Maintenance worker arrested for aiding New Orleans jail escape says inmate threatened to ‘shank’ him
A jail maintenance worker was arrested for allegedly helping a group of 10 men break out of a New Orleans jail last week through a hole in a bathroom wall, the Louisiana Attorney General’s office announced on Tuesday.
An escapee allegedly told Sterling Williams, 33, a maintenance worker with the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office, to turn off the water in the cell from which the men escaped.
“Instead of reporting the inmate, Williams turned the water off as directed allowing the inmates to carry out their scheme to successfully escape,” the attorney general’s office said.
Williams said one of the escapees, Antoine Massey, threatened to “shank” him if he didn’t comply, according to an arrest warrant obtained by NOLA.com,
The worker complied, accessing a mechanical corridor behind the cells to turn off the water supply, per the warrant.
The 10 men, six of whom are still at large, are thought to have ripped a toilet off its mountings and squeezed through a hole into the mechanical corridor, fleeing through a loading bay then climbing the walls around the prison.
Williams allegedly did not offer this information about his accused part in the escape to authorities on his own, but rather under questioning from the Louisiana Bureau of Investigations.
The 33-year-old has been charged with malfeasance in office and 10 counts of being principal to an escape.
He is due in court later today, according to jail records.
More arrests of jailhouse personnel could be on the horizon.
Officials have said the escape showed the hallmarks of insider assistance.
“It’s almost impossible, not completely, but almost impossible for anyone to get out of this facility without help,” Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said in a press conference the day of the breakout.
“We also have indications that these escapees received assistance from individuals inside the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office,” the sheriff’s office told The Independent in a statement.
Three Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office employees have been suspended as part of the investigation into the escape. It is unclear if that group included Williams.
Officials have also pinned the escape on faulty jailhouse infrastructure.
The inmates were able to derail a sliding cell door by repeatedly pulling on it, and the sheriff’s office says approximately one-third of the security cameras throughout the facility are currently inoperable, including three cameras in the unit where the men escaped.
A surveillance technician was on duty at the time of the escape, but the men were nonetheless “able to breach a wall behind a toilet in their housing unit which was out of view,” the sheriff’s office told The Independent.
“At the time of the escape, no deputy was assigned to Pod 1-D, and the civilian Corrections Technician Monitor (CMT) stationed at the pod module had stepped away briefly for food,” the sheriff’s office said.
