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Prison Guard Arrested for Smuggling Tools in Raw Meat Speaks Out; New Information About Capture of Escaped Inmates. Aired 11:30a- 12:00p ET.

Aired June 29, 2015 - 11:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:30:00] JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. 30 minutes after the hour for us. The prison guard arrested for smuggling tools in raw meat. He is back in court today. Why he says, you'll go become an alcoholic and get a divorce if you work in a prison.

Plus, we are just getting word that one of the inmates, smell of alcohol we mentioned that before, he also appeared to be sick. Details ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Just in the CNN, new information about the capture of the two New York inmates. A law enforcement source tells CNN that they could smell alcohol on Richard Matt's breath from a few feet away as they closed in on him. This, of course, is the escaped killer you see right there. He was shot to death at the end of last week. This source also telling CNN there's evidence that Matt had been ill possibly from contaminated food or water.

BERMAN: Interesting. Think about he had been coughing. He perhaps was drunk there, you know, a sign of the escape and the time on the run wore on him.

BOLDUAN: Exactly right.

BERMAN: What else going on the guard accused of helping these killers, David Sweat and Richard Matt break out of prison. He will appear in court today. Gene Palmer says he did not know that the meat he was passing to the prisoners had tools inside.

BOLDUAN: Now, Palmer had worked at Clinton for 27 years. He spoke to a radio reporter during a tour of the prison several years ago and was brutally frank about how much pressure the guards were really under, how little money they make, and how tough the job is. Listen here to his really remarkable comments back then.

GENE PALMER, PRISON GUARD, CLINTON CORRECTIONAL FACILITY: With the money they pay you, you will go bald. You will have high blood pressure, you will become an alcoholic, you will divorce and then kill yourself.

[11:35:00] It's a negative environment, and, and long-term exposure to a negative environment, you become hard on issues, as in when you see someone get cut in the face and they're bleeding and stuff.

BOLDUAN: Wow.

BERMAN: Now, joining us right now is the reporter who did that interview with Gene Palmer back in 2000. Brian Mann is with North Country Public Radio. Brian, thanks so much for being with us.

BRIAN MANN, ADIRONDACK BUREAU CHIEF, NORTH COUNTRY PUBLIC RADIO: Thanks for having me.

BERMAN: You know, Brian, just a short time ago we had Eric Jensen, who was an inmate at Clinton and he made a controversial claim. He said that he thinks that wherever David Sweat ends up, that the guards are going to crack down on him, that, that, that prison correctional workers are going to know that this guy made them look bad, broke out of a prison, and he's going to get some pretty harsh treatment. Do you think that's fair?

MANN: I, I don't even think that's particularly controversial. I think David Sweat, who will be behind bars for the rest of his life, is going to serve, very, very hard time indeed. Obviously, he'll be under a lot of scrutiny, so he will be somewhat protected by that, but, you know, the world behind bars is a tough world in any circumstance, and David Sweat has made life very uncomfortable for the corrections officer community. You know, there's going to be hard time, hard years ahead for this man.

BOLDUAN: You know, we played that really remarkable sound of an interview that you did with Gene Palmer. You were given a tour at the Clinton Correctional years back. Gene Palmer is the guard that is now facing charges himself, he was your tour guide. Those are - he was really frank in describing very publicly the job of being a prison guard. How did he strike you when he described in such a negative way the impact that the job has on them?

MANN: Yes. You know, I remember being startled by how frank he was being. He was - you know, he was being somewhat theatrical about life as a corrections officer in, in these facilities, but I have to tell you, it's not completely out of the context of what you hear from prison guards generally.

These are obviously men and women who work hard, very ethical, working in a dangerous, difficult environment, but they also - a lot of them, they describe that they're doing time as well. They do bids behind bars just like inmates do until they get their pensions. So you know, it's hard, dirty work. And so, what we heard from Gene Palmer in that clip, may be a little exaggerated but not completely out of context from what you hear from, from a lot of CO's working these jobs.

BERMAN: So what kind of time will they going to be doing now then? You know, focus on Clinton Correctional. I mean, they had two guys break out of their prison. What kind of new scrutiny will the guards be under? What kind of new pressures will they face?

MANN: You know, obviously this is a moment of huge celebration up here, but it's also a nervous time. This is going to get political. This is going to be thorny. Clinton Dannemora prison has always been a very strange prison. A prison that has a lot of culture and a lot of traditions that aren't really normal, modern prison policy. It just looks different from what most maximum security prisons look like.

And so as this scrutiny comes really comes to bear, we know of two probes that are under way in addition to the criminal cases that are now happening with Gene Palmer and Joyce Mitchell. So when you start turning over those rocks, I, I think this is going to make a lot of people uncomfortable.

