A California man who was recaptured after escaping from a prison on the Indonesian resort island of Bali said Wednesday he fled because of extortion by other inmates.

Christian Beasley, 32, was caught Saturday after bolting with compatriot Paul Anthony Hoffman, 57, on Dec. 10 from the overcrowded Kerobokan prison.

Beasley was arrested in August while allegedly trying to pick up a package containing 5.7 grams of hashish. He stood trial and the verdict was due a day after his escape.

He said he has a license to use marijuana for medical reasons, but Indonesian authorities sought a sentence of at least four years in the slammer.

Appearing at a news conference Wednesday at the Badung police station, where he wore a red prison uniform and a black balaclava over his head, Beasley said other inmates told him to pay $370 for security but he could not afford it and was punched in the stomach.

“They threatened me to pay protection money, that was why I left,” said Beasley, whose legs and hands were cuffed.

“I need help, I really need help … Please help me, please help me. In my country (it) is not a crime use ganja (marijuana),” he shouted to reporters while being dragged back to jail.

Hoffman, who has been serving a 20-month sentence since July for robbery, was collared immediately while Beasley managed to flee and hired a motorbike driver to take him to Ubud.

Bali police detective Made Pramasetia said Beasley had planned to travel to East Timor before police discovered he was in Lombok through emails he sent to his gal pal and mother.

His mother, Rosalind, 70, had been on the Indonesian island awaiting Beasley’s hearing.

“He apparently ran from the prison to my room and knocked on the door in the middle of the night. It was raining,” she told Newsweek in a call from California. “I opened the door and he said, ‘You have to come with me.’”

Describing that night, Rosalind said: “[Christian] explained he was fearful, he’d heard from other prisoners that friends or close relatives could be threatened with physical harm as a mean to obtaining information about the location of the escapee.”

She said she stood there frozen, not knowing what to do.

“He grabbed my little sack and put my computer in it and said, ‘You want to take some clothes?’ I just couldn’t figure out what to do, what to take,” she told the mag.

“I stuffed my purse belongings in that little backpack and put on a rain cover. I don’t think it could have been five minutes that we were there in the room,” she added.

When Beasley was recaptured, authorities believed he had planned to join his mother in Thailand after she flew to Bangkok. But she had already flown back to California by then, Newsweek reported.

Back home, the frantic mom wanted to avoid contacting Beasley out of fear of revealing his location – so she scoured the internet for news of her son.

On Saturday, she found an item reporting his recapture.

Among the items police found in the scooter he rented was a Bible.

“I did not know he had those things,” Rosalind told Newsweek. “I wasn’t aware he escaped with anything, but he has a strong faith. Whether he brought the Bible or he obtained it after he escaped I don’t know.”

With Post Wires