By Jack Brook
Associated Press/Report for America
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NEW ORLEANS — A grand jury on Wednesday indicted a Louisiana sheriff whose office came under investigation after 10 inmates broke out of a New Orleans jail in an audacious escape that happened on her watch.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson is not accused of helping the inmates pull off the brazen jailbreak through a hole behind a toilet, setting off a monthslong search before all the escapees were eventually captured. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said a state probe instead found that Hutson’s poor management of the jail led to the escape.
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The 30-count indictment handed up by a New Orleans grand jury charges Hutson with malfeasance, obstruction of justice and falsifying public records.
“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.
Huston’s office did not immediately respond to phone calls, text messages and emails seeking comment. Court records did not list a personal attorney for Huston, who lost her reelection campaign and is set to leave office on Monday.
In a farewell address 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 came out stronger because of it.”
Court records show bond for Hutson has been set at $300,000 and that she was ordered to turn in her passport and not leave the state. Bianka Brown, the chief financial officer of the sheriff’s office, was also indicted on 20 similar charges. She did not immediately respond to phone calls and text messages sent to numbers associated with her.
The escapees left behind graffiti that read “To Easy LoL” after crawling through a hole behind a jail toilet and scaling a barbed wire fence. The jail did not realize the inmates were missing for more than seven hours.
State officials and some city leaders accused Hutson of poor management and criticized her for not alerting police and other authorities in a timely manner. Hutson initially blamed political opponents for being behind the jailbreak without providing any evidence to support her claim. She also said faulty door locks enabled the escape and added that she had been seeking funding to improve the jail’s ailing infrastructure.
The Orleans Parish jail system had been plagued by violence, corruption and dysfunction for decades and was placed under federal oversight in 2013. But problems persisted despite tens of millions of dollars in investment and the opening of a new jail facility in 2015. Federally-appointed monitors warned of the jail’s inadequate staffing, lax supervision and a skyrocketing number of “internal escapes” in the two years leading up to the jailbreak.
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Brook 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.
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