An activist group alleges that a group of people surrounded farmworkers’ homes in Addison County, shouting insults and firing guns.

Migrant Justice has called on police to investigate.

Following publication of the incidents on social media, Vermont State Police announced Tuesday that troopers have been investigating multiple incidents and vandalism on farms and at nearby residences near Bridport over the past three weeks.

Migrant Justice posted on Facebook Monday that for multiple nights, farmworkers’ houses have been surrounded by a group of people who yelled insults, broke windows and air-conditioning units. According to the post, the group also fired guns into the air.

Marita Canedo of Migrant Justice said that groups of people surrounded multiple houses on several nights earlier this month.

“It’s about emotional damage,” Canedo said.

Migrant Justice said after a report was filed that identified someone involved in the group, police responded it “was a drunken act where the person lost control of their actions.”

Another incident happened earlier this week, according to Canedo, when a Migrant Justice organizer visited farmworkers in the same area and had a tense exchange with someone at the farm and was asked to leave. After visiting with farmworkers, he found that his tires were flat. Migrant Justice said there was also a threatening call to their office.

Canedo said Migrant Justice is concerned about the way police responded to a “vulnerable” population, that is often reluctant to contact law enforcement because of concerns about immigration status.

“It’s unfortunate that people are feeling afraid to call the police and they don’t trust the police,” she said.

In a response to the Migrant Justice post Tuesday, Vermont State Police wrote that troopers based at the New Haven Barracks have been “actively investigating” the incidents over the past three weeks. They wrote that police have been updating the local state’s attorney on the status of the case and are following up on several leads.

In a separate news release Tuesday, Vermont State Police said troopers at the New Haven Barracks have been investigating multiple “suspicious incidents and vandalisms” around farm fields, on farms and at nearby residences.

“Through investigation, it appears that many of the incidents are related and committed by the same individuals,” police said in a statement.

Police say they have identified potential suspects.

They request that anybody with information about the incidents contact Trooper Mae Murdock at (802) 388-4919.

Canedo said that police have been in better communication since the group shared details about the incidents on Facebook. As of Tuesday night, the post had been shared more than 1,300 times.

She said there is a greater need to address harassment and discrimination in Vermont.

“There is a lot to do in Vermont with fighting racism,” Canedo said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Police investigate harassment of migrant workers.

A 23-year-old Burlington man is behind bars on allegations of filing a fake claim on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s tip line. Cole Swarkowski wrote the online complaint claiming he overheard an individual say they were looking to purchase firearms and harm people.

Upon receiving the tip around 2:00 a.m. Aug. 22, Homeland Security – which oversees ICE – contacted their Burlington office to begin an investigation of the person named in the complaint. Vermont State Police carried out this investigation. 

“This individual is not american, he is dangerous, he wants to carry firearms and i heard him say that he wants to harm individuals with said firearms, he is illegal from south africa,” the tip read, according to court documents, filed by Homeland Security Special Agent Timothy O’Leary.

Court records show VSP Trooper Clay Knight called the previous employer of the alleged alien who told the officer the individual was a “great worker” and “never had issues with him in the past.”

Cole Swarkowski of Burlington was charged with providing a false tip to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Linkedin photo.

At approximately 7:30 p.m. the same day the tip was placed, Knight conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle to speak with the person named in the tip, who the affidavit names as “JB.”

Knight said the man was in his car with his wife and newborn, and that he “did not appear to be a threat to himself or others.” Knight also asked if the man thought he “had any enemies,” to which he mentioned a recent promotion at his job at the University of Vermont Medical Center.

The Burlington Homeland Security Investigations office confirmed “JB” was not in the country illegally.

The next day, federal agents went to Swarkowski’s house around 10:00 a.m. and identified themselves to Swarkowski. While talking on his porch, Swarkowski admitted the tip was “not true” and that he was “having a bad night when he made that report.” 

Swarkowski is also facing a state disorderly conduct charge for text messages he sent to other UVMMC employees on the same day he filed the fake tip with ICE. Court records detail a few of these texts, which are riddled with racist slurs and an image of a box of ammunition. A security manager at the hospital was told about the texts from the employee receiving them, who then contacted the Burlington Police Department. 

BPD went to Swarkowski’s house on Aug. 22 to issue him a citation for disorderly conduct relating to the text messages. While speaking with officers then, Swarkowski admitted to having mental health issues and owning a firearm. Police offered mental health assistance to Swarkowski who denied it at the time. 

Federal agents and BPD officers responded again to Swarkowski’s residence on Aug. 23 around 4:30 p.m. and arrested him without incident for the fake tip. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 30 and Swarkowski is facing up to five years in prison. 

U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan filed a motion of detention for Swarkowski “because there is a serious risk that the defendant will threaten, injure, or intimidate, or attempt to threaten, injure, or intimidate, a prospective witness.” 

He is currently being held at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility.

The affidavit states Swarkowski “was a former contractor for the UVMC.” A voicemail left with hospital media relations staff was unreturned by the time of publication. 

“In addition to enforcing U.S. immigration law, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigates more than 400 violations of criminal law, ranging from child exploitation to transnational gangs,” ICE spokesperson John Mohan said in an emailed statement. 

Mohan also wrote that people who submit online tips must attest the information they are submitting is true, or they could face criminal charges. In addition to the five years in prison,  a fine of up to $10,000 is also allowed. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Burlington man charged with sending fake tip to ICE.

The Vermont Department for Children and Families has been accused of unlawful family separation in a lawsuit filed in federal court.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, alleges the Department for Children and Families (DCF) forcefully separated one of the plaintiffs, identified by the alias Miriam Lowell for privacy, from her three children based on false information and without conducting a thorough investigation into claims of substance use and child abuse. 

On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled against a motion by DCF to dismiss the case, but declined to order a freeze on the ongoing DCF investigation into the plaintiffs. Both parties will be back in court in 60 days. 

In November 2018, the Vermont Parent Representation Center, a nonprofit that advocates for parents, published a report about how the state too often removes children from their families.

The 117-page document contains more than 80 recommendations, including that the state create a position to monitor the outcomes and costs of the child protective system, as well as a parent representation office to offer counseling and legal representation to parents who could lose custody of their children. 

Currently, attorneys for both parents and children are provided through the Defender General’s office, an arrangement that the report says leads to poor representation for parents. 

Larry Crist, the executive director of the nonprofit, said in a statement that the state “appears unable to distinguish between families wherein children are being abused and neglected and families not doing so.” 

“The result being that DCF treats most families as the enemy,” Crist added.

While court documents name Ken Schatz, commissioner of DCF, and seven other employees, most of the allegations are leveled against Christine Gadwah, a family services worker for the department.

The other plaintiff in the case is Seth Healey — also a pseudonym to protect his privacy — who is in a romantic relationship with Lowell, but is not the father of the children involved in the case. 

Healey and Lowell have a history of drug use; however their lawyers say it has been years since they last took narcotics.

Lawyers representing Lowell and Healey say that Gadwah took inappropriate steps — including contacting Lowell’s estranged husband to advocate he file for sole custody — to make sure Lowell would not be able to see her three children, after Lowell’s 16-year old daughter told a counselor in 2018 she had seen her mother snort an unidentified pill, according to court filings.

Lawyers argue Gadwah did not follow DCF’s minimum procedural rights standards for child removal and instead simply told Lowell that she was taking the children away from her and threatened police involvement if she did not comply. 

A judge must order a child to be removed from a home, according to DCF officials.

Lowell’s lawyers say the story of the plaintiff snorting a pill is false and that Gadwah along with DCF has changed the story over time, later claiming the plaintiffs forced the daughter to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana before again changing the allegation.

Gadwah and DCF also accused Lowell and Healey of physically abusing one of the other children, according to court documents.

Lowell was separated from two of her children until June 2019, when the Vermont Family Court ordered they be returned to her after being apart for 305 days. 

Lowell’s third child was returned to her at the end of July after being separated from his mother for 356 days.

While the lawsuit alleges that in the case of Lowell, Gadwah violated confidentiality agreements and fabricated evidence to take the plaintiff’s children, court documents also allude to this being a widespread practice in DCF. 

In a statement, DCF said it disagrees with the allegations and facts as described in the complaint. 

“DCF has appropriate procedures in place consistent with federal and Vermont state law that provides due process in the child abuse/neglect substantiation process,” the statement said.

The lawsuit alleges other examples of unlawful practices by DCF that have resulted in children being taken from their parents.

“There are at least several such cases currently in other district offices throughout the state of Vermont and, on information and belief, scores in the state of Vermont in recent years,” Lowell’s lawyers wrote in court documents. 

