A Vicksburg man was arrested in Perry County Tuesday on federal escape charges.

Scotty Shiers, 38, of Vicksburg, was reportedly arrested on River Edge Drive in Perry County after being missing for over a month. He escaped from a halfway house in Jackson on Christmas Eve and was arrested Tuesday, Deputy Marshal Jeremy Stilwell in Jackson said.

“He walked away from the halfway house in Jackson,” Deputy U.S. Marshall Stephen Newell in Hattiesburg said.

U.S. Marshal Fugitive Task Force of Hattiesburg and Perry County Sherriff’s Deputies arrested Shiers and the U.S. Marshal Service indicted him for a federal escape charge, Stilwell said.

Both Stilwell and Newell said early reports that Shiers had federal charges against him by the Drug Enforcement Administration are false.

Stilwell would not discuss Shiers original charges or sentence but said the Federal Bureau of Prisons had placed him in the halfway house in Jackson.

“He was confined by the Bureau of Prisons to a halfway house,” Stilwell said. “When they are finishing up their sentence they are placed in a halfway house to reinstate them to society.”

Shiers will have an initial appearance in federal court and continue on with normal court proceedings on the escape charge.