Ronald Tackmann walked into the Manhattan Criminal Court Building a prisoner and walked out a lawyer.

The career criminal, bent on escape, had internalized the procedures in the facility, so he knew he would be uncuffed right before being led into a holding cell.

Since Tackmann would be traveling with a group of 11 other prisoners who also had to have their hands unbound by the guards, the 56-year-old speculated that there would be a tiny sliver of time in which he could sneak around a corner. He was correct.

Out of sight, Tackmann quickly darted down a flight of stairs and knocked on the first courtroom door he could find. He was wearing a suit, because he was scheduled for hearing that day. In anticipation of his escape, Tackmann had also put a pair of black socks over his prison slippers, which made them look like suede loafers.

Tackmann frantically told the clerk who answered the door that he was a lawyer who needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible because his elderly mother had just been admitted. With that, the clerk allowed him to exit through the other side of the courtroom.

Minutes later, Tackmann was a free man.




Freedom is fleeting

Tackmann made his way uptown to Washington Heights, where he bought White Castle fries, two cellphones, and some cocaine. He paid an acquaintance a hundred dollars to let him stay at his apartment, and woke the next day to find the tale of his brazen escape all over the tabloids.

That night Tackmann treated himself to a steak dinner and few glasses of wine. He was arrested when he returned to his crash pad -- sold out by an informant.

This was in September of 2009. Tackmann has been in and out of prison since the '70s. Cocaine is his bogeyman. Or, more specifically, his habit of resorting to stick-ups to pay for his drug of choice. When committing his crimes, Tackmann always used a fake gun. A characteristic that played a large role in the Queens native's other notorious escape attempt.

His other escape

In 1986, during an inmate transfer from New York City to a facility upstate, Tackmann was able to hold up a Department of Corrections bus from the inside. He did so with the help of a handcuff key he had purchased on the prison black market and a realistic looking gun he had made from soap, black paint and scrap metal.

Tackmann locked the guards in the back and drove the bus back to Manhattan. He might have gotten away with his audacious scheme if he didn't heed the other prisoners calls to free them too. A pair of inmates ended up jumping Tackmann, in hopes of getting their sentences reduced.

His future

After being nabbed for his latest break out, Tackmann faces a grim future. Since his hard partying lifestyle has left him with hepatitis C, cirrhosis and diabetes, his next prison sentence will probably be his last. However, when New York magazine interviewed him at Rikers Island, he seemed happy and upbeat. Maybe it's because the resourceful lifer is a legend on the inside, and is treated as such by the other inmates.

Or maybe it's because Tackmann claims to have already found "five ways off the island."

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