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Sheriff says ‘defective' locks were a key factor in Louisiana jailbreak by 10 men

Sheriff says ‘defective' locks were a key factor in Louisiana jailbreak by 10 men

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Just days before 10 men broke out of a New Orleans jail, officials with the sheriff's office asked for money to fix faulty locks and cell doors deemed a key factor in the escape.
As the manhunt for the remaining seven fugitives stretches into a new week, officials continue to investigate who or what was to blame in a jailbreak that even the escapees labeled as 'easy' — in a message scrawled on a wall above the narrow hole they squeezed through.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said she has long raised concerns about the jail's ongoing 'deficiencies,' adding that the breakout has 'once again highlighted the critical need for repairs and upgrades' to the ailing infrastructure.
The men yanked open a cell door, slipped through a hole behind a toilet, scaled a barbed wire fence and fled from the jail early Friday, recorded surveillance video showed.
Four days earlier, Jeworski 'Jay' Mallet — the Chief of Corrections for the Orleans Justice Center — presented a need for a new lock system during the city's Capital Improvement Plan hearing.
Mallet said the current system at the jail, which houses around 1,400 people, was built for a 'minimum custody type of inmate.'
But he classified many at the jail as 'high security' inmates who are awaiting trials for violent offenses, including charges such as murder, assault and rape. He said many require a 'restrictive housing environment that did not exist' at the jail and, as a result, the sheriff's office has transferred dozens in custody to more secure locations.
Mallet went on to say that some of the cell unit doors and locks have been 'manipulated' to the point that not only are they not secure, but some can't even be closed properly.
Hutson said the men 'yanked' on a locked cell door 'to pull it off its track.' They then squeezed through a hole behind a toilet, exited a loading dock door before climbing a barbed-wire fence using blankets and running across a nearby interstate in early morning darkness.
'These are the cells that we keep saying we need to replace at great cost in this facility,' Hutson said.
Since becoming sheriff in 2022, Hutson said she has complained about the locks at every turn and advocated for additional funding to make the facility more secure.
'I wrote a letter to the consent decree judge, to the city council, and everybody else who would listen, and every time I go to budget, I say the exact same thing,' Hutson said.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said during a news conference on Sunday that funding for the jail has been 'a priority' and that funding has been allocated to the sheriff's office for operating expenses and capital improvements. Bianka Brown, the chief financial officer for the sheriff's office, said the current budget 'doesn't support what we need' to ensure critical fixes and upgrades.
'Things are being deprived,' Brown said of the jail, which for more than a decade has been subject to federal monitoring and a consent decree intended to improve conditions. The jail, which opened in 2015, replaced another facility that had its own history of escapes and violence.
While Hutson said the locks played a key role in the escape, there are other crucial elements that officials have outlined; Indications that the escape may have been an inside job, with three sheriff's employees now on suspension; the hole that officials said may have been formed using power tools; a lack of monitoring of the cell pod, as the employee tasked with the job had stepped out to grab food; and law enforcement not being aware of the escape until a morning headcount seven hours after the men fled.
Other's have pointed to Hutson being at fault. State Rep. Aimee Adatto Freeman, who represents much of uptown New Orleans, called for sheriff to step down on Monday.
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'Rather than take accountability, she's pointed fingers elsewhere,' Freeman wrote in a statement. 'Blaming funding is a deflection–not an excuse.'
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry recently announced the state is launching an investigation into who is responsible in the escape. He also directed the state's Department of Corrections to conduct an audit of the jail's compliance with basic correctional standards.
'Now there is no excuse for the escape of these violent offenders,' said Landry, a tough-on-crime Republican.
The governor also requested an inventory of pre-trial detainees or those awaiting sentencing in violent cases at the facility, to consider moving them into state custody.
Three of the seven inmates still at large late Monday were convicted of or are facing second-degree murder charges, authorities said.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Hip-hop mogul Sean 'Diddy' Combs has been charged in federal court with sex trafficking and racketeering and has pleaded not guilty. The trial has generated salacious headlines and massive coverage. In this episode of 'The Story Behind the AP Story,' reporters Larry Neumeister and Michael Sisak share their coverage of the case as the trial unfolds and witnesses take the stand. The episode contains sound and descriptions that some listeners may find graphic or violent. Listener discretion is advised. ___ Julie Walker, Host: I'm Julie Walker. On this episode of 'The Story Behind the AP Story,' we go inside the Sean 'Diddy' Combs case. He's charged in federal court with sex trafficking and racketeering and has pleaded not guilty. The trial has generated salacious headlines and massive coverage. (SOUND OF AP RADIO REPORTS ABOUT THE TRIAL) The trial began in May, and the judge has said he expects to wrap up the case by July 4th. We'll hear from AP reporters who have been in court with Combs as the trial unfolds and witnesses take the stand. To kick us off Larry Neumeister explains what the case is about. Larry Neumeister, reporter: So, when the feds go after somebody, they look for what kind of charges are federal crimes. And in this case, sex trafficking, bringing people across state lines to do illegal sex acts, or racketeering, which can involve many different things, including that 2016 tape of Cassie being beat up by Sean Combs by the elevator bank in that Los Angeles hotel. That, actually, is a centerpiece of the evidence against Combs in this case. And a lot of charges like domestic violence are all kind of things they could have brought against Sean Combs years ago. Well, there's a statute of limitations that