Officer Gene Palmer, a veteran prison
guard, gave at least one of the inmates a screwdriver and a wrench to
help fix electrical breakers in the catwalk area behind their cells, an
official familiar with the investigation said on Wednesday.
Palmer, 57, told investigators he
supervised Richard Matt and David Sweat doing the work and took the
tools back before the end of his shift, the official said. Authorities
have said that Matt and Sweat, who are still on the lam, used the
catwalks during their elaborate escape from the Clinton Correctional
Facility on June 6.
The tools were found at Palmer’s home after police executed a search warrant, the official added.
Palmer’s lawyer, Andrew Brockway,
declined to comment specifically on the charges Wednesday. He said that
Palmer plans to plead not guilty at a court appearance Thursday
afternoon in Plattsburgh, New York.
“Mr. Palmer has been completely cooperative with the investigation,” Brockway said. “He will continue to cooperate. He’s a man of integrity who made some mistakes.”
Brockway said he intends to get his client out on bail as soon as possible so he can “take care of his ailing wife.”
Palmer also accepted paintings from Matt
and Sweat, according to a document detailing the charges against him.
After the convicts escaped, he tried to destroy evidence of the
paintings, burning some of them in a fire pit at his home and burying
others in nearby woods, the document said.
In all, he faces three felony charges —
one count of promoting prison contraband and two counts of tampering
with physical evidence — and one misdemeanor charge of official
misconduct.
Palmer, who has worked at the prison for
27 years and is now on paid leave, took frozen meat embedded with
smuggled tools to the inmates’ cell area, Clinton County District
Attorney Andrew Wylie said Wednesday.
Joyce Mitchell, a supervisor in
the prison’s tailor shop, smuggled the tool-laced meat through the main
gate at the prison and placed it in a freezer in the tailor shop,
according to Wylie. She then asked Palmer to take the meat to the
inmates’ cell area in the honor block, the prosecutor said.
Mitchell, who has pleaded not guilty to
charges of aiding the escapees, admitted to putting hacksaw blades and
drill bits into a hunk of hamburger meat, according to Wylie.
Palmer could have put the meat through a
metal detector but he didn’t, which was a violation of prison policy,
the prosecutor said.
Mitchell, 51, did not have access to the cells, which is why she needed Palmer to hand it off, according to Wylie.
Mitchell’s lawyer, Steve Johnston,
declined Wednesday to comment on what his client might have admitted
to, saying he didn’t want to be “in a position of harming her
plea-bargaining opportunities.”
Brockway has said Palmer was unaware there was contraband in the meat.
“He understands that he made a mistake
with the whole meat fiasco,” he said. The meat incident wasn’t
specifically mentioned Wednesday in the document detailing the charges
against Palmer.
The prison guard’s arrest came as more
than a dozen investigators from the New York State Inspector General’s
office arrived at the prison to investigate possible breaches of
security protocols that allowed Matt and Sweat to escape, a state law
enforcement official said.
As officials try to figure out what went
wrong at the prison, hundreds of law enforcement officers are still
rummaging through dense woodland surrounding a burglarized cabin where
the fugitives are believed to have been sighted Saturday and where
traces of their DNA were found, according to investigators. The
75-square-mile primary search area is located roughly 20 miles west of
the prison.
The sprawling manhunt has now stretched
into its 20th day — long enough for both escapees to spend their
birthdays on the run. Sweat turned 35 on June 14, while Matt hit 49 on
Thursday, according to the dates of birth for the two men provided by
the U.S. Marshals Service.
State forest rangers describe the
terrain where the search is now focused as treacherous, not just for the
escapees but for police and other searchers, too.
“The area is heavily forested. The
undergrowth is thick,” said Capt. John Strife. “The vegetation is a
combination of trees, saplings, and brush.”
Source: CNN
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