New Orleans Jail Employee Is Arrested and Charged With Helping 10 Inmates Escape
Last edited Tue May 20, 2025, 03:22 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: New York Times
New Orleans Jail Employee Is Arrested and Charged With Helping 10 Inmates Escape
A maintenance worker shut off water at the jail, allowing the inmates to remove a toilet and sink fixture from a cell wall, according to the Louisiana attorney general's office.
The 10 inmates escaped from a New Orleans jail last week by cutting a hole in a cell wall that was just big enough to crawl through. Brett Duke/The Advocate, via Associated Press
By Michael Levenson
May 20, 2025
Updated 1:55 p.m. ET
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 on 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. Mr. 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.
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Michael Levenson covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
https://www.nytimes.com/by/michael-levenson
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/us/new-orleans-jail-escape-worker-arrested.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ik8.pPaF.OmfSHpQ0oRYW
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