The “Shawskank” says Hollywood’s portrayal of her — as a lovesick prison seamstress who helped her inmate boyfriends escape — is beyond redemption.
In two 45-minute jailhouse interviews last week at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester, a seething Joyce “Tillie” Mitchell denied she ever had consensual sex with the convicted killers, and railed against director Ben Stiller for the “lies” he perpetrates in Showtime’s “Escape at Dannemora.”
“I never had sex with them,” she hissed, referring to killers David Sweat and Richard Matt. “Ben Stiller is a son-of-a-bitch liar just like the rest of the world. He doesn’t care about the truth. All he cares about is making millions off me. He’s an idiot.”The interviews were Mitchell’s first since the hit series began airing in November, and the only time she’s spoken publicly since 2015.
“For a long time I didn’t accept any visitors whose names I didn’t recognize,” she said, but met with a Post reporter because she was “curious” to see if the visit had anything to do with the show.
Mitchell, 54, is serving a seven-year sentence for her role in the 2015 made-for-TV prison break, which set off a 23-day, $20 million manhunt involving 1,300 law enforcement officers. It ended with Matt being shot dead and Sweat’s recapture.
The two sawed their way through the walls of the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, NY, near the Canadian border, with the help of hacksaw blades and a drill bit Mitchell smuggled in.
Mitchell admits she bought the blades for “99 cents at Walmart,” but said she did it because she was scared of the two — not because she was in love with them.
‘I wish I could take it all back. If I had to do it over, I would have told somebody.’
“At that point, I had to do it,” said Mitchell, wearing drab green prison slacks, a matching wrinkled T-shirt and her infamous dark-rimmed glasses. “I was stupid. They took advantage of my kindness.
“I wish I could take it all back. If I had to do it over, I would have told somebody.”
In “Escape at Dannemora,” Mitchell is portrayed by Patricia Arquette — who gained 40 pounds to become a near-clone of the folksy, stringy-haired mother of one. Arquette has said she did not
want to meet with Mitchell as research for the role, in case she tried to spin her story.
“The truth doesn’t sell,” said Mitchell, theorizing about why the cast never visited.
“Everyone thinks I’m just a whore who wanted it.”
Arquette’s character has regular jailhouse sex with Matt, played by Benicio Del Toro, and Sweat (Paul Dano), in a storeroom of the prison sewing shop where Mitchell supervised the inmates.
The storyline closely mirrors the one prison insiders have told about Mitchell’s trysts with the two.
She and Sweat have both denied any physical relationship. However, Mitchell did tell investigators that she provided nude photos of herself for Sweat, and was forced to give Matt oral sex.
She also told investigators she got “caught up in the fantasy” of another life with the two — an admission she refuses to cop to now.
“I don’t remember saying that,” she said.
Mitchell, who hasn’t seen the show, said she has heard all about it from the guards at Bedford Hills and her husband, Lyle, who was a tailor shop worker at Clinton, and not an electrician, as the TV show portrays him.
“The [guards] ask me, ‘Did you really have sex with them?’” — a feat she said would have been “impossible” in the real-life tailor shop closet where Arquette’s character sneaks almost-daily romps with the convicts.“It has an air compressor in it,” she explained. “I went back there to turn it on and off, but I was always by myself.”
One detail in the show that is accurate, Mitchell said, is its portrayal of Matt as an untouchable figure inside the prison — and his cozy relationship with Correction Officer Gene Palmer.
“Matt and Palmer were like this,” she said, crossing two fingers. “[Matt] could have anything he wanted in that prison.”
Palmer was sentenced to six months in jail for delivering hamburger meat — which Mitchell used as cover for hacksaw blades and the drill bit — to the felons. He was released after four months — and Mitchell is livid he got a lighter penalty.
She alleges he was favored because he was a correction officer.
“It’s because he wore blue,” she said.
Mitchell, who pleaded guilty to promoting prison contraband and facilitating criminal activity, was denied parole for a second time last year. She’s eligible again for early release in June.
Her max sentence would take her through June 2022.
Mitchell said she is exhausted by the renewed media attention from the show and so is her family — in a phone call Thursday, Lyle informed her that a Post reporter had stopped by their upstate home. And he “was not happy” when he found out about Mitchell’s jailhouse interview.
“The media doesn’t give a damn about my family,” she said. “Don’t f–k with my family. You can f–k with me, but don’t f–k with my family. I put them through enough.”
Lyle, whom Mitchell refers to as “loyal” and “wonderful,” has stood by his wife of 17 years — and believes she didn’t cheat, Mitchell said.
“He comes to visit me every two weeks. He will be here on Christmas Day,” she said, cracking a rare smile.
Mitchell said she hasn’t had any contact with convicted cop-killer Sweat, who is serving a life sentence at Auburn Correctional Facility in western New York. The state tacked on 3 and ¹/₂ to 7 years to his life sentence for the escape.
Matt, convicted of killing and dismembering his boss in the ’90s, was shot dead by Border Patrol cops on Day 21 of the statewide manhunt.
Seeking “closure,” Matt’s daughter — who would communicate with her dad through Mitchell while he was in prison — came to visit her at Bedford Hills.
“At first, I didn’t recognize her. She said, ‘Do you know who I am?’” Mitchell said. “She looks just like him. Their eyes are the same.”
Jamie Scalise, who released a book about her dad, wanted to know how Matt acted in the final weeks before his escape, Mitchell said. Her answer? “Controlling.”
Despite his “manipulative” ways, Mitchell is wracked with guilt over his death.
“If it wasn’t for me, her dad would still be alive,” Mitchell said, removing her glasses to wipe tears from her eyes.
Crying is a daily activity for Mitchell, who said she leads a lonely life at Bedford Hills.
“I cry every day, because I’m in here alone without my family, and I put them through all of this,” she blubbered. “My granddaughter is 4 years old now. I have only seen her once in three years.”
Mitchell rarely leaves her cell, she said, and claims she has never been to the prison yard, because she fears she will be framed for any funny business.
“The state hates me,” Mitchell said.
She said she has no pals in prison, but sympathizes with another femme fatale she sees around: Pamela Smart. Smart is serving a life sentence for helping her 15-year-old lover murder her husband. It was a headline-making case that, like Mitchell’s, caught Hollywood’s eye — and became the 1996 Nicole Kidman movie “To Die For.”
“Nobody believes her either,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said she identifies with Smart, because Mitchell was also accused of wanting her husband dead — another lie peddled by Sweat and Matt, she claims.
“Sweat is the one who gave my husband that nickname: ‘the glitch,’” she said, adding that she is angry at Sweat for telling investigators Mitchell was behind a plot to kill him.
Mitchell claims she is dubbed an “escape risk” at Bedford Hills, and has limited work privileges. She can’t do yard work or be a teaching assistant, she said.
“They say I can’t work in the nursery, because I’m a high media profile,” she said. “I love to work with kids.”
When she gets out, Mitchell said, she looks forward to “spending time with my husband and my kids” and “enjoying the gazebo [Lyle] built me.”
As for the food she’s most looking forward to? “I like sweets. Cookies, brownies” — the same treats she allegedly snuck into Clinton Correctional for Sweat and Matt.
She’s also planning a book: “Then the truth will come out.”