SARANAC LAKE – The state has suspended the superintendent of Clinton Correctional Facility, Saranac Lake resident Steve Racette, and two other members of the prison’s executive team in the wake of a brazen escape from the facility that spurred a massive, three-week manhunt for two convicted murderers.

Another nine security staff employees have also been placed on administrative leave, according to a statement from the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

The 12-member group is in addition to a prison tailor shop instructor and a guard who have been arrested on charges they helped the escapees. Officials would not say what connection, if any, the 12 had to the June 6 escape from the maximum-security prison or the failure to prevent it.

Racette’s wife, Cherie, said her husband has been given the option of either retiring or taking a demotion from his $132,000-a-year job. She said he plans to retire.

Cherie Racette said she’s been told the two other top Clinton officials who’ve been suspended are deputy superintendents Donald Quinn and Stephen Brown. She said they’re all being made scapegoats by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“This is totally Andrew Cuomo,” Racette told the Enterprise late Tuesday morning. “This is totally a political move to prove that he’s in charge. Somebody had to take the fall, so let’s take out somebody who gave 37 years of his life to the department (and) never had a problem.”

James O’Gorman, DOCCS assistant commissioner for correctional facilities, will oversee the Dannemora prison for now.

“Staffing for the security positions will be addressed through procedures outlined in the union contract,” the statement reads.

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Hot seat

Steve Racette has been in the spotlight, and the hot seat, since David Sweat and Richard Matt broke out of the Dannemora prison on June 6. The prisoners cut holes in their cells and a steam pipe and made their way to a manhole outside in a breakout that embarrassed the corrections department, exposed a host of possible security lapses and set off a manhunt involving more than 1,200 law enforcement officers.

They eluded capture for three weeks, breaking into hunting camps and seasonal cabins, until Matt was killed on Friday and Sweat was shot and caught on Sunday. He was listed in fair condition Tuesday at Albany Medical Center.

Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said Sweat told investigators that he started cutting through steel cell block walls in January with only a hacksaw blade and used no power tools. Authorities had previously said the two men used power tools borrowed from contractors’ toolboxes at night.

Prosecutors have said tailor shop instructor Joyce Mitchell got close to the men, supplied them with hacksaw blades and other tools, and agreed to be their getaway driver but backed out at the last moment. She has pleaded not guilty.

Guard Gene Palmer was also arrested, telling investigators he gave the convicts such things as tools, art supplies and access to a catwalk electrical box, to help them cook on hot plates, in exchange for paintings by Matt. But he said he never knew of their escape plans.

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“Very stressful”

Steve Racette was at his home in Saranac Lake when the Enterprise called Tuesday morning, but his wife said he’s not ready to speak publicly. She said he has been working long hours since the two inmates escaped.

“It’s been very stressful,” she said. “He had employees who were doing copious amounts of hours to help out with the situation, and he had employees out in the field going through the brush and through the swamps, and he worried about these guys. They were friends. They are employees. He takes that very seriously.”

In addition to being superintendent of Clinton Correctional, Racette was supervising superintendent of the Clinton Hub, which includes six prisons in northeastern New York: the maximum-security Clinton and Upstate (Malone), and the medium-security Adirondack (Ray Brook), Franklin (Malone), Bare Hill (Malone) and Altona. Also in the hub is DOCCS’ area reporting office in Plattsburgh, and it included the medium-security prison in Chateaugay until that closed last year.

Cherie Racette said her husband was running Upstate Correctional Facility in Malone when he was asked to come to Dannemora and “help repair and put Clinton back, because they had problems.

“He and his first (deputy), Don Quinn were asked to go to Clinton, and this is their payment for trying to get Clinton back on track,” she said.

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Procedures

Since the escape, questions have been raised about whether certain policies and procedures, if they had been put in place beforehand, could have prevented the breakout.

Quoting anonymous active and retired corrections officers, the Plattsburgh Press-Republican reported on June 10 that a large-scale brawl took place in the prison yard about a week before Matt and Sweat escaped. Normally after such an incident, a lockdown is implemented and the prison is thoroughly searched, but that didn’t happen in this case, the newspaper reported. Clinton’s supervisors were reportedly told by DOCCS officials in Albany that the overtime costs would be too expensive.

Two of the prison’s guard towers, from which the manhole Matt and Sweat emerged from could be seen, were also unstaffed at night, the Press-Republican also reported.

Cherrie Racette said those kinds of procedures and decisions are made in Albany, not by the local prison supervisors.

“When something happens inside the facility like this brawl, a lockdown happens immediately,” she said. “That was when (Steve Racette) asked for an entire frisk of the jail. He was told no. It’s all about money. It would have been quite an undertaking to completely frisk that jail.”

State Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, R-Peru, said state prison superintendents haven’t been allowed to run their facilities.

“Decisions have got to be made at the local level,” she said, “and over the last few years I’ve seen that eroded and more decisions being made systemically instead of allowing the facilities to rely on the professionals within the facilities.”

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Wrong time

Duprey called Tuesday’s suspensions “the wrong action at an inappropriate time,” noting that the Cuomo-requested state Inspector General’s Office review of the prison hasn’t been completed.

“There have been no reports issued,” Duprey said. “I think some of this is generated by national media coverage; the sharks out there looking for someone to blame. I think it’s premature.”

“There is nobody in the entire state Department of Corrections who is more professional and done a better job than Superintendent Steve Racette,” Duprey added. “He deserves better as a person. He has the greatest amount of respect from the correction officers there.”

Duprey said she toured the prison on Friday with Racette and acting DOCCS Commissioner Anthony Annucci, among others. She said “there was no indication this was coming down.

“We talked a lot about Superintendent Racette’s recommendations on things that could and should be changed, some that have been in the works for years,” she said. “It appears now maybe people are listening.”

Asked if she thought the suspensions were a mandate from Cuomo, Duprey said, “I don’t know that I’m in a position to answer that right now.”

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Community support

While Steve Racette is well known in corrections circles, local residents know him more for what he’s done in the Saranac Lake community. He has volunteered with Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, St. Bernard’s Catholic Church in various capacities, the local cross country and track team booster club, the Summer Fun Run series in Saranac Lake and as a Winter Carnival Ice Palace builder. He was selected as this year’s Winter Carnival king for his record of community service.

Cherie Racette said she and her husband have been “completely, wonderfully overwhelmed” by the support they’ve received from the community over the last few weeks.

Saranac Lake Mayor Clyde Rabideau, who went to school with Racette and has known him since seventh grade, created an “I Stand by Steve” post with a picture of an orange ribbon on his Facebook page. As of this morning it had more than 300 “likes” and had been shared nmore than 400 times.

“I feel for and grieve with my good friend Steve Racette, and I’ll always stand by him,” Rabideau said. “I know he’ll shoulder his due responsibility with the quiet dignity and professionalism for which he is known by his thousands of colleagues, family and friends.

“Although that is the knee-jerk reaction to fire the head of the unit when something goes terribly wrong, thought should have been given to the fact Steve was put there a short time ago to change a 150-year-old institution and get it back on track.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.