Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in January. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
A prosecutor is dismissing drug charges in a second case involving a police officer accused of conducting improper searches.
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault filed paperwork late Friday afternoon dropping drug charges against Jermaine Parsons, 36, of the Bronx, New York.
Earlier this year the prosecutor threw out charges in another case investigated by Northfield Police Chief John Helfant, who at the time of both cases was a sergeant with the Berlin Police Department.
An attorney for Parsons in the most recent case had contended that his client had revoked his consent to search before the officer found drugs in his sneaker after a traffic stop over a year ago.
“Whether (Parsons) said ‘I’m done with this search,’ or ‘I’m done with this shit,’ the operative term was ‘I’m done,’” Thibault, the prosecutor, wrote in his filing Friday dismissing the charges against Parsons.
“Under the circumstances,” Thibault added, “a reasonable officer would have inquired into the voluntariness of the search, given (Parsons’) nominal cooperation and willingness to participate in warrantless processing on scene.”
Instead, the search continued, leading to the seizing of the drugs and Parsons’ arrest, according to the filing.
Thibault filed the motion late Friday afternoon, shortly before court closed for the day.
David Sleigh, an attorney representing Helfant in a probe of his searches by the Attorney General’s Office, said early Friday evening that the Washington County State’s Attorney’s office was setting a standard for searches higher than what the law calls for.
Sleigh said that Parsons was being searched at the time the drugs were discovered in his sneaker “incident to arrest,” meaning that he was being patted down and searched as he was being taken into custody.
“Even if consent had been revoked, the search had been authorized as a search incident to arrest,” Sleigh said. “If you have probable cause to arrest, you can have a search incident to arrest. Consent is irrelevant at that point.”
Sleigh added, “It did comply with the law of Vermont, and whether Rory decides to set standards above that required by the Vermont Supreme Court, good for him.”
Helfant, in an email message Friday evening, reiterated Sleigh’s comments that he had already located drugs during a search of the vehicle in which Parsons was a passenger prior to searching him.
Northfield Police Chief John Helfant. Photo from Northfield Police website
Also, Helfant, wrote, before Parsons had said he was “done with this shit,” he had located mushrooms in Parson’s pants pocket, believed to be psilocybin mushrooms, which are illegal to possess.
“The statement no longer mattered as I had probable cause to arrest Parsons and the Vermont and U.S supreme courts indicate that officers may search a defendant incident to their arrest,” Helfant wrote.
Helfant added that no one at the Washington County State’s Attorney Office met with him to discuss the case prior to the filing of Thibault’s filing Friday.
Thibault addressed the issue of whether he believed the search was “incident to arrest” in his filing.
“The Defendant was not in fact under arrest at that point, and the basis for tying the Defendant to the drugs or suspected drugs recovered from the Co-Defendant’s purse was slim,” Thibault wrote.
“Moreover,” the prosecutor wrote, “arrest was not effectuated when the suspected mushroom was located on the Defendant.”
Avi Springer, the attorney for Parsons, could not be reached late Friday afternoon for comment.
Thibault in his filing wrote that he dismissed the charges without prejudice, meaning that they could be refiled. He added that filing does not “preclude” the Vermont Attorney General’s Office or federal authorities from pursuing the matter, “should either see fit.”
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office earlier this year started a probe into Helfant after Springer raised questions about the legality of a search in a separate drug case investigated by the officer involving Carlos Inostroza of Springfield, Massachusetts.
Springer, in that case, said Helfant’s body cam footage did not match what the officer wrote in his affidavit in support of the charges against his client.
Springer wrote in a filing that the body cam footage in that case did not indicate that his client had consented to a search, though the officer wrote in a sworn statement that Inostroza did grant that consent.
Helfant, in an interview with VTDigger, said he did obtain that consent from Inostroza, though he agreed that the body cam footage and audio didn’t do a good job of picking it up.
Thibault later dismissed the charges in that case. The prosecutor has also said the latest case involving Parsons alleging an improper drug search by Helfant has been sent to the Vermont Attorney’s General’s Office as part of its investigation into the officer.
