Ten inmates escaped from the Orleans Parish Justice Center in New Orleans on May 16, 2025, by pulling out a toilet and squeezing through a hole in the wall—and the escape went unnoticed for over seven hours.
The incident turned into a major political and legal scandal, resulting in Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson being indicted on a 30-count grand jury indictment charging her with malfeasance in office, obstruction of justice, and falsifying public records
The inmates managed to pull open a faulty cell door, yank out a jailhouse toilet, and squeeze through a hole in the wall behind it—a scene widely compared to the movie The Shawshank Redemption.
A jail maintenance worker, Sterling Williams, shut off the toilet’s water supply, which prevented flooding that would have alerted guards. Williams was later sentenced in October 2026 to 2.5 years in prison for his role in enabling the escape.
Around 1:00 a.m., the 10 men made their way out, scaled a barbed-wire fence, and vanished into the night
The single jail deputy assigned to that specific cell pod was away from their post getting food when the escape occurred.
Because the escape happened in the middle of the night, jail staff did not notice the missing inmates until the routine morning headcount at 8:30 a.m., giving the fugitives a 7.5-hour head start. [
