A convicted killer who was serving a life sentence when he and another inmate escaped from a maximum-security state prison pleaded guilty on Friday to criminal charges stemming from the breakout.
The killer, David Sweat, 35, entered the plea during his second appearance in court since being captured and returned to prison in June. He has been held since then in special housing at the Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, N.Y., where he is confined 23 hours a day.
Mr. Sweat, standing with his lawyer and ringed by guards as he faced Judge Patrick McGill of Clinton County Court, did not make a statement. After being unshackled at one wrist and sworn in, he answered, “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir” to Judge McGill’s questions. Absent was the sling that Mr. Sweat, who was shot by the authorities when he was caught, wore at his initial court appearance. His head was shaved, and he had a goatee and mustache.
Mr. Sweat pleaded guilty to two felony counts of first-degree escape and one felony count of promoting prison contraband, for possessing the hacksaw blades that he and his accomplice, Richard W. Matt, used to cut their way out of their cells at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora in June.
Each count carries a sentence of three and a half to seven years in prison.
Andrew J. Wylie, the Clinton County district attorney, said his office would seek $79,841 in restitution from Mr. Sweat to pay the cost of repairs needed at the prison after the escape. Mr. Wylie’s office is also seeking restitution from Joyce E. Mitchell, a former prison worker who pleaded guilty to helping Mr. Sweat and Mr. Matt escape.
Mr. Wylie has said the new convictions could make life in prison more difficult for Mr. Sweat, who, along with Mr. Matt, had enjoyed special privileges as a result of being housed in the Dannemora prison’s honor block.
Mr. Wylie also said Mr. Sweat was prohibited by the state’s so-called Son of Sam law from trying to profit by selling his story about the breakout and the three-week manhunt that followed.
Mr. Sweat and an accomplice were convicted in the 2002 murder of a Broome County sheriff’s deputy who happened on them in a closed park after they had stolen guns from a Pennsylvania shop. The authorities said the deputy, Kevin Tarsia, had been shot multiple times and run over with a car. Mr. Matt was convicted of kidnapping, killing and dismembering a former employer in 1997 in what began as an attempt to coerce money from the man.
While the two were on the run, they stole food and a shotgun from unoccupied camps in northern New York.
Mr. Matt was fatally shot by the authorities on June 26 in a wooded area about 30 miles west of Dannemora. Mr. Sweat was shot and captured two days later in the same area while heading toward the Canadian border.