Sheriff of New Orleans Jail Where 10 Inmates Escaped Is Indicted

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Sheriff of New Orleans Jail Where 10 Inmates Escaped Is Indicted

Susan Hutson, the sheriff of Orleans Parish, faces 30 counts, and the jail’s chief financial officer was also indicted.

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Sheriff Susan Hutson after a news conference in 2025 following the jailbreak. She has been indicted on 30 counts of misconduct related to the escape.

Credit...

Brett Duke/The Advocate, via Associated Press

By

Rylee Kirk

April 29, 2026,

7:51 p.m. ET

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The sheriff and chief financial officer overseeing a New Orleans jail where

10 inmates escaped

in May 2025, setting off a multistate manhunt, were indicted on Wednesday, according to the Louisiana attorney general.

Sheriff Susan Hutson of Orleans Parish, whose term is ending in the coming days, faces 30 counts of misconduct in office and Bianka Brown, the jail’s chief financial officer, faces 20 more.

“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,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement.

A special grand jury in Orleans District Court heard evidence and examined witnesses presented by prosecutors from the Louisiana Department of Justice and handed up the charges, according to the attorney general’s office.

The charges stem from the brazen jailbreak. On May 16, 2025, 10 inmates removed

a toilet

from a wall in the Orleans Parish Justice Center and escaped through a hole. One of the men left a misspelled message, taunting his jailers: “To easy lol.” At 1 a.m., a security camera

captured them

jumping from a loading dock and running away.

Hours went by before the escape was detected. One inmate was captured that day after a chase through the city’s French Quarter, not even two miles from the jail. The second and third were also tracked down on the day of the escape. Two others were found in the following days in New Orleans. One by one, the escapees were caught. The last of them, Derrick Groves, a now-convicted murderer, was apprehended 145 days later, after a standoff with police in Atlanta.

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