Vermont police lie. Vermont state troopers lie. Vermont sheriffs lie. In fact, under Vermont law, officers can legally lie, deceive, and use coercive interrogation. In 2023, Governor Scott vetoed a bill that would have prohibited police from using deception and coercion when questioning children and young adults, a practice that often leads to false confessions. Scott claimed that banning these manipulative tactics could “rob law enforcement of important tools.”
Given that police have a vested interest in maintaining their monopoly on state violence, anything they say should be taken with a grain of salt. And so it is strange to see quotes from police officers, whether they be Burlington’s former Acting Police Chief and current Department of Corrections Commissioner Jon Murad or police union representatives, printed in local and national media outlets verbatim, police blotters reprinted as news, and officers’ words written as objective truths from unbiased experts.
Police are also allowed to create fake social media accounts to spy on and entrap residents, without even needing a warrant. Sometimes they also make fake accounts to harass critics and engage in secretive PR campaigns, like former Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo and his deputy Jan Wright did in 2019. It turns out when people are encouraged to lie as part of their job, they often end up bringing this behavior into other, less-legal aspects of their life.
While Vermont police officers can lie to you during an arrest or during questioning even if you are a child, and while they can lie to the media during interviews and face no consequences, if you lied to police officers that would be a criminal offense. Vermont Statute 13 VSA 1754 says that people who lie to police “shall be imprisoned for not more than one year or fined not more than $1,000 or both.”
At The Rake Vermont we thought it would be worth documenting every time a Vermont police officer is caught lying. It’s also worth stating the obvious: as advocates and researchers have long shown, it’s impossible to count how many times police officers have lied. Even lies under oath in court proceedings, cynically coined “testilying” by NYPD officers, are often hidden from public scrutiny. We have compiled articles that show police have been caught lying at least fifty times since 1993. We will continually update this piece every time a Vermont officer of the law is caught abusing their power in this way.
In 2021, we compiled a brief history of Vermont cops lying. We have updated this article to include documented instances of Vermont State Troopers, County Sheriffs, and local police lying to residents, oversight boards, and politicians. Considering how often police lie during the course of their jobs every day, the timeline below is just a small percentage of the documented times they were caught in the act.
Know any instances of Vermont police lying that we missed? Send us a tip!
June 1909
Former Burlington police officer A. W. Belka was suspended and charged a $57 fee ($2000 in today’s dollars) for perjury and incompetence. Two other officers, James W. Gorman and Thomas Mongeon, were also charged; however, perjury charges against them were later dropped for undisclosed reasons.
July 1961
A police officer from Long Branch, New Jersey, James Feeney, who was a witness for the state in a murder trial in Rutland, was charged with perjury after admitting he lied while on the stand. He also admitted to falsifying court and police records against the defendant’s mother. The defendant, Jeffrey Aldrich, was acquitted of killing his adoptive mother by reason of insanity and was sent to the notorious Waterbury State Hospital.
March 1962
John Richard Adams and John Malloy, former Burlington Police officers, were sentenced for burglary. They lied when they claimed no one else had helped them with the theft. Within the year three other Burlington officers, Richard Bates, William Bleau, and Harry Muir Jr., were all charged with stealing from businesses while in uniform during their night shift.
1968-1969: The Irasburg Affair
In a national case known as the Irasburg Affair, African-American preacher David Lee Johnson’s house was shot at in 1968 while his family was inside. A state investigation found that State Troopers Jean Lessard and Bruce McDonald purposefully moved slowly during the investigation, trying to impede it because Larry G. Conley, another state trooper, was the one who shot at Johnson. Conley was trying to intimidate the Johnson family into leaving Irasburg, in some of Vermont’s worst state white supremacist violence.
Lessard and McDonald also arrested Reverend Johnson for false claims, while pressuring a white woman to lie under oath that she was having an extramarital affair with him, which was a crime at the time. Johnson was acquitted while the woman was convicted in what one writer described as the “only known case of unilateral adultery.” No state troopers involved were fired or disciplined, and many were even promoted within the ranks. In the aftermath, Vermont Governor Philip Hoff demanded that the Public Safety Commissioner take action against three other officers involved in a botched internal investigation around the Irasburg Affair: Lt. Element Potvin, Capt. Harold Deane, and Sgt. William Chilton. Instead, the commissioner resigned. Under Governor Deane Davis, who succeeded Hoff, Potvin was appointed Caledonia County Sheriff. Conley, the trooper who shot at Johnson’s house, was suspended and convicted for breaching the peace, but was allowed to return to active duty shortly after.
June 1972
One man and a teenager under the age of 18 were charged with breaching the peace after being arrested by Vermont State Trooper Michael Carroll. Two weeks later, Carroll resigned from the force after it was discovered he had lied and, in fact, had beaten the two with a police flashlight. The victims also filed a complaint that stated other officers assaulted them once they were handcuffed and put into police cars, but Rutland County State’s Attorney refused to investigate.
July 1974
In a story that made national news in the New York Times, Vermont State narcotics officer and former Burlington police officer Paul Lawrence was arrested in Burlington and charged with falsifying an affidavit when he claimed to purchase drugs during a drug “sting” but had not. Patrick Leahy, then the Chittenden County Prosecutor, ensnared Lawrence in a trap that proved he was presenting false testimony and evidence, and that most of the drugs entered as evidence came from the New York State Police Crime Laboratory, while the money supplied to Lawrence by Vermont municipalities was embezzled.
During his four-year stint in narcotics, Lawrence arrested over 200 people throughout the state. All but one arrest had to be thrown out by the courts.
May 1976
During the impeachment trial of Washington County Sheriff Malcolm Mayo, his former secretary testified that he ordered her to falsify documentation. Mayo asked her to pre-date papers for her husband, who was an uncommissioned deputy, following an incident where he threatened someone with a gun during a raid. Mayo also assaulted a man in a Montpelier bar while off duty, and a Montpelier bank employee accused him of simple assault at a restaurant. Mayo was cleared of impeachment charges by two votes.
November 1977
Trooper Kenneth Strong wanted to bury a DWI that Hardwick Police Chief Michal Lauzon had gotten. The State’s Attorney decided to stop prosecuting cases brought by Strong’s boss, Trooper Stanley Merriam, after he believed Merriam was trying to cover up for Strong and Lauzon. As a result, Merriam was put on an unofficial Brady list by the state’s attorney. The Public Safety Commissioner E.W. Corcoran took no action against Merriam and he resigned in 1977.
December 1977
Vermont State Trooper Thomas Truex was investigated for lying under oath, resulting in criminal charges.