The Vermont Attorney General’s office declined comment on the case Wednesday, but according to court documents, the lawyers for Lowell and Healey held a face to face meeting with Attorney General TJ Donovan in 2017 to discuss the allegations against DCF.

Donovan “indicated concern but in later meetings indicated that nothing can be done,” lawyers wrote in court filings.

On February 26, 2019, the lawyers again reached out to Donovan, writing a letter to inform him that DCF was committing “violations of due process and other constitutional violations” and that DCF “is severing families, denying due process, and damaging or destroying the most foundational bonds that are at the core of the Constitutional rights protected by the United States and Vermont Constitutions.”

In an interview, Crist said he believes there will be a number of similar court cases against DCF in the coming months.

“Based on our work during the last 9 years here in Vermont, there are a great number of Vermonters who have experienced similar actions as the person identified in this lawsuit,” he said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: In federal lawsuit, DCF accused of unlawful family separation.

A convicted sex offender whose 60-day jail sentence in a child sex abuse case more than a decade ago sparked a national outcry has reached a plea agreement on a new child porn charge.

Mark Hulett, 48, of Ferrisburgh, reached that plea agreement this week with federal prosecutors who brought the child pornography charge against him in May. 

The 10-page plea agreement, signed by Hulett, his attorney, and the prosecutor, was filed Tuesday in federal court in Burlington. A court hearing has been set for Sept. 18 where a judge will take up the plea agreement. 

The plea agreement stated that “the court may impose the following sentence on (Hulett’s) plea: not less than 10 years and up to 20 years imprisonment.” 

Attorney David McColgin, a public defender representing Hulett, could not immediately be reached Wednesday for comment.  

Kraig LaPorte, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont, said Wednesday he couldn’t comment on the plea agreement other than to say that the hearing has been set for next month for the judge to consider it. 

Hulett was one of eight men charged in May in a child pornography crackdown as part of an joint operation involving several federal and state authorities. 

He has been jailed since his arraignment in the new case.  

In 2006, Judge Edward Cashman, then presiding in Chittenden County Superior criminal court in Burlington, initially sentenced Hulett to 60 days in jail on his conviction for having sexual contact with a girl over a four-year period, starting when the girl was 6. 

Hulett’s convictions in that case were on two charges of aggravated sexual assault and one charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child.

Cashman said at the time that he imposed the 60-day sentence to ensure Hulett received prompt sex offender treatment, a program that was offered only when offenders were near the completion of their prison terms. 

That jail sentence set off a public uproar, which included calls to have Cashman removed from the bench and a media firestorm that had Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly calling Cashman the “worst judge in America.” 

Hulett was later resentenced to three years in jail and placed on probation for life after the Vermont Department of Corrections changed its policy, allowing treatment to be offered earlier for inmates. 

In the latest case, authorities searched a residence where Hulett lived on May 14 after receiving a tip in October from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

Hulett was among eight people arrested when authorities executed search warrants on several residences in Vermont during the week of May 13, all based on tips received from the missing children organization. 

In Hulett’s case, the internet connection was eventually traced to an address in Ferrisburgh where he was living, according to court filings. At the time, Hulett was also on the Vermont Sex Offender Registry. 

When authorities questioned Hulett about child pornography he denied possessing any, according to an affidavit filed in the case. He did tell investigators that had visited a “nudism website” the affidavit stated. 

According to the plea agreement, authorities found about 2,200 images of child pornography on Hulett’s computer.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Man whose ’06 sex case led to uproar reaches deal on child porn charge.

John Sheehy ran seven stop signs and a red light, hit a cat and nearly crashed head-on into other drivers while he led troopers on a 26-mile chase last week that reached speeds of 100 mph, according to the Vermont State Police.

And four days after troopers gave up that pursuit, state police say, the 27-year-old Lyndonville man threatened a woman and her son with a knife, threw a rock at a 4-year-old girl, punched a man in the head and led authorities on a foot chase.

Sheehy was arrested Tuesday night and faces 11 charges stemming from the two incidents, court records show.

The Caledonia County State’s Attorney Office charged Sheehy on Wednesday with 11 counts: reckless or gross negligence while operating a vehicle, careless or reckless vehicle operation with a previous such offense, eluding police, speeding, reckless endangerment, first-degree aggravated domestic assault with a weapon, aggravated domestic assault with a prior conviction for such, two counts of simple assault, unlawful mischief and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The records reveal many more details about the high-speed chase than previously released by state police and lay out a bizarre trail of alleged crimes. 

The woman Sheehy is accused of threatening to kill was also his unwilling passenger during the pursuit, troopers said. VTDigger is withholding her name because she is an alleged domestic abuse victim.

At about 10:35 p.m. Friday, Trooper Sean Pecuch attempted to stop a black Chevy Impala on Pinehurst Street in Lyndonville because a headlight was out, according to an affidavit filed in court. 

But the car turned onto Rod Key Street, a horseshoe-shaped loop, and blew back out onto Pinehurst Street without stopping at a stop sign, the affidavit from Pecuch says.

The Impala sped up to 55 mph in a posted 25-mph zone, according to the affidavit, and drove through the village of Lyndonville and another stop sign, accelerating to 60 mph in a 30-mph zone. 

The car headed through the town of Lyndon until it reached South Wheelock Road, where it continued into the town of Wheelock, the affidavit says, crossing the center line repeatedly and almost hitting oncoming cars. 

The car turned onto state Route 122 and hit a cat that had run into the road, before heading to Sutton and then turning west onto Burke Road, the affidavit says. There, the driver sped up to about 100 mph, troopers said. 

The Impala turned onto U.S. Route 5 in West Burke and stopped for a second; the woman got out and was detained by troopers.

Troopers followed the vehicle south on Route 5, reaching speeds around 100 mph, but ended their pursuit when they reached Lyndonville again, according to the affidavit. Troopers said there were too many vehicles and pedestrians from the Caledonia County Fair that night to continue safely.

The passenger told troopers that Sheehy was the driver and that she had tried to get him to let her out of the car during the chase, according to the affidavit. She told troopers that Sheehy fled because he had an active arrest warrant, which troopers confirmed, the affidavit says.

The next day, a man and another woman both identified Sheehy as the driver to troopers, according to the affidavit. 

The woman showed troopers screenshots of Facebook messages Sheehy had sent her about the chase, the affidavit says, which included details not released to the public, such as the hit cat.

On Tuesday at about 7:30 p.m., several troopers and a Lyndonville police officer responded to a call that Sheehy was threatening the woman who had been his passenger during the Friday chase and her 19-year-old son at a house in Burke, according to a second state police affidavit.

When the troopers arrived outside the home, they heard loud bangs and glass breaking, and then a white Impala sped away from the home, the affidavit says. The woman was driving, fleeing from Sheehy, the affidavit says.

Troopers said they spoke to the woman’s son, who said Sheehy had been drinking all day and was wielding a knife and garden shears.

A dispatcher then notified troopers of a 911 call reporting a distraught, shirtless man talking about a broken window and his girlfriend, according to the affidavit. A second 911 call came in describing something similar, troopers said. 

Troopers eventually found the man, identified as Sheehy, and arrested him after a foot chase, the affidavit says. Sheehy told a trooper that the woman had assaulted him with a hammer, the affidavit says. 

A preliminary breath test showed he had a breath-alcohol content of 0.106%, according to the affidavit. In Vermont, .08% is the legal threshold for impaired driving. 

In interviews with troopers, the woman and her son said Sheehy threatened to kill them because he believed she had called police.

He threw a butcher block of knives at them, the affidavit says, and then grabbed a 6-inch serrated knife and told the two they were going to die.

The woman told troopers that Sheehy then picked up a pair of garden shears and smashed the side windows of her Impala and her son’s vehicle too, the affidavit says.

Neighbors told troopers that shortly before authorities arrived, Sheehy had yelled and swore at a 4-year-old girl because she was “howling” at the moon while sitting on a second-floor porch.

Then, they said, Sheehy threw a large rock toward the girl, nailing the wall a few inches below her, according to the affidavit.

When a man chased after Sheehy in response, Sheehy punched him in the head, troopers said.

Sheehy was being held on $80,000 bail Thursday, according to state Department of Corrections records.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Man accused of rampage through Burke, days after a 26-mile police chase.

A Vermont State Police trooper who hit a Quechee man with buckshot in May has been cleared by the Vermont Attorney General.

No charges will be filed against Trooper Eric Vitali, who shot 19-year-old James Luce after he pointed a shotgun at Vitali and another trooper. The police officers were responding to a report of domestic violence involving Luce when they encountered him on the side of the road and ordered him to step away from a shotgun he had placed on the ground.

