Escape from Halfway House Results in Additional Time in Federal Prison

A Cedar Rapids man who escaped from a residential reentry center where he was ordered by a federal court was sentenced today to more than 2 years in federal prison.

Caleb Lee Olson, age 45, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after a March 3, 2020 guilty plea to one count of escape from federal custody.  In a plea agreement, Olson admitted he was originally sentenced to 151 months’ imprisonment for drug trafficking in U.S. District Court in Cedar Rapids on April 20, 2011, with a term of supervised release to follow.  Olson had his supervised release revoked multiple times, most recently in February 2020, when he was sentenced to serve 36 months’ imprisonment.  As a condition of Olson’s supervised release, he was required to reside in a residential reentry center.  On July 22, 2019, Olson left the Gerald R. Hinzman Center in Cedar Rapids and never returned.  Olson was later found in possession of methamphetamine and arrested in Denver, Colorado, on August 26, 2019.  

Olson was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Judge C.J. Williams.  Olson was sentenced to 27 months’ imprisonment that must be served in addition to the 36-month sentence imposed for his supervised release violation.  He must also serve a 3-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.  Olson is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until he can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Patrick Reinert and was investigated by United States Marshals Service, the Northern Iowa Fugitive Task Force.  Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.  The case file number is 20-CR-00012.

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