By Jim Miller
Finger Lake Times
DANNEMORA — The fact that a prison worker who helped two inmates escape earlier this year will still receive a pension is yet more evidence the system needs reform, Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb said this week.
Joyce Mitchell recently pleaded guilty to helping convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility. Under the state’s current laws, she will nonetheless receive a pension, said Kolb, R-131 of Canandaigua.
Kolb blamed Assembly Democrats, who he said abandoned an agreed-upon pension forfeiture bill that the Senate had passed.
“They later replaced it with a watered-down version that had no chance of becoming law and contained an exemption that protects the pensions of Joyce Mitchell and other convicted individuals,” Kolb said in a press release.
He called the situation an unconscionable insult to every taxpayer in the state.
Full story: Kolb: Prison guard who helped inmates escape will still receive pension