A soldier confined at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., added nine months to his prison time after he and another inmate attempted to escape the facility and ended up tangled in the barbed wire fencing. (U.S. Army)
A soldier confined at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., added nine months to his prison time after he and another inmate attempted to escape the facility and ended up tangled in the barbed wire fencing.
Zachary Harader and Mason Wollersheim made their escape attempt April 29 from the Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility, and both were apprehended by corrections personnel, said Army spokeswoman Heather J. Hagan.
Harader, who was about one year into a 33-month sentence for domestic violence at the time of the escape attempt, pleaded guilty Jan. 12 to the charge of attempted escape from post-trial confinement. Military Judge Col. Frederic Gallun accepted the plea.
Harader was not convicted of a second charge of conspiracy to escape confinement, according to the Army’s court docket.
When he was originally convicted in April 2024, Harader was a specialist assigned to Vilseck, Germany. He pleaded guilty to assaulting his spouse two years prior, according to Army court records.
Wollersheim sustained injuries from the concertina wire at the top of the perimeter fence and charges have not yet been referred to a court-martial, Hagan said. A preliminary hearing was held in his case in November for charges of attempted escapes, conspiracy, escape from custody and assault, according to the court docket.
Wollersheim, then a staff sergeant assigned to 10th Special Forces Group, was convicted by a jury at Fort Carson, Colo., roughly three months before the attempted escape, according to Army court records. The jury found him guilty of broadcasting an indecent recording, attempted larceny, wire fraud and larceny, and he was sentenced to 28 months in prison.
His theft involved stealing from UPS and attempting to steal from Pinnacol Assurance, State Farm and USAA.
The Army’s Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility houses military prisoners sentenced to less than 10 years of confinement, according to the service. It has six housing units each with a capacity of 464 inmates. The facility is adjacent to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, the military’s only maximum-security prison.
