NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A grand jury on Wednesday indicted a Louisiana sheriff whose office was under investigation after 10 inmates escaped from a New Orleans jail on her watch.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson has not been charged with helping inmates stage a brazen escape through a hole in the back of a toilet, sparking a months-long search that ended with all the escapees being captured. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Muriel said a state investigation found Hutson’s mismanagement of the prison led to the escape.
The 30-count indictment handed down by a New Orleans grand jury charged Hutson with malfeasance in office, obstruction of justice and falsification of public records.
“While Sheriff Hutson did not personally open the jail’s doors to the escapees, her refusal to comply with basic legal requirements and take even the most minimal precautions in the performance of her duties directly contributed to the escape,” Muriel said in a statement.
The Houston office did not immediately respond to calls, text messages and emails seeking comment. Court records do not list a personal attorney for Houston, who lost her re-election bid and will leave office on Monday.
In her farewell address on Tuesday, Hutson said her office faced numerous challenges and said the jailbreak “tested us to the limit.” She added that her office “responded with professionalism, urgency and resilience, and we are stronger as a result.”
Court records show Hutson’s bail was set at $300,000 and she was ordered to surrender her passport and not leave the state. Bianka Brown, the Sheriff’s Office Chief Financial Officer, was also indicted on 20 similar charges. She did not immediately respond to calls and text messages sent to a number associated with her.
The escapees crawled through a hole behind the prison toilet and climbed over the barbed wire, leaving behind graffiti that read “To Easy LoL.” The prison was unaware the prisoner had been missing for more than seven hours.
State officials and some city leaders have accused Hutson of mismanagement and criticized her for not alerting police and other authorities in a timely manner. Hutson initially accused political opponents of being behind the jailbreak, but provided no evidence to support her claims. She also said faulty door locks led to the escape, adding that she had been seeking funding to improve the prison’s dilapidated infrastructure.
The Orleans Parish prison system was placed under federal supervision in 2013 after decades of violence, corruption and dysfunction. But despite tens of millions of dollars in investment and the opening of a new prison facility in 2015, problems remain. Federally appointed monitors warned that prisons were understaffed, lax in supervision and that there had been a surge in “internal escapes” in the two years leading up to the breakout.
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Brooke is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.