May 1979
Barre police officer William Duff was accused of deliberately perjuring himself about a local lawyer, John Monte, and his alleged DUI. Monte ended up agreeing to a plea bargain after claiming that Barre Police Chief Paul Dranbauer had set him up due to a personal confrontation they had earlier in the day.
September 1979
Four witnesses brought an excessive force complaint against Barre police officers Joseph Morrison and William Mielniczuk after seeing them kicking and hitting a man for no apparent reason. Morrison claimed he never hit or kicked the man and that the allegations of the witnesses were false, and in a bizarre twist the man claimed he did not feel attacked or hurt by the police.
November 1979
Barre police officer William Mielniczuk was again accused of excessive force when he maced a local man on Halloween night. The affidavit, written by Officer William Duff, attempted to protect Mielniczuk by omitting any mention of Mielniczuk or the macing incident.
December 1979
Former Orleans County Sheriff Leroy Null was charged in his role as a state’s attorney with perjury and obstruction of justice. Null had been a state’s attorney for one year, having won on a “law and order” platform.
December 1979
Orleans County Deputy Sheriff Reginald Leblanc was charged with two counts of false pretenses in connection with fraudulent billing. Leblanc resigned, but the towns that had been defrauded by him refused to file a formal complaint.
December 1979
Orleans County Sheriff James Murphy was charged with two counts of perjury. He was cleared in court after a jury believed his claims that he was entrapped by state police, even though a recording showed he told a witness five times not to say anything to investigators. In 1991 Murphy was also charged with improper use of department funds and engaging in abusive behavior.
1979 – 1981: The Router Bit Affair
In one of the biggest police scandals in Vermont history, just a decade after the “Irasburg Affair,” seven State Troopers were disciplined for violating department policy when they accepted stolen router bits from a St. Johnsbury plant in 1978. Trooper Nelson Charron pleaded guilty to petty larceny, as he had moonlighted at the factory where he stole the items. Troopers Sydney Adams, John Palmer, Dennis Bouffard, and Thomas Truex all received reprimands for accepting these gifts. One of the officers, Victor Theriault, was an experienced woodworker and likely knew they were stolen, first-quality bits with “Craftsman” stamped into the metal, when he lied to investigators.
Public Safety Commissioner Francis Lynch requested that Major David Ryan investigate the incident. However, when Connecticut State Police and the FBI voiced concerns that the investigation hadn’t been completed, Ryan misleadingly blamed his charge, Sgt. David Reed, who had not been asked to carry out the investigation. Once Reed started the investigation, he engaged in an illegal search. Three other troopers who were aware of the illegal search also engaged in a cover-up and committed perjury. Lt. Nelson Lay, who knew about the incident, was retaliated against and assigned to the Highway Patrol. Public Safety Commissioner Lynch was aware of the incident from two sources, but lied about not knowing and not having asked Major Ryan to investigate. Lynch was fired after less than 18 months on the job.
July 1980
Thomas Peckham of Aspen, Colorado, was arrested on false allegations by the Wilmington Police Department, who accused him of robbing a couple and sexually assaulting the woman. One of the victims testified that he was “pushed” to choose a picture out of a lineup, and he did not end up picking Peckham. Peckham’s lawyer claimed there was ample evidence that he was 10 miles away in the town of Marlboro when the crime occurred, and police sergeant Arnold Bernard admitted he left out this evidence. A judge threw out the case for lack of evidence and because a warrant was signed by a county clerk, rather than the police chief.
February 1980
Public safety commissioner Warren Cone, who was appointed to the position after Francis Lynch was fired by Governor Richard Snelling over the Router Bit Affair, was caught lying about investigating the conspiracy, falsely stating that he knew of no criminal conduct on the part of the troopers involved at the time, when he was in fact in possession of a report that proved the contrary.
April 1980
In 1979, former Associate Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court F. Ray Keyser Sr. was appointed to investigate the Vermont State Police after a series of scandals, including the Router Bit Affair. The Keyser Commission found that state officials had covered up the Router Bit Affair incident and then prosecuted the officer who had complained about the theft, David Reed. Major David Ryan submitted a report about the incident, which falsely represented his response to it. Ryan also ordered Reed for a false psychiatric evaluation and falsely accused him of lying.
The report found more instances of cops lying about interactions with discredited narcotics officer Paul Lawrence, who had previously been caught falsifying arrests and evidence in the 1970s. State trooper Stanley Merriam Jr. failed a police lie detector test in 1974, in which he lied about being at a raid conducted by Lawrence, who planted evidence. Franklin County Sheriff James A. King, who was there for the raid, knew Lawrence had planted drugs in a drawer he had already checked, but said nothing for a month. When King told Merriam his concerns a month later, he was told to shut up.
April 1980
Montpelier Police Chief Douglas Franks resigned from his position after a controversial two and a half year tenure. In 1979, he was fined for lying about his residency during the purchase of a hunting license to save $35, and previously, in 1978, he was ticketed by one of his own officers for driving an uninspected vehicle. Franks would relocate to Thornton, Colorado, where in 1985, he would resign from his position as chief of the Thornton Police Department after he was accused of trying to recruit political candidates to run against incumbent city councilors.
September 1981
Former Barre police officer Peter Bedia admitted to giving false testimony to a grand jury regarding his beating of Bruce Witham. Barre police chief Joseph Morrison was also charged with lying during his deposition.
December 1981
A jury acquitted Barre police chief Joseph Morrison of trying to bribe an officer into giving a false statement. The defense admitted that Morrison offered one of the officers $25,000, but lawyers used sexist claims against dispatcher Patricia Cheney of hysteria and mental illness to undermine her testimony. Cheney received $7,000 after being fired in retaliation for her testimony.
May 1982
Bellows Falls Police raided the Andrews Inn, the town’s first gay bar, with a targeted, homophobic, sting operation alleging that gay sex workers were being supplied to the bar’s patrons. It was later revealed that the subjects of the raid had never attended the inn before that night, and charges were dropped. The investigation caused the Andrews Inn to close within a year after the raid, successfully scaring gay men out of town.
December 1986
District Court Judge Robert Grussing found that two Bennington police officers had lied under oath. Officers Henry Haverkoch and Frederick Gilbar beat a defendant, pulling his hair and throwing him to the ground, and lied about it during the trial. The judge acquitted the defendant and said that “the testimony…is outright falsehood” and that unnecessary force left the defendant with a broken rib and severe hip bruises.The Attorney General’s office chose not to charge the two officers.
