The Vermont Department of Corrections is expanding treatment for inmates battling opiate addiction following a November 1 Seven Days article that examined the department’s practice of limiting such treatment.

Inmates at all state prisons who have prescriptions for methadone or buprenorphine (aka Suboxone) will be able to receive those medications, which diminish cravings and temper the side effects of heroin withdrawal, for up to 120 days, Commissioner Lisa Menard confirmed in an email Tuesday. Previously, inmates at two facilities received a 90-day maximum of medication-assisted treatment, while MAT was only available for 30 days at the other state jails.

Vermont Superior Court Judge David Fenster made no decision Friday in a high-profile case that touches on campus safety and free speech rights.

Fenster said he needed time to further study the legal arguments made by the prosecution and defense to decide if there is probable cause to bring a disorderly conduct charge against Wesley Richter. The part-time University of Vermont student was overheard October 1 in a campus library talking on his cellphone, allegedly making threatening and disparaging remarks about African Americans.

Richter was cited to appear in court on the charges October 5, at which time his lawyer Ben Luna argued that there is no probable cause and that the charge should be dismissed.

Friday's hearing was to determine whether the case should go forward.

Richter sat impassively and did not speak during the 40-minute hearing in a Burlington courtroom as Luna argued that there was no threat. Furthermore, anything Richter said was protected speech under the First Amendment and the misdemeanor charge should be dropped, Luna said.

"Your honor, this case not only criminalizes speech, it criminalizes a telephone conversation between my client ... and his mother. My client was having a telephone conversation with his mother," Luna emphasized to the judge.

Richter's conversation in a library computer lab presented no imminent threat to anyone, Luna continued. The state's case is "predicated on hearsay. The hearsay in this case is unreliable," Luna said.

Assistant state's attorney Ryan Richards disagreed, and argued that Richter was making "extremely inflammatory statements" in a public place, which rose to the threshold of a threat under the state's disorderly conduct statute.

Richter's remarks were "so likely to cause panic" that they were akin to shouting "fire" in a crowded movie theater, which case law has held is not protected speech, Richards said.

Luna insisted, meanwhile, that the person who overheard the conversation, UVM student Colby Thompson, did not call 911 or immediately react — proof that it didn't seem like a grave threat. Thompson sent an email to a UVM staffer hours later, a delay that suggests it wasn't an urgent concern, Luna said.

"Colby Thompson basically yawned when he overheard what my client said," Luna said in characterizing the response.

Although Luna quoted from a police affidavit when it supported his argument, he asked the judge at the outset to prohibit the prosecution from doing the same because the document has not been publicly released. But both sides referred to it often. What Richter is alleged to have said was not divulged Friday.

Under Vermont law, a judge must find probable cause before an affidavit is made public, according to Fenster and the attorneys.
About six UVM students attended the hearing and said they supported the charge against Richter.

"I would at least like to see other people be less willing to make statements like this around campus. That's something at the bare minimum that I'd want,'' said Cat Lawrence, an 18-year-old first-year student from New York City.

UVM initially told the campus community that an unidentified person had made a threat against African Americans. For Lawrence, as a person of color, the warning was "terrifying," she said.

"Imagine walking around campus knowing someone said this," Lawrence said.

Rachel Goldstein, 22, a senior from New Jersey, also attended the hearing and said she wants charges filed against Richter.

"We want the law to come down on him," she said. "We want to send a strong message that this won't fly on our campus."

A South Burlington High School student will likely avoid prison time and spend five years on probation after pleading guilty Friday to threatening to kill students and staff in April.

Josiah Leach, 19, appeared briefly in U.S. District Court in Burlington and agreed to the plea deal.

Federal prosecutors and Leach's defense attorney recommended that Leach be sentenced to time served and five years probation. Judge Geoffrey Crawford accepted the agreement, and Leach will be formally sentenced in February.

Leach faced a five-year maximum sentence on a charge of threatening by means of interstate commerce. He spent 10 days in prison — after his arrest, and when he was found to have violated his conditions of pre-trial release.