BOLDUAN: Take us inside there, take our viewers inside there a little bit as you have been given more than one tour of Clinton Correctional. You call it a strange place, it has a different culture than other maximum security prisons or maybe other facilities in general. What is so strange about it from your experience?

MANN: Well, over the decades Clinton Dannemora has developed a sort of world and a culture inside these white walls people have been seeing in these images, a, a world where the inmates and the corrections officers have, you know, a long-running relationship, and that's developed some strange traditions like the north yard, this now kind of infamous area of the prison where inmates are allocated little chunks are turf. They're called courts, that they get to sort of govern themselves. So when you stand there and look at it, it's these vast areas, looks like almost a giant tailgate party where the inmates get the sort of decide what happens on that ground.

This is also a facility where gang activity has long influenced the life behind bars, that sort of shapes what happens in different parts of the prison. You have things like this honor block where you know, these two inmates were housed. That's one of the ways that it sort of looks a little different from other facilities. So I really think that all of those things are going to get cracked open and looked at with a lot of sort of magnifying glasses in the days and weeks ahead.

BOLDUAN: You can be sure of that. Not only the danger that this escape put many people in, the resources that were required to bring these guys to justice, just amazing. Millions of dollars have been spent to get this capture, these guys once again. Brian Mann, thanks so much.

MANN: Thanks for having me.

BOLDUAN: Of course. Coming up, breaking news involving the high stakes talks with Iran's nuclear program. A huge developments just days before a very important deadline is coming up. We're going to take you live to Tehran for more.

[11:40:00] BERMAN: And then we have new details about the gunman who murdered tourists, so many as they sat on the beach. Think - officials now say he may have been radicalized online. That sound familiar? The question now is did he have any help?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BERMAN: We have breaking news and perhaps an important development in

the high-stakes talks with Iran about its nuclear program. A senior Iranian official tells CNN that world powers will have to lift all sanctions against his country if a deal is signed. But, and this is the key, but can take time to implement the changes and bring the sanctions relief.

BOLDUAN: This could be a huge issue. That deal is supposed to come in less than two days from now, but U.S. officials, they now say negotiators for Iran and six other nations, they're not going to make that deadline. So where does that leave things? Senior International Correspondent Frederick Pleitgen is in Tehran with the very latest.

There are deadlines for a reason, Fred, and folks have been following this. There was that June deadline, and now we're here. What, what's happening now?

FREDERICK PLEITGEN, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it certainly looks as though that June 30th deadline Kate, is not one that's going to be met. One of the reasons why that's the case is that the lead negotiator for the Iranians, the foreign minister Javad Zarif, is actually not in Vienna right now. He's right here in Tehran. He flew back last night for consultations with Iran supreme leader, also with senior leadership as well and most probably he got laid out from the Americans and from others what sort of agreement there could be and now he has to get, the, the word from the people here on how far Iran is willing to go, what sort of concessions Iran is willing to make.

[11:45:00] And I spoke today with that senior official. He is the head of the foreign affairs as well as the national security committee of Iran's parliament. His name is (Alvin Fugerty), a very powerful man, a man who is very close to the supreme leader. A man who is very much in the conservative wing of politics here in Iran, and he did say that there were certain red lines for the Iranians.

One of them is they don't want any inspections at their military facilities. That's going to make it difficult for an agreement to come. But he also said as you just noted that there is wiggle room on one major issue and that's the speed of sanctions relief. Where he said, yes, they want all sanctions to be lifted immediately once a deal is signed but the implementation of that, well, that could take a little longer. But it certainly does indicate that at least on that issue there seems to be more wiggle room than we thought in the past, but still the negotiations very, very difficult on all sides involved.

BERMAN: Yes. After days of toeing a hard line, this is a little bit of an, of an open door, I think who needs negotiations. Maybe first we have seen in several days. Frederick Pleitgen for us in Tehran. A big development in these talks. Thanks so much, Fred.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, new video of the panic and terror as tourists are murdered on the beach. We're learning new details right now about the alleged gunman behind this horrific attack.

BERMAN: And then a spring trying of fires hitting churches in the south. Now, the FBI is involved looking into the possibility of arson. Are all these fires connected?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:00] BOLDUAN: What's you're seeing right there is video in of Friday's truly cold blooded massacre at a seaside resort in Tunisia as officials are now saying they've made a number of arrests connected to it. At least 38 people, mostly tourists from Britain and Germany, were killed in this attack.

BERMAN: This is chilling, this video. The 24-year-old gunman was eventually shot to death in the parking lot. ISIS took credit for the attack and posted a picture of the gunman. It's not really known if the terror group had a direct role here. CNN's Senior International Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh has been on the scene talking to officials there with the latest. Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: John, what we know from the prime minister of Tunisia, Habib Essid, saying to us that they believe that this gunman acted "alone." Now, he may have had some accomplices who assisted him to get to that beach particularly looking to a vehicle that took him there but they don't think there was any other gunman. That is consistent with from the beginning really despite eyewitnesses thinking they saw more than one gunman, they believe it was just Seifeddine Rezgui.

