{"id":94586,"date":"2025-12-24T06:45:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/94586\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T06:45:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T06:45:07","slug":"3-inmates-who-busted-out-of-georgia-jail-allegedly-held-lyft-driver-hostage-during-escape-to-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/94586\/","title":{"rendered":"3 inmates who busted out of Georgia jail allegedly held Lyft driver hostage during escape to Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

A trio of inmates who busted out of a Georgia county jail allegedly held an unsuspecting Lyft driver hostage and commandeered her car \u2014 forcing her to tag along on their escape to Florida, where they were finally apprehended.<\/p>\n

Yusuf Minor, 31; Noad Yohannes, 25; and accused killer Stevenson Charles, 24, broke out of the DeKalb County Jail <\/a>early Monday morning, though their escape wasn\u2019t noticed until a routine security check that day, according to the DeKalb County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Stevenson Charles, 24, Yusuf Minor, 31, and Noad Yohannes, 25, broke out of the DeKalb County Jail early Monday morning.<\/p>\n

The three men were picked up by a car waiting near the jail and trekked to Minor\u2019s girlfriend\u2019s place, according to court documents published by Local 10<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Minor\u2019s girlfriend, whose name was not shared, allegedly ordered a Lyft ride for the escapees. <\/p>\n

The driver, an unidentified woman, drove them to the requested location in Atlanta \u2014 where the men allegedly strangled her with a rope, tied her up and forced her into the back seat of her car.<\/p>\n

The runaway inmates then took control of the Lyft driver\u2019s car while she was trussed up in the back, fearing for her life as they lobbed repeated threats at her. She tried, and failed, to escape during a pitstop in Florida, and after that, the men\u2019s threats became more violent, according to the documents.<\/p>\n

The three inmates allegedly kidnapped a Lyft driver and drove her car to Florida. Brigitte Stelzer<\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s abductors were all in jail for violent crimes. Charles was arrested on murder charges and attempted robbery. Minor was wanted for armed robbery\u00a0and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, while Yohannes was cuffed for simple assault, arson and unlawful acts of violence in a penal institution.<\/p>\n

After a torturous, hours-long drive, the fugitives stopped in Miramar, Fla. and used the Lyft driver\u2019s credit cards to pay for a short-term rental home, authorities alleged.<\/p>\n

Authorities were able to flag the erroneous charge on the Lyft driver\u2019s card and used license plate readers to link her vehicle to the alleged kidnapping and jail break. <\/p>\n

DeKalb County Sheriff Melody Maddox said that the inmates were captured late Monday night. AP<\/p>\n

Florida police attempted to conduct a felony vehicle stop, but the escapee driving the car sped off.<\/p>\n

Charles and Yohannes, the only two in the car at the time, eventually ditched the vehicle and attempted to flee on foot. Somewhere along the way, Charles got hold of a loaded 9mm handgun, according to court documents, before he and Yohannes were caught.<\/p>\n

Police attempted to reach the kidnapped woman at the rental residence, but didn\u2019t receive a response. They eventually made contact with Minor through an open window at the abode and instructed him to exit.<\/p>\n

The inmates were booked in the Broward County Jail. AP<\/p>\n

The unscathed victim walked out first \u2014 with Minor just behind her as he surrendered to the cops, according to the documents.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you can imagine, the Lyft driver is very traumatized by this,\u201d an official said.<\/p>\n

Charles, Minor, and Yohannes were booked in the Broward County Jail and are expected to face additional charges. They are all listed on hold for the US Marshals\u2019 Office, though it\u2019s unclear if or when they\u2019ll be extradited back to Georgia. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A trio of inmates who busted out of a Georgia county jail allegedly held an unsuspecting Lyft driver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[50509,28,30,29,1853,8220,6865,13719,50510,4278],"class_list":["post-94586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-escapes","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-georgia","tag-inmates","tag-kidnappings","tag-lyft","tag-prison-break","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}