Bold escape in Dannemora

The escape from a maximum security facility with a notorious reputation among inmates and prison staff alike will go down in North Country lore.

Some time between late on June 5 and early June 6, Matt and Sweat stuffed hooded sweatshirts to make it look like they were sleeping in their bunks and then slipped through neatly cut rectangles they had made in the backs of their adjoining steel-plated cells.

The law enforcement contingent swelled to more than 1,000 at times with police, federal agents and correction officials wading through thick swamps and forests.

The end of the search was billed as a heroic victory for law enforcement, who had enjoyed overwhelming support from the North Country community during their search.

Damning allegations of abusive interrogations by law enforcement inside the prison walls following the escape and of other abuses at the prison surfaced in the media, putting the state correctional officers union on the defensive.

Gene Palmer, a corrections officer whom Mitchell convinced to pass frozen hamburger meat with hacksaw blades and other tools hidden inside to Matt and Sweat, has pleaded not guilty to the charges he faces.

The chair of the Assembly Corrections Committee held a hearing in December focusing on the need for more transparency and oversight in the state's prison system, which has received a new level of scrutiny since June.

"[...] the IG's report comes out and the folks who are on administrative leave who didn't do anything wrong are allowed to go back to work ... there can't be a finality," said Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, R-Peru, whose district includes Clinton and several other prisons.

"The hundreds of people who went out and gave food to the guys at the roadblocks and purchased personal items for all of the CERT (emergency responders) and law enforcement folks who were here who needed things, the home-cooked meals, the snacks, the beverages, we have a really suppor