A corrections officer accused of aiding two convicted killers in their escape last June from an upstate New York penitentiary pleaded guilty Monday and was sentenced to six months behind bars.
In a plea deal with prosecutors, guard Gene Palmer admitted to “promoting prison contraband” charges and to official misconduct in connection with the escape of convicted murders Richard Matt and David Sweat. The two inmates pulled off an elaborate escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in update New York and were the focus of a nationwide manhunt for more than three weeks until Matt was shot and killed and Sweat was recaptured.
Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said a condition of the plea deal was that Palmer would resign from the state department of corrections, and that paperwork would be processed on Monday.
According to prosecutors, Palmer gave at least one of the prison escapees a screwdriver and a wrench to help fix electrical breakers in the catwalk area behind their cells. Palmer told investigators he supervised Matt and Sweat doing the work and took the tools back before the end of his shift, the official said. Authorities have said Matt and Sweat used the catwalks during their escape.
Palmer, who worked at the prison for 27 years, also took frozen meat that had been embedded with smuggled tools to the inmates’ cell area in the now-closed honor block.
“Even if the (prison) administration turned a blind eye to what was going on in the facility between inmates and corrections officers, and thus tacitly approved the conduct, each individual who engages in these actions subjects themselves to the consequences when these actions cross the line into criminal behavior,” Judge Kevin Ryan said. Ryan gave Palmer a “definite jail sentence” of six months, and fined him $5,000. The maximum sentence Palmer faced was seven years in prison.