Three Prison Executives; Nine Staffers Placed On Leave
CAMEROTA: Prison escapee, David Sweat, is talking, giving investigators a lot of information. Now, 12 employees, including three executives are on administrative leave from the Clinton Correctional prison because this investigation is heating up. Let's bring in former FBI special agent and former police officer, Jonathan Gilliam. Jonathan, great to have you here. So David Sweat is talking. This is according to state officials. He's talking and he is talking a lot. Number one, he says that he was the master mind of this whole escape. Number two, he said that he and his cohort did a dry run the night before they actually escaped where they got very close to escaping. Let me play for you what the district attorney says about that first attempt at escape.</s>DISTRICT ATTORNEY ANDREW WILEY, CLINTON COUNTY: They felt that due to there being a number of houses in that area that it might not be a good spot to exit from and so they located a manhole in between that manhole and the tunnel system where they escaped from.</s>CAMEROTA: OK, so basically, he's saying that the first manhole they came to, they looked around and saw that there were a lot of houses. They went back to the prison and then try it again the next night. Why is he giving them so much information?</s>JONATHAN GILLIAM, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: Well, first off, he's a psychopath. He's going to make himself look like a bigger deal. He knows he's going to be famous out of this whole thing. In his mind, he is going to give them as much as he can to get something back. Right now, it's a give and take with Sweat. The reality is though Sweat holds the key to all this stuff. As he gives out information, whether or not they went to the first manhole or the second manhole that is really inconsequential compared to was there a drug ring in here, who helped them? Those are the things we want to pull out.</s>CAMEROTA: So if he gives up that kind of information, what does he get from officials in return?</s>GILLIAM: Well, there's only going to be so much he can get. First off, he's going to have to be protected from the rest of the inmates because there's going to be a lot of people who are very mad at him because the whole prison system is getting a close look now.</s>CAMEROTA: So if he's protected from the other inmates that would mean solitary confinement, but that's not something that he wants for the next -- for the rest of his life when he goes back. So how could they figure out where to put him?</s>GILLIAM: Well, it could be, you know, they could give him a choice of three or four different prisons to go to. There are small incentives that they can give him to play with him and get a deal with him so that he does continue to give them information. He knows he is in for the rest of his life. It's on his best outlook if he does play ball and give them the information they need.</s>CAMEROTA: What do you think of the timing, the fact that we had heard from state officials that he was talking and then we heard that there were these 12 prison officials from top executives, the superintendent who are now on administrative leave. Does that mean that he told them -- he told officials something about these prison workers?</s>GILLIAM: Well, personally I think that should have been done immediately when this happened. I think the prison worker, the prison executives and anybody who was guarding or doing guard duty in that area should have immediately been pulled off and other people put in there. But the thing that gets me is why do we need to know this information? This country is in a form of thinking where if we drop bombs in Iraq, they want to tell everybody the next day how many bombs they dropped and exactly where we did it. Why do we need to know this stuff from the district attorney?</s>CAMEROTA: What is the harm in knowing it for the general public?</s>GILLIAM: Well, you know, we don't know if the town is even involved. This town is around 2,000 or less people. It --</s>CAMEROTA: Of Dannamora, where the prison is?</s>GILLIAM: It pretty much exists for this prison. What if this system that is going on there that is corrupted is bigger than the actual prison? What if it's the town? We don't know and nobody's asked the question, yet, what good it would have done these two individuals to get out of jail if there's a drug ring or something going on? If that's the case, you have to look at the bigger picture. Were they trying to get to Mexico so they could set up something to get drugs back into this system? We don't know. I mean, they ended up in cabins that are owned by corrections officers. That is strange to me. There are so many different coincidences that individually may just be a coincidence. When you put these things together, they are starting to say something. I'm not clear what that thing is, yet, but I don't think we need to keep giving out the information to other people on the outside that might be involved in this.</s>CAMEROTA: So in another words, you don't think that all of this was happenstance and a coincidence. You think that there could have been something larger going on that these two prisoners were in on?</s>GILLIAM: I think there could have been. Until we know that there wasn't, the attorneys in this, the governor, everybody needs to throttle back a little bit on how much information they are giving out because this could be potentially bigger than we even think.</s>CAMEROTA: Jonathan Gilliam, you have given us new questions to ask.</s>GILLIAM: That's right.</s>CAMEROTA: Thanks so much. Great to have you on here again. Let's get over to Chris.</s>CUOMO: All right, Alisyn, Misty Copeland is making ballet history breaking a very significant glass ceiling. We have her inspirational story. You do not want to miss it, guaranteed, ahead.