A weeping Joyce Mitchell pleads guilty to helping killers escape N.Y. prison

Reporting from New York —  A former prison employee pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping two killers stage a brazen escape that led to a three-week manhunt and is not expected to face other charges related to the breakout, including conspiring to kill her husband.

A weeping Joyce Mitchell, 51, of Dickinson Center, N.Y., entered her plea nearly two months after her arrest stunned the small town where she worked in the prison tailoring shop.

Under terms of the deal, Mitchell faces up to seven years in prison and $6,000 in fines. She also was ordered to give up a teaching credential.

Mitchell was accused in a criminal complaint of smuggling hacksaw blades, chisels, a punch and a screwdriver bit into the Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Dannemora, N.Y. Prosecutors said she stashed the blades in frozen hamburger meat.

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Mitchell allegedly gave the contraband to inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat, who were discovered missing from their cells during an early morning bed check on June 6. Matt was shot dead three weeks later about 40 miles from Dannemora. Sweat was captured two days after that.

At her first court appearance, days after the pair vanished, Mitchell pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of smuggling contraband into the prison, and to a misdemeanor charge of criminal facilitation in the fourth degree. The misdemeanor stemmed for Mitchell’s alleged rendering of aid to Sweat and Matt to enable their breakout.

Mitchell changed the plea Tuesday under the advice of her attorney, Stephen Johnson. As part of the deal, Clinton County Dist. Atty. Andrew Wylie said Mitchell would not face prosecution for any additional charges related to the prison break.

Wylie, speaking at a news conference after Mitchell’s court appearance, said additional charges could have included conspiring with Sweat and Matt to murder her husband, Lyle Mitchell, and charges of rape or sexual assault stemming from allegations she had sexual relations with one or both of the escapees in prison.

Prosecutors had said that Mitchell had talked to Sweat and Matt about killing her husband after she helped them break out.

But Wylie said there was insufficient corroborating evidence to convince him that a jury would have convicted Mitchell of additional charges. He said he negotiated the deal “in the interest of justice” and said Mitchell would get the maximum of 2 1/3 to seven years in prison when she is sentenced. Mitchell was expected to be sentenced in September.

“If people don’t like the way I handled this case, they can vote differently in 2017,” said Wylie, an elected official.

Mitchell arrived at the courthouse in Plattsburgh with her hands shackled and dressed in a striped prison jumpsuit. She hung her head and did not speak as she passed a media crowd waiting outside the court.

Inside court, she answered in a barely audible voice when asked if she understood the terms of the plea agreement.

Sweat has said that Mitchell was supposed to wait for him and Matt when they emerged through a manhole outside the prison after digging a tunnel to escape. But prosecutors say Mitchell told them she changed her mind at the last minute because she did not want to hurt her husband.

Lyle Mitchell was among those in court as his wife entered her plea. After the hearing, which lasted less than 30 minutes, Joyce Mitchell shuffled out, her head hung low, for the ride back to jail.

In addition to Mitchell, another prison worker -- corrections officer Gene Palmer -- has been charged with promoting prison contraband but not directly accused of involvement in the escape. Officials say Palmer brought Matt and Sweat the hamburger meat hiding the hacksaw blades. They have not alleged that Palmer knew the meat, left in a prison freezer by Mitchell, contained the blades.

Prosecutors say Palmer also smuggled paint supplies into Matt, so he could practice his artwork, and tools to enable the inmates to alter electrical boxes so they could cook in their cells.

Wylie said attempts to negotiate a plea deal with Palmer had failed and that his case soon would go before a grand jury.

No other prison workers are expected to face charges stemming from the escape, Wylie said, even though a dozen employees were suspended after the breakout amid a state Department of Corrections investigation into practices at the facility.

As part of her plea deal, Mitchell will be required to cooperate with investigators.

Wylie said Sweat had not implicated any other prison workers in wrongdoing.

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