would rule out certain charges, and certain charges just — there is no federal domestic violence charge. That's something that is brought more locally or statewide. WALKER: So the prosecution alleges that Combs used violence to keep people quiet and compliant and further his own interests., and while he was not charged with domestic abuse, prosecutors argue it is wrapped into the overall picture of this case. One reason one of the first things jurors were shown as evidence was the 2016 hallway tape from the LA hotel where Combs is seen dragging and kicking Cassie Ventura. AP reporter Mike Sisak. Michael Sisak, reporter: The refrain from the defense has been that, if anything, there could have been domestic violence charges brought against Sean Combs back in 2016. Those charges would have been brought in a California court by Los Angeles police. There has not been any real discussion of an investigation in 2016 of any effort to charge Sean Combs with domestic violence at that time. So, in some sense, while it's a thread that the defense is pulling, that he's actually charged with sex trafficking and racketeering in this federal case, it almost is a bit of apples and oranges in the sense that the violence that the defense is conceding to, prosecutors allege, was part of the mechanism of the racketeering, of the sex trafficking. WALKER: Besides seeing that video of Cassie jurors were also shown photos of her with bruises she said Combs gave her. We also got some pretty explicit and explosive testimony from the singer. She was called to the witness stand early in the trial, in part, because she was about to give birth, which she ended up doing shortly after her testimony concluded. SISAK: We've heard from Cassie about the freak-offs. We've heard from some of the male sex workers that were involved. And then we're seeing other pieces of evidence that prosecutors say show the depravity of these events and then also the network of people that Combs relied on to keep them secret. I recall being in the courtroom earlier in the trial when some images were shown from some of the videotapes at issue here with these sex marathons. And there was a binder of some of these images, and Combs was sitting next to his lawyer and waved over, 'Hey, I want to see those,' and he's looking through them and he's holding — the press, the public, we were not allowed to see these images, they were graphic images. The defendant, of course, was allowed to see them and he held them in a way that we could not see what he was looking at. And then he passed it back. And then other times he's hunched over a laptop computer looking at exhibits that are showing text messages and emails that were exchanged over the years with various people involved in the case. WALKER: So how is the jury taking all of this all in. We've got eight women and four men, plus the six alternates. NEUMEISTER: One thing I've seen with this jury that I've hardly ever seen with a jury is incredible attention to every witness. They turn in their chairs, they're pointed toward the witness, they're scribbling notes like mad. I've never seen so much as a juror yawn, although I did see Kid Cudi — he was yawning several times. WALKER: Because cameras are not allowed in the courtroom, the only thing that those not attending the trial can see are sketch artists' depictions of Combs, and we see a very different Diddy. SISAK: Sean Combs, according to his assistant who testified, was using just for men to hide gray hair. And he had jet black hair up until the time he was arrested and put in jail last year. And then we also learned that hair dye is not allowed in jail. So in court, he has had this gray salt and pepper hair, goatee. He has been allowed to wear for the trial, sweaters, button-down shirts, khakis and the like. It's a stark difference in look. NEUMEISTER: You can't have dye, right, Mike? I'll tell you though, the guy is so involved with his defense, it's like off the charts, kind of amazing. I don't think I've ever seen this to this degree before. There was a witness, it was Kid Cudi, where at the end of his testimony, the prosecutors got him to say he believed Sean Combs was lying when he said he didn't know anything about his car when he brought it up. Kid Cudi's car was exploded in his driveway one day with a Molotov cocktail and absolutely destroyed. And so he had a meeting with Sean Combs some weeks after that and at the very end of the meeting, he said, brought up the car. And Sean Combs said, 'Oh, what are you talking about? I don't know anything about that.' And after, as soon as that, the prosecutor finished asking the questions, got that response, then two lawyers, one on each side of Combs, looked to him, Combs said no, and only then did the lawyers inform the judge that there would be no more questioning. SISAK: And then when there are breaks, we see him standing up, stretching, turning around, looking at his supporters in the gallery. His mother has been there. Some of his children have been there. Some of his daughters have left the courtroom during the especially graphic testimony. But at other times, when his children are there, when his supporters are there, he's shaping his hands in the shape of a heart. He's pointing at them. He's saying, 'I love you.' He's whispering. There was a moment when another reporter and I were sitting in the courtroom during a break, and Sean Combs turns around — there's nobody in front of us — and he asks us how we're doing. We say hi back to him because you're in such close proximity. We're only 10 feet apart or so. WALKER: In the end it's all going to come down to the jury deciding whether the prosecution has proved their case or whether Combs' defense team has been able to sow doubt in their minds. NEUMEISTER: One thing is very unusual on this trial is there are six prosecutors. That is almost unprecedented. I've seen terrorism trials that only had four prosecutors. I think Combs has like eight lawyers and one defense lawyer who consults with the defense team but isn't part of the in-court trial team. WALKER: Sean 'Diddy' Combs is currently being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. His attempts to get out on bail have been rejected. If convicted on all charges, the 55-year-old faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. The sex trafficking charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life. Racketeering also carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, while transportation to engage in prostitution carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. This has been 'The Story Behind the AP Story.' For more on AP's coverage of the Sean 'Diddy' Combs trial, visit

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