Now, they also think that he didn't go abroad to learn any weapon skills or become radicalized. This possible indication that they can't rule that out but they think he was in fact radicalized online, on the Internet after 2013 or so. If you look at his Facebook page that makes total sense. Because he's into Eminem, the rapper artist until about 2012 when he falls off the radar in a bit and then goes into a university in a town called, (Carowan) where we also know now three of his roommates have been taken into custody by police for questioning.

Now, they have also been told by the prime minister that he had some accomplices potentially or associates at the university who may have assisted in the shift for radicalism and the interior ministry is now saying they have made, quote, for the first arrest is unclear if they are the people who were already mentioned or they are suing a different investigative track. But the key thing here John, everyone is asking is was this an ISIS attack. While ISIS statement had the correct picture of Seifeddine Rezgui along with it which suggests perhaps they knew about him, it isn't clear from the government they think this is definitely an ISIS attack.

They're not saying that at all, in fact, they are being much more vague about the radical connection. So questions still to be answered here but a sad scene inside the hotel. The British, French, German and Tunisian interior ministers coming in giving a press conference. We saw the British home secretary meeting some of the British still pool side now continuing that whole. They have one couple, in fact, hid in a broom cupboard during the attack.

But were praised by that minister from the U.K. for sticking it out for not quote in her words, "giving into the terrorists." So a sense of defiance here but also a statement of an alarm and trepidation as to whether this attack could occur again. But still, you can see behind me now is a brilliant coast side here. The sun is out as is a fear of what may come ahead. John.

BERMAN: Tunisia adding new security to so many tourist locations over the coming days. Nick Paton Walsh for us there. Thanks so much, Nick.

We do have breaking news from the Supreme Court. Some brand new rulings just in, including one that could be historic and impacts the future of lethal injection in the United States.

BOLDUAN: Most of us ahead, a string of fires ripping through churches across the south. Some are sent, others still a mystery. Who's behind them? And also, are they connected?

[11:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Local and federal officials are now looking into several church fires. At least three of them now determined to be arson. The FBI and ATF are working with local authorities to try to figure out who set them.

BOLDUAN: And also raising concern is that, of course, all of these fires come on the heels of the attack on the church in Charleston just about two weeks ago. Alina Machado is tracking these fires. And what they mean, Alina, these are obviously one of the big questions on a lot of folk's mind is, are these connected? What are authorities telling you?

ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You know, at this point, these fires are not being connected to each other and they're also not being called hate crimes but, again, they're disturbing and they are still the subject of active ongoing investigations.

Now, we're talking about six fires at churches in five states in the south in the span of about a week. One of those church fires appears to have been caused by a lightning strike. Another appears to have been electrical in nature. But three of these fires, as you mentioned, are being investigated as possible arsons and authorities are actively searching for suspects and they're actively looking for motives in these cases.

One of those fires happened at God's Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia, just days after that massacre in Charleston. There are reports that this church had been burglarized in recent weeks but it's unclear if that had anything to do with this fire.

The FBI released a statement saying that they and the ATF are actively investigating that fire. And I want to read part of that statement to you. It says quote, with regard to speculation that this fire could be looked at as a hate crime, again, no such ruling has yet been made.

Now, there was also another suspicious fire at Briar Creek Road Baptist Church, this is a predominantly African-American church that shares space with two Nepali's congregations in Charlotte, North Carolina. That fire happened in a building that had classrooms in it. It did not thankfully affect the main sanctuary. Authorities there are emphasizing that the fire investigators have not seen anything that leads them to believe that this is a hate crime, at least not at this point.

But again, that hate crime has not been ruled out as a motive and we just want to reiterate, a senior law enforcement official is telling CNN that the FBI and the ATF are looking at many of these fires but at this point there's no reason to link them. John and Kate.

BERMAN: There's a great deal of concern on social media. I've heard a lot about these fires over the last few days. And are they giving warnings to churches down there Alina, that you've heard of?

MACHADO: We haven't heard of warnings in particular but again, churches are always vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. To these kinds of things, the fires in general, even if they're not the product of arson because you think about a church, a church sanctuary or a church building is usually alone for most of the week. And so it opens itself up to being you know, burglarized, being - you know, the area could be where - you know, a fire happens. So definitely something that is raising concern but at this point authorities aren't linking these.

BERMAN: All right. Alina Machado for us. Thanks so much, Alina.

BOLDUAN: Something to definitely watch throughout the week. Thank you for joining us At This Hour today.

BERMAN: Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield starts right now.