VERO BEACH — Prosecutors have withdrawn the charge of escape against a former inmate of the Indian River County Jail who left his assigned post while attending the Annual Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranch barbecue and had sex with a woman in a portable toilet on the jail premises.
Hartley Elliot Sanchez, 36, will not be prosecuted on the escape count after the State Attorney’s Office concluded he never left the facility, according to court records and a statement from the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office (IRCSO).
The decision was part of a negotiated plea reached Aug. 23.
Sanchez had been in the Indian River County Jail since Aug. 15, 2025, and on March 4, he was assigned to the food line at the sheriff’s office barbecue, a long-running fundraiser for the Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches.
According to a sheriff’s report, Sanchez left the serving line at about 5:39 p.m. and then walked approximately 150 feet to the portable toilets situated near a boat display of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Surveillance footage revealed he was talking to two women, one of whom went into a portable toilet; Sanchez looked around and then went in after her; they afterwards emerged separately.
The arrest affidavit stated that when the deputies questioned him, Sanchez “spontaneously, openly and freely admitted that he had sex with a woman in the porta-potty”.
Although he did not give her name, the investigators were later able to identify her from the video and the booking photographs as a former inmate, and she was not charged.
IRCSO records state that Sanchez was released from the jail on Aug. 31, after serving his original sentence.