July 1988
Woody Hunter, a journalist in Brandon who was critical of the police department, discovered that the Brandon Police Department had been keeping a secret file on him, with the support of former police chief Robert Miller. When he asked to see the file, town officials refused. Hunter alleged he was harassed by police, surveilled, subjected to two dozen background checks across the country digging for dirt on him, which were not logged by police in official records. In one instance, the Brandon Police officers enlisted a Springfield Police officer to send Hunter a letter trying to entrap him with pedophilia. Hunter was harassed out of Vermont.
In a suit filed by Hunter, it named Brandon Police Chief Joseph Arduca along with officers Rodd Schrader, Loru Thorgalsen, Gergory Barthol, and Sergeant Donald Winget. The case was settled in 1991 for six figures.
February 1989
Rutland police officer Thomas W. Fuller lied on a police report in September 1987 about a low-speed chase that damaged his patrol car. As a result of this finding, ten cases handled by Fuller were thrown out.
August 1991
Orleans County Sheriff James Murphy was accused of improperly using taxpayer money and engaging in abusive behavior. In one instance, the department paid a former chief deputy $1,200 to take a Hawaiian vacation. In another, the department paid $1,200 for Murphy’s wife to go to a sheriff’s convention as a deputy sheriff. Not only had her deputy form expired, but she had never been certified as a deputy in the first place. In 1979, Murphy had been charged with two counts of perjury.
June 1992
Former Hardwick police officer Charles Welcome had staged an elaborate suicide in which he had made it appear he had been killed in the line of duty while on patrol. According to those who knew him, Welcome was upset by reports that, as treasurer for a local daycare, he had failed to pay both local and federal taxes for 18 months.
April 1993
An investigation showed that in 1991 former Vermont State Trooper and former head of the union Stephen Kennedy lied to obtain a Massachusetts driver’s license weeks before his Vermont driver’s license was set to be suspended for a DUI charge. He listed the address of a Greenfield, MA bar as his residence, telling the Massachusetts DMV he needed it to work an undercover operation. He had been suspended once before in 1987 for driving a cruiser while drunk, and was fired in 1993 for lying during a police investigation.
February 1994
A judge ruled that Burlington Police Officers Douglas Thorburn and John Kehoe supplied an underage woman with a drink during a bachelor party at Club Metronome in August 1993, and Thorburn’s testimony was inconsistent. Thorburn and Kehoe resigned in April 1994.
March 1994
Northfield Police Officer Tim Trono was charged with evidence tampering and threatening a witness in multiple misconduct cases. (Further details of the entire story can be found here and here.) Trono would later be acquitted of the assault charges, but he pled guilty to obstruction of justice charges as an accessory to unlawful mischief, agreeing to testify against other officers involved.
July 1994
Northfield Police Officer Kenneth Falcone, one of the officers charged with unlawful mischief after firing a gun in a store owned by a vocal police critic, admitted to perjury in 50 traffic court cases and to having taken marijuana from the police evidence locker. Falcone would become a state’s witness, get arrested for failing to appear in court to testify against Northfield Police Chief Michael O’Neill, and also fail a polygraph, leading the defense to question his testimony. O’Neill later agreed to a plea deal and faced no jail time.
May 1997
Lawyers for Ruth Lizotte, who was arrested on murder and arson charges in 1991, argued that police had illegally harassed her into taking a lie-detector test even after lawyers repeatedly told police she would not give a sworn statement or take a lie-detector test. Most of the state’s evidence was thrown out after the judge found the police and the state had engaged in misconduct during the case.
July 1997
Vergennes Police Chief John Dugan was convicted of destroying evidence to help his friends evade DUI charges.
November 1997
Vermont State Police Officer Russell Penka was fired after being accused of lying in a sworn affidavit. Penka told a Pownal woman that because he did not see any signs of domestic abuse, he wouldn’t arrest her husband, then lied about it to his fellow officers.
May 1998
Brattleboro Police Officers and Vermont State Troopers used false information from a single witness when they investigated and arrested Lisa Hutchins for drug distribution. Hutchins had an alibi and was not seen on any surveillance footage at the residence in question. Charges were dropped, and Hutchins later sued Vermont State Police Officers Thomas L’Esperance and Shawn Lundrigan and Brattleboro Police Officer Michael Peterson, who traumatized her by jailing her, strip-searching her, and verbally berating her.
January 2000
Barre Town Police Officer Michael Jacobs admitted to lying in a sworn statement in a drunk driving case.
December 2000
During a labor dispute between a state trooper and the Department of Public Safety, it came to light that two other Vermont state troopers had lied on the witness stand and given false testimony during a murder case in Rutland. Vermont District Judge Paul Hudson ruled that Detective Ray Keefe and Detective Paul Barci’s testimony was directly contradicted by video evidence showing the defendant had asked to contact counsel six different times.
February 2001
Former state trooper Lt. Dennis Madore, who also served as the ex-security chief for former Governor Howard Dean, was fired after an internal investigation found he had assaulted his wife and lied under oath about extramarital affairs during divorce proceedings. Madore then lied to investigators about the divorce proceedings.
June 2002
Frank J. Simione, a former state trooper in the Shaftsbury barracks, was charged with prescription fraud while trying to get narcotics. Simione lied to a doctor, claiming he had lost his prescription but had actually filled it two hours after leaving the doctor’s office.
May 2003
Burlington Police Officer James Mullins resigned after an investigation concluded that he was falsifying security reports while on security detail at Burlington International Airport.
April 2004
Washington County Sheriff Donald Edson resigned after pleading guilty to felony fraud charges due to an illegal loan he obtained from a second sheriff’s office. Edson borrowed $26,000 for payroll, then lied on the loan documents that the money was used in an undercover drug operation. Edson regularly made interest-free loans to himself using department funds and was previously caught overpaying himself for contract work.
July 2004
Thomas Revene, a 20-year member of the Vermont State Police, was fired in May 2002 for lying to an internal investigator about an incident in which he ignored state policy while interacting with armed suspects, later telling a dispatcher to “keep her mouth shut.” Two other veteran Troopers, Paul Barci and David Gerard, were disciplined as a result of the investigation.
September 2004
St. Johnsbury Police Chief Paul Devenger asked bar staff to lie about the presence of his brother, Vermont State Trooper Pat Devenger, who was drinking while on duty, during an investigation into Pat Devenger’s conduct.
December 2004
Former Vermont State Trooper from the Middlesex barracks, Geoffrey Blome, was fined $500 and resigned after it was revealed he made a false statement during a motor vehicle stop. Blome claimed in an affidavit he received consent to search a passenger during a stop, but had never gotten that consent.
June 2006
Windham County Sheriff Sheila Prue resigned after a plea deal in which she admitted to embezzling $61,000 of department funds for her personal expenses. Months before, she had given “contradictory explanations” about some of her expenses, including multiple false claims. Her second-in-command, Sherwood Lake, was also investigated for a fraudulent charitable donation scheme, in which preferential treatment and immunity from motor vehicle offenses were offered in exchange for donations to the charity.
