New Orleans’ prison employee is arrested and accused of helping 10 detainees to escape

A maintenance worker was arrested and accused of helping 10 detainees of making a cheeky escape from a New Orleans prison last week, reinforcing the suspicion among the investigators that the escape would have been impossible without interior aid.

The worker, Sterling Williams, 33, who was arrested on Monday, closed the water in prison, allowing prisoners to remove a metal toilet and sink element, said the office of the Louisiana attorney general. Williams told investigators that a detainee had threatened to “lower it” if he did not close the water, according to a affidavit supporting his arrest.

The prisoners then used an unidentified tool to cut the steel bars behind the sink in the cell room, leaving behind a hole in the wall just large enough to crawl through and a badly spelled narrated message: “To easy lol”.

The detainees left the prison through a loading platform, set a wall on the scale, using covers to protect themselves from barbed wire and crossed the interstate 10. A civilian employee of the sheriff’s office, who was the only person watching security systems in the part of the prison where the flight occurred, had left his station at the time to obtain food, said the officials last week.

According to the affidavit, Williams told agents of the Louisiana investigation office that an inmate with tattoos on his face, which he called “Massey”, but whose full name is Antoine Massey, “threatened to do so if he did not do water.”

Instead of reporting the threat, Mr. Williams told agents that he had entered a pipe pip – an area where the plumbing is hidden behind a wall – and has turned off the water, closing a valve, indicates the affidavit.