Norm McAllister takes the stand during a hearing to dismiss his retrial at the Vermont Superior Court in St. Albans on Friday. Pool photo via Greg Lamereaux/County Courier
ST. ALBANS — Norm McAllister, a former Franklin County state senator, took the stand Friday in a St. Albans courtroom and told a judge that the sex crime cases he has battled in court have cost him $200,000 in legal bills and his seat in the Vermont Legislature.
Now, with acquittals or dismissals in all those cases except one misdemeanor case still pending, he wants that remaining charge — an allegation he prostituted a tenant living and working on his Highgate farm — thrown out “in the interest of justice.”
John Lavoie, the deputy Franklin County Deputy State’s Attorney, repeatedly questioned McAllister on whether a jury verdict in his favor would bolster his claims of innocence more than having the case simply thrown out.
The prosecutor asked the former Republican state senator if he would feel more vindication with an acquittal instead of a dismissal, especially since McAllister said he believes that his accuser is not telling the truth.
“Wouldn’t it be better to have a jury decide?” Lavoie said to McAllister.
“I’m not sure,” McAllister responded. “But I would like to have a resolution of it.”
Lavoie told the judge the woman who found herself in “dire straits” when McAllister allegedly prostituted her is still seeking justice.
According to court records, the charge pending against McAllister alleges that as a sitting senator he prostituted a woman living and working on his Highgate farm to a friend.
Prosecutors accused McAllister of using that money, $70, to pay a utility bill for the trailer on his property where the woman was living.
Judge Michael Kupersmith made no ruling on the matter Friday, but said he expected to have a written decision issued by early March.
It was Robert Katims, McAllister’s attorney, who called his client to the stand Friday to talk about the toll of the nearly four-year legal battle that started with his arrest when he was a still a senator outside the Vermont Statehouse on a slew of sex offenses.
Katims questioned McAllister on the actions his fellow senators took following his arrest.
“Did they suspend you?” Katims asked.
“Yes, they did,” McAllister responded.
The defense attorney then asked his client how much — “ballpark” — he had spent on lawyers.
“In excess of $200,000,” McAllister replied, adding that he turned over a property to his former attorneys to pay their bills.
“Has there been news coverage everytime we’re back in court?” Katims asked.
“Absolutely,” McAllister told him.
Katims then, in his argument on the motion to the judge, said that it’s time to end the prosecution of his client.
“Enough is enough,” the defense attorney said. In the filing, Katims said his client has already paid his dues: He has been “lambasted” in the press, lost his senate seat, and paid mounting legal bills.
Norm McAllister listens during a hearing to dismiss his retrial at the Vermont Superior Court in St. Albans on Friday. Pool photo via Greg Lamereaux/County Courier
Following his conviction on the prohibited acts charge in July 2017, McAllister was sentenced a few months later. He received nine to 12 months, all suspended on probation except 25 days to serve on the prison work crew.
McAllister appealed. The judge stayed the work crew portion of the sentence, but not the probationary part which has since been completed.
The pending case had traveled a long way through the state’s legal system, with the Vermont Supreme Court in November overturning McAllister’s conviction on the prohibited acts charge.
The high court wrote in its ruling that “the trial court committed reversible error when it admitted previously excluded prior-bad acts evidence and when it retroactively instructed the jury to disregard admitted testimony during deliberation.”
After the conviction was overturned, the case was sent back to the trial court in Franklin County for a retrial.
McAllister, 67, had been charged with two felony charges of sexual assault, alleging he raped two women who worked for him, including an intern at the Statehouse and the tenant farmhand.
He had also been charged with three counts of prohibited acts relating to prostitution.
McAllister has stood trial twice. Each case involved a different woman. In the first trial in 2016, one of the sexual assault charges was dropped after his accuser perjured herself on a minor detail during her testimony.
That led to the second trial in 2017, and later the Supreme Court ruling sending the case back to trial with the one misdemeanor charge still pending.
In addition to deciding whether to dismiss that remaining charge, the judge will rule on whether prosecutors will be able to introduce evidence, should the case go to trial, of alleged “prior bad acts” by McAllister. Prosecutors, in a notice with the court, said those acts include McAllister allegedly pressuring the woman to engage in sex acts with other persons.
One outstanding matter did get decided Friday.
Judge Kupersmith said that if he doesn’t dismiss the case, jury selection would take place April 9, with the trial to follow, at the Franklin County Superior criminal court in St. Albans.
At a prior status conference in the case, Kupersmith raised the possibility of moving the trial to Chittenden County in Burlington, due to the intense coverage the case has received in Franklin County.
Katims later filed a motion objecting to moving the trial, and Lavoie, the prosecutor, said Friday in court that he was fine with that.
“We’re OK with staying here,” Lavoie told the judge.
“My feeling is you can always impanel an impartial jury as long as you take enough time to do it,” Kupersmith told the attorneys.
Both attorneys estimated that the jury selection process would take about a day, though the last time a jury was picked for the July 2017 trial it took three days.
The lawyers in the case, as well as McAllister, left the courtroom Friday and declined further comment.
Heath McAllister, Norm McAllister’s son, spoke outside the courthouse following the hearing, railing against the prosecutors and the judicial system as well as the media for its handling and coverage of the case against his father.
He said he didn’t think it would matter to the public whether the charge against his father was thrown out or if a jury decided the case because people have decided what they think.
“It doesn’t make a rat’s ass what 12 people or 11 people in the jury say, it won’t make a shit’s bit of difference,” Heath McAllister told reporters. “The public has already made their decision, and it’s based on — don’t take this the wrong way – but it’s based on the shit you put out there.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: McAllister takes the stand, asking for dismissal ‘in the interest of justice’.