November 2006
Vermont State Trooper John Plaster choked an 18-year-old in Eden and lied about choking him, claiming the man resisted arrest. Other troopers on the scene contradicted Plaster’s claims and confirmed he choked the man. Plaster resigned in March of 2007 after an internal investigation, and was sentenced to 12-24 months, with 30 days in jail and the rest on probation.
April 2007
Northfield Police Officer David Reed provided false information to a police officer when he had self-harmed, but told police he was attacked by a stranger.
June 2007
During a lawsuit involving two people in a car crash, it was revealed that former Vermont State Trooper Mary Sabo Burns had lied about numerous things, including that she was never terminated from the Vermont State Police. Burns was caught falsifying on-call records and inflating her payroll, stealing money. If it weren’t for the lawsuit, the public would never have known about Sabo’s lying and thievery.
June 2007
A court ruled that South Burlington Police Officer Jack O’Connor illegally searched a Winooski resident’s vehicle during a traffic stop in December of 2004, as O’Connor lacked probable cause and performed a warrantless patdown search.
January 2008
Bellows Falls Police Chief and former training officer for the Windsor Sheriff’s Department, Ron Lake, was accused of signing off on trainings he had passed off to other officers, trainings he was not certified to lead.
January 2008
Dale Trombley, a Colchester police officer, was investigated for letting Burlington Police Officer Donald Lilja go after being pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving. Then Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan filed no charges in the investigation due to neither officer being willing to cooperate.
June 2009
Former Windsor County Sheriff Heidi Nelson admitted to violating her terms of probation after she had groomed a high school student. Nelson had lied to the victim’s parents and taken the student on a trip to Florida. Nelson was teaching classes on law enforcement at the time
January 2010
An investigation into the Vermont Police Academy revealed an institution in chaos, where training coordinators engaged in regular misconduct, public funds were unaccounted for, and there was no government oversight. One training coordinator, David McMullen, committed suicide after getting caught with child porn.
March 2010
Rutland Police Officer David Schauwecker was charged in Vermont District Court with misuse of evidence and providing a false report to law enforcement after allegedly taking pornographic materials from evidence. He was fired in April 2010.
April 2010
Former Vergennes Police Chief Michael Lowe was sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty to driving under the influence of drugs, lying to obtain prescription medication, and neglect of duty after a 2009 accident with his cruiser.
May 2011
Former State Trooper Mark Beezup was charged with sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl numerous times over a two-year period. During an initial investigation, he lied to detectives, claiming his cell phone, which had photographic evidence, was damaged because his dog had chewed it. Investigators discovered that the battery had been removed before the phone was damaged, and the bite marks were not those of a dog. Four years later, in 2015, Beezup violated probation with the help of his wife when he spent time with the girl’s 11-year-old sister. Beezup was sentenced to a maximum of two years in jail.
May 2011
Once again, South Burlington Police Officer Jack O’Connor lied in his reporting when arresting a Black man on a drug charge. O’Connor failed to read the man his Miranda rights, and video evidence shows O’Connor and other officers only noticed the marijuana after he was arrested on possession charges. O’Connor also lied about the man’s vehicle location, and can be seen on video taunting him while searching him.
June 2011
The South Burlington Police Department was sued by a South Burlington woman, who accused Officer Jack O’Connor of entering her apartment without a warrant and performing a traffic stop without probable cause. In the suit, the woman states that O’Connor made her undergo an x-ray search for drugs, telling a hospital doctor that he had the authority to order such a search. O’Connor was fired from the department, receiving a $52,000 payout. He later sued Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan. The case was thrown out, and O’Connor lost his appeal.
August 2011
St Johnsbury Police Officer Justin Hoyt was fired after disobeying an order not to contact a victim of a fraud case and then lying about it in a report.
August 2011
Orleans County Sheriff Kirk Martin and Deputy Sheriff Daniel Locke, along with a state trooper, border patrol agent, and immigration officer, raided the apartment of an African-American man in Barton. They kicked in the door, threatened him with a shotgun in his face, and ripped apart his apartment looking for drugs. The search warrant was for a much smaller white man with a very different name.
December 2011
– Former Vermont State Trooper Timothy Carlson of the Williston barracks was sued for manufacturing a reason to arrest a 44-year-old Muslim woman. Carlson claimed Fata Sakoc was driving drunk. When the test revealed she had a blood alcohol level of 0.0, Carlson requested a drug expert come to the scene, claiming Sakoc “bombed that field sobriety.” It took seven years, but in 2018, Sakoc won a $550,000 settlement.
– A Brady letter alleges Waterbury Officer Adam Hubacz admitted in a pre-polygraph interview that he cheated on the police exam, and had committed insurance fraud, stolen workwear from a former employer, failed to report income on his tax returns, and had impersonated a police officer to receive discounts at stores and intimidate high school students.
January 2012
Former State Trooper Joshua Lemieux was fired after receiving a DUI. A second charge, of driving with a suspended license, was added later. Lemieux lied and produced false paperwork to another state trooper who questioned him about driving without a license. After the state trooper contacted the DMV, the department confirmed that the suspension was still active.
February 2012
It was revealed that in 2010, Williston Police Officer Mike Lavoie left a bag of cocaine on his desk on a Friday, and returned the next day claiming it was “missing.” After a prolonged search involving multiple officers, including a drug-sniffing dog correctly detecting traces of cocaine where the bag was initially left, Lavoie returned to work on Monday and stated that he had found the bag in a folder next to his desk.
February 2012
Former Williston police chief Roy Nelson was caught falsely notarizing documents when he was not a notary in the state. In a separate incident involving Nelson, another officer turned off his microphone when Nelson was arresting a DUI suspect. No charges were filed in that case.
September 2012
Vermont State Police Officer Jim Deeghan wrote 973 false traffic tickets over a 12-year period while falsifying his timesheet to earn over $100,000 in overtime pay. He also reported responding to two car crashes and a false alarm that never happened. Deeghan was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay restitution.
November 2013
Burlington Police Officers Ethan Thibault and Brent Navari shot and murdered Wayne Brunette, a man with a history of mental health struggles, within two minutes of arriving at the scene in Burlington’s New North End. Officers claimed the man was trying to attack them with a shovel, but several eyewitnesses disputed the officers’ report. Michael Schirling, police chief at the time and current commissioner for the Vermont Department of Public Safety, refused to comment on the case. In May 2019, the City of Burlington agreed to a $270,000 settlement with the Brunette family. Thibault was charged with domestic assault in 2015 and resigned in 2016.
