Escapee practiced fleeing New York prison where chief on leave
By Pete DeMola
PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (Reuters) - Escapee David Sweat made a practice run before he and Richard Matt broke out of an upstate New York prison where on Tuesday the superintendent and 11 other employees were placed on leave.
Sweat, 35, who was shot and captured on Sunday after a three-week manhunt, told investigators he completed a test run before they made their elaborate escape from Clinton Correctional Facility on June 6, Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said. Matt, 49, was shot and killed on Friday.
"Sweat tells (law enforcement) that he made a dry run the night before the escape," Wylie said after he was briefed by New York State Police.
The convicted murderers cut through cell walls, carved a hole in a steam pipe and slithered through the bowels of the prison, emerging through a manhole outside the walls of the prison in Dannemora, New York.
Two prison workers are charged in connection with the escape - corrections officer Gene Palmer and prison tailor shop supervisor Joyce Mitchell, who is accused of smuggling hacksaw blades.
Sweat was being treated at Albany Medical Center, where he was listed in fair condition.
Three members of the executive team and nine security staff employees of the maximum-security prison were placed on administrative leave, the New York State Corrections Department said on Tuesday. A spokeswoman declined to identify them.
Superintendent Steven Racette was among them, a woman who identified herself as Racette's wife told Reuters.
"He's been placed on administrative leave," said the woman who answered the phone at their Saranac Lake home. "We have no other comment."
The other two executives put on leave are a first deputy superintendent and a deputy superintendent for security, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
The other nine employees put on leave are corrections officers and supervisors, the source told Reuters.
State Assistant Commissioner for Correctional Facilities James O'Gorman will oversee the facility near the Canadian border "as the new leadership team transitions this week," the department statement said.
Racette, who earns $132,040 as superintendent of Clinton, has declined to be interviewed.
The son of a prison superintendent, Racette has worked in the prison system since 1979, rising through the ranks to superintendent in 2010. He became supervisor at Clinton, New York's largest prison, in 2014.
(Additional reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago and Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Eric Walsh and Ken Wills)
