Man who escaped from jail charged with felony and sentenced for burglary

A Hopkins man who broke out of the Hennepin County jail while awaiting sentencing for a burglary conviction was charged with escape, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Friday.

Michael Frank Simon, 57, was charged Tuesday with one count escaping from custody, which is a felony. He was sentenced Wednesday to 30 months in prison for third-degree burglary, to which he had pleaded guilty in October.

According to the criminal complaint, shortly after 7am on Nov. 28, a woman saw Simon break a window on the seventh floor of the Hennepin County Public Safety Facility and climb onto a skyway roof. This witness notified security and deputies searched for him in the surrounding area. Simon was caught during a traffic stop in Little Canada several hours after he escaped.

Simon was being held in the jail on burglary charges. According to the criminal complaint in that case, officers responded to a business in Edina on Sept. 15 on the report of a credit card stolen from a desk during a burglary.

In the course of their investigation, officers learned that another business in the same building was also burglarized on the same date. Four laptop computers and unique medals were stolen from the Minnesota Golf Association. In Simon’s SUV they found several unique medals, which were associated with golfing.

Court records revealed that Simon has a lengthy history of burglary and other property convictions. He had recently been released from prison and was on parole at the time of the burglaries and credit card fraud.