Daily News from New York, New York • 243

daily news; sundav; may 22, 1977 3 Beacon, N.Y. (Special) In what officials said ma' be the biggest prison breakout in modern New York history, 10 inmates escaped unnoticed yesterday from the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane after cutting through three sets of window bars over a wide area of the prison grounds and scaling a 20-foot, barbed wire fence. Eight of the escapees, including four convicted killers, are still at large. Two of the escapees including a fifth killer were captured about 3 a.m. within a mile of the hospital at the Fishkill Correctional Facility before prison officials even knew of the breakout.

NEW I YORK CONN. JERSEY fhk LONG KLAND Newvs map by Ed Gailaone-Hudson Valley residents watch for prisoner who escaped early yesterday from Matteawan State Hospital near Beacon. All the escapees were from the New York City area and all were described as "dangerous." Asked how they could have escaped without notice by the guards, William Schnitzer, a Matteawan spokesman replied: "The whole matter is under intensive investigation. That all I can say at this point. There's lots of questions." Police called out bloodhounds and helicopters to comb heavily wooded Dutchess County and a general alarm went out to New York City for the men.

It was not known whether the inmates were in their normal green fatigue prison garb or had switched to civilian clothing. Matteawan Hospital houses convicted criminals who have been judged mentally ill since being sent to prison. Its current population is 255. All Dutchess County police units joined the hunt, with roadblocks set at key points throughout the rural area of the Hudson River Valley, about 60 miles north of New York City. The breakout followed a report from the State Parole Officers Association that said "prison escapes throughout the state system have been skyrocketing in recent years." Yesterday's escapees were not believed to be armed, but police asked resi- dents to be on the lookout for any suspicious persons.

Schnitzer said the inmates escaped between 11 p.m. when the last bed-check was made and 3 a.m. when troopers phoned Matteawan to eheik (Continued on page 47, col. 3) Francisco Franco Broke out once before New Pise, leach Stars the Scram Cops raid By ROBERT LANE Margaux Hemingway and her hamburger "heir hubby, Erroll Wetson, were already making the scene inside Studio 54, the West Side's disco answer to Re-gine's. Mick Jagger, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson were coming through the door.

But the real surprise guests at Friday night's birthday bash for socialite Guy Burgos, the partygoers who really From left: Erroll Wetson, Margaux Hemingway, Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger and Jack Nicholson. made a big hit, turned out to be Michael Roth, chairman of the State Liquor Authority, and about a dozen cops from the Mid-town North Precinct. Shortly after that little group of late arrivals entered the discotheque at 2 a.m., they had all 700 patrons, including Margaux Erroll, into Studio 54 just before 2 a.m. and ordered a round of drinks. With evidence in hand and Roth aetin? as complainant, the club was closed down and the arrests made.

While the club's sound system filled the rooms with strains of singer Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way." police asked the large crowd to move outside where it dispersed without incident. Schraeger and Rubell were charged with operating an unlicensed premises. The bartenders were issued summonses and released. Schraeger and two of the club's bartenders, Robert Pettie and Edwin Packen. were being charged with sale of alcolholic beverages without a license and permitting the sale of alcoholic beverages without a license.

applied for a liquor license but I knew they havent' gotten it yet," said Roth. "Someone tipped me off that they were selling liquor anyway and I decided to come down and see for myself." Roth and plainclothes anti-crime officer from the 18th Precinct came uor license they ultimately couldn't produce. "It's all a big misunderstanding." said Stephen Rubell, who with co-owners Ian Schraeger and Jack Dushy invested over $1 million to turn the former television studio between Broadway and Eighth Ave. into the ultimate scene for disco hype in town. "Our attorneys will have this all cloar-ed up in no time," Rubell added.

That's not the way Roth was looking at the situation as he stood inside the 18th Precinct while Rubell, Michael Roth Jack, Mick and Warren looking for another party and the owners of the month-old club searching for the liq- Bklyn IFire Peril Spreads to if" Vim JpH' srj 5kj with that company as the busiest firehouse in the world, now ranks as the sixth most active company in the city. Brooklyn fire companies, meanwhile, are busier than ever" in Flatbush, Red Hook. Crown Heights and in Park Slope and Bay Ridge. Ladder Company 147 in Flatbush, which had 4.885 fire runs, or calls, last year responded to 1.995 calls through the first four months of this year. At that rate the total fire calls this year would approach 6,000, an increase of 25.

In Bay Ridge, where Fire Commissioner John O'-Hagan lives, fire runs are up about 4 this year. In Bushwick, the increase is almost 15. According to Jennings, the number of fires boroughwide is up 38 this year. While fire activity is dropping in the Scuth Bronx principally because there's less and less left to burn the incidence of fires is increasing to the north in sections like Tremont and Fordham. As fire spread's, in, Brooklyn, crime in the hardest-hit are'as has beea' dropping.

According to the Police By VINCENT LEE and ROBERT CARROLL The outbreak of arsonous fires that devastated large areas of the Bronx has leapfrogged to Brooklyn, threatening that borough with a fast-spreading virus that demoralizes residents and destroys neighborhoods, a Fire Department official warned yesterday. "The South Bronx is just about burned out," said Fire Department Battalion Chief Edwin Jennings. "It seems now that Brooklyn is the target for burning." Brooklyn, said Jennings, who heads the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, "is in serious trouble." According to department figures, the shift of incidents of arson and other fires from the Bronx to Brooklyn over the last two years has been dramatic. Ladder Company 31 in the South Bronx, for example, which ranked second or third in the number of annual fire runs for 15 consecutive years through 1975, dropped out of the list of the city's 25 most active fire companies last 1 Engine Company 82 which shares thesame fire-house as Ladder Company 31 foryeari beamed up Fire devastation in South Bronx. Department, crime is down 25.4 in Park Slope this year, 14.6 in Flatbush and 7.5 in Red Hook.

In an attempt to stem the number of incidents. Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden has ap pealed to the city for an additional 100 fire marshals. Golden; who x3i studied the situation with 0' Hagan, warned that "If sometUmj isn't Brooklyn, will go just like the South Bronx." 4.