A Suspect in a Rape Known to Have a Knack for Escaping Custody A 33-year-old tourist from North Carolina turned to a stranger in the Union Square subway station after midnight on Wednesday morning and asked him for directions to her hotel, the Howard Johnson Express Inn, in the Bronx. He was heading that way, he told her, and he'd show her, the police said. It turned out the man knew the Bronx quite well. Later, the police said, the man knocked on the woman's door and, when she opened it, attacked her. She saw his tattoos. When a suspect in a crime wears his first name on a tattoo, it would seem to be only a matter of time before he is caught, and so it was that a man with an "Ivan" tattoo, Ivan Jones, 27, was arrested Thursday night and charged with rape, robbery, strangulation and assault. He had not been arraigned as of Friday evening. He mumbled protestations of innocence to a camera crew as he left a precinct house. His hands were cuffed behind his back and he was surrounded by beefy detectives, as suspects in violent crimes often are. But in this case, there was a particularly good reason. Mr. Jones, no stranger to jail, has proved himself adept at leaving custody before serving his time. In July 2003, Mr. Jones was arrested in a burglary. He had not stolen from just anyone: he stole from the mother of a girl he had dated, he said at a parole board hearing on Oct. 11, 2011. "So I knew her," he said, according to a transcript. The burglary apparently did not dampen Mr. Jones's relationship with the daughter, who came to his aid the next year when he was stewing in the Vernon C. Bain Center, a jail in the Bronx commonly referred to as the barge. It floats in the East River, with 800 beds for men. "Your girlfriend handed you a handcuff key," a parole commissioner told Mr. Jones at the October hearing. Would that be the same girlfriend as the burglary victim? "Yes, sir," Mr. Jones replied. "What were you going to do with that?" the commissioner asked. "To be honest, I was going to take my handcuffs off and run and escape, which I did," came the reply. I am very sorry for that. I only hurt myself more. "What happened?" the commissioner asked. "You just saw a movie, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" or something? That wasn't a very bright thing to do. "Yes," Mr. Jones said. It was not bright. It was very foolish. I didn't use my mind. I didn't think. It is unclear where the woman had gotten the key, how she passed it to Mr. Jones, or if he had even used it. But at one point on Feb. 20, 2004, he was handcuffed to another inmate, and at another point, he was not. At the time, Martin F. Horn, the correction commissioner, said he had somehow slipped out of the cuffs. On Friday, correction officials said they could not confirm whether a handcuff key had been used in the escape. However he freed his wrist, it was just the beginning of his day. Mr. Jones scurried under a bus transporting inmates from the jail and clung to its undercarriage. The bus pulled away. Mr. Jones let go of the underside of the bus somewhere in the South Bronx and walked away. Six officers and one captain were suspended without pay for 15 days. Mr. Jones remained free almost a month before he was caught, on Union Avenue in the Bronx. He pleaded guilty and served seven years in state prison until that October parole hearing. He was asked no more about his crimes, but told commissioners of his past. "I grew up with my grandmother," he said. My father wasn't there, he was in prison. My mother, she was addicted to crack cocaine. She had cleaned up 10 years earlier, he said. He learned woodworking in prison. If the commissioners released him on parole, he said, he hoped to attend college. His little sister was in college - "She is doing great, and I am happy for her," he said. "No children of your own, I hope," a commissioner said. "I have one daughter," Mr. Jones said. She will be 10 in August. There were a handful of questions and "Yes, sirs," and he was dismissed. The commissioners decided to grant parole, ordering drug tests and a curfew. He was freed Nov. 23. In June, the police said, they found Mr. Jones smoking marijuana and arrested him. He was not returned to jail; the status of the case was unclear. A month later, if the police are correct, a woman asked him for directions, and he offered his help.