Corrections Employee Arrested — Did Gene Palmer Know He Was Aiding A Cunning Prison Break?
Another corrections employee has been arrested in connection with a June 6 prison break that sent two dangerous murderers fleeing into the wilderness of the Adirondacks. Gene Palmer, a nearly 30-year vet of the prison system, is now facing some serious accusations.
However, none of those charges seem to suggest that Palmer, 57, had an active, direct role in the escape from Clinton County Correctional Facility.
The corrections employee was arrested on Wednesday and will be arraigned Thursday afternoon, where his lawyer will enter a plea of not guilty, WPTZ reported. Gene is reportedly devastated by the charges, among them three felonies and a misdemeanor.
He has been charged with promoting prison contraband (a felony), two counts of tampering with physical evidence (also a felony), and one count official misconduct (the misdemeanor), NBC News added.
In explaining the individual charges to the Press-Republican, Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said that the misconduct charge alleges that the corrections employee accepted paintings created by both inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat. COs are not allowed to accept such gifts.
Between the day of the escape and June 20, Palmer allegedly destroyed those paintings — burning one and burying the other — hence the tampering charges. Finally, the contraband charge alleges that the corrections employee gave the convicts a needle-nosed plier and screwdriver between November last year and the day of the escape. According to NBC News, these items were given in exchange for artwork.
“We have no knowledge that those were connected with the escape,” Wylie said, rather Gene believed that the items were somehow connected to the men’s paintings.
He is the first CO to be arrested in connection with the escape.
The corrections employee has also been accused of allowing both inmates to access the catwalk behind their cells to fix a fuse box — the very same one they navigated after they cut a hole into their cell wall. This was inappropriate, Wylie said, but not illegal. He has not been arrested in connection with that action.
New this AM: 2nd prison worker charged w/ helping escaped convicts posts bail. http://t.co/sjriNZWfMS #NYprisonbreak http://t.co/7UMKHP6kBV
— CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) June 25, 2015
Palmer has also been implicated in delivering hacksaw blades to the inmates via frozen hamburger. However, his attorney insists that the corrections employee did not know the items were hidden inside. Tailor shop employee Joyce Mitchell — long ago arrested and jailed on charges of helping Matt and Sweat break out — asked him to deliver the meat to Matt without going through the metal detector.
His attorney, Andrew Brockway, noted that small favors were part of a trade in the facility. Corrections officers would use these favors to get info about prison fights, for example. Another possible favor performed by Gene, reported by ABC News, was purchasing paint and brushes for the convicts from a local Michaels store a couple years ago.
In hindsight, the corrections employee now “sees… how (Matt and Sweat) were able to manipulate his coworkers, maybe himself and Joyce Mitchell,” Brockway said.
As Palmer was arrested Wednesday, a search force 1,000 strong was still combing a 75-square mile area of “steep slopes, thick bogs, and heavy undergrowth” for the inmates near Owls Head and Mountain View in Franklin County, about 20 miles from the prison, NBC News added.
The men’s DNA was found in a cabin there, giving State Police Maj. Charles Guess “100 percent assurance they were in that area,” Reuters added. However, their stop at the hunting cabin — leased by COs — may also mean that the murderers are now armed.
In a press conference Wednesday, he said the cabin “not have a definite number of weapons, so they cannot tell us what is missing and what is not.”
[Photo Courtesy Twitter]
