New York, Jun 25 (EFE).- A second prison staffer was arrested and charged with several criminal counts for assisting in the escape of two convicted murderers from a prison in upstate New York, men who are still being sought by authorities, local media reported Thursday.
The man, identified by authorities as Gene Palmer, 57, was arrested Wednesday night by police and after charges were presented against him he was released on bail about midnight.
The authorities say that Palmer was the person who passed one of the two prisoners a package of frozen meat in which were hidden a screwdriver and some pliers, although the accused told investigators that he did not know what was inside the package.
Palmer, who in the coming hours will appear again before a judge, is facing a minimum of 15 months and a maximum of seven years behind bars, but his attorney said Thursday that he will plead not guilty.
"Mr. Palmer has been completely cooperative with the investigation. He will continue to cooperate. He's a man of integrity who made some mistakes," said attorney Andrew Brockway to NBC television.
David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility, near the Canadian border, during the night of June 5-6, and since then they have been sought by hundreds of local, state and federal law enforcement officers.
According to the list of charges against him, Palmer gave an unidentified prisoner packets of meat with the tools inside on four separate occasions between November and June in exchange for several paintings done by the two escapees.
After the escape, law enforcement authorities said that Palmer burned several of the pictures in a stove at his home and tried to bury others in a wooded area in the town of Dannemora, where the Clinton prison is located, The New York Times reported.
The charges against Palmer come after those presented on June 12 against another prison staffer, Joyce Mitchell, who confessed to authorities that she offered the prisoners access to a cell phone and smuggled tools to them.
Mitchell, 51, who has pleaded not guilty, is said to have admitted that she had sexual relations with the fugitives and in the months prior to the escape gave candy to the security guards in exchange for favors for the inmates.
The staffer, who ran a candy shop in the prison, managed to get Matt and Sweat placed in adjacent cells and had the guards give them frozen hamburgers without passing them through the metal detector.
Sweat, 35, is serving a life term for killing a law enforcement officer, while Matt, 48, is in prison for torturing, murdering and dismembering his boss, for which he was serving 25 years to life.
