Convicted Killer David Sweat Arraigned On Charges Related To Prison Escape
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A convicted killer who escaped from a maximum-security prison and spent more than three weeks on the run was arraigned Thursday on criminal charges stemming from the daring breakout.
A judge entered a not-guilty plea for David Sweat on two felony counts of first-degree escape and a felony count of promoting prison contraband for possessing hacksaw blades.
Sweat escaped June 6 from Clinton Correctional Facility with fellow inmate Richard Matt, also a convicted killer. Matt was shot dead June 26, and Sweat was shot and captured two days later, ending a 23-day manhunt.
Sweat, shackled and with his right arm in a sling, was brought to court from the Special Housing Unit at Five Points Correctional Facility in central New York. Inmates in that maximum-security unit are kept in solitary cells for 23 hours a day.
During the brief court appearance, he gave one-word answers to the judge's questions and said nothing as he was taken back out to waiting corrections department van.
Each of the charges carries a sentence of up to 7 years in prison. Sweat, 35, is already serving life without parole for the killing of a sheriff's deputy. Matt, 49, was doing 25 years to life for the kidnapping and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.
The prisoners used power tools to saw through steel cell walls and several steel steam pipes, bashed a hole through a 2-foot-thick brick wall, squirmed through pipes and emerged from a manhole outside the prison to find that their getaway driver didn't show up.
Authorities said the escapees had planned to drive to Mexico but ended up walking toward Canada when prison worker Joyce Mitchell backed out of giving them a ride at the last minute.
Matt and Sweat apparently spent more than two weeks together roaming the thick northern New York woods before splitting up. Authorities believe they traveled mostly at night and managed to procure food, a gun and other supplies from hunting camps and seasonal cabins.
Sweat was captured in the town of Constable, about 30 miles northwest of the prison. He had a bag containing maps, tools, bug repellent and Pop Tarts when he was caught.
Mitchell, who worked in the prison tailor shop with the inmates, has pleaded guilty to first-degree promoting prison contraband, a felony, and fourth-degree criminal facilitation, a misdemeanor, for the help she gave the inmates, including smuggling hacksaw blades to them in packages of frozen hamburger.
A prison guard who authorities say unknowingly abetted the escape plot has pleaded not guilty to a charge of promoting prison contraband. Authorities have said they don't believe there were any other people involved in the escape.
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