Maintenance worker arrested for aiding breakout of 10 New Orleans jail inmates
May 20 (UPI) -- A maintenance worker was arrested for aiding in the escape of nearly a dozen inmates from a jail in New Orleans.
Sterling Willings, 33, was arrested Monday night for allegedly facilitating the escape of 10 inmates housed at Orleans Parish Justice Center in Louisiana and was booked "without incident" into a Plaquemines Parish jail Tuesday morning, according to ABC, CBS and NOLA.
According to state Attorney General Liz Murrill, Williams told agents that one of the escapees advised him to turn the water off in the cell where the inmates escaped from.
"This is a continuing investigation, and we will provide updates as often as possible," Murrill said Tuesday in a statement.
Throughout the investigation, three other jail employees were suspended as the search for the remaining six inmates -- Antoine Massey, Lenton Vanburen, Jermaine Donald, Leo Tate, Derrick Groves and Corey Boyd -- carries on.
"We will uncover all the facts eventually and anyone who aided and abetted will be prosecuted to the full extent the law allows," added Murrill.
Three of the escapees -- Robert Moody, Dkenan Dennis and Kendall Myles -- were apprehended within 24 hours and a fourth was arrested Monday, 21-year-old Gary C. Price.
On Friday, the 10 men escaped via a wall behind a toilet at around 1:00 a.m. CDT. Meanwhile, the escape wasn't discovered until a routine headcount at 8:30 a.m., hours after the successful break.
More than 200 officers with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies were participating in the manhunt after the 10 men escaped Friday morning from Orleans Parish with authorities alerted in Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Williams allegedly shut off the toilet water so the crew could make their exit after ripping the toilet off its foundation.
They breached a wall behind it, used a loading dock door to exit the jail and scaled fences with blankets to protect themselves from getting cut by barbed wire, according to officials. Finally, they crossed Interstate 10 and dispersed into a nearby neighborhood and took off their inmate clothes.
Sheriff Susan Hutson speculated the jailbreak could be an inside job.
"Even Stevie Wonder can see that this was an inside job," Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams told ABC Tuesday morning, whose office is investigating the breakout.
Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, meanwhile, has ordered a comprehensive jail audit.
"Ten violent offenders don't make their way into a pod made for two and make good their escape through concrete, rebar and barbed wire, without there being some sort of inside assistance," Williams added.
The district attorney speculated that "greed, avarice, friendship, the motives that cause men to do bad things" could be among reasons why a jail employee would risk their job to help a prisoner escape.
Williams, the prison worker, is now facing at least 10 counts of simple to principle escape and one charge of office malfeasance.
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