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PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. (AP) —
A sobbing former prison worker who helped two murderers escape from a maximum-security lockup said she regretted her "horrible mistake" as she was sentenced Monday to up to seven years behind bars as part of a plea deal.
Joyce Mitchell apologized profusely as she was sentenced to 2 1/3 to seven years in prison, saying she acted in part out of fear. She also might have to contribute to the $120,000 in restitution the state is seeking for damages to Clinton Correctional Facility from the brazen June 6 escape. The judge showed little sympathy as he handed down the sentence and set a Nov. 6 restitution hearing.
"If I could take it all back, I would," she told the judge. "I never intended for any of this to happen."
Mitchell entered the courtroom in tears and cried throughout most of the 35-minute sentencing. She apologized to the community, her former co-workers and law enforcement officers for the weeks of fear and disruption the search for the killers caused.
Mitchell, 51, had pleaded guilty to charges related to providing hacksaw blades and other tools to inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat.
Matt was serving 25 years to life for the killing and dismembering of his former boss. Sweat was serving life without parole for killing a sheriff's deputy in 2002.
The pair eluded more than 1,000 searchers who combed the thick woods and bogs of northern New York for much of the next three weeks. Matt was killed by a border agent June 26. Sweat was wounded and captured by a state trooper two days later.
Mitchell admitted becoming close with the pair while she worked as an instructor in the prison tailor shop. She told investigators she agreed to be their getaway driver before backing out after suffering a panic attack. The escapees were forced to scrub plans to head to Mexico and instead fled on foot after emerging from a manhole.
Judge Kevin Ryan noted that the resulting search disrupted life in a wide swath of the region for three weeks.
"A large portion of the local population were terrorized," he said. "Many were forced to flee their homes."
Mitchell said she didn't tell anyone about the inmates' escape plan because Matt had threatened to harm her family, particularly her husband, Lyle, who also worked in the prison.
"I was fearful of Mr. Matt threatening to kill my husband and wanting to know where my son and mother live," she told the judge.
But the judge rebuffed her claim that she was protecting her family by not divulging the escape plot to authorities.
"I just don't find that explanation credible," Ryan said.
Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie echoed that sentiment outside court afterward, telling reporters that "she once again is making excuses." He called her apology an insult to the searchers and victims.
Lyle Mitchell gave his wife a thumbs up as she entered and exited the court. She mouthed "I love you" to him as guards led her away.
Officials said the convicts used tools to cut their way out of their adjacent cells and get into the catwalk between the cell block walls. They crawled through an underground steam pipe and reached a street near the prison walls through a manhole.
Sweat, who is being housed in a solitary cell at a central New York prison, faces charges in the escape.
A prison guard, Gene Palmer, who authorities have said unwittingly abetted the escape plot, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of promoting prison contraband. Officials said he gave the two prisoners frozen hamburger meat Mitchell used to hide the hacksaw blades she smuggled to Sweat and Matt.
Wylie said after court that negotiations were continuing in those two cases. He said Sweat also could face restitution.
LOS ANGELES (AP) --
A physician assistant who wasn't licensed or trained to perform surgery operated on hundreds of patients while the orthopedic surgeon who billed for the procedures schemed with colleagues to hide a massive insurance fraud conspiracy, Los Angeles prosecutors said.
Prosecutors opposed reducing bail Friday for 13 people who have pleaded not guilty in the $150 million fraud scheme and outlined the complexity of the operation that spanned a decade and led to unnecessary and scarring surgeries for unwitting patients.
The indictments "paint a clear picture of a sophisticated and savvy group of criminal conspirators who placed profits above the health and welfare of the thousands of patients they purported to treat," Deputy District Attorney Catherine Chon said in court papers filed Thursday. "The callous disregard and extreme indifference that was shown to unsuspecting victims is reflected in the overt acts alleged."
Dr. Munir Uwaydah and his associates prescribed unnecessary expensive medications, billed two-minute doctor's appointments as hourlong examinations, and doctored MRI results and medical records to justify unnecessary operations.
Fifteen people have been indicted in the scheme that paid marketers and workers' compensation lawyers up to $10,000 a month in kickbacks to funnel patients to Uwaydah's clinic. They got bonuses if the patients were candidates for surgery and additional cash if they received operations, the indictment said.
In some instances, even the patients were paid if they were reluctant to go through with the expensive surgeries, Chon said.
Uwaydah, 49, was arrested in Germany Sept. 9 and is awaiting extradition, prosecutors said. It was not clear if he had a lawyer yet.
Prosecutors said Uwaydah fled to his native Lebanon in 2010 after they began investigating fraud as a possible motive in the 2008 strangling of Juliana Redding, an aspiring model he once dated.
Uwaydah denied any involvement in the killing. His former personal assistant and office manager was charged but acquitted of murder.
The office manager, Kelly Soo Park, 49, is now being held on $18.5 million bail in the fraud case. Park's lawyer said he doesn't think prosecutors can connect her to the fraud.