This story was updated at 9 p.m.

A man released from a hospital where he'd sought mental health treatment returned to his Old North End home on Thursday, killed his wife with a meat cleaver and attacked his mother-in-law, Burlington police said.

Aita Gurung, 34, on Saturday sought “police attention for mental health issues and concerns about his deteriorating relationship with his wife,” Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said in a press release. Police called for emergency medical services, and he was taken to University of Vermont Medical Center.

Authorities arrested three people after U.S. Border Patrol agents disrupted an attempt to smuggle 15 undocumented immigrants from Canada into Vermont, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

Agents took into custody 11 Guatemalan citizens, four Mexicans and their driver, Hector Ramon Perez-Alvarado, who is also undocumented and from Honduras, federal authorities said.

Perez-Alvarado was arrested, as were two Mexican men: Noe Perez-Ramirez and Alberto Alvarado-Castro, both of whom were charged with attempting to reenter the country after having been previously deported. Authorities said Alvarado-Castro had several prior felony burglary convictions in the U.S.

All three appeared in U.S. District Court in Burlington on Tuesday and did not oppose prosecutors' requests to hold them in prison pending trial.

University of Vermont police cited student Wesley Richter on Thursday for disorderly conduct after he was allegedly overheard on campus using "explicitly racist and threatening language directed toward African Americans," the university said in a statement.

News of the citation came three days after a university administrator emailed the UVM community about the incident. Someone reportedly overheard Richter, 20, making the comments on a phone call. He also allegedly made disparaging remarks about UVM's diversity initiatives.

"Such detestable remarks and threats directed to any group or individual are antithetical to our values and commitment to work toward racial equality and greater inclusion," wrote Annie Stevens, a vice provost for student affairs.

Former Vermont attorney general Bill Sorrell didn’t show up Wednesday morning for a deposition related to a case brought by the industry-funded Energy & Environment Legal Institute, which claimed Sorrell flouted court procedure by skipping the proceeding.

For more than a year, the Washington, D.C.-based group has sought records from Sorrell and other state attorneys general regarding a potential investigation of ExxonMobil. The organization twice sued the Vermont AG's office while Sorrell still held the post, and the cases have continued since his departure. Among other issues under dispute, E&E Legal argues that Sorrell must hand over files from his private email account.

Current Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan, whose office is also a defendant in the case and is representing Sorrell, told Seven Days that Sorrell didn't show up Wednesday because the judge had yet to rule on their motion to dismiss the case.

“Our position is the motion to dismiss has to be adjudicated first,” Donovan said. “We’re not saying, ‘Hey you don’t get to depose the guy,’ but that threshold question has to first be answered by the court.”

A jury this week found a former Windsor police officer not guilty of charges stemming from the shooting of a drug suspect during an undercover raid in 2014.

Ryan Palmer's case drew widespread attention, in part because on-duty Vermont police officers have so rarely in recent memory been charged with criminal offenses.

Former attorney general Bill Sorrell, who cleared police officers of criminal wrongdoing in most cases during his 20 year tenure, charged Palmer in 2015. But on Wednesday evening, a jury in Windsor Superior Court deliberated for six hours before acquitting Palmer of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and reckless endangerment charges.

The owners of Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person who tagged one of their supplier's barns with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti.

An Andersonville Farm employee on Friday morning found a swastika, the Nazi "SS" symbol, a racial slur and the words "#get out" spray painted on a hoop barn at the West Glover dairy, which produces milk for Jasper Hill's famed Bayley Hazen Blue cheese.

Mateo Kehler, head cheesemaker and cofounder of the award-winning Jasper Hill Farm, posted a photo of the vandalism Monday on the cheese company's Facebook page, announcing the reward and deploring the incident.

An Addison County judge has ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking computer records in three child sex crime investigations, authorities announced Wednesday.

The internet giant refused to comply with the warrants because the information sought by Vermont prosecutors is stored on overseas servers, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan said.

This legal issue is playing out in criminal courts across the country and could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.