In a bizarre development that reads more like a script for a prison drama than real life, Antoine Massey, one of two escapees still at large following a breakout from New Orleans’s infamous Orleans Parish Prison, has taken to social media to ask throwback titans Meek Mill, Lil Wayne, NBA YoungBoy, and former President Donald Trump for help. Massey, who is being tried for domestic abuse and auto theft, says he is not the man the headlines make him out to be and that his jailbreak wasn’t really a jailbreak at all.
“I didn’t break out, I was let out,” Massey said in a recently rediscovered nine-minute Instagram video. I couldn’t even get a lawyer to prove my innocence,” he added. The 33-year-old fugitive alleges the system let him down, leaving him without proper legal counsel and a fair chance to defend himself. Massey was one of a group of 10 inmates who bolted from Orleans Parish Prison in a major fugitive outbreak that is still being probed. Now, just two are still on the run, Massey and Derrick Groves, 28, who has a conviction for second-degree murder.
But Massey is reaching out and banking on the potential political power of celebrity influence and viral attention. His message is an earnest plea for atonement and improvement. “I’m asking for help from the world, from Meek Mill, Lil Wayne, and YoungBoy. Donald Trump,” he said. Donald Trump,” he said. “I’m not going to lie, I was causing problems. The person I was, I’m not that person. I have a 3-year-old son. I have an 18-year-old daughter that graduated. People don’t understand that.'”
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The appeal to Meek Mill, in particular, seems rather strategic. The Philadelphia rapper is no stranger to the shortcomings of the U.S. criminal justice system. Two years after completing his own heavily publicized legal reckoning, Mill helped found the REFORM Alliance with JAY-Z, Michael Rubin, and other heavyweights to overhaul probation and parole laws. Since then, REFORM has successfully passed 16 bills in 10 states, positively affecting the lives of more than 650,000 people. For Massey, Meek might represent systemic change and possibly his last hope.
Two prominent Louisiana hip-hop artists, Lil Wayne and NBA YoungBoy, were also identified in Massey’s appeal. Both have battled their own legal issues, but they have also used platforms as sounding boards for the struggles, injustice, and street survival that Massey clearly touches on. And, of course, there’s Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, Trump’s history includes a couple of high-profile pardons for people serving unduly harsh or questionable sentences. Whether it’s a Hail Mary or a strategically planned overture, Massey’s reaching out to the ex-president indicates he’s leaving no option unturned.
For man’s justice, in this case, is a muddy mix of criminal charges, a media circus, and a man’s desperation to be believed by a system that claims to understand him but refuses to call him anything other than a monster. Though it is impossible to say whether any of these public figures will respond, Massey’s cry has already gotten the public’s attention, and that, rather than prison release, may be the first step to reopening his case or, at the very least, bringing awareness to the topic of prison reform. So, in a time when Instagram is sometimes noisier than the courtroom, and a single post can set off a national debate, Antoine Massey is betting big on visibility. And as unlikely as it may be, stranger things have happened in a justice system long overdue for a second look.
