Three of the 10 inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail were captured Monday, narrowing the number of escapees still at large to two, Louisiana State Police confirmed.
Authorities arrested Lenton Vanburen in Baton Rouge, about 72 miles northwest of New Orleans, according to Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill on X. Meanwhile, Texas Department of Public Safety. officers took Leo Tate and Jermaine Donald into custody in Walker County, Texas, roughly 330 miles west of New Orleans.
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Baton Rouge officials said Vanburen was found sitting on a bench near a department store. He had been jailed for a parole violation, illegal possession of a firearm by a felon, and unlawful weapon carrying. “He will now face additional charges related to the escape,” Murrill stated.
Tate and Donald were captured following a high-speed chase involving several law enforcement agencies, the Huntsville Police Department reported. The pursuit ended near US 190 and Geneva, where both men were apprehended. Investigators had tracked them to the Houston area, said Deputy US Marshal Brian Fair. Huntsville lies about 70 miles north of Houston.
These three are the first escapees to be caught outside New Orleans.
Authorities continue searching for the remaining two fugitives. So far, 13 people have been arrested for allegedly helping the escapees.
In addition to Vanburen, Tate, and Donald, Kendell Myles, Robert Moody, Dkenan Dennis, Gary Price, and Corey Boyd have been recaptured. Derrick Groves and Antoine Massey are still at large and considered armed and dangerous.
“If you were manning the security system, you would have known a door was opening — especially in the middle of the night,”
— Former Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman
The inmates reportedly escaped on May 16 by crawling through a hole behind a toilet at the Orleans Parish Prison. A source close to the investigation told CNN they used electric hair trimmers with multiple blades to cut through the cell walls.
Their escape has been blamed on faulty locks, stolen blankets, and alleged inside help — including a jail employee who was reportedly motivated by hunger. The capture of three inmates across two states marks significant progress in ending the manhunt.
Last week, Murrill and Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams visited the Orleans Justice Center as part of the ongoing investigation. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections has dispatched at least 10 seasoned auditors to review the facility.
The district attorney said the director of the New Orleans Police Department Crime Lab also visited the jail to begin forensic analysis. He noted the sheriff’s office hadn’t formally requested the examination.
Williams urged the sheriff’s office to cooperate by sharing fingerprint and DNA records of staff “for the purpose of inclusion or elimination of their profiles,” according to a letter obtained by CNN.
In another letter, also dated Thursday, Williams asked that all records related to the jailbreak — including surveillance footage and internal communications — be preserved.
Former Sheriff Gusman, who led the jail from 2004 to 2022, told CNN he didn’t know how the inmates got into the pipe chase behind the toilet and sink. He stressed that the walls included roughly 5 inches of concrete reinforced with steel rebar.
13 Accused of Aiding the Escape
Among those arrested is Sterling Williams, a maintenance worker at the jail. Authorities charged the 33-year-old with one count of malfeasance in office and 10 counts of being a principal to simple escape. An affidavit claims he “willfully and maliciously” helped with the jailbreak.
His attorney, Michael Kennedy, maintains Williams’ innocence, stating he was simply turning off the water to a flooding toilet after receiving instructions.
The escapees have been identified as:
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Corey Boyd
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Dkenan Dennis
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Jermaine Donald
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Derrick Groves
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Antoine Massey
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Robert Moody
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Kendell Myles
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Gary Price
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Leo Tate
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Lenton Vanburen
At least 12 others are suspected of helping in various ways, including another inmate at the facility. Investigators continue reviewing phone recordings and suspect that more jail staff or inmates may have assisted in the breakout and early cover-up, the source said.
Trevon Williams was arrested Friday for his alleged role. Already in custody on unrelated charges, he was rebooked for principal to simple escape, Murrill announced on X.
The remaining arrests involve people accused of acting as accessories after the fact.
