Guy Rouelle, who led the aviation program in the state Agency of Transportation from 2011 until resigning in June, had been the focus of a Vermont State Police investigation after his departure.
The attorney general’s office declined to prosecute Rouelle because the evidence provided shows that his “conduct did not violate any explicit and established expenditure rules laid out by VTrans at the time of the alleged offenses.”
“Additionally, Mr. Rouelle appeared to be truthful, though obscure, regarding the purpose of some of the expenditures,” the attorney general said. “Given the lack of evidence of an obvious violation of the expenditure rules and no provable misrepresentation, there is not sufficient evidence on which to base a criminal charge.”
Rouelle, reached Thursday afternoon, declined comment.
The investigation centered on allegations involving Rouelle and the improper use of funds for helicopter training for himself and later for a helicopter rental.
Rouelle, while the aviation program manager, took helicopter lessons and received a commercial pilot’s license paid for by VTrans through a combination of state and federal grant funds.
In addition, after obtaining the helicopter pilot’s license, Rouelle rented helicopters three times. The Attorney General’s Office statement said that the helicopter rental for two of those occasions were “confirmed” to be “fly-in” type of events where local youth interested in aviation could meet pilots and view aircraft.
The third helicopter rental involved a visit to a proposed helipad where people were “purportedly” testing the sound pollution of a helicopter takeoff and landing, according to the statement from the Attorney General’s Office.
Rouelle spent about $27,000 on professional training for a helicopter license in 2016 that he says he needed for airport planning. All invoices and expenditure he made for tuition and helicopter training was approved, Rouelle told VTDigger in a previous interview.
In that interview in December, Rouelle called the allegations against him a “smear campaign,” adding that his supervisors were aware of everything he was doing, and had never raised an objection.
Documents obtained by VTDigger show that Michele Boomhower, the director of policy, planning and intermodal development for the Transportation Agency, and Trini Brassard, the agency’s assistant director of operations, signed off on the invoices for Sharkey’s Helicopters in Lebanon, New Hampshire.
(This story will be updated.)
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Attorney General’s office won’t bring criminal charges following probe of ex-aviation director.