SANTA ANA, Calif. — The likely mastermind in the brazen escape of three inmates from a California jail had help from a woman whose English classes he was taking while locked up, authorities allege.

Escapee Hussein Nayeri, 37, came to know Nooshafarin Ravaghi, 44, during an English as a second language course inside the Orange County jail. Beyond that, there was “some type of relationship that developed between the two,” sheriff’s spokesman Jeff Hallock said.

That relationship led to her helping him and the others to break out of the jail nearly a week ago, which led to her arrest on Thursday, Hallock said.

Nayeri and two other inmates, 43-year-old Bac Duong and 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu, sawed through a metal grate over a plumbing tunnel and sliced through more metal and rebar to reach an unguarded section of roof, where they rappelled down with bed linens, authorities said.