January 2014
Mark Allen, a Black man, was illegally detained and strip-searched during a traffic stop by Rutland Police Officer John Johnson, while the two other white passengers in the vehicle were not subjected to a search. Johnson, who had a history of racism and overt racial bias toward Black people, was sued by Allen for a civil rights violation. In response, Johnson conducted a retaliatory drug investigation into Allen and went to a longtime confidential informant, encouraging her to lie so he could arrest Allen. The City of Rutland settled a suit with Allen for $30,000.
June 2014
Bennington County Sheriff’s Deputy Gary Harrington was charged with selling prescription opioids and illegally possessing narcotics. Harrington was caught with 440 hydromorphone pills and 160 methadone pills. Harrington’s lawyer claimed that all the pills were procured legally, but it was revealed that Harrington used a Bennington area woman to sell the drugs for him and threatened to arrest her if she refused, while also forging insurance documents for her. Harrington was later decertified by the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council.
November 2014
A Colchester police officer, Tyler Kinney, admitted he stole drugs from an evidence locker and embezzled at least $5,000. It was later revealed that he also stole two guns from evidence. Kinney was sentenced to four years in prison and thirty criminal cases he was involved with were later dismissed.
March 2015
Vermont State Police attempted to keep the name of State Trooper Eric Rademacher from the public during a DUI investigation, in which Rademacher responded to a vehicle crash in Killington while under the influence. It did not become public knowledge until the Burlington Free Press broke the story. Rachemacher would resign the following month, but his trial ended in a hung jury. A second trial was expected, but the charges were dismissed in 2018.
April 2016
The state of Vermont settled a case for $1.55 million after falsely incarcerating a man for murder for nearly 18 years. John Grega was released in 2012 after DNA evidence proved another man had raped and killed his wife. The lawsuit included State Police Detectives William Pettengill, Glenn Cutting, Dover Police officer Richard Holden, and former Windham County State’s Attorney Dan Davis, accusing them of denying Grega’s rights, and that officers egregiously cleaned up the murder scene while they also falsified evidence.
September 2016
A Brady Letter alleges that Berlin Police Officer Charles Satterfield provided sworn testimony that directly contradicted his body camera footage. In 2011, Satterfield was put on leave during an excessive force investigation in which he hit a man with his flashlight.
October 2016
Christopher Lopez of the Burlington Police Department agreed to a plea deal for lying in an affidavit about smelling marijuana to justify a police stop. He resigned from his job and got a year of probation, along with 40 hours of community service. State’s Attorney Sarah George dropped 14 pending cases that were brought by Lopez but did not reopen cases that had already closed. The only reason the officer was caught was because a fellow officer, Nicholas Rienzi, failed to turn off his body camera, and Lopez admitted to Rienzi on camera that he couldn’t smell marijuana and was trying to “get creative.” In the footage, Rienzi says nothing and does not report Lopez. Rienzi was paid $95,000 in 2019 before leaving for Connecticut in 2020.
2017 – 2019
Sean Wilson of the Brattleboro Police Department was investigated by the FBI after renting an apartment from a man who was charged with selling cocaine. Several of Wilson’s rent checks had “for cocaine” written on them, and he had also provided information to his landlord regarding police investigations. While Wilson’s landlord pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, Wilson denied the relationship. In 2020, Wilson, who had a history of domestic abuse, was charged for threatening an ex with a gun and shooting a bullet near her head in an act of intimidation.
October 2017
In 2013, Winooski Police Officer Jason Nokes shot a person in a severe mental health crisis during a confrontation. He pleaded no contest to reckless endangerment. Nokes told other cops he saw the person had a knife, but later admitted he had lied. Winooski paid $82,500 to settle the lawsuit that followed. Two years prior, Nokes had been charged with a DUI but kept his job.
June 2017
In a story from the Burlington Free Press, multiple cops from the state and city levels made the false and thoroughly debunked claim that police officers could overdose just by touching fentanyl to the Burlington Free Press. Those who perpetuated the lie include John Merrigan of the Vermont State police, Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison, and interim Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke, who was chief of the South Burlington Police Department at the time.
September 2017
Former Windsor Police officer Ryan Palmer was acquitted of charges for shooting a suspect in an undercover drug raid. Palmer alleged that he and another officer were at risk from the suspect, claiming that he only fired because the suspect drove their vehicle toward him. Security footage from the car repair shop where the bust took place showed that Palmer and the other officer were safely off to the side of the vehicle. This resulted in state prosecutors dropping the charges against the suspect because Palmer had lied about being in danger.
November 2017
Former Springfield Officer Logan Defelice lied to a fellow officer about trying to locate a missing person. He left the department shortly thereafter.
February 2018
After Berlin Police Officer Joseph Carriveau arrested the Chief of the Randolph Police on a domestic assault charge, allegations of plagiarism from Carriveau’s time as a cadet at the Vermont Police Academy resurfaced. It prompted the Washington County State’s Attorney’s office to review and dismiss charges in some of his cases, including dropping charges against the Randolph Police Chief. At the time of the allegations in 2015, Carriveau was fired from the Northfield Police Department, and the plagiarism was disclosed to the Washington County State’s Attorney’s office.
In 2017, Carriveau struck an academy cadet in the head during a “Hitchhiker Scenario” training exercise that left the cadet out of work for 20 months. He received a Brady letter.
February 2018
Hartford Police Officer Kristinnah Adams lied to a supervisor about why she took a long time to get to the scene of a call, making up a fictitious illness. For the offense, Adams received a Brady letter in 2020. In 2010, Adams was one of three Hartford Police Department officers named in an excessive force suit against a Black man, which resulted in a $500,000 settlement in 2017. In June 2025, Adams was placed on leave for domestic assault and returned to work in December 2025 after the charges were dropped.
March 2018
Daniel Steere, a Manchester police officer, was charged with grand larceny after it became clear he had stolen over $2,000 from evidence lockers. Steere initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea and received a suspended sentence with four years probation, along with a prohibition from working as a law enforcement officer.
June 2018
Officer Joshua Paulette of Bellows Falls Police Department was placed on New Hampshire’s “Laurie List” for lack of credibility.
July 2018
Rutland City Police Officer Jeffrey Warfle claimed someone was acting aggressively and disorderly, and Warfle used excessive force to arrest them. He later admitted they were not acting in such a manner, and he never wrote an affidavit for probable cause.
