Prison Employee Confirmed to Have Supplied Contraband to Escaped Convicts

Joyce Mitchell, is the female prison employee allegedly responsible for supplying power tools for the two convicts that authorities believed cut their way out of maximum-security Clinton correctional facility. She has been officially confirmed as not the supplier of the power tools, but rather “equipment”.

Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie was quoted saying,

“Joyce Mitchell did not provide the power tools used by inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat to cut their way through steel walls and steam pipes seven days ago at the prison in Dannemora, New York.”

Wylie would further go on to mention that Mitchell, whose job responsibilities included being a supervisor at the prisons tailoring shop, had brought “contraband” into the prison, but failed to divulge any specific items.

Police sources went on to confirm that Mitchell had organized a getaway car for the escaped convicts. They are identified as Richard Matt, 48, serving 25 years to life for kidnap, torture, and hacksaw dismemberment of his former 76 year old boss in 1997. Authorities discovered his boss floating in pieces in a nearby river. David Sweat, 34, was serving a sentence of life without parole for killing Sheriff Deputy Kevin Tarsia, by shooting him 15 times and running over him with a vehicle after he came across Sweat and his two accomplices swapping illegal stolen weapons between cars.

Mitchell additionally attested to providing Matt and Sweat with access to cell phones and smuggled tools in prison the Albany Times-Union reported as of late Thursday.

Earlier that day authorities walked a shoulders width apart in the town of Cadyville, surveying the foliage and wooded areas for the two convicts, with Sheriff David Favro later declaring that there had been no reports of stolen or abandoned vehicles.

Governor Cuomo of New York gave a statement, where he was quoted saying:

“If you do it, you will be convicted, and then you’ll be on the other side of the prison that you’ve been policing, and that is not a pleasant place to be,” Cuomo said. The governor also said investigators are “talking to several people who may have facilitated the escape.”

Law enforcement officials briefed on the case say Mitchell is expected to face various criminal charges.

Image via Flickr/d_rod