Police arrest convicted Las Vegas bombmaker who escaped prison

LAS VEGAS >> Police have arrested a convicted bombmaker who escaped from a Nevada prison where he was serving a life sentence for a deadly 2007 explosion outside a Las Vegas Strip resort, authorities said.

Las Vegas police said they received information Wednesday night that a person matching the description of Porfirio Duarte-Herrera was in the area. Officers took the man into custody, confirmed he was Duarte-Herrera and arrested him, the department said in a statement.

Additional information wasn’t immediately released by Las Vegas police.

Gov. Steve Sisolak had earlier ordered an investigation into the escape after he said late Tuesday his office learned the escapee had been missing from the medium-security prison since early in the weekend.

Officials didn’t realize until Tuesday morning that Duarte-Herrera, 42, was missing during a head count at Southern Desert Correctional Center near Las Vegas.

Duarte-Herrera, from Nicaragua, was convicted in 2010 of killing a hot dog stand vendor using a motion-activated bomb in a coffee cup atop a car parked at the Luxor hotel-casino.

Records show his co-defendant, Omar Rueda-Denvers, remained in custody. The 47-year-old from Guatemala is serving a life sentence at a different Nevada prison for murder, attempted murder, explosives and other charges.

A Clark County District Court jury spared both men from the death penalty in the slaying of Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio, whom prosecutors identified as the boyfriend of Rueda-Denvers’ ex-girlfriend.

Prosecutors said jealousy was the motive for the attack on the top deck of a two-story parking structure. The blast initially raised fears of a terrorist attack on the Strip.