The Vermont Attorney General’s Office is seeking home detention for a white supremacist from Bennington who has been charged with several more offenses in the two years since his arrest for allegedly possessing high-capacity ammunition magazines.
The request that a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week curfew be imposed on Max Misch follows his arraignment earlier this week on two felony counts of aggravated domestic assault and one misdemeanor charge of domestic assault.
Misch, 38, pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on conditions, including that he stay 300 feet away from the woman he is accused of assaulting.
The Bennington County State’s Attorney’s Office brought the domestic violence charges against Misch following his arrest late last week by the Bennington Police Department.
Now, the Vermont Attorney General’s Office has filed a motion in Bennington County Superior criminal court seeking to impose stricter release conditions for Misch, including home detention.
In that filing, Assistant Attorney General Ultan Doyle argues that Misch continues to rack up criminal charges since he was arrested in February 2019 on the two counts of illegally possessing high-capacity magazines, a case that the attorney general’s office is prosecuting.
“Additional conditions are needed,” Doyle wrote, “because the Defendant has continued to engage in a pattern of alleged criminal conduct, including recent charges for aggravated domestic assault, which existing conditions of release have failed to protect against.”
The Attorney General’s Office is not seeking cash bail for Misch. The purpose of bail, under Vermont law, is intended to ensure a person charged with a crime appears in court and doesn’t flee.
If evidence of a violent crime is great, the person poses a substantial threat to the public and no release conditions could “reasonably” prevent violence by that person, a prosecutor can request that person be held without bail. That means the person would not be able to post bail at any dollar amount.
Asked on Friday about the decision not to seek cash bail, Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan said that his office has sought cash bail previously on charges it is prosecuting against Misch, all of which are misdemeanors, but the judge had rejected those requests. Bail in those cases is capped at $200 per charge.
Instead, Donovan said, the state opted to file a motion to amend Misch’s conditions in an attempt to “impose more physically restrictive conditions” as allowed in state law.
The Bennington County State’s Attorney’s Office is prosecuting the felony assault charges, and did not request cash bail for Misch this week, nor seek to hold him without bail.
Instead, the office asked for and was granted conditions that included ordering Misch to stay at least 300 feet away from the woman he is charged with assaulting.
Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage said in an email on Friday she had no comment on the latest filing by the Attorney General’s Office.
“We did not request the curfew because we have not had an issue with the Defendant’s appearance in court and a curfew would not protect the victim in our case,” Marthage added.
Attorney Frederick Bragdon, Misch’s public defender, on Friday said he would provide his response in court and declined further comment. Bragdon has contended at past hearings that his client is not a flight risk.
Misch was charged and pleaded not guilty in February 2019 after police said he traveled to New Hampshire and bought two 30-round magazines and brought them back to his residence in Vermont.
Following Misch’s arraignment on the ammunition charges, he was released on several conditions, including that not contact certain witnesses, not leave Bennington County, and that he not possess any guns.
Misch has since been charged with several counts of violating those release conditions, including by allegedly contacting a witness in the case, leaving Bennington County to go drinking over the state line into New York state, and purchasing a firearm.
In addition, Misch was charged with a hate crime last year. Authorities say he shouted racial slurs at a Black man during an altercation on a street in Bennington. Also last year, another charge was brought against Misch alleging he caused a public disruption in August while a Black Lives Matter mural was being painted in downtown Bennington.
“Given these repeated violations,” Doyle, of the attorney general’s office, wrote in his recent filing, “the only condition that can protect the public is a 24 hour, 7 days/week curfew limiting his ability to continue to engage in flagrant, repeated and ongoing criminal behavior.”
In addition, Doyle wrote, the attorney general’s office is seeking a condition that Misch not abuse, harass or contact the woman he is charged with assaulting.
In January 2019, a month prior to his arrest on the high-capacity magazine charges, Donovan announced at a press conference in Bennington that he would not be filing criminal charges against Misch, and others, for racial harassment of Kiah Morris.
Misch had admitted to racially harassing Morris, but Donovan said that the broad protections of the First Amendment resulted in him not bringing criminal charges in the case.
Morris had been the only Black woman in the state Legislature when she decided in the summer of 2018 not to seek reelection to a third term, citing in part the racial harassment.
It’s unclear if Judge Cortland Corsones will hold a hearing, or simply rule on the filings, on the latest request by the attorney general’s office to impose home detention for Misch.
Read the story on VTDigger here: AG pushes for home detention for white supremacist Max Misch as new charges mount.