Psychologist Pleads in Jailbreak

.c The Associated Press
 By SHEILA HOTCHKIN

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - A former prison psychologist who allegedly had a romance with an inmate pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping him escape. Elizabeth Feil, 42, pleaded guilty to accessory to escape after the fact, and could get up to five years behind bars at sentencing March 15. In return, prosecutors agreed to drop a second accessory count and two counts of harboring the fugitives. Authorities accused Ms. Feil of picking up Byron Smoot and Gregory Lawrence after they broke out of the medium-security Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup on May 18. She drove them to a motel and tended to wounds they suffered scaling a razor-wire fence, according to prosecutors.
    Smoot, 38, was serving a 29-year sentence for 11 armed robberies. Lawrence, 39, was doing life for murdering a man and stealing his shoes. The escaped inmates were recaptured two days later in Baltimore. Authorities found more than 100 letters from Smoot to Ms. Feil in her Annapolis home, and a handwritten note from Ms. Feil in Smoot's cell. Ms. Feil, who has a doctorate in clinical psychology, said in court that she is taking antidepressants and is under a psychiatrist's care. Prosecutor William Roessler said he will ask for a jail sentence for Ms. Feil, who he said violated her position of trust.
``We're talking about aiding someone who had a prior record for dangerous felonies,'' Roessler said.

AP-NY-01-11-00 1412EST

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