A police sergeant found a felony amount of heroin and crack cocaine when he pulled over Beth Preus (foreground) and Jose Inostroza, but body cam footage leaves unclear whether he obtained permission to search Inostroza’s bag.
BARRE — A Vermont judge has cleared the way for a Massachusetts man to back out of a plea deal and have the drug charges he admitted to thrown out after he alleged the investigating officer lied in a sworn statement in the case.
The judge’s ruling did not outright say that the investigating officer told a falsehood, but it did say that she neither saw nor heard evidence in his body cam footage that he obtained consent to do a search that he wrote in an affidavit he did get.
Judge Mary Morrissey issued her 10-page ruling this week in Washington County Superior criminal court allowing Carlos Inostroza to withdraw his guilty pleas to three drug charges.
His attorney has argued and the prosecutor did not object to an assertion the investigating officer, John Helfant, then a sergeant with the Berlin Police Department, lied in a sworn affidavit about getting consent from Inostroza for a search on the night of his arrest in July 2018.
“On these facts,” the judge wrote in her ruling, “to allow Defendant’s convictions to stand would serve to undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system and threaten the integrity of the process.”
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault, whose office prosecuted the case, said Wednesday that he would stand by his earlier pledge to dismiss the charges against Inostroza if the judge agreed to allow him withdraw his pleas. Thibault said he would file a motion to dismiss.
Avi Springer, Inostroza’s attorney, declined Wednesday to comment.
Helfant, who has since become the police chief in Northfield, reviewed his body cam footage in the case with VTDigger last month. He contends that he did obtain consent from Inostroza for the search, but concedes the audio recording system on his body cam did not pick it up.
Helfant’s body cam footage was entered into evidence in the case, but was not played in court, nor was he called to the witness stand to testify about it.
Morrissey, in her ruling this week, wrote that she didn’t see, or hear, Helfant obtain consent from Inostroza.
Northfield Police Chief John Helfant. Photo from Northfield Police website
“At no time did Officer Helfant directly ask Defendant for consent to search his person or his property and, consistent with the representations of the parties,” she wrote in the ruling, “Defendant is not observed on the video, either through words, actions, or gestures, to ever convey his agreement to the search.”
David Sleigh, Helfant’s attorney, said Wednesday he wasn’t “particularly surprised” by the judge’s ruling, given that his client has never been called to the stand to testify in court about the body cam footage or about what he saw and heard from Inostroza on the night of the arrest.
“I can certainly understand why Mr. Inostroza’s attorney didn’t call John, it’s somewhat baffling why the state wouldn’t,” Sleigh said. ‘Why the state wasn’t interested in a full vetting of the facts, we don’t understand.”
Had that happened, Sleigh said, Helfant would have explained the point when he heard Inostroza say, “Search,” despite the audio recording not catching it.
“We never contested that the audio failed to pick it up,” Sleigh said. “These actions don’t happen on a Hollywood sound stage.”
Thibault, in response to Sleigh’s comment about why he didn’t call Helfant to the stand, said that he had earlier in the case submitted a filing in which he laid out his reasons for not objecting to Inostroza’s bid to withdraw his guilty pleas.
“I think as my motion set forth, I had a number of other concerns with the conduct of the stop,” the prosecutor said. “At the end of the day, prosecutions in this county needs to be based on what we can prove, not what we think or believe.”
Thibault then added, “Unfortunately, under the circumstances it would be a question of the video versus the word of an officer. On balance, assessing some of the other deficiencies in the stop and how the stop was conducted, I’m not persuaded a judge would rule in favor of the state.”
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault testifies before a House committee in January. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
The roughly 45 minutes of video from Helfant’s body cam admitted into evidence begins after the vehicle is stopped with him talking to the driver, Bethany Preus-Townsend, and seeing a crack cocaine rock near her left leg inside the car.
Inostroza was a passenger in the vehicle.
Preus-Townsend eventually agrees to allow Helfant to search the vehicle.
Inostroza remained in the vehicle, in the passenger seat with his backpack on the floor in front of him. He eventually stepped out of the vehicle and Helfant searched the car, finding a felony amount of heroin and crack cocaine in Inostroza’s backpack.
The 26-year-old from Springfield, Massachusetts, was then arrested and charged.
Springer, Inostroza’s attorney, said during a hearing last month that he had raised the issue of the discrepancy over the search with his client prior to Inostroza agreeing to a plea deal on Jan. 15.
That discrepancy had only been discovered by Springer when he received and reviewed Heflant’s body cam footage a day prior to that hearing where the plea deal was reached.
Helfant wrote in an sworn affidavit filed in the case that he had obtained consent to search from both Preus-Townsend and Inostroza, but Springer said the body cam footage didn’t reveal that his client ever granted that consent.
Inostroza, Springer told the judge at last month’s hearing, was faced with a choice. By pleading guilty, the defense attorney said, his client could receive a time-served sentence and be released. If he contested the legality of the search through further litigation, Springer said, Inostroza faced remaining incarcerated for lack of bail.
Ultimately, Springer said, Inostroza choose freedom so he could go to Massachusetts and be with his young child.
Defense attorney David Sleigh in court. Photo by Bob LoCicero/VTDigger
However, after having more time to review the footage, and with the prosecutor not objecting, Springer asked Morrissey to allow his client to withdrew his guilty pleas.
Inostroza had pleaded guilty to felony heroin and cocaine possession charges as well as a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession. He was sentenced to 179 days, the amount of time he had served behind bars for lack of bail before entering the plea deal.
Thibault earlier this year asked the Vermont Attorney General’s Office to investigate Helfant’s action, and that review remains ongoing. The prosecutor also sent a letter to defense counsel practicing in Washington County alerting them of the situation.
Sleigh said Wednesday that as part of the attorney general’s office’s probe, Helfant is set to meet later this week with Vermont State Police to review the body cam footage.
“He’ll explain where he heard Mr. Inostroza say, ‘Search,’” Sleigh added.
Morrissey wrote in her ruling that Inostroza could not have been aware at the time he entered the plea agreement the full impact of the discrepancy, and just how far-reaching it would be.
“At the time Defendant changed his plea, he would have had no way of knowing how quickly the State would react to the information raised by Attorney Springer, or how long it would take to resolve the issue while he remained incarcerated in a Vermont jail,” the judge wrote.
The judge later added, “If Defendant could have foreseen these events taking place it is unlikely that he would have entered into the plea agreement that he did on January 15.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Judge allows plea withdrawal over allegations officer lied.