Attorney General TJ Donovan announced Thursday that his office determined it was “reasonable and justified” for Vitali to use deadly force. An investigation concluded the officers believed they were in “imminent danger” of being killed or injured when Luce allegedly grabbed the shotgun he’d placed on the ground and turned in the direction of the officers.

Luce received minor injuries in the form of scratches and welts to his leg and midsection when hit with the buckshot Vitali fired. Luce pleaded innocent to six charges, including aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and resisting arrest.

Earlier this week, Luce reached a plea agreement with prosecutors where he will not serve any jail time, according to the Valley News.

According to authorities, the May 5 incident began when Luce allegedly assaulted a female at a home in Hartford and fired a shot at the house afterward.  Then, police said Luce fled into the woods with the gun. When confronted by police, he put down the weapon but would not move away from it. According to the Attorney General’s Office, Luce then “suddenly grabbed the shotgun, turning towards” Vitali and Trooper Stacy Corliss, at which point Vitali fired.

Luce was taken into custody after police subdued him with a Taser. He was examined at the scene by paramedics and later at Mount Ascutney hospital. Hartford and Lebanon, New Hampshire, police also responded to the incident.

Vitali was placed on paid leave during the investigation.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Trooper cleared of charges in Quechee shooting.

Editor’s note: This piece from the SCOV Law Blog is by Elizabeth Kruska.

Oblak v. University of Vermont Police Services, 2019 VT 56 

This case is sort of a go-with to In re: Affidavit of Probable Cause, which was published earlier this year. 

The basic facts are this: A person called W.R. was investigated for an offense by the UVM Police Department, and was ultimately cited to go to court to face a charge. The police wrote an affidavit, which was forwarded to the State’s Attorney’s Office, and filed with a charging document in the Chittenden Criminal Division. But, the court didn’t find probable cause, so the case didn’t go forward. 

A citizen, Jacob Oblak, wanted to see the police report in this particular case. When he tried to get it from the court, he was denied. You can read about it here and here. Recall that we, as the general citizenry, can go to our friendly local courthouse and read lots of things in lots of court files because generally, that information is public (except for stuff that isn’t and for various good reasons). 

Undeterred, Oblak tried to do a Public Records Act request directly to the UVM Police to get the report. That was denied. The police department’s rationale was that since no probable cause was found, and the record was sealed that they couldn’t turn it over. 

Oblak tried using his administrative remedies to get the information and then filed suit. The UVM Police Department filed a motion to dismiss, which was granted by the civil court. Oblak appealed, and like his other case, this one gets reversed. 

SCOV reviews motions to dismiss de novo, or wholly anew. SCOV will uphold a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted only if there’s no doubt there are no facts or circumstances that would entitle the plaintiff to relief. It’s the civil court equivalent of “this isn’t a thing.” It’s like complaining to the manager at Burger King when they tell you they can’t serve you sushi – there’s no basis for your complaint because Burger King Sushi isn’t a thing. (I apologize to literally everyone if it becomes a thing.) 

In this case, the UVM Police did not release the affidavit because they thought it was confidential under court rules. Since the criminal court didn’t find probable cause, the affidavit wasn’t made public. SCOV puts that to one side and looks at the Public Records Act, which is a different statutory animal. 

There’s a difference between the Public Access to Court Records Rules and the Public Records Act. SCOV recently released an opinion on that, and made it clear that the PACR is for court records while the PRA is for legislative and executive branch records. They’re two different sets of rules aimed at different kinds of records. 

Therefore, the analysis for this record starts with figuring out which act applies to this particular record. Lucky for us, SCOV finds some existing case law on this. A document becomes subject to the court records rule if it becomes a part of a case record and is subject to disclosure as a part of a case (this is really boiling down the example cited; hopefully I’ve done that justice). A document is a public record if it includes “any written or recorded information, regardless of physical form or characteristics, which is produced or acquired in the course of public agency business.” 

SCOV goes on to describe the document in question here as a police arrest record. Even though it eventually was filed with the court as the supporting affidavit of probable cause in a case that wasn’t prosecuted, SCOV isn’t ready to say the filing magically turns it into a court record in all its forms. It still exists as a police record, subject to the Public Records Act. 

Now, SCOV looks at the record in terms of the Public Records Act. The point of the PRA is to provide free and open examination of public records. Some exceptions apply, of course, because there are times when records contain sensitive information that shouldn’t be disclosed. 

SCOV decides (and re-states) that records of arrests aren’t records dealing with detection and investigation of crime, but are rather fruits of investigation and detection that’s already happened. Consequently, those records are subject to disclosure. 

SCOV also finds relevant the distinction between the two sets of rules at issue; the Public Records Act is a legislatively-created statute. The Public Access to Court Records Rules are court rules, which are enacted by the judicial branch. Although they contain statutory protections, they’re not the same as legislation. There isn’t a way for the PACR to make an exception within the PRA. 

So, this case gets reversed and sent back to the trial court for further proceedings. I read that to mean the trial court has to analyze Oblak’s request under the Public Records Act instead of the court rules. That doesn’t mean that the document he seeks will be released (or not), it just means there needs to be further analysis under a different framework. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: SCOV Law Blog: Different sets of rules for different kinds of records.

This post was updated at 4:37 p.m.

A lockdown of the state office complex in Montpelier has been largely lifted after police conducted an hours-long search following a report of a person carrying a gun into one of the buildings Friday.

Police “thoroughly searched” two state office buildings — 133 State Street and 6 Baldwin Street — and found no firearm or intruder, according

Those two buildings remain closed while police conduct a second search “out of an abundance of caution,” according to the email, shared by the Vermont State Police. Employees cannot enter those buildings until the searches are complete.

The lockdown on the rest of Montpelier state office buildings has been lifted.

State officials said earlier Friday afternoon that the situation was “well under control” after a report of an armed man entering a state office building in Montpelier prompted a lockdown of the Capitol Complex Friday.

Gov. Phil Scott said in an email that local, state and federal law enforcement were responding to the report of a person with a gun entering 133 State Street.

In response, all state buildings in the capital were put on lockdown and part of State Street was closed to traffic, according to the governor.

A passerby reportedly saw a white male entering 133 State Street carrying what appeared to be a gun, Buildings and General Services Commissioner Chris Cole said earlier on Friday.

A Montpelier police dispatcher confirmed that there was a report of someone entering the building with a weapon, but said they could not provide a description of the weapon.

There was a large law enforcement presence in Montpelier at midday.

Vermont State Police clad in bulletproof vests carrying firearms could be seen entering the building shortly before noon.

Police were evacuating employees from the building and screening them as they left the building. As of about 12:30 p.m., the first floor had been cleared.

The building, adjacent to the Statehouse, houses the Tax Department.

Montpelier-Roxbury schools superintendent Libby Bonesteel said the city’s schools had gone into a “lock-out” at the advice of the Montpelier police. That means that it’s “business as usual” inside the schools, she said, but that no one is allowed in or out of the building until police give the all-clear. Parents have been notified via email and a phone call.

“All the kids are safe. It’s a precautionary measure,” she said.

This is a developing story and this post will be updated.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Montpelier state offices lockdown lifted after report of armed man.

A Barre man was accused Friday of embezzling almost $1,000 from the Agency of Transportation, according to a Vermont State Police press release.

John Johnson, 73, is facing one count of embezzlement, five counts of false pretenses and five counts of petty larceny. He is due in Washington County Superior Court on Oct. 10.

Johnson was a former employee of VTrans who resigned from his position before state police began an investigation into his alleged unauthorized purchases. The investigation began on Nov. 30, 2018.

Johnson is accused of utilizing purchase accounts the state holds at different auto parts stores to make purchases for his own benefit, “such as tires and brake rotors/pads in a total sum of $969.55,” the release said. The state was unaware of his purchases at the time.

The investigation found Johnson had made other purchases outside of the ones he is being charged with, but due to the statute of limitations, is not being criminally charged for those purchases.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Barre man accused of embezzling from VTrans.

A joint panel of state lawmakers heard differing views Thursday over when, and in some cases, if, the name of a person arrested should be released to the media.

Representatives from law enforcement and the media spoke out in favor of publicly providing the information at the time of arrest, while an attorney from Bennington countered that in some cases, especially for “low level” offenses, that was too soon. 

“It seems to me the balance should be — at least in these minor matters — should be in favor of at least waiting until the prosecutor makes a decision of how to go forward with the case,” David Silver, a defense attorney in Bennington told the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee.