June 2018
Former Williston police officer Justin Huizenga was cleared of charges of misusing sick time and working out at a gym while on duty, revealing the entire Williston Police Department engaged in regular time theft of public dollars. Huizenga was cleared because the Williston Police Department had “unclear and often unsupervised” policies, the officers were all “relaxed in their habit” of signing in and out of shifts, and many other officers and admin thought there was a policy which allowed everyone to work out during their shifts. Huizenga is now police chief of the Winooski Police Department.
September 2018
Burlington police officer Joseph Corrow assaulted Mabior Jok, a Black man, downtown. Corrow claimed in an affidavit that he saw Jok punch another man, and that he was afraid of being assaulted himself. Footage released from Corrow’s body camera showed that Corrow approached Jok, extended his arms and pushed him to the ground Knockin Jok unconscious. The city reached a $215,000 settlement with Jok in 2024.
October 2018
Sophie Patenaude of St. Johnsbury Police made an appointment with the Caledonia County State’s Attorney for trial preparation, but later claimed that she never received a calendar notification. When called out on it, Patenaude said she had no memory of it and never missed the appointment, and was given a Brady Letter.
October 2018
– Damon Nguyen of Rutland City Police was investigated by the Vermont State Police because he may have lied, for furnishing alcohol to someone under 21, and for a potential sexual assault. Nguyen resigned in 2018 and both the Attorney General and Bennington County Attorney declined to file charges.
– Two state troopers from the Shaftsbury Barracks, Thomas Stange and Benjamin Irwin lied to Bennington Police dispatchers when the responded to a call regarding probationary trooper Spencer Foucher, who was passed out behind the wheel with the engine running in a Bennington convenience store parking lot while off duty. Foucher admitted to driving under the influence earlier in the day, while Stange and Irwin told Bennington dispatch that Foucher was fine, and they told the store manager that they were “coincidentally looking for someone else.”
December 2018
Jonathan Fredholm of the Berlin Police Department was fired after his integrity was questioned when he released privileged information during a police investigation.
January 2019
– Vermont state trooper Lewis Hatch was sued for racially profiling during an illegal stop and seizure. Hatch claimed he pulled the person over because snow covered their license plate registration sticker on the vehicle, which is not a traffic violation under Vermont law. Hatch also claimed he could smell marijuana in the vehicle, and during the illegal search, no marijuana was found. The state settled for $50,000. Lewis had such a long history of making illegal stops that he was required to call a supervisor before being allowed to search anyone.
– Northfield Police Chief John Helfant, formerly of both the Berlin Police and Vermont State Police, was untruthful in an affidavit regarding a search warrant.
February 2019
– After Addison State Attorney Dennis Wygmans saw an unsettling traffic stop video with Addison County Sheriff Timothy Maxfield, in which Maxfield accused occupants of being gang members based solely on their race, Wygmans refused to prosecute any more of Maxfield’s arrests. Maxfield was paid $21,000 to resign his position.
– Jimmy Platkas of the Rutland City Police Department wrote in an affidavit that force was used when a defendant was struggling, unhandcuffed. Video evidence shows that the person arrested was, in fact, handcuffed.
– Adam Lucia of Rutland City Police used force on a handcuffed person arrested. He signed an affidavit that directly contradicted video evidence of the event, in which he claimed the person was not wearing handcuffs.
March 2019
Vermont State Trooper Brett Flansburg stopped a vehicle and claimed he overdosed by touching fentanyl. Matthew Birmingham, director of the Vermont State Police, defended this lie in a press release. After publishing the initial press release, VTDigger published a fact check disproving the overdose claim, as it is nearly impossible to overdose by touching fentanyl.
April 2019
– A Brady-Giglio letter for Northfield Police Chief John Helfant uncovered that he had failed to obtain consent for several searches during traffic stops done to people of color as a Berlin police officer. One case involved a “material discrepancy” from Helfant’s statements in an affidavit and what body camera footage showed in the incident. The charges in the case were dropped. This prompted a judge to dismiss two other traffic stops by Helfant in 2018 and 2019.
– Monica Welch was fired from the Barre Town police department, and the chief expressed concerns for her “truthfulness and integrity.” She was later given a Brady letter and was then hired by Northfield Police Chief John Helfant, who also had a history of bending the truth during traffic stops.
– Burlington Police Officer Cory Campbell angrily punched Douglas Kilburn at the UVM Medical Center. It was revealed several months later that Campbell was only reprimanded by the Burlington Police Department for swearing, but not for escalating the situation or for his use of murderous force while Kilburn was in a mental health crisis. The state’s medical examiner said that Kilburn’s death was a homicide, and Mayor Miro Weinberger and former Chief Brandon Del Pozo tried to influence the investigation by requesting the medical examiner change the cause of death. In July 2021, Burlington settled with the Kilburn family for $45,000 in a wrongful death suit.
May 2019
Former police cadet and temporary Middlebury police officer Kyle Lehner was convicted of sexual assault stemming from an August 2016 incident in which Lehner was driven home by a high school acquaintance. Upon arriving at his home, he forcefully brought her into his home, where the assault took place. When questioned, Lehner lied to police, claiming the sex was consensual.
August 2019
– Jason Lawton of the St. Albans Police Department was fired after beating a handcuffed woman. Lawton was charged with assault, but two other officers, Zachary Koch and Michael Ferguson, helped Lawton with the restraint and faced no consequences. Former officer Paul Morits contradicted Saint Albans Police Chief Gary Taylor, telling Seven Days that he had told the chief about this incident months before it went to the press.
– During a domestic abuse case, it was revealed that Bennington County Sheriff Chad Schmidt exchanged sexual messages on Facebook with the wife of a resident accused of domestic assault. In one instance, Schmidt warned the woman about an arrest before it was sent to another law enforcement agency, allowing her to avoid jail. Despite Schmidt denying the account was his, the woman stated “It’s definitely Chad.”
October 2019
– In 2018, Christopher Devito of the Windham County Sheriff’s Office was accused of cheating on a Vermont Police Academy exam but was exonerated. In 2019, he submitted multiple search warrants and claimed that each warrant was reviewed by the county attorney’s office, even though only a single warrant had been.
– William Pine, an Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy, shot an occupied Jeep while off-duty after a dispute with another driver, where he tailed the vehicle and blocked them at an intersection. Pine lied to state police about firing the gun and endangering people’s lives. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
December 2019
– Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo was caught lying to Seven Days reporter Courtney Lamdin on tape about a Twitter account he had created to harass a local activist (this writer). He also did not disclose these accounts in a legal filing where he was sworn in under oath.
– Burlington Interim Police Chief Jan Wright admitted that she also had created several fake social media accounts to harass and intimidate Burlington Police Department critics. She was put on administrative leave the same day as Brandon del Pozo resigned.- Richard Olmsted of the Ludlow Police Department attempted to destroy evidence related to a case. Olmsted deleted bodycam footage that showed him failing to detain, screen, or arrest a driver under the influence. The driver was given a ticket and later crashed and was arrested by a different police department. Olmsted denies deleting the footage, but supervisors believed he lied.
