If you spent any time on social media in the summer of 2025, you likely saw the videos. A man with distinctive facial tattoos, sitting in a kitchen, calmly explaining to a camera that he didn't "break out" of jail—he was "let out." That man was Antoine Massey. He was one of ten inmates who pulled off a cinematic escape from the Orleans Justice Center (OJC) in New Orleans on May 16, 2025.
For weeks, the question did they catch Antoine Massey was at the top of everyone's search history. The guy was basically a ghost. He wasn't just running; he was posting to Instagram. He was tagging rappers like Lil Wayne and even appealing to Donald Trump for help. It was surreal. While the FBI and US Marshals were kicking in doors, Massey was becoming a viral sensation, which honestly just made the police look a little embarrassed.
The Capture: How It Finally Went Down
Yes, they caught him. The manhunt for Antoine Massey officially ended on June 27, 2025.
After six weeks on the lam, the "Houdini" of New Orleans was cornered. It wasn't a high-speed chase or a shootout like you'd see in the movies. It was a tip. Someone called Crimestoppers, and the US Marshals, along with the NOPD and State Police, descended on a house in the 9400 block of Stroelitz Street in the Hollygrove neighborhood.
Basically, he was hiding out just a few miles from the very jail he escaped from.
When the task force surrounded the residence, Massey didn't put up a fight. Authorities described the arrest as "peaceful." It’s kinda ironic—after all that social media bravado and the history of breaking out of places, he went out quietly. By the time they cuffed him, he was the ninth of the ten escapees to be returned to custody, leaving only one man, Derrick Groves, still in the wind at that time.
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Why This Wasn't Just Another Jailbreak
To understand why everyone was so obsessed with whether did they catch Antoine Massey, you have to look at how they got out. This wasn't a fluke. It was a massive failure of security.
The group of ten inmates managed to:
- Yank a faulty sliding cell door off its tracks.
- Dismantle a toilet and sink unit.
- Crawl through a hole in the wall where the steel bars had already been cut.
- Scale a barbed-wire fence using blankets to protect themselves.
They even left a "gift" for the guards. On the wall near the hole, they scrawled "To Easy LoL" with an arrow pointing to their exit route. It was a slap in the face to the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office. The escape went unnoticed for about eight hours. It wasn't until a morning head count that anyone realized ten men were missing.
The Social Media Circus
What really kept Massey in the headlines was his refusal to stay quiet. Most fugitives try to disappear. Massey tried to go viral. He posted videos claiming his innocence, holding up legal papers that he said proved the charges against him were fake. He claimed he had an affidavit from the victim in his rape and kidnapping case saying she lied.
It worked, in a weird way. He built a following. People were actually betting on how long he’d last. But while he was playing "hide-and-seek," as Governor Jeff Landry put it, law enforcement was tracking the digital breadcrumbs. They eventually raided a house in Gentilly where they found the clothes he wore in the videos, though he had already slipped away.
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The Serious Side: What He Was Facing
It’s easy to get caught up in the "outlaw" vibe of a jail escape, but the charges against Massey were heavy. He wasn't in there for shoplifting. He was being held for:
- First-degree rape.
- Second-degree kidnapping.
- Domestic abuse battery involving strangulation.
- Violating a protective order.
These charges stemmed from a violent incident in November 2024 involving his girlfriend. Despite her later recanting her story—which prosecutors argued was a classic sign of domestic abuse trauma—the state moved forward.
In December 2025, a jury in St. Tammany Parish found Antoine Massey guilty of all charges. It took them just over an hour to deliberate. His girlfriend, the victim, is actually facing her own legal trouble now for allegedly helping him during his time as a fugitive.
A History of "Houdini" Acts
The 2025 escape wasn't Massey's first rodeo. Honestly, the system should have seen it coming.
- 2007: At just 15, he broke out of a juvenile detention center using metal shackles to smash a window.
- 2019: He escaped from the Morehouse Detention Center. He made it all the way to Texas before being caught the same day.
- 2023: He was known for cutting off court-ordered GPS ankle monitors. One monitoring company owner famously said Massey would put the monitor on, walk outside, and snip it off immediately.
He had a pattern. He was a "serial escapee" who knew exactly how to exploit the cracks in the system.
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Where Is He Now?
As of early 2026, the game is over for Antoine Massey. Following his conviction in December, he was moved back to a high-security facility. His sentencing for the rape and kidnapping charges was scheduled for February 12, 2026. Because of his history and the nature of the crimes, he’s looking at significant time—likely decades—in a state penitentiary like Angola.
The jailbreak also sparked a massive investigation into the Orleans Justice Center. A maintenance worker was arrested for allegedly turning off the water to help the inmates remove the toilet, and several other employees were suspended. It exposed a culture of negligence that the city is still trying to fix.
Key Takeaways for Staying Informed
The Massey case is a wild reminder of how social media can distort a criminal investigation. If you're following high-profile fugitive cases, keep these points in mind:
- Social media isn't the whole story. Fugitives often use platforms to manipulate public opinion or create a "folk hero" persona.
- Verify through multiple outlets. While Massey claimed innocence on IG, the court evidence—including medical records and digital forensics—told a much darker story that led to a guilty verdict.
- Jail infrastructure matters. This escape happened because of "faulty locks" and "bad infrastructure," proving that even the most modern-looking facilities can have prehistoric vulnerabilities.
If you are interested in the legal fallout of this case, you can follow the public records from the 22nd Judicial District Court in St. Tammany Parish or the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court for updates on his remaining theft and escape charges.
The manhunt for Antoine Massey is officially closed, but the conversation about how he managed to stay out so long—and why the jail was so easy to leave—continues to haunt New Orleans law enforcement.
Next Steps for You:
If you want to dive deeper into the security failures that allowed this to happen, look up the "2025 Orleans Justice Center Independent Audit" which details exactly how the internal security protocols collapsed during the night of the escape.