Ex-Upstate Prison Guard Released After Doing Time For Smuggling Tools For Escapees
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The former correction officer who helped two convicted murderers escape last year was released from jail Monday.
Gene Palmer walked out of the Clinton County Jail in Plattsburgh Monday. He admitted that he provided a screwdriver and needle-nose pliers to prisoners David Sweat and Richard Matt last year.
Prosecutors believe the convicts used the tools to break out of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora.
Palmer pleaded guilty in February to a felony count of promoting prison contraband for bringing the tools, a misdemeanor contraband count for the hamburger meat and a misdemeanor official misconduct count.
Palmer served four months of a six-month sentence. He did not want to talk about his time behind bars.
"This is an inappropriate time or place to make that statement. Thank you," Palmer said.
Palmer had earlier said he gave Sweat access to the interior catwalk later used in the escape to change the wiring on electrical boxes as ``a favor'' to make it easier for the two prisoners to cook in their cells. Just before the escape, he delivered to Matt a pound of frozen ground beef in a package left by fellow prison worker Joyce Mitchell.
Palmer said he didn't know there was a hacksaw blade in the meat. Mitchell is serving 2 1/3 to seven years in prison for helping the pair escape.
In sentencing Palmer last year, Judge Kevin Ryan said a ``culture of violence'' inside the prison, which houses some of New York state's most hardened criminals, led Palmer and fellow guards to do favors for inmates in exchange for information. But the judge said last year that was no excuse for Palmer's behavior.
Sweat and Matt eluded more than 1,000 searchers who combed the thick woods and bogs of northern New York for much of the next three weeks. Matt was shot and killed by searchers about 30 miles west of the prison on June 26. Sweat was wounded and captured by a state trooper two days later near the Canadian border.
Sweat, who was already serving life behind bars when he escaped, has been ordered to pay restitution and was sentenced to additional prison time.
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