January 2020
Darren Kennedy of the Middlesex Barracks of the Vermont State Police lied to internal affairs about transporting a personal friend via cruiser while on duty. He resigned the same month.
February 2020
– Winooski officer Christopher Matott was charged with six counts of domestic assault and used his position as a police officer to intimidate an ex. While working in the South Burlington Police Department, Matott’s girlfriend told two South Burlington police officers about the abuse. Kelsey Monroe and Cassandra Ellison never disclosed that information to superior officers. Mattot was also accused of using derogatory language, including the N-word.
– Cassandra Ellison of the South Burlington Police Department resigned after discrepancies were found in her testimony around Christopher Mattot’s domestic assault.
March 2020
A former Bellows Falls police dispatcher sued the department, claiming that officer Mario Checchi gave her false information about cases and regularly refused to sign in for shifts. Checchi had been cleared of an illegal search warrant by the Attorney General a month earlier.
June 2020
Shamel Alexander settled for $30,000 after suing the Bennington Police Department for racial discrimination. In 2013, while working undercover, Peter Urbanowicz of the Bennington Police, alerted Andy Hunt, an on-duty Bennington Police officer, to Alexander, a Black man. Urbanowicz said that the car would be a “good traffic stop, if [you] could find him doing something wrong.” Hunt pulled the cab over for a minor traffic offense and claimed that Alexander matched the description of a suspect, whose nickname was given to them by an informant. Alexander did not match the nickname provided by the informant.
August 2020
– Rutland City Police Officer Emilio Rosario altered a sworn, written statement in subsequent conversations with the County Attorney. He also claimed to have seized a truck, but it was later found to be independently impounded, and in a separate incident, he claimed to have seized three phones from a defendant, while one was later found in their car.
– A fellow officer discovered that Springfield Police Officer Shaun Smith had sent sexually explicit messages on Facebook, while on the job, to a young woman. Smith often could not be found during shifts. A Brady letter concluded he had committed “several acts of untruthfulness” during an internal investigation about his alleged misconduct.
September 2020
– A Williston police officer, Timothy Oliver, crashed his vehicle and then lied to Colchester police officers about it. The town of Williston severed his employment, providing him with two weeks of pay, 95 hours of accrued vacation time, unemployment benefits, and a promise from the town they would not disclose any of his misdeeds. Several months later Oliver was charged with domestic assault, unlawful mischief, leaving the scene of an accident, and lying to officers.
October 2020
According to a Brady letter filed by the Washington County State’s Attorney’s office, Vermont State Trooper John Gildea of the Middlesex Barracks failed to check the vehicle operator’s military status or whether they were subject to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. As a result of Gildea’s omissions, it led to the Vermont Judicial Bureau receiving inaccurate information and State’s Attorney Rory Thibault challenging Gildea’s credibility.
November 2020
Disgraced Vermont State Police Lt. Michael Studin of the Rutland barracks is reinstated after never being told about his union representation rights, after an investigation revealed that Studin failed to immediately report trooper misconduct from 2016 to 2018. This includes an aforementioned case regarding two state troopers lying about an off-duty probationary trooper being found drunk and passed out behind the wheel in a convenience store parking lot.
December 2020
– In a report from VTDigger, it was revealed that Ed Dumas, the Rutland Town Police Chief, never entered a case in which children egged a house when he was a police officer with the Rutland City Police. Dumas allowed the kids to work off the damage instead. One of the children had a parent in the Rutland City Police Department.
– A VTDigger investigation found that Damon Angelo, a Castleton Police officer, made a comment to a fellow officer using racially derogatory language and “joking” that he would search a car without probable cause while employed with Rutland City Police. Angelo also submitted a case to the Rutland County Attorney’s office that was inconsistent with video evidence.
– A 2020 VTDigger report revealed that Fair Haven Police Chief Bill Humphries and Poultney Constable Dale Kerber issued parking tickets for violations such as speeding and then reported the tickets inaccurately as Vermont Civil Violation Complaints in 2018. This allowed them to give lower fines associated with parking tickets while writing paperwork to make it look like they had issued speeding tickets.
February 2021
In a Brady Letter, Bennington County Sheriff’s Deputy Christopher Bohl lied about a timesheet and was subsequently investigated.
March 2021
Northfield Police officer Aaron Cochran was given a Brady letter after it was discovered that when he was the former chief of the Hardwick Police Department, Cochran was dishonest in his reviews and inquiries into an incident involving Sergeant Darin Barber. Barber stole alcohol that had been confiscated as evidence and took it home with him, and asked subordinate officers to stalk his spouse.
April 2021
– The Town of Bennington and its police department settled a yearslong investigation by the Human Rights Commission involving former Vermont State Representative Kiah Morris for $137,000. White supremacist Max Misch repeatedly harassed Morris, who is Black, online and in-person, but the Bennington Police claimed that there was no evidence Morris was targeted by Misch because of her race. An investigation by the Attorney General’s office found BPD’s conclusion to be quite erroneous.
– Burlington Corporal Brent Navari was cited for violating policies of “truthfulness”, and that he made “purposefully evasive and misleading statements” during an investigation regarding fish and game. This was not the first time Navari had lied. In 2013, Navari shot and killed a man having a mental health crisis, and witness testimony directly contradicted his.
June 2021
– In a Brady letter, Brattleboro Police Officer Bradley Penniman was caught prepping an affidavit with a “misstatement” that a bag of drugs he had confiscated had the defendant’s name on it. He claimed that this information was relayed to him by another officer. He couldn’t remember which officer had said it, and none recalled saying it to him.
– An investigation by Seven Days showed that Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad had been purposefully understaffing police late at night during the weekend when downtown was busiest, and misleading the public about it, claiming that staffing issues were the reason why the department could not properly staff the downtown core during the weekends, when in reality he was retaliating against the city for voting to cap the number of police officers.
September 2021
– Vermont State Troopers Raymond Witkowski and David Pfindel, out of Shaftsbury Barracks, and Shawn Sommers, out of Rutland Barracks resigned after it was revealed that they created fake Covid-19 vaccination cards. An FBI investigation was opened into their misconduct.
– The American Civil Liberties of Vermont accused Interim Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad and Mayor Miro Weinberger of lying to the public and presenting misleading crime data to support their agenda to hire more police officers. The ACLU called their argument a “false narrative,” fear mongering by using misleading and inflammatory rhetoric.
