The wife of Leon Ruffin, the man who escaped custody from a Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Deputy has been arrested as an accomplice.
NOLA.com reports deputies booked 52-year-old Shelita Ruffin with conspiracy to commit aggravated escape and conspiracy to introduce contraband into the jail.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto says this may have been the first arrest, other than Mr. Ruffin's, and there will likely be several more.
"Those warrants are definitely forthcoming," Lopinto told WWL's Tommy Tucker. "They'll join him in jail."
According to the sheriff, Ruffin faked a medical issue Sunday, and then ambushed the deputy who took him to Ochsner on the Westbank with pepper spray. After fleeing in a marked sheriff's office SUV, authorities say he ditched it Algiers, then fled to a hotel in New Orleans East. That's where New Orleans Police and U.S. Marshals deputies apprehended Ruffin on Tuesday afternoon.
Ruffin faces a second degree murder charge in the July shooting death of Gannon Johnson in Avondale.