Col. Matthew Birmingham, the director of the Vermont State Police, said while he understood Silver’s argument, he disagreed.

“We stand behind our policy,” Birmingham said. “An arrest of people for any crime should never be secret, ever.” 

After listening to the competing views during a hearing Thursday, the Joint Legislative Justice Oversight Committee, which is made of members of both the Senate and the House, took no action.  

Silver, who called into the committee meeting Thursday, told the panel about the case of a man, who he did not name, who had been arrested on a criminal charge involving speeding at more than 100 mph.

The criminal charge was eventually dismissed and the man, who Silver described as a member of the business community in his 50s with no previous record, ended up paying a ticket — a civil process. 

However, Silver said, that man’s name and arrest had been made public through a press release from Vermont State Police at the time of the man’s arrest.

Silver said many other people, particularly first-time offenders who are arrested on misdemeanors and have their cases dismissed or sent to a court diversion program, end up in the same position.

“If someone is going to get diversion, you don’t know that until after they are arrested,” Silver said. “If they do, then it becomes confidential, but if it’s all over the newspapers … the confidentiality portion of it is really undermined.”

Silver said information released by police at the time of an arrest are merely accusations. 

“What good is being presumed innocent if everybody in the community hears the accusation and then it ends up being dismissed?” he sad. 

Birmingham, of the state police, said his agency emails more than 5,000 press releases a year, including for arrests and criminal citations, to a media list.

The colonel said an arrest does not mean that someone is innocent or guilty.

“The arrest is a public event that’s taken place. It’s important for us to document that and make sure the public sees that arrest,” Birmingham said. 

“The internet and social media captures it and we lose control of it at that point,” he said. “I understand that, but that doesn’t abdicate us from our responsibility to ensure that the public understands that we made an arrest.”

Birmingham said state police does not issue releases tracking each case through the court system.

“If it is dismissed I would suggest that the state’s attorney or the defense attorneys put out their own press release,” he said. 

St. Albans Police Chief Gary Taylor, a member of the executive board of the Vermont Association of Chiefs of Police, echoed many of the points made by Birmingham. Though, he said, his department doesn’t have the resources to issue releases for each arrest.

For example, Taylor said, his department does not issue press releases for retail theft offenses.  

However, he said, if someone called and asked about an arrest, “we would never withhold that information.” 

Mike Donoghue, executive director of the Vermont Press Association, spoke to the panel about the importance of not restricting the police when it comes to releasing information to the public.

“As much as it may be a pain for troopers, and for legislators, and for the governor, or other state employees to have the public looking over their shoulder, that is the government that we have,” he said. “It may not be perfect, but I haven’t seen one that’s even close to perfect.”  

Read the story on VTDigger here: Should police announce all arrests? Panel hears public release debate.

A Vermont Catholic Church report revealing the names of 40 Vermont priests accused of sexually abusing children over the past seven decades has both provided answers and prompted questions for survivors and members of the state’s largest religious denomination.

“This is a long overdue step towards transparency — and there is still more work to do,” says Zach Hiner, executive director of the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

The support group says the Vermont report is similar to documents from other states that offer such basics as an accused priest’s name, dates and locations of assignments, and whether that person is dead or alive. But SNAP doesn’t understand why dioceses nationwide aren’t including photos and other clarifying details about clergy or sharing more about how many people have complained of abuse.

“There really hasn’t been one list anywhere that has all the information that’s most useful to the public,” Hiner says.

Vermont Catholic Bishop Christopher Coyne gave the state diocese’s long-locked personnel files to a seven-member lay committee last November to review and release the names of clergy who have faced credible allegations of child sexual abuse since 1950. SNAP went on to criticize the church for not publicizing a list sooner — a point the bishop acknowledged upon releasing the report last week.

“If only a list of priests with credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor had been released 15 years ago, perhaps we would be farther along our collective path of healing,” said Coyne, who became the diocese’s leader in 2015.

The four men and three women on the lay committee said their biggest obstacle was the fact the personnel files were both overwhelming and under-organized and mostly limited to diocesan priests and not other religious orders such as the Society of Saint Edmund that also serve the state.

“The volume of the files we were presented with was itself a challenge,” the committee wrote in its report. “It was apparent the Vermont diocesan recordkeeping system was inadequate and incomplete.”

The diocese, for example, sorted through the records of its 400 priests since 1950 to give the committee more than 50 folders it considered potentially problematic. Even so, one file alone contained 1,000 pages of paperwork ranging from reams of everyday correspondence to an occasional explosive charge.

“It quickly became clear that our original target date to release the report by December 31, 2018, was unreasonable,” members wrote.

The committee ultimately found credible allegations against 40 priests and determined the remaining clergy pinpointed for review had no reason to be identified publicly.

“That’s why I’m glad we took the time,” says Mark Redmond, executive director of Burlington’s Spectrum Youth & Family Services and committee leader alongside former Chittenden County State’s Attorney Robert Simpson. “We never even considered just throwing the names out there. We had to be fair to everybody.”

The 40 accused priests account for about 10% of total Vermont clergy since 1950 — a similar ratio compared with other dioceses in New England and nationally, according to the watchdog website bishopaccountability.org.

The committee, discovering there are no standards for such reviews, decided to define a credible allegation as one that’s either considered “natural, plausible and probable,” corroborated with other evidence, or acknowledged by the accused.

“I knew the issue was significant, but it was a bit larger than I would have anticipated,” says committee member John Mahoney, a retired Burlington schoolteacher who was abused by a priest around eighth grade. “I saw names of victims I did not know I was going to see. I saw names of perpetrators I did not know I was going to see.”

That said, the files don’t contain the full extent of the problem. One of the most sued former priests, Edward Paquette, has faced 32 court cases with several more filed recently. But his official records only note incidents involving two boys in Rutland and five more in Burlington, as most of his accusers didn’t come forward until decades later and went directly to a lawyer rather than to church leaders.

“The sad truth is for every kid who reported abuse there were more who didn’t,” Redmond says.

As a result, the committee — which chose not to include details of individual incidents to protect accusers’ privacy — decided not to even estimate how many children were abused by Vermont priests individually or collectively.

As a survivor, Mahoney isn’t upset the report doesn’t include such facts or figures.

“One credible allegation is horrendous, period,” he says.

Mahoney also doesn’t regret the committee’s timetable.

“Ideally our work would have been finished sooner, but we wanted to be thorough,” he says. “As a committee we were disappointed that, even at this stage, the diocese had not organized a database.”

Fellow committee member Mike Donoghue reviewed the records from the perspective of a former Burlington Free Press reporter and current executive director of the Vermont Press Association. Some have questioned why a journalist wouldn’t want to publish information as soon as possible. In response, Donoghue cites the need for accuracy.

“With my background of being a fact finder and worrying about accountability, my sense was to look at every piece of paper in the entirety of the files,” he says. “Everyone on the committee wanted to be fair to the victims and fair to the priests. I went in with a blank slate and said, ‘Show me the facts.’ We weren’t going to report anything out until we were 100% sure.”

SNAP credited the Vermont diocese for including at least one name of an outside accused priest who had visited the state — something many other churches haven’t done.

“That’s something we always ask to be included,” Hiner says. “We want this list to be an affirmation for survivors. We need to have as much information in the hands of the public as possible.”

The committee agrees. Its members — who also include planner Mary O’Neil, nurse Johanna Sheehey-Jones and mother and project manager Caroline Riehl Smith — want the church to better organize its records.

“The diocese needs to up its game,” Redmond says.

The committee also wants to return to its work if more allegations surface.

“Additional files will need to be reviewed,” it writes. “Formalizing the reporting process and including independent citizen panels are steps toward ensuring these crimes are no longer hidden.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Priest misconduct report prompts questions among survivors.

A Northeast Kingdom man convicted of murder has died of an apparent suicide at a privately run prison in Mississippi.

Christopher Chase is believed to be the first Vermont inmate to die by suicide at an out-of-state prison in the more than 20 years the state has been sending prisoners outside its borders due to lack of capacity here. 

Chase, 39, was pronounced dead at about 1:05 a.m. on Monday, according to Vermont Corrections Commissioner Michael Touchette.

Chase’s cause of death appears to be suicide by hanging, using a sheet and an electric cord, the commissioner added. 

At the time, Touchette said, Chase was housed the general population in a cell by himself at the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility, which is in Tutwiler, Mississippi, and owned and operated by CoreCivic.

Touchette said Chase was not on suicide watch and had given no indication to prison officials that he intended to take his own life. 

