New Orleans jail employee is arrested and charged with helping 10 inmates escape

A maintenance worker has been arrested and charged with helping 10 inmates carry out a brazen escape from a New Orleans jail last week, bolstering the suspicion among investigators that the escape would have been impossible without inside help.

The worker, Sterling Williams, 33, who was arrested Monday, shut off water at the jail, allowing the inmates to remove a metal toilet and sink fixture from a cell wall, the Louisiana attorney general’s office said. Williams told investigators that an inmate had threatened to “shank him” if he did not shut off the water, according to an affidavit supporting his arrest.

The inmates then used an unidentified tool to cut steel bars behind the cell room sink, leaving behind a hole in the wall just big enough to crawl through and a taunting misspelled message: “to easy LOL.”

The inmates left the jail through a loading dock; scaled a wall, using blankets to protect themselves from barbed wire; and ran across Interstate 10. A civilian employee of the sheriff’s office, who was the only person monitoring security systems in the part of the jail where the escape occurred, had left his station at the time to get food, officials said last week.

According to the affidavit, Williams told agents from the Louisiana Bureau of Investigation that an inmate with tattoos on his face, whom he called “Massey” but whose full name is Antoine Massey, “threatened to shank him if he did not turn the water off.”

Instead of reporting the threat, Williams told agents that he went into a pipe chase — an area where plumbing is concealed behind a wall — and turned off the water by closing a valve, the affidavit states.

With no water running, the inmates were able to remove the sink and toilet fixture from the wall, investigators said.

“If the inmates removed the sink in the cell and disconnected the rest of the plumbing with the water still on, the plan to escape would not have been successful and potentially flooded the cell, drawing attention to their actions,” the affidavit states.

Officials did not notice that the inmates were missing until a routine head count at 8:30 a.m. Friday, roughly seven hours after they had escaped, Sheriff Susan Hutson of Orleans Parish said last week. She said the office then activated “emergency protocols” and began a search for the inmates.

Four have since been captured, and a search is continuing for the remaining six, including Massey. The inmates, who ranged in age from 19 to 42, were being held on charges including murder, attempted murder, armed robbery and carrying illegal weapons.

The affidavit says that Williams did not come forward after the escape and that when confronted by agents, he was “initially very evasive and untruthful, but eventually became forthcoming and provided evidentiary information.”

Williams has been charged with one count of malfeasance in office and 10 counts of principal to simple escape. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer. He was scheduled to make his first appearance in court Tuesday afternoon.

Hutson told the New Orleans City Council on Tuesday that the escape involved “procedural failures and missed notifications.”

“But there were also intentional wrongdoings,” she said. “This was a coordinated effort aided by individuals” inside “our own agency who made the choice to break the law,” she added.

The sheriff’s office has said that about a third of the cameras in the jail don’t work and that it has “defective locks and doors.” It has asked city officials for millions of dollars in upgrades to improve security.

Liz Murrill, the Louisiana attorney general, said in a statement Tuesday that the investigation into the escape was continuing.

“We will uncover all the facts eventually, and anyone who aided and abetted will be prosecuted to the full extent the law allows,” she said.

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