognized the fugitives from surveillance footage.

Ma’s lawsuit asks for $US50,000 ($A69,000) in reward money and claims Ma suffered damages of at least $US2 million, the Orange County Register reports.

The suit also says the jail facilities were not properly equipped to house the three “very dangerous” men.

Tu said Ma is emotionally distressed, has anxiety and difficulty working.

 

– with other agencies