Chase had been jailed since Sept. 10, 2008, and was serving a 20-years-to-life sentence for the slaying of his girlfriend, 22-year-old Sara Bragdon, in her Guildhall . He has been housed in an out-of-state prison since 2010, according to Touchette.

Matthew Valerio, Vermont’s defender general, said Tuesday he will be sending an investigator from his office’s prisoner’s rights division to investigate Chase’s death.  

“Most of the time we look at them as preventable,” Valerio said of prison suicides.

Valerio said he knew little more about Chase’s death than had already been publicly released from the Vermont Department of Corrections. 

“This is the first out-of-state suicide that we’re aware of,” added Valerio. 

Vermont, which lacks the capacity to house all prisoners in state, has been sending inmates to out-of-state facilities for more than two decades. 

Vermont began sending its out-of-state prisoners to the Mississippi facility in October 2018, after reaching a contract with Nashville-based CoreCivic, the country’s largest private prison contractor.

[Related: Inside the prison holding Vermont inmates 1,366 miles from home]

Touchette said Tuesday there are currently 276 Vermont prisoners in the Mississippi facility. 

Valerio said officials from the defender general’s office had been at the Mississippi facility last week as part of a regular review of operations there. 

“The inmate wasn’t someone who reached out to us when we were there,” Valerio added of Chase. 

Chase admitted to shooting Bragdon in the back of her head as she slept, Essex County State’s Attorney Vince Illuzzi said Tuesday. 

In a news report from Chase’s change of plea hearing in December 2009, Illuzzi, who prosecuted the case, said that Chase had been “remorseful and distraught state along with appearing suicidal” after the shooting.

On Tuesday, Illuzzi said he didn’t recall why be believed that Chase appeared suicidal at that time.

David Sleigh, a St. Johnsbury defense attorney who represented Chase in the murder case, said Tuesday he hadn’t had any contact with Chase since he was sentenced in 2010.

As for the slaying, Illuzzi said, “We never really had a motive. We never did find out what caused him to shoot his girlfriend.”

Chase fled Vermont after the shooting and was arrested a couple days later outside a Walmart in the Rochester, New York, area, Illuzzi said. 

Touchette, corrections commissioner, said the Vermont Department of Corrections Health Services division will conduct an “administrative and clinical” review into Chase’s death. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: DOC: Vermont inmate dies of apparent suicide in out-of-state prison.

Armed robbers stuck up two Northeast Kingdom businesses over the holiday weekend, according to the Vermont State Police.

The first incident happened around 8:15 p.m. on Sunday at the Pettyco Junction Country Store in St. Johnsbury, at the intersection of U.S. Route 2 and Vermont Route 18.

Troopers said a man in a dark hoodie and a camouflage mask entered the store with a handgun and demanded the clerk give him money from the cash register. He fled on foot with the cash, troopers said. State police did not specify how much money was stolen.

At about 8:30 p.m. on Monday, a man in a dark green hooded raincoat and dark mask walked into the Subway restaurant in Lyndonville at 101 Depot St., troopers said. 

He displayed what appeared to be a canister of chemical spray and told a clerk to hand over the money in the register, according to state police.

In surveillance footage of the incident released by state police, the man walks casually to the register with something in his hand, gesturing toward the clerk while keeping his head down. 

As the clerk retrieves the money, the man covers his face with a gloved hand. Then he takes a stack of bills from the clerk and leaves. State police did not specify how much money was taken.

The robbers in both incidents were described as caucasian men about 6 feet tall, with slender builds and light complexions.

Anyone with information about either incident is asked to contact the St. Johnsbury barracks at 802-748-3111.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Two armed robberies hit NEK over Labor Day weekend.

Before Vermont’s EB-5 immigrant investor program became intertwined in the story of the state’s largest ever fraud, Sen. Patrick Leahy wanted people to associate one politician with the program: him.

Leahy’s staff in 2011 pushed then-incoming Gov. Peter Shumlin to sing the senator’s praises during his inaugural address for playing a lead role in backing the state’s EB-5 program, according to records recently obtained by VTDigger through a public records lawsuit.

Those new records also shed more light on the role state officials played in EB-5 projects at Jay Peak Resort that ended in fraud allegations and a rash of lawsuits. 

In an email exchange obtained by VTDigger, Chuck Ross, of Leahy’s office, wrote to Bill Lofy, Shumlin’s incoming chief of staff, on Jan. 3, 2011, three days before the inaugural address. 

Ross made a suggestion about what to include about the congressional delegation.

“Recognize them and their good work – on EB5 you need to recognize Leahy and only Leahy,” Ross wrote.

While the email came from Ross’ Senate address, he had been tapped in November 2010 after the general election to serve as Vermont’s agriculture secretary once Shumlin was formally sworn in as governor in January 2011. Shumlin’s predecessor, Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, was also a vocal proponent of the state-run EB-5 program.   

Ross, reached Tuesday, said when he sent the Jan. 3, 2011 email he was still a member of Leahy’s staff.

“I don’t think it’s any secret Leahy had been working to make EB-5 successful,” Ross said Tuesday. “If the governor was going to make remarks about EB-5, I wanted to make sure my boss was recognized for the work that he had done.”

Shumlin included two paragraphs in his address about the state’s EB-5 program and gave Leahy credit, along with Bill Stenger, Jay Peak’s president and the leading EB-5 developer in the state at that time. Stenger pled no contest to 52 counts of securities fraud in 2016 and is now facing criminal charges. 

“Let me give you an exciting example of what I mean by innovation in financing and venture capital,” Shumlin said. “The EB-5 program, championed in Congress by Senator Leahy, is an established means of generating capital that is creating jobs. Thousands of them, right here in Vermont. We must take this program to levels not imagined by its creators. EB-5 gives us a vehicle not only to raise essential capital, but also to spread Vermont’s stellar reputation from one end of the globe to another.

“We have a pioneer in this effort, Bill Stenger, of Jay Peak, deep in the Northeast Kingdom, who joins us today. Bill has plumbed this federal program to its fullest potential. Through this initiative he has created over a thousand new jobs in the highest unemployment area of the state that would not otherwise exist.”

VTDigger obtained the records through a lawsuit against the state after years of being denied access to documents related to the state-run Vermont EB-5 Regional Center. 

A settlement of that lawsuit resulted in VTDigger securing documents tied to the state’s operation of the regional center, and the release of a few communications between Leahy’s office and the state about the EB-5 program. As part of an eight-month mediation process, the Vermont Attorney General’s office determined that other records sought by VTDigger between former Jay Peak business partner Douglas Hulme and state officials, appear to have been destroyed.

Leahy has long been a prominent backer of the EB-5 program in Vermont, and a friend of Stenger, who continued working for Jay Peak until he was indicted in May.

The senator held his 50th wedding anniversary at Jay Peak and called on Stenger to testify before Congress about the benefits of the EB-5 initiative. 

In addition, Leahy joined Stenger on a trade mission to Ireland and the senator solicited investors in China on behalf of the EB-5 program and the Jay Peak projects.

The senator also wrote a letter of support for the proposed AnC Bio biomedical research project, which was later found to be “nearly a complete fraud” by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  

Federal prosecutors this spring leveled criminal charges against the developers in that failed EB-5 financed biomedical facility proposed for Newport. Stenger and his one-time business partner, Ariel Quiros, Jay Peak’s owner at the time, were charged along with two associates in May with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and concealing fraud. The criminal charges came more than three years after state and federal regulators brought the EB-5 program in the state virtually to a halt. 

Previous civil lawsuits included claims that Stenger and Quiros had misused $200 million of the more than $350 million raised from immigrant investors over a 10-year span that was to be used for massive upgrades at Jay Peak and other development projects in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

In a press conference right after the SEC brought its civil investor fraud lawsuit against Stenger, Leahy said he felt “betrayed” by his old friend. Leahy added that he would be disappointed if it turned out Stenger was responsible for the fraud. 

Pushing for reform

As the EB-5 scandal in Vermont has played out in recent years, Leahy has pushed for reforms aimed at fixing the national EB-5 program, which he has said is rife with fraud in projects around the country. However, the senior senator has not been able to get anti-fraud measures in place, even with the support of Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, of Iowa.  

Documents recently released by the state to VTDigger as part of the public records lawsuit provide insight into the Vermont senator’s efforts shepherding the EB-5 program through reauthorizations in Congress over the years. 

Leahy, according to the records, was being kept in the loop on Vermont projects financed through the immigrant investor initiative, particularly the Jay Peak projects.

