As N.Y. inmate manhunt continues, another jail uncovers apparent escape plot
NEW YORK -- Authorities say officials at a New York City jail have uncovered an apparent escape plot while sweeping the facility after learning of drug smuggling there.
Law enforcement officials said Thursday that an inmate at the Manhattan Detention Center had neatly tied together 64 bedsheets and stashed them under the sink in his cell.
Authorities say a correction officer at the prison and a different inmate were arrested in a conspiracy to smuggle drugs, cellphones, pliers and other items.
According to CBS New York, officials said Correction Officer Patricia Howard, a nearly 20-year veteran, worked in the detention center's mailroom.
According to court documents, inmate Tommy Davis allegedly had members of his family purchase the contraband and give it to Howard, who would then bring the items into the jail when she reported for work.
The discovery of the plot comes less than two weeks after two convicted murderers escaped from a maximum-security prison in northern New York state. A manhunt is underway.
A law enforcement source told CBS News wanted posters of David Sweat and Richard Matt will be distributed at border crossings into Canada and in Mexico.
Prison officials on Thursday lifted the lockdown at Clinton Correctional Facility in northern New York where the two killers escaped.
Corrections officials say inmates are eating again in the mess hall Thursday rather than in their cells and a number are going to work assignments.
Recreation activities and use of the phones are also resuming.
Visitors to the prison in Dannemora, near the Canadian border, are expected to return Friday.
The prison has been locked down since Richard Matt and David Sweat were found missing from their cells on June 6.
The hunt for the escapees, convicted killers who cut their way through their cell wall and a steam pipe, has expanded beyond the 16-square-mile grid search of forests, swamps other buildings near the prison.
On Wednesday, authorities said a woman who provided hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools to the two convicted murderers discussed having them kill her husband.
Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said that Joyce Mitchell had talked to inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat about killing her husband, Lyle, who also works at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, near the Canadian border. Wylie said that Mitchell said to investigators that she was having sex with Matt.
Sweat and Matt escaped from 170-year-old prison in far northern New York on June 6 and have yet to be apprehended as a 13th day of searching started Thursday. Joyce Mitchell, a prison tailoring shop instructor who befriended the inmates, was arrested June 12.