As the massive manhunt began for the two murderers who escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility in June, the prisoners left inside were subjected to harsh beatings and interrogations, according to a New York Times investigation.
Patrick Alexander occupied the cell next to Richard Matt, one of the escaped murderers, and told the Times that it was his proximity to Matt that caused guards to punish him. Alexander said he was questioned twice by investigators with the State Police and Corrections Department inspector general’s office before he was handcuffed and taken to a broom closet where he said three officers who he had never seen before began to question him.
The guards, he said, did not have name badges, but one wore a jacket with the initials initials C.I.U. — Crisis Intervention Unit.
Convicted murderers David Sweat, left, and Richard Matt escaped from maximum security prison June 6, 2015 using power tools and going through a manhole. Matt was shot and killed during the manhunt, and Sweat was recaptured alive. (Photo by New York State Police via Getty Images)
"Where are they going? What did you hear? How much are they paying you to keep your mouth shut?" Alexander said the guards shouted at him as they punched him and slammed his head into a wall.
"The officer jumps up and grabs me by my throat, lifts me out of the chair, slams my head into the pipe along the wall," he said. "Then he starts punching me in the face. The other two get up and start hitting me also in the ribs and stomach."
Despite Alexander's protests that he did not have any information, he said a guard put a plastic bag over his head and threatened to waterboard him.
"You know what waterboarding is?" he said the guard asked.
Instead of waterboarding him, the officer just continued to beat Alexander while the bag was over his head, he claimed.
Another inmate, Victor Aponte, said in a letter to Prisoners' Legal Services that a guard tied a plastic bag around his neck until he passed out during his interrogation.
"I don’t know how long he hung me up like that because I passed out," Aponte wrote.
Aponte said he and other inmates who were injured in their interrogations were initially denied medical attention. When they finally were allowed to see a doctor, Aponte said they were not allowed to tell anyone how they received their injuries.
"The sergeant tells me that I’ve been in prison for long time and I should know better, that if I didn’t tell the nurse that was going to examine me that nothing has happened that they were going to kill me for real this time," he said.
Other inmates reportedly were put in solitary confinement, were moved to other prison facilities and had their belongings stripped away from them. One inmate said when he was forced to move to another prison facility, he lost letters from his mother and aunt that he had received for the past decade.
Matt was eventually shot and killed by police. Fellow escapee David Sweat was recaptured alive and moved to another prison facility. Thus far investigators have not found any inmates had been complicit in the pair's escape — only staff members of the prison. One prison employee has already pleaded guilty to aiding in the escape and another faces criminal charges. Nine officers of the prison have been suspended.
Read the rest of the New York Times' report here.
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