A lawyer for the maintenance worker accused of aiding 10 inmates break out of a New Orleans jail said Wednesday that they rooked him into helping by clogging a toilet he then had to fix, which enabled them to escape while the water was shut off.
Sterling Williams, 33, was arrested and charged Tuesday with aiding their escape from the Orleans Justice Center in the early hours of last Friday.
Williams is one of four sheriff’s office employees suspected of helping, though the only one to be arrested so far. The other three have been put on leave as the investigation continues.
To get out, the inmates removed a sink-toilet combination unit from the waterless cell, cut and bent the steel bars behind the sink and shimmied through the hole, according to Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson.
Defense attorney Michael Kennedy said Wednesday that his client was not only threatened, but also did not know why they made him turn off the water. Williams was in the dark about the inmates’ plan and did not allow them to cut the pipe and create the hole, Kennedy said.
AP
This photo obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, May 16, 2025, shows an opening inside a cell at the Orleans Justice Center in New Orleans. (AP Photo)
But prosecutors claim Williams knowingly helped by turning off the water so they could escape. They charged him with 10 counts of principal to simple escape and one count of malfeasance in office. He was being held on $1.1 million bail — $100,000 for each charge.
Although the arrest affidavit said Williams had “willfully and maliciously assisted with the escape,” he told investigators one of the escapees had threatened to stab him if he didn’t turn off the water in the cell.
Five of the 10 escapees had been rearrested by Wednesday. The other five remained at large.
With News Wire Services
