Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan has again interjected himself into a murder case dropped by Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George because she said she couldn’t rebut an insanity defense.
Louis Fortier, 40, pleaded not guilty to the murder charge during a video arraignment Friday in Chittenden County Superior criminal court in Burlington. He is accused of stabbing and killing Richard Medina, 43, on the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington March 29, 2017, at about 2 p.m.
Court filings accuse Fortier of stabbing Medina in the head, neck and back at the intersection of Church and Cherry streets.
George dropped the murder charge against Fortier in June 2019, saying she could not counter an insanity defense after examinations determined he was schizophrenic and insane at the time of the attack.
At the same time, George dropped the case against Fortier, she also dropped two unrelated murder cases for similar reasons.
Gov. Phil Scott then called on Donovan to review all three cases, and in all three cases Donovan has made the rare move of reviving a prosecution that a county state’s attorney had already dropped.
“The governor thanks the Attorney General’s Office for reviewing and filing this case and working to ensure justice is done,” Jason Maulucci, Scott’s spokesperson, stated Friday in an email.
Fortier was arraigned Friday via video from a room at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin. He is being held there under a court order of hospitalization.
Judge Kirstin Schoonover set bail at $500,000, as requested by John Waszak, an assistant attorney general who’s prosecuting the case.
“This is a serious case where Richard Medina was stabbed in the face and neck, stabbed to death in broad daylight on Church Street, probably the busiest pedestrian street in our state,” Donovan said in an interview about his decision to refile the case.
“And,” he added, “there is an eyewitness who says it was over money.”
The attorney general said matters of competency and sanity can be litigated. “It should be raised in the court process,” Donovan said.
David Sleigh, Fortier’s defense attorney, said after Friday’s hearing that both sides agreed that his client should stay at the psychiatric hospital, where he has been under a court order since the charge was dropped against him over two years ago.
“I’m confused,” Sleigh said of the attorney general’s decision to refile the case against Fortier. ”They stipulated that he remain at the state hospital, so clearly they’re aware — it’s their opinion, anyway — that he suffers from some mental disease or defect.
“I’m sort of at a loss to figure out why they’re bringing it back at this point when nothing has seemed to change, other than the political landscape,” Sleigh said.
Donovan declined to reply to the suggestion that the case was refiled for political reasons. He did say, “I think it needs to go through the court process.”
George did not immediately respond Friday to a call and email seeking comment.
In another of the cases George dropped after saying she couldn’t rebut an insanity defense, Donovan filed an attempted second-degree murder charge against Veronica Lewis, alleging that she shot Darryl Montague, a firearms instructor, during a lesson in 2015 in Westford.
Lewis has since pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing; under a plea deal, she faces up to 10 years in prison.
In the third case, Donovan refiled murder and attempted murder charges against Aita Gurung. He is accused of using a meat cleaver to kill his wife, Yogeswari Khadka, and seriously injure his mother-in-law, Thulsa Rimal, at their home in the Old North End of Burlington on Oct. 12, 2017.
In dismissing that case, George said she would not be able to counter an insanity defense based on expert evaluations that had already been conducted. The evaluations included one completed for her office while it was still prosecuting the case; it found that Gurung was insane at the time of the offense.
The refiled case against Gurung remains pending.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Donovan, for third time, refiles a major case dropped by Chittenden County prosecutor.