BRIDGEWATER, Mass. -- The search continues for a Mattapan man who escaped from a minimum security lockup in Bridgewater Friday night, one week after he was indicted on charges of raping a woman in 1996.

Manson Brown, 51, was serving a 10-year sentence at the Old Colony Correctional Center on charges of armed home invasion. Brown was convicted in 2005 and placed in a maximum security facility, but he was eventually classified as a minimum security inmate in 2009 after an evaluation by corrections officials.

He was described as a black man who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 145 pounds. He was last seen wearing gray sweatpants with a white T-shirt and a blue denim coat issued by the Department of Correction.

Brown works in the prison kitchen and apparently walked away between 5:40 p.m. and about 6:30 p.m.

On Nov. 19, DNA evidence was used to indict Brown for two counts of rape, home invasion and larceny over $250 for a 1996 attack in Cambridge. Prosecutors allege that he broke into a home on Franklin Street through a window, then entered a woman’s bedroom and assaulted her as she lay next to her 2-year-old son. Brown is also accused of stealing cash and jewelry from the woman’s home, including her wedding ring, and threatening to kill her family if she contacted police.

Authorities said they believe Brown may have decided to run from the prison after learning of his indictment through media reports.

Police identified Brown as a suspect in the 1996 rape after DNA samples from his 2005 conviction were linked with evidence taken from the Cambridge crime scene, authorities said.

Friday’s escape was not the first for Brown, who previously fled from a corrections facility in Plymouth in 1982, then escaped from the Brooke House, a residential contract building, one year later. Officials said both incidents were taken into account when he was downgraded to a minimum security inmate this year.

Police have set up checkpoints and roving patrols throughout town, and additional K-9 units are traveling to the area to help search for Brown, The Enterprise of Brockton reported. Residents received a phone alert from the Department of Correction after the escape and a separate reverse 911 call from the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Department at about 10 p.m. Warning sirens were also sounded at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.

“The biggest help to us is people, if they happen to see this individual, obviously to call law enforcement right away," said Bridgewater Police Lt. Christopher Delmonte. "Don’t confront the individual. That would be the biggest help to us.”

Several Bridgewater residents who spoke with NewsCenter 5’s John Atwater questioned why Brown had not been sent to a maximum security facility after his indictment this month. Officials said that a kink in the system had allowed inmates to remain at low-level facilities until they were arraigned in court, but the system has been corrected since Brown’s escape.