A serial-escapee who fled a jail in New Orleans has been apprehended over a month after he escaped along with nine other inmates.
Antoine Massey, 33, was arrested in New Orleans on Friday, leaving only Derrick Groves as the last escapee on the run.
He was apprehended at a rental home in Hollygrove, a neighborhood in the Louisiana city, just a few miles from where he boldly escaped on May 16.
Authorities said Massey was taken into custody without incident after New Orleans cops surrounded him.
Deputy US Marshal Brian Fair informed CNN that the arrest was executed ‘without incident,’ with a photo from the scene depicting two heavily armed officers leading a handcuffed Massey into custody.
Fair said that Massey’s arrest came after investigators ‘received a tip.’
Throughout his six weeks evading capture, Massey taunted the police by posting videos on Instagram, claiming he was ‘released’ from jail and imploring President Trump to grant him a pardon.
The group’s escape captured headlines as they taunted prison staff by writing ‘too easy’ on the wall as they slipped out of a cell toilet block before footage showed them sprinting to freedom.
Antoine Massey, 33, a serial-escapee who fled a jail in New Orleans has been apprehended over a month after he escaped along with nine other inmates
Massey’s escape captured headlines as he and nine other inmates taunted prison staff by writing ‘too easy’ on the wall as they slipped out of a cell toilet block before footage showed them sprinting to freedom
Authorities had previously raided a home earlier this month following Massey’s taunting Instagram video, but did not find the fugitive.
Massey has a long rap sheet that includes several prison escapes, including one in 2007 when he broke out of a juvenile detention center after being arrested for armed robbery and aggravated assault.
He was most recently in jail for alleged vehicle theft and domestic abuse involving strangulation.
In his Instagram videos while on the lam, Massey insisted he was innocent and held a document to the camera alleging that it was a stamped affidavit showing his ex-girlfriend Diamond White recanted her domestic abuse allegations.
White was subsequently arrested following Massey’s escape as investigators alleged that she helped him evade the law.
With Massey back in custody, Groves remains the last of the 10 escapees to be at large. He was convicted in October of killing two people in 2018.
Massey was one of the last two inmates to be at large alongside Derrick Groves, 27, (both uncrossed) while eight others who escaped the jail last month have been captured
In a video uploaded to Massey’s Instagram account @_007chucky, Massey pleaded his innocence to the charges that landed him behind bars and insisted he was ‘let out’ of the jail last month
The prisoners mocked officials as they scrawled ‘too easy lol’ on the hole in the cell where they escaped last month
As he claimed he is a victim of corruption in his Instagram video, Massey appealed for help from public figures who had ‘been through the corrupt system’, including President Trump, Lil Wayne and the recently-pardoned rapper NBA YoungBoy.
‘The reason why I left the jail is because these people were trying to give me a life sentence… for something I did not do,’ he said.
When the 10 inmates escaped, investigators said the men were helped out by prison maintenance worker Sterling Williams who allegedly turned off the water to the cell where they broke out before they unscrewed a toilet to flee.
Williams has said he was forced to do so by the inmates who threatened to ‘shank’ him if he refused, but Massey said in his Instagram video that this wasn’t true.
‘Sterling flat-out lied on me,’ he said.
Sterling Williams (pictured), 33, has been arrested for helping a group of violent criminals escape by allegedly turning off the water to their cell block
Connie Weeden, 59, was dragged into the jail escape saga after being arrested for allegedly helping her grandson Jermaine Donald escape
Williams was among over a dozen alleged accomplices that New Orleans cops have arrested since the escape, also including the grandmother of inmate Jermaine Donald.
Connie Weeden, 59, is accused of helping her grandson flee and allegedly was in regular contact with him before and after the jailbreak.
The investigation uncovered evidence that Weeden was speaking to Donald over the phone in the lead-up to the escape and continued providing assistance even after he had fled the facility.
Police say she even provided cash to the dangerous fugitive through a mobile phone app, potentially helping to fund his life on the run.
With Massey now arrested, the inmates who have been successfully located and returned to custody are Jermaine Donald, Corey Boyd, 20, Kendall Myles, 21, Gary Price, 21, Dkenan Dennis, 24, Robert Moody, 22, Leo Tate, 32, and Lenton Vanburen Jr., 27.
