Monday, July 1, 2019
A Bennington judge on Friday tossed out Misch's challenge, writing that the law "advances the people's public-safety interest in a modest and reasonable way while respecting the right to bear arms."
The ruling allows the criminal case against Misch, filed by Attorney General T.J. Donovan earlier this year, to proceed.
Tags: Max Misch , gun rights , high-capacity magazines , T.J. Donovan , William Cohen , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Federal prosecutors charged Veronica Lewis with firearms violations Tuesday, a week after Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George dropped attempted murder charges over doubts the state could prove Lewis was sane when she shot a firearms instructor in 2015.
Lewis was charged with illegally possessing a gun after being adjudicated as mentally ill, and possessing a stolen weapon. She appeared Wednesday in federal court in Burlington, where Magistrate Judge John Conroy delayed until Monday a hearing on whether Lewis should be imprisoned before trial.
George faced swift criticism in political quarters for her decision last week to drop murder and attempted murder charges in three high-profile cases, including Lewis’. Gov. Phil Scott said he was "at a loss as to the logic" of George's actions, and asked Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan to independently review the case files.
Tags: Veronica Lewis , Christina Nolan , Sarah George , firearms , attempted murder , insanity defense , Phil Scott , Darryl Montague , Web Only , Image
Thursday, June 6, 2019
Gov. Phil Scott has asked Attorney General T.J. Donovan to review the decision to dismiss charges in three major cases involving insanity defenses, two of which involved gruesome murders in broad daylight in Burlington.
Scott said he was “at a loss as to the logic or strategy” behind the decision by Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George not to prosecute the defendants in the three cases, all of whom claimed they were insane at the time of their crimes.
“These cases are among the most violent crimes committed in Vermont in recent memory, and with their dismissal, there is no longer a possibility of supervision by the Department of Corrections or conditions of release to protect Vermonters,” Scott wrote in his letter.
Tags: Sarah George , Burlington , Phil Scott , TJ Donovan , cleaver , stabbing , insanity , Miro Weinberger , Brandon del Pozo , Web Only , Image
Tuesday, June 4, 2019
All three defendants were involved in unrelated, high-profile cases including a deadly stabbing on Burlington's Church Street and a fatal meat cleaver attack in the city's Old North End.
George announced Tuesday that she had concluded the defendants were legally insane at the time of the crimes and would not be found guilty of the charges against them at trial. She filed to dismiss the charges last Friday.
Tags: Burlington , crime , Aita Gurung , Church Street , Louis Fortier , meat cleaver , Veronica Lewis , Sarah George , Chittenden County State's Attorney , insanity defense , Steven Bourgoin , murder , charges dropped , Web Only , Image
Friday, May 31, 2019
Seven Days highlighted the ticket sales at the Spanked Puppy last year in one of the stories in Give and Take, a series that examined Vermont’s massive and lightly regulated nonprofit sector. While most gambling is illegal in Vermont, for-profit entities such as the Spanked Puppy are allowed to sell break-open tickets, provided the proceeds go to a nonprofit.
The pub’s former owner, Michelle Simms, 61, was cited in February to appear in court for felony embezzlement, according to Skyler Genest, the chief investigator and director of compliance and enforcement for the Division of Liquor Control. The Colchester Sun first reported on Simms' case.
“We did a forensic audit of their accounting practices,” Genest said. “We found what would be described as loose, at best, accounting procedures for those proceeds, and some large discrepancies that there was really no justification for.”
Tags: Give and Take , Michelle Simms , Spanked Puppy , break-open tickets , Division of Liquor Control , Chris Rosato , Skyler Genest , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Louis Hamlin II, of Huntington, was one of eight men charged in a recent sweep by local, state and federal officials.
His son, Hamlin III, became notorious decades ago when he was just 16. He and a 15-year-old youth, Jamie Savage, were arrested in 1981 for torturing two girls, ages 12 and 13, as they walked through the woods. The cases shocked Vermonters and led to changes in the state's juvenile crime laws.
Tags: Child pornography , Louis Hamlin III , Louis Hamlin II , Mark Hulett , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Ariel Quiros, 63, and Bill Stenger, 70, stand accused of misleading foreign investors and EB-5 program regulators in order to embezzle millions meant for a biotechnology business in Newport that they proposed but never seriously pursued. Two of their business partners face indictments as well.
The men were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud, wire fraud and making false statements. Quiros, who federal authorities painted as the ringleader, was also charged with money laundering in connection with a $6 million payment to the Internal Revenue Service and the purchase of a $46,000 Jeep Rubicon.
The EB-5 projects brought in hundreds of millions of dollars from investors, much of which was used not to create jobs in the Northeast Kingdom, but to enrich the four men, authorities allege. In a civil lawsuit brought in 2016, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission described the projects as "Ponzi-like."
Tags: EB-5 , Bill Stenger , Ariel Quiros , Newport , AnC Bio , Vermont , Jong Weon Choi , William Kelly , Web Only , Image
Friday, May 17, 2019
Rep. Chris Bates (D-Bennington) was convicted of aggravated DUI in 2012, according to McHenry County, Ill., court records obtained by Seven Days. The charge stemmed from a 2010 arrest.
It was his third DUI, making it a felony.
Bates pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a lighter form of probation called conditional discharge. But the state sought to revoke the sentence in October 2013 because Bates missed a court date and failed to pay all fees. A judge issued a warrant for Bates' arrest that remains active, though Vermont is not among the states from which he may be extradited.
Tags: Christopher Bates , Kevin Hoyt , DUI , Vermont House of Representatives , arrest warrants , Bennington , Web Only , Image
Thursday, May 9, 2019
The case, heard in U.S. District Court in Burlington, was the first involving sex trafficking to go before a jury in Vermont. Judge William Sessions presided over the two-week trial.
Kate O'Neill wrote about the allegations against Folks in April as part of Hooked, her ongoing Seven Days series on Vermont's opioid epidemic.
Tags: Brian Folks , sex trafficking , heroin , drugs , opioids , Bill Darrow , Mark Kaplan , Natasha Sen , U.S. District Court , Web Only , Image
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
H. 511 would extend or remove the statute of limitations on multiple sex crimes and other serious offenses, giving prosecutors more time to bring charges.
The other bill, H. 330, concerns civil claims against institutions alleged to have failed to adequately protect children. Current law allows cases to be brought within six years of the underlying allegations or of their disclosure by victims. The proposal would allow victims to sue regardless of how many years have passed.
Tags: Maxine Grad , Martin LaLonde , sexual assault , sexual exploitation , statute of limitations , deadline , Web Only , Image