While Leahy and his office express a strong interest in the success of the EB-5 program during the roughly 10-year period when Stenger and Quiros were pushing their massive developments in the Northeast Kingdom, the state only produced about 200 pages of communications between the senator’s staff and state officials related to the EB-5 program out of a repository of 3 million pages of records held by the Vermont Attorney General’s office. (The senator’s office has steadfastly refused to release his office’s communications with Stenger and state officials. Congressional email is not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, except through third-party communications with state or federal agencies.)

Besides the exchange over the inaugural address, only a handful of other communications were released between Leahy’s staff, the governor’s office or the state EB-5 office, regarding the Jay Peak projects. Many of the communications obtained by VTDigger are press releases related to announcements for other EB-5 financed projects in the state. 

And yet members of Leahy’s staff were often present at a number of Jay Peak press conferences, including a daylong event in September 2012 held by Stenger at Jay Peak, Burke Mountain and Newport, featuring Shumlin, Leahy, other members of the congressional delegation and state officials. 

There isn’t a single communication in the release of Leahy records referencing that watershed event.

Despite Leahy’s keen interest in the EB-5 program and his eagerness to take credit for the jobs created at Jay Peak, there are only a handful of exchanges between Leahy’s staff and state commerce agency officials about Jay Peak before 2014. 

And there are no Leahy communications provided by the AG’s office after 2014, when investors began pressuring the state to take action against the developers.

Several key staffers, including Chris Saunders and Ted Brady, now the deputy commissioner of the commerce agency, were involved in watching the program for Leahy (also known by his staff as “the Boss”) in 2015 and 2016, and yet the AG’s office released no communications between either man and state officials during that period.

The 200 pages of communications that were provided consist of a back-and-forth about Shumlin’s inaugural address between state officials and Stenger, a month before the new governor’s swearing-in. 

In an email dated Dec. 4, 2010, Jeb Spaulding, Shumlin’s incoming secretary of administration, wrote to Stenger, Ross, Emerson Lynn, editor of the St. Albans Messenger; Lawrence Miller, who was tapped by Shumlin for the post of secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development; and Pat Moulton, deputy secretary of the agency. 

“VT visa investment initiative,” was the subject line.

“At a meeting yesterday between Governor-elect Shumlin and Bill Stenger, they had a very positive and exciting conversation about the additional potential of the EB-5 visa program for Vermont,” Spaulding wrote. “To make a long story short, at the end of the meeting, Peter requested that Bill work with Lawrence Miller, Chuck Ross, and Emerson Lynn to develop an aggressive initiative for Vermont to maximize the potential of EB-5 investments in our state. Bill agreed.”

Spaulding added, “The idea is to have an initiative ready to include in Peter’s inaugural speech. Bill has a good understanding of the potential of this program and knows what Peter is thinking, including an agricultural capital and an economic development capital pool component. Peter is willing to do everything in his power to maximize the potential of the EB5 visa investment program.”

Ross wrote a reply email on Dec. 7, 2010, to the group. 

“I have also spoken to Ted Brady in Leahy’s office who works on the EB5 initiatives in VT and with the DC staff who work on the extensions and adjustments to the underlying authorizing legislation,” Ross wrote.

Stenger, in his response to the group, wrote that he planned to attend the meeting as well.

“I can circulate thoughts before as I know the Gov. elect would like our collective thoughts before the first of the year,” he wrote. “Best to all. Bill.” 

In follow-up email, Stenger added, “Suggest we focus on history of program, structure now and going forward, constraints we face, and possible applications for future use. More later. 15 inches of snow at Jay Peak. Let the Meals and Rooms taxes begin!!”

It appears from the communications that a meeting was held Dec. 15, 2010, in Burlington, but exactly what happened, and what initiatives were discussed, was not revealed. The Vermont Attorney General’s office released no subsequent communications between the parties. 

No big EB-5 initiative was announced in Shumlin’s inaugural address. 

The groundbreaking announcement came in September 2012 when Stenger, in a daylong press conference with Shumlin, Leahy, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch in tow, announced $600 million in additional EB-5 projects as part of the expansive Northeast Kingdom Initiative, which included a window manufacturing company, a biomedical facility, office complex, marina and conference center in Newport, and the transformation of Burke Mountain into a $180 million athletic center with Olympic swimming pools and tennis courts. 

Other communications obtained through the public records lawsuit involve state officials and Stenger asking the senator’s office for help with EB-5 related visas. 

On Dec. 4, 2013, Stenger wrote to Susan Sussman, a Leahy aide, and Brent Raymond, the Vermont EB-5 Regional Center director at the time, seeking help with a potential investor from Vietnam regarding a visa to visit Jay Peak.

“Susan, any help you can give is appreciated. As you might recall Governor Shumlin and Lawrence Miller and myself visited Vietnam and had a great trip with much interest in our projects,” Stenger wrote. 

“Now that investors are trying to visit us and see the state and our facility they get blocked,” he added. “We enthusiastically invited them to come and see Vermont before investing and now some are taking us up on our invitation only to be blocked by our own officials.”

Sussman replied later that day, saying the issue had been brought to her attention.

“I have spoken with my liaison at the Department of State who assures me that there is no bias against EB-5 investors from Vietnam,” she responded. “The one person I am aware of who was denied a B1/B2 visitor visa to come see one of your projects prior to investing had some significant inconsistencies during her interview, which caused her visa application to be denied.”

That rapid-fire communication over visa concerns was the only exchange of its type in the records release. There are no email exchanges between Sussman and commerce agency officials about allegations of fraud — or any other EB-5 visa issues — after 2013, despite the fact that investors began bitterly complaining about Jay Peak in May 2014 and continued to badger state officials about their inability to obtain green cards after the SEC brought the Jay Peak projects to a halt in 2016.

And while it appears that state officials kept Leahy’s office abreast of media coverage of the EB-5 program, there is only one direct communication in the records release. In a July 31, 2014, memo, Raymond, then-director of the state EB-5 regional center, wrote to three members of Leahy’s staff regarding delays for investors processing their visas through the federal immigration agency.

Days earlier VTDigger ran a story headlined: “VTDigger exclusive: Jay Peak loses trust of first EB-5 investors.”

“The VT Digger article is reverberating in China,” Raymond wrote to the Leahy staffers in his email. “Competing RCs {regional centers} are using it against us and our projects.” 

Douglas Hulme documents

Under the terms of its settlement agreement with VTDigger, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office also agreed to release communications between Douglas Hulme, a former Jay Peak business partner, and the state. Initially, the state provided 10 pages of documents that had already been disclosed to VTDigger in 2015. 

Other documents obtained by VTDigger show that in December 2011, Hulme had asked Stenger and Quiros to provide him with proof that investor money wasn’t being commingled and misused. When the Jay Peak developers failed to do so, Hulme announced to 100 immigrant investors at the end of February 2012 that he no longer had faith in the financials at Jay Peak.    

James Candido, the head of the Vermont EB-5 Regional Center, spent a day at Jay Peak in March that year and announced that he had reviewed the financials and found nothing out of the ordinary. 

Records obtained by VTDigger in 2015 show Hulme and former commerce agency secretary Lawrence Miller arranged for a phone conference call in May 2012 to discuss Hulme’s reasons for abandoning the Jay Peak projects. 

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office provided no records pertaining to Candido’s “review” of Jay Peak and said there were no meeting notes from the conference call in the EB-5 litigation hold database. 

After VTDigger obtained documents from other sources of communications between Candido and Hulme, the state searched the Agency of Digital Services email system and located an external hard drive. 

From this search in July, several communications from Candido to Hulme were released that showed there were more official memos between the state and USCIS that had not been previously provided to VTDigger, despite negotiations over the I-924As and a request for any similar records.  

In an email produced by the state, however, Candido described 2008 “audits” submitted to USCIS. 

VTDigger demanded the release of those records and obtained a handful of additional letters between the state and the federal agency. 

In 2008, Candido told USCIS in a Request for Evidence that the regional center was “adhering to the quarterly meeting procedures outlined in the memorandum of understandings with both Sugarbush and Jay Peak resorts.” Candido said he and John Kessler, general counsel for the commerce agency, “oversee these meetings and document reviews.”  

Among the communications provided by the Vermont Attorney General’s Office is a 2009 letter from Kevin Dorn, the commerce secretary under Douglas, who tells USCIS that ACCD conducted regular monitoring of the Jay Peak projects, including quarterly on-site inspections, reviews of job creation numbers and EB-5 investments in the projects. 

“ACCD has remained fully informed regarding this EB-5 project and finds [Jay Peak] to be fully compliant,” Dorn wrote.

Progress reports were to be submitted quarterly by Kessler and Candido, according to the Request for Evidence. Records show, however, that quarterly reports were not submitted until late 2014 — after VTDigger published a story about the state’s close relationship with Stenger.