In Parsons’ case, Helfant wrote in an affidavit that early in the morning on July, 2, 2018, he received a tip from another officer that a woman and Parsons would be driving in a silver vehicle, with Parsons having cocaine and heroin hidden on him.
Later that morning, Helfant wrote he spotted a vehicle matching the description and pulled it over near the intersection of routes 14 and 2 in East Montpelier, based on “reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity (drug possession).”
The woman driving, Cherie Salls, according to the affidavit, agreed to exit the vehicle, and identified Parsons as the passenger.
During an initial search of the vehicle, the affidavit stated, Helfant found four buprenorphine pills, two amphetamine pills, two heroin packets, two crack pipes, as well as a pill grinder and a “snort tube.”
Helfant then told Salls and Parsons he had probable cause to search the “entirety” of the vehicle, and each of them, according to the affidavit.
“I gave them the options of allowing a search of their persons at roadside or that they could require that I seize them and apply for a search warrant from a judge to search them,” Helfant wrote.
“I advised them that the choice was theirs,” the affidavit stated. “Salls and Parsons both consented to a search of their persons at roadside.”
During the searches, Helfant wrote officers found 11.98 grams of cocaine in a sneaker belonging to Parsons. They also found 1.45 grams of suspected heroin, though it later tested as oxycodone, the affidavit stated.
In addition, police seized $3,546 from Parsons’ “person,” the affidavit stated.
Also, according to the affidavit, officers found 2.5 grams of crack cocaine on Salls.
David Sleigh here represents Jodie Herring during her murder sentencing hearing. Photo by Bob LoCicero/VTDigger
Salls was charged with cocaine possession. Parsons was charged with cocaine and heroin possession and a misdemeanor count of possessing a narcotic.
Parsons had pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him. He was released after posting $35,000 bail. Salls, according to Thibault, has resolved the charges against her from the stop as part of a plea agreement involving other unrelated offenses.
Springer, Parsons’ attorney, wrote in his filing to dismiss the charges against his client that there were body recordings from other officers at the scene, but Helfant’s body camera footage could not be located by the Berlin Police Department.
Thibault, the prosecutor, has said it was later determined that there was “no malfeasance” regarding Helfant’s missing body cam footage, but rather termed it a technical issue.
The prosecutor added that body camera footage from the other officers at the scene also captured the incident and those recordings were provided to the defense.
On Friday, Thibault said Springer did submit recordings of police body cam footage as part of a filing in the case. However, those recordings weren’t included the case file at the court clerk’s office Friday.
According to the defense attorney’s motion that was in the case file, the charges against Parsons should not have been allowed to stand for several reasons, including the lack of justification for the initial stop as well as the legality of the search of his client.
Because the contraband found initially “clearly” belonged to Salls, Springer wrote, it did not create probable cause to search or arrest Parsons.
“Although Officer Helfant asserted that the contraband found in Ms. Salls purse gave rise to probable cause with respect to Mr. Parsons, this is not the case,” Springer wrote.
“Probable cause for an arrest exists,” he wrote, “when the facts and circumstances known to an officer are sufficient to lead a reasonable person to believe that a crime was committed and that the suspect committed it.”
Parsons’ later consent to a search was invalid, Springer added, because it was given after Helfant made an unlawful threat that he would otherwise face arrest.
“Officer Helfant had no legal basis to carry out this threat,” the defense attorney wrote, “since the information he possessed was insufficient to create reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause for an arrest.”
According to his filing Friday, Thibault did review one of the other officer’s body cams who was at the scene of the traffic stop.
As the search of Parsons begins after he is patted down, the filing stated, it moves on to his sneakers.
“Is this necessary right now?” Parsons asked, according to the filing, before adding, “I’m tired of this shit,” and “I’m done with this search.”
Then Helfant, the prosecutor wrote, told Parsons, “Slide your shoe off.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Prosecutor dismisses second drug case involving officer accused of illegal searches.