But Chon said Park placed her name on shell companies and bank accounts for Uwaydah and attended weekly meetings where the doctor and others discussed ways to hide his assets from insurers, creditors and law enforcement.
The meetings included discussions of a state medical board case against Uwaydah over allegations he allowed physician assistant Peter Nelson to perform surgeries at an Orange County hospital in 2005.
"The participants in the meeting were well aware that Nelson was in the operating room engaged in the very practice that the medical profession's regulatory agency had clearly stated was inappropriate," Chon wrote.
Uwaydah and Nelson are charged with 21 counts of aggravated mayhem - each for a different patient - though Chon said those represent a fraction of the hundreds of procedures Nelson performed. Patients were scarred for life, and some required multiple corrective surgeries.
Nelson's lawyer, Louis Shapiro, said the state attorney general is seeking to have his client's license suspended. Shapiro said it was too premature to comment on the case, but he noted that physician assistants can perform some surgical procedures under the supervision of doctors.
He didn't seek a reduction in Nelson's $21 million bail.
Nine other defendants, including Park, are charged with mayhem in aiding the scheme. If convicted, the charge carries a possible life sentence. The defendants also face dozens of charges related to insurance fraud.
The medical board revoked Uwaydah's license two years ago because he left the state and never completed probation after settling several alleged violations without acknowledging guilt, spokeswoman Cassandra Hockenson said. One count involved gross negligence for allowing Nelson to begin surgery without him present.
Nelson, 44, has been cited twice by the state Physician Assistant Board.
The most recent violation, for failure to maintain proper records, led to a $1,500 fine against Nelson after a patient complained about him failing to provide anesthesia while removing 2 feet of surgical gauze left for a month in an incision from shoulder surgery, according to public records.
Attorney Eric Bryan Seuthe sued Uwaydah for malpractice for leaving gauze in Jenniffer Milone's incision, which led to a painful infection when she returned to the doctor's office less than a week after surgery.
Despite being given antibiotics, her fever and pain did not improve until the gauze was discovered by X-ray a month later and removed by Nelson.
Seuthe dropped out of the lawsuit, and it's not clear if it was resolved. Prosecutors said Nelson performed the initial shoulder surgery.
Associated Press-
Kentucky clerk Kim Davis, a longtime Democrat, says she is switching to the Republican Party because she feels abandoned by Democrats in her fight against same-sex marriage.
Davis made the announcement while in Washington, D.C., to attend the Family Research Council's Value Voters Summit, said Charla Bansley, a spokeswoman for Liberty Counsel, which represents Davis in her legal battles.
"I've always been a Democrat, but the party left me," Davis said, according to Bansley.
Davis wasn't immediately available for an interview but will address the conservative group Friday night.
Davis sparked a national firestorm by refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after the Supreme Court effectively legalized gay marriage in June. Davis was ordered by a federal judge to issue the licenses but refused, and spent five days in jail for continuing to defy the order, propelling her to folk hero status among some on the religious right.
Republicans, not Democrats, came to Davis' defense.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist preacher running for president but trailing badly in the polls, rushed to Davis' side, visited her in jail and held a religious freedom rally on the jailhouse lawn. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz also traveled to Kentucky to bask in her defiance.
A judge ultimately freed Davis on the condition she not interfere with her deputies issuing the licenses. But her legal woes persist: On the day she returned to the office, Davis altered the license forms to delete her name and her office, and replaced it with the line "pursuant to federal court order."
The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued her on behalf of the couples she turned away, questioned the validity of the licenses, asked the judge to order her to reissue them or consider punishing her again.
Davis was elected Rowan County clerk last fall as a Democrat. She replaced her mother, also a Democrat, who served as county clerk for 37 years.
Democrats make up 65 percent of the county's 14,000 registered voters, but Davis' switch is not a huge surprise because many Kentucky Democrats still represent the party of decades ago, which was long dominated by rural whites with conservative values. But the state's Democrats have grown frustrated with the national party's shift on social and environmental issues, embracing gay marriage and abortion rights while acknowledging climate change and supporting new emission standards for coal-fired power plants.
Registered Democrats still outnumber registered Republicans in Kentucky. But since 2008, when Barack Obama was elected president, Republicans have added 183,635 registered voters in Kentucky while Democrats have added 23,957 during the same time period.
While the state's governor and five of its six statewide elected officers are Democrats, all but one of the state's congressional delegation are Republicans and a Democratic presidential candidate has not won the state since Bill Clinton in 1996. The Kentucky state Senate is dominated by Republicans while Democrats are clinging to an eight-seat majority in the House of Representatives.
Davis meanwhile lumps blame for her legal problems on Steve Beshear, the state's Democratic governor, who refused to call the state legislature for a special session, where lawmakers could hammer out a way to exempt religious clerks from issuing the licenses. The governor instead told defiant clerks to either issue the licenses or resign.
Davis, who made the rounds this week on television news programs to defend her actions and tout her religious conviction, was invited to the event hosted by the Family Research Council, a conservative lobbying group, along with other "Christians who have been targeted for their religious beliefs on natural marriage."