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Prison Worker Allegedly Had Lots Of Sex With Escaped Convict, Snuck Tools In Hamburger Meat
By
Ben Yakas
Published Jun 24, 2015
Modified Jun 24, 2015
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Jun 24, 2015
Modified Jun 24, 2015
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Yesterday, the husband of Joyce Mitchell, the prison tailor worker who allegedly aided two convicted murderers in their escape from an upstate prison at the start of the month, swore that his wife never had sexual relationships with either David Sweat and Richard Matt, insisting, "We never fight. We're together, I'll bet you, 95 percent of the time. We work together, we never leave the house unless we're together." It seems his faith in his wife may have been misplaced: the Post reports today that Mitchell and Sweat had sex together over 100 times in a prison closet.
Former Clinton Correctional Facility prisoner Erik Jensen told them that the couple's closet trusts weren't much of a secret around the prison: "He was getting it on with her. Or she was doing sexual favors for him," Jensen said, noting that she would routinely end her shift by "disappearing into the 8-foot-by-15-foot stockroom with the 35-year-old Sweat for at least a half-hour at a time."
Mitchell apparently told people that they were just counting the clothes made by each prisoner, but no one was fooled. "Everyone used to joke with him that he was getting his quiet time with his ‘boo,’ his girlfriend," Jensen said. "It was like the running joke in the tailor shop."
Mitchell was in charge of one of the prison's sewing rooms, where inmates stitch together pants, jackets and other garments for prisoners and correction officers. She made Sweat her head tailor, and the two would often eat lunch together. "The way I can describe it is in high school, when one of the good-looking jocks looks at the ugly girl or asks her to the prom — that look on her face. She was ecstatic," Jensen said.
Sweat was eventually transferred out of the sewing shop as part of an investigation into his relationship with Joyce, but Jensen notes they spent at least eight months there "working" together. Mitchell also reportedly had sex with Matt on several occasions, and even convinced prison officials to move Sweat’s cell next to Matt’s on the prison's "honor block."
That food she brought him—which included hamburgers and Subway sandwiches—weren't just a gesture of affection. They also apparently contained the tools which Sweat and Matt used to make their escape. Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie says Mitchell admitted to putting hacksaw blades and drill bits into a hunk of hamburger meat. CNN adds that she apparently had to rope correction officer Gene Palmer into helping her bring it in, though it is unclear whether that officer was aware of what was inside the meat.
"Before he handed off the meat, he asked if there was anything wrong with it and she said no," attorney Andrew Brockway, who is representing Palmer, said. He claims Palmer didn't know what was inside the package: "The only mistake he made was trusting Joyce Mitchell."
A sketch of what Matt and Sweat might look like after being on the run for two weeks (Getty Images)
Sweat, 34, was imprisoned for life for killing a sheriff's deputy in Broome County, and Matt, 48, was serving a 25-year sentence for killing and dismembering an upstate businessman. During their escape on June 6th, they managed to cut through their cell's steel walls, traverse the catwalks in the prison's infrastructure, hack into a steam pipe that wasn't in use, and finally climb out through a manhole on the other side of the prison walls.
After finding the prisoners' DNA and fingerprints from items like bloody socks and prison-issued underwear at a camp site in Owls Head on Tuesday, officials now believe that one of the escaped convicts may be on the run barefoot. An abandoned pair of boots was found near the cabin when the two men are believed to have stayed at some point, which is located about 20 miles west of the correctional facility.
Tagged
clinton correctional
david sweat
joyce mitchell
prison break
richard matt
sex
upstate ny
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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