US woman pleads guilty to helping inmates escape

NEW YORK: A female prison worker pleaded guilty on Tuesday to helping two convicted murderers escape from a maximum security prison last month by hiding tools in frozen hamburger meat.

Joyce Mitchell ( pix) , 51, now faces up to seven years in prison. Her sentencing is scheduled for Sept 28.

Wiping away tears as she wore a black and white prison jumpsuit, Mitchell pleaded guilty to bringing contraband into the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York and to criminal facilitation.

This was the result of a plea deal with prosecutors that will shield her from any additional charges, Clinton County district attorney Andrew Wylie said.

He mentioned her alleged sexual relations with one or both of the convicts, which under US law would be classified as rape.

Mitchell, who worked at the prison as a seamstress, was charged with facilitating the escape by providing hacksaw blades and drill bits to the two prisoners.

The objects were hidden in hamburger meat, and it was physically handed over to the inmates by another prison worker.

Mitchell was arrested a week after the movie-worthy escape of David Sweat, 35, and Richard Matt, 49, on June 6.

The two men escaped in audacious fashion – they used power tools to cut through cell walls, then crawled through pipes to emerge from a manhole in the village of Dannemora, home to the sprawling prison. After spending three weeks on the run, Matt was shot and killed by police about 45km from the prison.

Sweat was shot and wounded and then arrested on June 29 a few kilometres from the Canadian border.

He was hospitalised briefly, then sent to a different maximum-security prison.

Mitchell had initially agreed to pick up the two prisoners in a getaway car but changed her mind at the last minute. The men escaped on foot through a wooded area. – AFP