PHOENIX (AP) – A transfer to prisons outside Arizona was the only commitment made to two inmates to secure their surrender and the release of a prison guard they were holding hostage, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said Tuesday.

Ricky Wassenaar, 40, and Steven Coy, 39, overcame two officers at a Buckeye prison kitchen before dawn on Jan. 18. Wassenaar shaved and changed into an officer’s uniform and gained entry into a prison guard tower, where he overpowered two other officers.

Negotiators worked virtually around the clock to get the two corrections officers out safely without storming the three-story tower and risking a bloody clash. The inmates gave up Sunday, releasing their last captive, a female officer.

Wassenaar and Coy were taken by the federal Bureau of Prisons for transfer to state prisons in Maine and Wisconsin, respectively. Napolitano said they will be returned to Arizona temporarily for trial in the hostage incident.

“It’s best for our system to get them out of here and we did,” she said.

The out-of-state transfers were the only commitment made to the prisoners in exchange for their surrender, Napolitano said.

“There was some bartering – food for ammunition (from the tower), that sort of thing, but they got nothing out of this that we weren’t prepared to give them on day one to get them out of here,” Napolitano said.

AP-ES-02-03-04 1920EST



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