Couple arranged hotel room for inmate mistakenly released from L.A. County jail, police say

A Nevada couple arranged a hotel room for a murder suspect who was mistakenly released from a Los Angeles jail last month, according to a police report released Thursday.

The husband and wife, 39-year-old Bruce Oliver and 39-year-old Lavera Wilson, also told investigators on Feb. 6 that they didn’t know the whereabouts of the fugitive, 37-year-old Steven Lawrence Wright.

However, the report says records from the Nevada Inn in Boulder City show Wilson had registered a room and paid for it that day. Wright later was arrested in the room.

Oliver and Wilson each face a felony charge of being an accessory to Wright’s escape. They have been released on bond pending a court appearance in May.

They couldn’t be reached for comment, and it’s unclear whether they have attorneys.

Wright and the couple were arrested Monday near the hotel about 30 miles east of Las Vegas.

Wright was released from custody mistakenly on Jan. 30 in Los Angeles in what the jail said was a paperwork error.

He is being held at the Henderson city jail pending extradition to California, with no additional charges expected.

Authorities haven’t detailed the relationship between Wright and the couple but have said they were known to be associated.

On the day investigators first approached the couple, Oliver said Wright told him that he was going to surrender and Wilson said she hadn’t seen or heard from Wright in years, according to authorities.

A tip led authorities to the hotel two days later.

A manager said there was a room occupied by a suspicious couple. A woman, identified by police using the hotel’s surveillance video as Wilson, returned each day to pay for the room.

Wright had been behind bars since April 2011 following his arrest in the shooting death of a man in Pasadena. A murder conviction in the case was overturned, and Wright is facing a new trial.