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Ex-prison worker pleads guilty to helping killers flee

 
Published July 29, 2015

New York

Ex-prison worker pleads guilty to helping killers flee

A former prison employee pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping two killers stage a brazen escape that led to a three-week manhunt and is not expected to face other charges related to the breakout, including conspiring to kill her husband. A weeping Joyce Mitchell, 51, of Dickinson Center, N.Y., entered her plea nearly two months after her arrest stunned the small town where she worked in the prison tailoring shop. Under terms of the deal, Mitchell faces up to seven years in prison and $6,000 in fines. She was accused in a criminal complaint of smuggling hacksaw blades, chisels, a punch and a screwdriver bit into the Clinton Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Dannemora, N.Y. Mitchell allegedly gave the contraband to inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat, who were discovered missing from their cells during an early morning bed check on June 6. Matt was shot dead three weeks later about 40 miles from Dannemora. Sweat was captured two days after that.

Libya

Gadhafi's son gets death sentence

Moammar Gadhafi's son and onetime heir apparent was convicted and sentenced to death on Tuesday by a court in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on charges of murder and inciting genocide during the country's 2011 uprising. But Seif al-Islam Gadhafi is unlikely to face the firing squad any time soon. The sentence was handed down in absentia because he remains in the hands of a militia in western Libya that has refused to hand him over for the past four years — yet another sign of the country's bitter fragmentation since his father's fall from power.

Longmont, Colo.

School defends pulling gay teenager's speech

A Colorado school that pulled a graduation speech by an 18-year-old valedictorian who had planned to out himself as being gay didn't discriminate by blocking his speech. That's the conclusion of an outside attorney hired by Twin Peaks Charter Academy to investigate the decision. The conclusion will be sent to the St. Vrain Valley School Board. The Daily Camera reported that the School Board is expected to review the report next month. Evan Young's speech was blocked in the spring, a move which prompted criticism from gay rights activists.

Mahwah, N.J.

Man takes $150,000 in ATM cash left on lawn

A man drove off with a bag containing $150,000 in cash after two employees who were replenishing ATMs mistakenly left it on a lawn in northern New Jersey, police said. The Mahwah police said in a statement that the ATM employees had stopped at a business when one of them placed the satchel on the front lawn as he moved items around in their vehicle. They drove off, forgetting the bag. Sometime after 11:15 a.m. Monday, surveillance video shows a passenger in a white van grabbing the bag. The van was seen in other video surveillance pulling into a nearby auto repair business and pilfering used tires. Police say the ATM employees are cooperating with the investigation.

Elsewhere

Washington: Republicans and some Democrats expressed deep reservations Tuesday about the Iran nuclear deal as Secretary of State John Kerry and two Cabinet colleagues detailed the Obama administration's case for the agreement to the House for the first time.

Puerto Rico: Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Tuesday that creating a path as soon as possible to allow Puerto Rico's government to file for bankruptcy would help the U.S. territory recover from its economic crisis.

Mexico: Mexico's Caribbean resort region of Cancun is struggling to remove tons of brown sargassum seaweed that has been washing ashore on normally white sand in recent weeks.

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Vinita, Okla.: A day care center in northeast Oklahoma, Happiness Is a Learning Center, shut its doors Tuesday after a mother reported her two young sons were severely sunburned during an outing to a local water park.

Times wires