An embattled sheriff whose New Orleans jail was the scene of a brazen, 10-inmate escape last year was charged with malfeasance in office and related offenses with just days left in her term.
Outgoing Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson was named in a sweeping indictment handed up by a special grand jury and announced by Attorney General Liz Murrill Wednesday.
“While Sheriff Hutson did not personally open the doors of the jail for the escapees, her refusal to comply with basic legal requirements and to take even minimal precautions in the discharge of her duties directly contributed to and enabled the escape,” Murrill said in a statement.
The caper took place early on May 16, 2025, when inmates pulled open a faulty cell door in the Orleans Justice Center, yanked out a toilet and squeezed through a hole in the wall behind it in a scene reminiscent of the hit 1994 movie “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Before fleeing, the men scrawled messages on the wall surrounding the hole, including one that read: “To Easy LoL,” with an arrow pointing to the opening.
A security camera recorded them jumping from a loading dock and running away, after which they climbed over a perimeter fence, using blankets to protect themselves from barbed wire at the top.
In addition to 30 counts filed against the sheriff, her chief financial officer, Bianka Brown, was indicted on 20 counts led by malfeasance in office.
The 23-page indictment also includes charges of filing or maintaining false public records and obstruction of justice, as well as conspiracy to commit each offense, but doesn’t detail the allegations, according to nola.com.
The escape took place while the lone deputy overseeing the inmates’ cell pod was away getting food.
Three escapees were quickly caught and all but one were tracked down within six weeks, mainly in Louisiana.
But one, Derrick Groves, spent five months on the run until a police dog found him hiding in a crawl space in the basement of an Atlanta home.
His capture came after a SWAT team spent hours searching the house and filled it with tear gas, and he was recorded on video smiling and blowing kisses as he was led away.
At the time of the escapes, Groves was awaiting sentencing for killing two people when he opened fire on a family block party as part of a feud with rival drug dealers in 2018.
Groves was sentenced in December to two life sentences by a judge who expressed outrage at his behavior after being caught.
Orleans Parish Judge Dennis Waldron called it a “final act of defiance” and said it seemed as if Groves “thought he were a guest at a presidential motorcade as opposed to a captured fugitive, riding in a police SWAT convoy.”
Meanwhile, charges remain pending against former jailhouse maintenance worker Sterling Williams, who’s accused of helping the inmates escape by turning off the water to the toilet they later pulled from the wall.
Authorities allege that Williams turned off the water after one of the escapees threatened to “shank” him with a makeshift weapon.
His defense lawyer, Michael Kennedy, has said that Williams only shut off the water because the inmates had intentionally clogged the toilet and that he didn’t know anything about their escape plan.
Williams, who’s been locked up in the jail since his arrest last year, is scheduled for trial on July 21, Kennedy told The Independent on Thursday.
“And while it is unclear what if any bearing this will have on Mr. Williams trial, we are obviously relieved to see the parties actually culpable being held to account,” he said.
Two women who allegedly assisted the inmates after they escaped were also charged as accessories after the fact.
Hutson, 59, was elected in 2021, and is the first Black woman to become Orleans Parish Sheriff. She defeated four-term incumbent Marlin Gusman after a campaign in which she pledged reforms at the long-troubled jail.
In addition to the jailbreak, Hutson’s tenure had other scandals that included alleged overspending on hotels rooms for her top brass during the city’s Mardi Gras. Voters overwhelmingly rejected her October re-election bid.
Huston scored a dismal 17 percent of the vote in a six-way race that was easily won by acting New Orleans Police Chief Michelle Woodfork, who’s set to be sworn in Monday.
One day before her indictment, Hutson delivered a defiant farewell address in which she complained that the jailbreak had “completely overshadowed the hard work” she’d done to deliver pay raises to deputies and upgrade technology at the jail, which has been under federal oversight for years, according to local TV station WVUE.