Regional center officials told investors that the state audited the projects, but financial reviews never took place.

Meanwhile, officials continued to promote state oversight as a perk of investing in Vermont EB-5 Regional Center projects. Records show the commerce agency website in 2010 touted “Vermont’s unique advantage” with an EB-5 program that “provides the oversight required by USCIS,” and the added “credibility that a state run center provides.” 

“Investors are ensured that projects are managed by an independent and qualified authority,” commerce agency staff wrote. 

In records from the Vermont EB-5 Regional Center website, officials cited more reasons why immigrants should consider Vermont as a great place to invest. “Faster approvals” are high on the list, and the commerce agency’s emphasis on “day-to-day involvement with the Vermont business community” that “ensure our projects are well qualified.” 

In addition, state officials assure USCIS in 2010 that investor monies in Jay Peak are held in escrow, as required under an MOU with the Vermont EB-5 Regional Center. Documents show that Jay Peak commingled EB-5 monies with other funds at least as early as 2008. 

In 2016, the SEC determined that the Jay Peak developers had begun defrauding investors early on — under the purview of state officials. 

Two years later, USCIS terminated the Vermont EB-5 Regional Center, citing negligence and material misrepresentations made by state officials. The Scott administration immediately appealed the decision. There has been no word on whether the appeal succeeded or failed.  

In the meantime, Vermont Attorney General’s office has not investigated allegations of state negligence and possible malfeasance. Instead, TJ Donovan has assiduously defended the state and state officials, and through his office has actively blocked access to records that would shed light on the state’s role in the fraud at Jay Peak by using the relevant litigation exemption as a shield. Under the exemption, which has been interpreted broadly by the AG’s office, any lawsuit involving the state can be used as a reason to block the public release of records. Vermont is one of only a handful of states that has such an exemption to the public records act.

The AG’s office is now saying the litigation hold database, which contains 3 million pages of records, will not be publicly available until after the U.S. Attorney’s office criminal lawsuit against Stenger, Quiros and two others is completed. That case is not expected to go to trial until October 2020.

Read the story on VTDigger here: New records: ‘On EB5 you need to recognize Leahy and only Leahy’.

Vermont State Police have arrested three Bridport men for vandalism in connection to incidents on farms in Addison County. 

State police announced Monday that Christopher Thompson, 26; Christian Leggett, 19; and Bryan Ashley-Selleck, 26 have been cited on several charges including multiple acts of vandalism and firing a weapon. 

Charges include 3rd degree arson, aggravated stalking, providing false information to a police officer, petit larceny, noise in nighttime and unlawful mischief.

Police said the incidents were part of a feud between local farm families.

Migrant Justice, a local activist organization, called on police to investigate last month after farmworkers reported their houses were surrounded by groups of people yelling insults, breaking windows and air conditioning units and firing guns into the air. 

Police said most of the incidents occurred late at night or in early morning hours at properties near farms. 

“The investigation has indicated that Ashley-Selleck, Leggett and Thompson committed multiple acts of vandalism, such as damaging property, and other offenses, including at one point firing a weapon, as part of a feud between local farm families that began as a dispute over access to a fishing area,” the VSP said in a statement. 

The three face multiple charges and are set to be arraigned in Vermont Superior Court in Middlebury on Oct. 7. 

The VSP said that it consulted with the Addison County State’s Attorney’s Office during the investigation, which is ongoing. 

“The Vermont State Police also provided notice to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office under the Bias Incident Reporting System during this investigation, and VSP will continue to work cooperatively with all relevant stakeholders,” the VSP said in its release. 

No bias-related charges have been filed. 

Police also are continuing to investigate another incident of harassment at a different Addison County farm, and ask those with information to contact Trooper Mae Murdock at 802-388-4919. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: Bridport men charged with vandalism in Addison County.

BURLINGTON — The stepson of a man shot and killed earlier this summer at a trailhead in Hinesburg has been charged with illegally possessing the gun that fired the fatal blasts.

Vermont State Police Maj. Dan Trudeau, head of the criminal division, said Wednesday evening that the investigation is continuing, and stopped short of calling Kory Lee George a suspect in the homicide.

“We believe he stole the gun, but we haven’t determined if he is a suspect,” Trudeau said.

The major said with the federal charge becoming public along with details of the investigation in the affidavit in support of the gun charge, he hoped it would stir more people to come forward with information on the homicide.

“What you’ve got in the federal affidavit is all we can offer,” he added. “Certainly, everybody in that affidavit is of interest to us.”

George, 31, of Monkton, appeared Wednesday in federal court in Burlington for an initial appearance on two counts of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. He was ordered detained pending his next court hearing on Friday.

Specifically, the charges accuse George of illegally possessing a Beretta Model 92FS 9 mm caliber pistol and a Savage Arms Stevens Model shotgun, according to court filings. 

According to newly filed court records Wednesday, George possessed the Beretta that was used in the shooting of his stepfather, David Auclair, on July 11. Authorities claim George stole the gun a day earlier. Auclair was shot nine times.

Federal prosecutors wouldn’t comment Wednesday after George’s brief court appearance if they consider him a suspect in the homicide. Michael Desautels, a federal public defender representing George, also declined comment following the hearing. 

Authorities in court papers said they believed the killing was premeditated. No one has been arrested in Auclair’s death. 

State police investigators have been tight-lipped about their probe into Auclair’s death, which has been ruled a homicide. 

Auclair, 45, of Williston was found dead at around 10:40 p.m. on July 11 in the parking lot of the LaPlatte Headwaters Town Forest. Police had been called to the scene for reports of gunshots in the area, and found Auclair’s body near his gray GMC pickup truck.

He had been shot multiple times, according to police.

Police say there was black grease on his hands and it appeared he may have been trying to crawl under the truck as he was being shot. 

Court records filed Wednesday in federal court with the charges against George provide new insights into the police investigation, at least as it relates to the firearm used to fire the fatal shots. The documents show police used cellphone records to recreate the activities of family members and witnesses in the the days and hours leading up to the killing.

Those federal court records also don’t call George a suspect in the shooting. 

“Evidence relating to the shooting, meanwhile, indicates that the murder of the defendant’s step-father was carefully planned and executed,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Spencer Willig wrote in a filing seeking to keep George detained. 

“The victim was apparently lured via a call from a prepaid cell phone to an isolated trailhead late in the evening,” the prosecutor wrote. “Nine 9mm slugs were found in the victim’s body; the shooter left no casings at the crime scene.”

Forensic analysis of those slugs recovered from Auclair’s body confirmed the weapon possessed by George was the firearm used to kill his stepfather, Willig wrote. 

“There is thus a factual nexus between the weapon and a crime of violence,” the filing stated. 

Vermont State Police Detective Sgt. James Vooris wrote in an affidavit that George stole the Beretta from James Synnott’s home on July 10. The following day, according to the detective, that Beretta was used to shoot Auclair to death.

Voorhis wrote that shortly before the theft of the Beretta from Synnott’s home, George met with his mother, Angela Auclair, who was David Auclair’s wife, at the University Mall in South Burlington.

John Turner, who was in romantic relationship with Angela Auclair, was in that same area around that same time, the affidavit stated. Police said Angela Auclair and David Auclair had separate bedrooms in the home they shared prior to his death. George lived at certain times in a trailer on the Auclair property.

On the evening before the killing about an hour after meeting with her son, Angela Auclair along with David Auclair went to dinner with Synnott at a Colchester restaurant, the detective wrote. 

According to the detective, George and Turner, along with George’s girlfriend, Kristin Stillwell, drove to Synnott’s residence while Synnott was at dinner. Vooris wrote that Turner dropped George off near Synnott’s home at 6:04 p.m. George entered the residence at 6:07 p.m. and left 10 minutes later. 

“Evidence further indicates that the Beretta was stolen from the Synnott house at that time,” the detective wrote. “John Turner then picked up George and they left the area together.”

According to the affidavit, a few hours later the Beretta was test fired near the Auclair house in Monkton.

“The next day, a prepaid cell phone was used to call David Auclair at around 9:15 pm, apparently to lure him to the Hinesburg trailhead where, at about 9:45pm, he was shot to death,” the affidavit stated. “Evidence indicates that the cell phone was purchased on July 11, 2019 at the Rite Aid in Milton.”

According to the detective, George has admitted going into the Rite Aid that day.

State police recovered the Beretta and the prepaid phone from Lewis Creek in Monkton near the scene of David Auclair’s death, the affidavit stated.

The court filing added that a search Aug. 2 of the mobile home where George lived with Stillwell resulting in police finding the shotgun. 

