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Sterling Williams pleaded guilty to malfeasance in office and received a five-year sentence in the Orleans jail escape.
FOX8 WVUE reported that on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, Sterling Williams, a former maintenance worker at the Orleans Justice Center, pleaded guilty to malfeasance in office in connection with the May 2025 escape of 10 inmates from the Orleans Parish jail. Orleans Parish Criminal Court Judge Robin Pittman sentenced him the same day to five years, with two and a half years suspended, credit for time served, and three years of probation to follow.
By Crime Talk Network Staff Writer ·
A guilty plea and a same-day sentence are the court's disposition on the count that was admitted. Williams pleaded guilty to malfeasance in office. FOX8 WVUE reported he had also been charged as a principal to escape, and that the plea resolved the case as malfeasance. Five years, with two and a half years suspended, is the judgment Judge Robin Pittman entered. His lawyer's estimate of about one more year in custody is counsel's reading of credit for time served.
FOX8 WVUE reported that Sterling Williams pleaded guilty Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, to malfeasance in office. Williams is a former maintenance worker, described as a janitor, at the Orleans Parish jail, also called the Orleans Justice Center. The plea is in connection with the May 2025 escape of 10 inmates from that jail. Orleans Parish Criminal Court Judge Robin Pittman sentenced him the same day. The guilty plea and the sentence are the court's disposition on the malfeasance count.
Judge Pittman imposed five years in prison, with two and a half years suspended, credit for time served, and three years of probation to follow, FOX8 reported. Defense attorney Michael Kennedy said that, with credit for time already served, Williams has roughly one more year in custody. That is his lawyer's account of how the sentence will be served. It is not a second judgment.
FOX8 reported that Williams had also been charged as a principal to escape, the count that accused him of helping the escape. The plea resolved the case as malfeasance in office. Principal to escape is not the count he admitted.
The defense account, as FOX8 reported it, is that Williams cut the water to a clogged, overflowing toilet because an inmate told him to, and that he did not intend the escape.
The Louisiana Office of the Attorney General's earlier account described a different result from the same request. The office said an escapee told Williams to turn the water off, that he did so without reporting it, and that inmates then escaped through a hole behind the toilet. That is the state's earlier description of the episode. The judgment entered Thursday is the malfeasance plea and the sentence Judge Pittman imposed.
A same-day sentence after a guilty plea closes the malfeasance count in that court. It does not retry the escape of the 10 inmates, and it does not turn the principal-to-escape charge into a separate conviction. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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