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 prosecutor has thrown out drug charges against a Massachusetts man after the man’s attorney alleged the officer who arrested his client lied in a sworn statement.
A judge earlier this month allowed Carlos Inostroza, 26, of Springfield, Massachusetts, to withdraw his guilty pleas to the three drug charges that were part of a plea deal.
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault on Monday dismissed all the charges against Inostroza, including felony charges of heroin and cocaine possession as well as a misdemeanor offense of marijuana possession.
In the one-page notice filed in Washington County Superior criminal court dismissing the charges, the prosecutor wrote that he was doing so “without prejudice,” meaning the charges could be refiled in the future.
A charge dismissed “with prejudice” means it can’t be refiled.
In response to a question about why he dismissed the charges without prejudice, Thibault responded in an email, “Generally only dismiss with prejudice when part of a plea agreement or belief the charge is baseless.”
He added, “The charge was not baseless – it is beyond dispute the Defendant had heroin and crack cocaine in his possession. However, the ability to prove the conduct subject to the Constitutional considerations and evidentiary rules of court is another matter.”
At issue in the case was whether John Helfant, then a sergeant with the Berlin Police Department, had obtained consent from Inostroza when conducting a search in July 2018 that led to the discovery of drugs in the Massachusetts man’s backpack.
In a sworn statement filed in court in support of the drug charges, Helfant, who has since been hired as the police chief in Northfield, wrote that he had obtained that consent from Inostroza.
However, Inostroza’s public defender, Avi Springer, submitted a filing stating that a review of Helfant’s body cam footage did not back up the claim that Inostroza had obtained the needed consent.
Thibault, the prosecutor, did not contest the allegations raised by the defense attorney, and referred the matter to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office for investigation, which remains ongoing.
Helfant, in an interview with VTDigger.org, has maintained that he had received consent from Inostroza for the search, but conceded that the body cam footage and audio did not pick it up.
“You’re not going to hear it, the audio recording does not pick it up, but I heard it,” Helfant said.
Inostroza’s attorney raised the issue of the discrepancy between Helfant’s sworn affidavit and the body cam footage a day before his client entered into a plea deal with prosecutors in the case.
The plea deal allowed Inostroza to be released on a sentence of time served for lack of bail since his arrest, which amounted to about 180 days behind bars.
Shortly after entering the plea deal, Inostroza moved to withdraw his guilty pleas, alleging that Helfant lied in his sworn statement.
Following a hearing on that request, Judge Mary Morrissey agreed to allow Inostroza to withdraw his earlier guilty pleas to the charges.
In the ruling, the judge did not say the investigator lied in his sworn statement. Instead, the judge wrote that she neither saw nor heard evidence in his body cam footage that he obtained consent to do a search.
“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.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Drug charges dropped after allegations the investigating officer lied.