Photo: The Canadian Press

Escapee Adam Hossein Nayeri.

Video shot by three inmates with a smuggled cellphone shows their methodical escape through a vent at the maximum-security wing of a Southern California jail last year, along with scenes from their days on the run.

The video was provided to The Associated Press on Wednesday by an attorney for escapee Adam Hossein Nayeri.

The crisply edited video has a pop-music soundtrack and includes TV news clips about the escape and subsequent manhunt. It also contains voice-overs by Nayeri, recorded after their capture, giving his version of events and railing against the legal system.

One clip shows the inside of the maximum security dorm room, known as Module F, at the jail in Santa Ana. How the inmates got the cellphones and were able to record in jail is not clear.

"You know, a lot of people like to credit us with some Houdini escape act all in eight minutes flat. It's an interesting myth," Nayeri says in voiceover to the video. "In reality we did leave that mod after count. Not the one they're claiming though. I left that module at least eight hours earlier the night before."

Inmates in the cramped dorm seem to know Nayeri is recording, but do not react, except for fellow escapee Bac Duong, who flashes a grin.

The video then shows the escape.

Nayeri carefully lifts a sawed-off bunk bed leg, exposing a previously cut metal screen on a wall. The screen is set aside as he disappears into a vent.

The trio crawls through plumbing shafts within the walls. At one point Nayeri stops and gives a thumbs-up. Jonathan Tieu squints as the light of the cellphone is shined on his face.

The inmates eventually reach the roof of the Orange County Jail.

The video does not show how the inmates got to the ground. Previous reports said they rappelled down using bed linens. On the video, Nayeri says they had industrial rope, a toolbox, a duffel bag and new clothes.

The next clips show the men taking turns posing at the corner of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. There are scenes from inside a van where they were sleeping.

The men led authorities on a weeklong manhunt before they were recaptured.