That shotgun, according to the affidavit, was stolen in an early 2019 burglary in upstate New York from a camp “familiar” to George.

The affidavit stated that George has a lengthy criminal record, including felony convictions for escape, assault and robbery with a weapon; grand larceny, burglary of an occupied dwelling, and burglary.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Slain man’s stepson had gun used in fatal Hinesburg shooting.

This post was updated at 5:29 p.m. to include comments from Gov. Phil Scott.

Law enforcement agencies locked down Vermont’s Capitol Complex for hours on Friday after they received a report of an armed man walking into an office building. 

Nearly a week later, police have still not updated the public on the incident or their investigation. 

While many details of the events are not clear to the public, officials, including Gov. Phil Scott, expect that the incident may prompt consideration of the security measures in place in the state government complex, which includes the governor’s office, the Supreme Court and the Statehouse.

After receiving a report Friday morning that an armed man walked into 133 State Street, which houses Vermont’s Tax Department and other state offices,  police locked down and swept state buildings in downtown Montpelier for hours. 

Scott’s office announced around 4 p.m. that police had not found a firearm or an intruder and had largely lifted the lockdown. But since then, police have not released additional information about the incident, which drew the response of state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. 

The governor’s office, state police, and Capitol Police have referred all questions about the investigation to the Montpelier Police Department, which is the lead agency on the incident. Montpelier Police Chief Anthony Facos has not responded to multiple requests for comment. 

Montpelier City Manager Bill Fraser said police told him that two people reported seeing a man walk into the building with a rifle, and that a third person saw someone  “carrying something long” into 133 State Street on Friday morning. 

“The people, especially the initial two people, felt pretty confident it was a rifle,” Fraser said.

In the coming weeks, law enforcement agencies will be reviewing their response to the reports from the public that came in on Friday. 

Adam Silverman, the spokesperson for the Vermont State Police said that state law enforcement officers will be working with the Montpelier Police Department and other agencies “to review the incident and the law-enforcement response to it.”

Fraser said he felt police responded well, given the information they had. 

“Based on the info they had, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. Keeping those employees safe is our number one job,” he said. 

The governor said Thursday he expects the event will prompt discussion about security in Montpelier offices.

“There has to be a balance. I’m sure this will come up, I’m sure the Legislature will want to address this as well and so we’ll talk about it,” Scott said. “What is it that we can do to make sure that we protect those who visit the Statehouse and work in the Statehouse but keeping it open as well?”

The governor hopes that the Statehouse will remain “as open as possible,” he said. “It’s the People’s House.”

Capitol Police Chief Matthew Romei said he believes the incident will likely spark a conversation about security protocols in Montpelier’s Capitol Complex. 

With the exception of court facilities, state office buildings and the Vermont Statehouse do not have any metal detectors. 

But Romei said he feels comfortable with the security systems already in place in Vermont’s Legislature.  

“As far as the Statehouse itself, we cherish the openness of this building. We’re one of six or seven statehouses that don’t screen people that come in the door,” Romei said. 

“Overwhelmingly I think our customers in the Legislature and the public are generally happy with the level of security that we have,” he said. 

Buildings and General Services Commissioner Chris Cole said that the state is wrapping up the installation of new security infrastructure, including security cameras, and panic buttons, in buildings across Vermont.  

He said that last week, state officials were finishing security updates at 133 State Street, and were putting in new cameras. 

The state, at the urging of the union that represents state employees, undertook an effort to improve security in its workplaces around Vermont after a Department for Children and Families social worker was shot and killed while walking to her car from her office in 2015. 

With the new installations in place, he doesn’t believe other security infrastructure like metal detectors, are needed in state buildings. 

“I just think this has been the Vermont way for a long period of time,” he said. “We as the state employees don’t want to feel walled off from the public we serve.” 

Fraser, Montpelier’s town manager, said that last week’s lockdown “warrants a discussion” about security in Montpelier. 

“What’s the balance between changing that culture and increasing public safety? And I don’t know the answer to it ” he said. 

“But I think you have to think about it, especially with things that are going on around the country.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Days after Montpelier lockdown, no updates on police investigation.

LEBANON, N.H. — Federal immigration officials are conducting a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 89 southbound in Lebanon between exits 19 and 18 this morning.

Lebanon police are not involved, Lebanon Police Chief Richard Mello said, but Border Patrol agents notified his agency within the last week that a checkpoint would take place.

Mello said he had no details about the checkpoint, but that he was “assuming” agents were stopping vehicles to ask for people’s immigration status.

“I don’t know their procedure,” Mello said.

Each car in both lanes on the southbound side of the interstate was being stopped by one of 20 or so agents. A reporter and photographer who went through the checkpoint said an agent asked: “Are you a U.S. citizen?” After they answered in the affirmative, the agent waved them through.

At least three cars had been pulled to the side around 10:50 a.m.

A message left for U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Steven Cribby about the operation wasn’t returned on Thursday morning.

A checkpoint hasn’t been held in Lebanon in Mello’s four-year tenure; federal immigration officials held such stops in the past along Interstate 91 in Hartford several years ago, and Border Patrol agents also boarded a Greyhound bus in White River Junction two years ago.

The checkpoint follows Border Patrol agents arresting 18 people without immigration documentation allowing them to enter or remain in the United States between July 29 and Aug. 1 in the Lebanon area. 

The checkpoint also comes as the town of Hartford since early June has been discussing ways to provide increased protections for undocumented immigrants in town.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Border Patrol running immigration checkpoint on I-89 in Lebanon, NH.

State police are investigating a pair of “suspicious” fires that burned down two camps recently in a remote part of Essex County.

Both incidents happened about a mile apart on Gore Road in Avery’s Gore, an unincorporated area between Brighton and Norton that was uninhabited as of the 2010 census. 

Investigators believe both blazes were caused by “direct human involvement,” according to the Vermont State Police. No one was injured in either incident.

The first fire was reported Aug. 25. It appeared to have burned a camp building to the ground either the previous night or early that morning, troopers said.

The second fire likely took place sometime between Aug. 24 and Sept. 1, when it was discovered, troopers said.

No one had reported either fire to the nearby Brighton Fire Department, and both burned until they went out on their own, troopers said.

The second fire, close to Unknown Pond, spread about 30 feet from the building and burned many of the surrounding trees, Detective Sgt. Michael LaCourse said.

LaCourse said that it’s “definitely a possibility” that the two fires were related.

Anyone with information on the cases is asked to call LaCourse at 802-334-8881 or the Vermont Arson Tip Award Program hotline at 1-800-322-7766. The tip program will pay up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Essex County camps destroyed by ‘suspicious’ fires.

Editor’s note: This piece from the SCOV Law Blog is by SCOV Law editor Andrew Delaney.

In re C.P., 2019 VT 62 (mem.) 

Sometimes, an appeal isn’t complete enough for SCOV to do anything but dismiss the appeal. In most cases, a basic requirement for SCOV to review an order is that the order be final. Occasionally, there’s an interlocutory appeal but in the normal course of things in the appellate world, an order has to be final before it can be appealed to SCOV. 

After a permanency hearing, the family division rejected the parties’ stipulation that kiddos should go back to mom and issued an order telling DCF to come up with a new plan when the court would hold another permanency hearing. C.P. had serious, non-accidental injuries when the case started. Those injuries were still not explained and the court reasoned that returning the kids to mom’s custody — C.P. and a sibling born after C.P.’s case had started — was not in the children’s best interests. 

The kids filed a motion to reconsider. Well, their lawyer filed a motion to reconsider because they were a toddler and an infant at the time. They would probably not be able to write a cogent motion to reconsider for at least another year or two. The trial court denied the motion, explaining that those serious, unexplained injuries indicated that it was not in the kids’ best interests to go back with mom. 

After the kids filed a notice of appeal, SCOV asked the kids to show cause. They argued that the trial court’s denial of the motion to reconsider was essentially a new disposition order, and a disposition order is a final order. SCOV doesn’t buy it. 

SCOV concludes that the denial-of-the-motion-to-reconsider order was not a final appealable order. It didn’t modify the original disposition order. And the trial court didn’t wrap everything up at the permanency hearing. SCOV note that the court “rejected DCF’s permanency recommendations, directed DCF to prepare and submit a new case plan, and set the matter for further hearing to review the new plan.” SCOV explains that the kiddos could’ve sought permission for an interlocutory appeal but they didn’t. And because the order appealed from isn’t a final order, this appeal gets dismissed. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: SCOV Law Blog: Lawyer for kids appeals order for them to stay in DCF custody.