Prison worker arrested, accused of aiding 2 NY escapees

DANNEMORA, N.Y. (AP) — A worker at an upstate New York maximum-security prison has been arrested on charges she helped two convicted killers escape, state police said today.

Joyce Mitchell, 51, was arrested and was to be arraigned tonight on charges of first-degree promoting prison contraband and fourth-degree criminal facilitation, state police said.

Mitchell is accused of befriending inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora and giving them contraband.

District Attorney Andrew Wylie said earlier the contraband didn't include power tools used by the men as they cut holes in their cell walls and a steam pipe to escape through a manhole last weekend.

Meanwhile, law enforcement officers continued to search for the escapees, concentrating today in a rural area near the prison. The hunt for the inmates was focused on an area where residents reported seeing two men jumping a stone wall outside the far northern New York town of Dannemora.

About 300 searchers were added, bringing the total number of state, federal and local law enforcement officers involved in the manhunt to more than 800.

Mitchell's family has said she wouldn't have helped the convicts break out.

An instructor in the tailor shop where the men worked, Mitchell is also suspected of agreeing to be a getaway driver but didn't show up, leaving the men on foot early Saturday morning.