A maintenance worker at New Orleans’s jail has been arrested on allegations that he turned water off to a toilet covering a hole in the wall that 10 men who escaped from the facility early Friday used for their getaway.
Investigators arrested 33-year-old jail maintenance worker Sterling Williams after he allegedly admitted to officials that one of the men “advised him to turn the water off in the cell” before the men slipped away through the hole in the wall at the Orleans Justice Center (OJC), the Louisiana attorney general’s office said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the fourth of 10 men who broke out of New Orleans’s jail was captured on Monday, leaving authorities still searching for six as the manhunt for the escapees entered its fifth day on Tuesday.
Many of those men were awaiting trials or sentencing for violent charges, including murder, when they yanked open a cell door while the lone jail staffer monitoring them left for food. They then slipped through a hole behind the toilet, scaled a barbed wire fence, scampered across a highway and fled into the dark.
Kendell Myles, 20; Robert Moody, 21; and Dkenan Dennis, 24, were all caught in New Orleans hours later. Authorities did not arrest any additional escapers over the weekend before taking Gary Price, 21, into custody late on Monday.
Williams also said one of the inmates who later escaped had threatened to “shank” – or stab – him if he did not turn off the water, according to a sworn affidavit filed to justify the staffer’s arrest. In addition, ahead of the jailbreak, another man tried to take Williams’ phone and attempted to get him to bring a book with cash app information.
The attorney general’s office alleged that Williams’s turning off the water “willfully and maliciously assisted with the escape”.
“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 read.
Instead, the men who escaped got out through a hole above which was scrawled with profane, taunting messages. They included: “To Easy LoL” with an arrow pointing at the gap; “catch us when you can”; and “fuck” the agency in charge of operating the jail.
Williams faces 10 counts of principle to simple escape and malfeasance in office. An attorney for Williams could not immediately be located.
The public official in charge of the jail, Orleans parish sheriff Susan Hutson, has since said faulty locks and cell doors, along with well-documented staffing shortages at the jail, were among the key factors in the breakout. As the Associated Press has reported, just 10 days before the escape, Hutson’s office asked for money to fix the locks and cell doors in question.
But other officials say Hutson – who oversees the control and custody of those detained at the OJC – is responsible for the security lapses that led to Friday’s breakout at the jail, which for years has been subject to federal monitoring and a consent decree aimed at improving conditions there.
Days before Williams’s arrest, it was clear that those who escaped likely had help from inside Hutson’s ranks. There are also indications that someone with access to power tools made the hole used for the escape; that there was a lack of monitoring of the cell pod where the escapers had been contained; and that law enforcement took seven hours before a routine headcount revealed to them that anyone had fled from the OJC.
Aimee Adatto Freeman, a Louisiana state representative who represents much of New Orleans’s uptown section, called on Hutson to resign amid multiple investigations into Friday’s escape, saying: “Rather than take accountability, she’s pointed fingers elsewhere. Blaming funding is a deflection – not an excuse.”
Hutson is facing re-election in October. Three challengers hoping to unseat Hutson have said Friday’s escape should be disqualifying for her, according to the local news station WVUE.
Associated Press contributed reporting