![Trump administration sets quota to arrest 3,000 people a day in anti-immigration agenda The target was delivered by Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, and triples figures from earlier this year José Olivares in New York Thu 29 May 2025 23.14 BST Share The Trump administration has set aggressive new goals in its anti-immigration agenda, demanding that federal agents arrest 3,000 people a day – or more than a million in a year. The new target, tripling arrest figures from earlier this year, was delivered to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) leaders by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, and Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary, in a strained meeting last week. The intense meeting, first reported by Axios and confirmed by the Guardian, involved Ice officials from enforcement and removal operations (ERO) and homeland security investigations (HSI) – both separate offices within DHS. ERO is in charge of immigration enforcement, including arrests, detention and deportation, while HSI typically focuses on investigating transnational crime, such as drug trafficking, human smuggling and the spread of online child abuse. The 21 May meeting in Washington DC is the latest example of the increasing pressure being placed on officials nationwide to increase the number of arrests of immigrants, as the administration doubles down on its anti-immigration agenda. The latest phase of the crackdown includes new tactics, such as mandating federal law enforcement agents outside Ice to assist in arrests and transports, more deputizing of compliant state and local law enforcement agencies, and arresting people at locations that were once protected, like courthouses. ice composite Trump officials increasingly recruit local police for immigration enforcement despite ‘red flags’ Read more “ This administration came into office with the illusion that they had been given a broad mandate to effectuate an aggressive immigration enforcement agenda, and they are doubling down now on that agenda,” said Nayna Gupta, the policy director for the American Immigration Council. “ Public polling is showing decreasing support for Trump’s immigration agenda, as Americans wake up to the reality that mass deportation means arrests of our neighbors and friends, masked agents in our communities and people afraid to go to work and show up to school, in ways that undermine our local economies.” Helter-skelter action has led to citizens caught up in the dragnet, Ice skirting due process – to the chagrin of the supreme court and lower courts – over-crowding in detention centers, arrests based on ideology and officials deporting people to third countries. “The sweeping Ice raids and arrests are hitting families, longtime residents, children and communities in a way never seen before,” said Jesse Franzblau, the associate director of policy for the National Immigrant Justice Center. As the number of people crossing the border into the US without authorization has plummeted even further than after the final Biden crackdown, operations in the US interior have increased. “Under Secretary Noem, we are delivering on President Trump’s and the American people’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens and make America safe,” Tricia McLaughlin, the homeland security assistant secretary, said in a statement. But even if the new target is fulfilled, it’s a far cry from Trump’s election campaign pledges to deport 15m to 20m people, which itself is more than the estimated 11m undocumented population. Agents with the FBI, HSI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other federal law enforcement agencies have been co-opted from normal priorities to carry out immigration enforcement work. Current and former federal officials told the Guardian there is concern that important non-immigration-related investigations are falling by the wayside as a result. There has also been a huge escalation by local police and sheriff’s departments assisting, deputized by Ice to perform federal immigration arrests under a program called 287(g). Ice has also been targeting unusual places. On Tuesday, Ice and several other federal law enforcement agencies arrested roughly 40 people on the Massachusetts islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. The US Coast Guard transported those apprehended, Ice said, angering some residents, local media reported. The agency has also been arresting people at courthouses throughout the country – a trend that has troubled advocates and policy analysts. “We’re seeing the Trump administration take the unprecedented step of arresting non-citizens who are following the government’s rules and procedures, and showing up for their court hearings,” said Gupta. “ They are desperate to reach a certain number of arrests per day. And the only way they can find non-citizens easily and quickly is to go to the courthouses, where they [immigrants] are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.” On Wednesday, sources told the Guardian that officials had arrested people at two separate immigration courts in New York City. The outlet the City observed seven people arrested in a lower Manhattan court. Internal documents accessed by the Washington Post show Ice officers in more than 20 states have been instructed to arrest people at courthouses immediately after a judge orders them deported or after their criminal cases are dropped and they try to leave. The number of people held in detention by Ice reached 49,000 by 18 May, an increase of more than 10,000 since Trump took office, with the agency using local jails and federal prisons to hold immigrants, amid overcrowding. Austin Kocher, an assistant research professor at Syracuse University who closely tracks immigration detention data, said of the 3,000 daily arrest quota: “ The big question for me is: where are they going to put people?” Meanwhile, last month, the Trump administration ordered immigration judges to quickly dismiss cases by denying asylum seekers a hearing. The directive “has nothing to do with efficiency – it’s about slamming shut the courthouse door on people who have the right to seek asylum and a fair day in court”, Shayna Kessler, the director of the Advancing Universal Representation initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice, said. On Capitol Hill, the major spending bill passed by the House would balloon spending for immigration enforcement, at the US-Mexico border and in the interior, while cutting everyday services. Section of Trump's border wall Trump’s new border wall will threaten wildlife in an area where few people pass Read more “The administration is on a reckless spending spree, counting on Congress to bail them out for overspending hundreds of millions of dollars in private prison contracts with ties to top-level officials,” Franzblau said. He concluded: “It is beyond cruel to superfund Ice’s rampant violations of constitutional protections and expand the deadly immigration detention and enforcement apparatus.” Miller confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday that the White House was setting a goal for Ice to arrest at least 3,000 migrants per day, far above an earlier 1,000 per day arrest quota. Reuters reported later on Thursday that the Trump administration was removing two senior immigration enforcement officials amid demands to step up enforcement, three people familiar with the move said. Top Ice officials Kenneth Genalo and Robert Hammer will be pulled from their posts, the people told the news agency, requesting anonymity to discuss the shift. DHS denied that they were pushed out.](https://voicesrivercity.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Screenshot-61-120x86.png)