October 2021
An independent report on the Burlington Police Department by a Virginia company hired by the city found that the police departments’ current staffing shifts are inflexible and inefficient, and agreed with activists that the department should reduce the number of armed officers and add non-armed social workers. Mayor Miro Weinberger and Burlington Police Chief Murad were caught pressuring this company to change the report to better align with their pro-police ideology. Most importantly, the report also found that the department had very poor oversight regarding police complaints and there was little internal accountability, echoing a call by reformers for an independent civilian control board.
February 2022
Bennington County Sheriff Chad Schmidt claimed to be living in Vermont, but had not been seen in the state since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A VTDigger investigation revealed that Schmidt and his wife had bought property in Tennessee, and that she started teaching at a school district in Tennessee, while many of their Vermont business holdings were dissolved in 2020. Despite announcing he would not seek re-election in 2022, Schmidt still had one year left on his term and was believed to no longer live in the state. A VTDigger reporter attempted to speak with Schmidt in person for 18 months unsuccessfully, with multiple sheriffs unable to provide clear answers in regard to Schmidt’s whereabouts.
April 2022
Former state trooper Zachary Gauthier was charged with perjury, lying to law enforcement, animal cruelty and violation of a domestic protection order. Gauthier lied to police about hitting a dog so hard he broke his knuckle, instead claiming that the injury was from falling on ice in his driveway. In a court hearing for a restraining order filed by a woman who had a protection order against him due to domestic abuse, Gauthier lied on the stand again, claiming that he did not have alcohol in his truck when he crashed it in a separate incident. Gauthier was sentenced to suspended prison time and probation in 2023, and in 2024 he was decertified as a law enforcement officer by the state but was still eligible to work in law enforcement in other states.
May 2022
Vermont State Trooper Dylan LaMere of the Saint Albans barracks was charged with negligent driving and providing false information to a police officer during a traffic stop. While off-duty at 3 a.m. in Essex, LaMere claimed he was swerving on the road because he was reading an email about being dispatched to investigate a fatal accident. He was let go by the Essex police officer, but an investigation by the Essex Police revealed there were no fatal crashes and that LaMere had not been called to respond to any scenes. In November, Chittenden County judge tossed the case, noting that despite LaMere admitting to negligent driving while on his phone, the false information charges would be dropped.
June 2022
The Burlington Police department claims ‘gun incidents’ in the city are up, while excluding all instances of police officers shooting their guns. By not including their own incidents, their data is deceptive.
August 2022
Montpelier Cpl. Chad Bean was caught abusing Montpelier PD’s sick time policy in 2020 and 2021, in which Bean lied about an injury during a foot chase. Bean had previously killed a local resident in 2019, and at one point was dating someone who he supervised, against department policy.
September 2022
Orange County Sheriff Joshua Macura received a Brady Letter for claiming to be a government representative during a private property-tax dispute.
December 2022
Stowe Police officer Ben Cavaretta was forced out of his job and given a severance package after documents revealed that Cavaretta lied about a traffic stop in which he stopped a driver outside his coverage area, and gave conflicting information after the fact. It was also revealed that Cavaretta had a history of being disciplined for his behavior during traffic stops.
January 2023
Interim Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad hid from Mayor Weinberger and the city council that the Burlington Police Department had signed a contract to patrol a private condo development. The information was only revealed after a Seven Days investigation.
February 2023
Burlington Police Officer Daniel Delgado was caught falsifying timecards and stealing $695 in additional pay. He was demoted and the money was taken from subsequent paychecks.
March 2023
Saint Albans Police Officer Keith McMahon was fired after he was caught lying under oath during an internal investigation.
August 2023
Former St. Albans Police sergeant Michael Malinowski was decertified and banned from working as a cop in Vermont after it was revealed that he lied during an internal investigation about disobeying orders. Malinowski lied about repeatedly going to the apartment of a coworker he was having an extramarital affair with while on duty, after he was explicitly ordered not to associate with that person while on duty. He was also cited for sleeping on duty.
September 2023
Disgraced former Burlington Police Chief Brando del Pozo admitted that cops had been lying about fentanyl exposure for years, stating that fentanyl is not “cop kryptonite” but that the lie had become so ingrained in policing that many assumed it to be true, citing an instance where a Burlington police officer fainted at a drug scene.
April 2024
An internal investigation by the Vermont State Police found that 11 troopers faced internal discipline during the first six months of 2023. Among the troopers cited, Giancarlo DiGenova provided false information to the police, along with misdemeanor and grand larceny charges after he stole more than $40,000 from evidence, including a Rolex watch. He also stole ADHD medication meant for a child when he responded to a domestic disturbance at a home in Bolton. DiGenova was given a probationary sentence and restorative justice as part of a plea agreement.
September 2024
Royalton Police officer and Vermont State Police Academy trainee Jakob Oliver was charged with domestic assault, when an officer at another department who he was in a relationship with claimed Oliver abused her and threatened to kill himself multiple times. Oliver claimed he was trying to help the woman who needed his support, and then authored several tirades about being part of a conspiracy that involved state law enforcement and the Vermont National Guard. Oliver was fired from his position as a Royalton police officer, and received a deferred sentence which would allow his record to be expunged.
January 2025
The Vermont Supreme Court upheld a decision from the Vermont Labor Relations Board regarding the firing of Vermont State Trooper David Roos. Roos was fired for lying about sexually harassing women under his charge during an internal investigation, not logging a firearm into evidence that went missing, and not entering information about a missing teenager into the Amber Alert system.
February 2025
The Brattleboro Police Department attempted to hide its close relationship with right-wing video blogger Hank Poitras, going so far as to alter emails in a public records request to hide the relationship between Poitras and Police Chief Norma Hardy and Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Evans. Despite evidence of a strong relationship between the two, including suggesting content ideas to Poitras, the police department denied that they “collaborated with” Poitras.
March 2025
An internal investigation found that eight state troopers engaged in misconduct during the first six months of 2024. The report stated that an unnamed trooper facing an allegation of being untruthful during an internal affairs investigation resigned before the review could be concluded.
April 2025
A man accused of murdering a trans woman in 2022 reached a plea deal after a judge concluded that a Lamoille County Sheriff’s deputy tainted the case. The sudden plea change came about as it was revealed that Lamoille County Sheriff’s Department deputies, specifically Deputy Christopher Turner, used his body camera to record a conversation with the accused while transporting him from court to prison, asking specific questions about the case. Vermont State Police Sergeant Issac Merriam had requested these questions be recorded with the “explicit purpose of obtaining evidence to use against the defendant,” which was blatantly illegal.
July 2025
Brattleboro police officer Greg Eaton was sued after making a false arrest in 2022. The woman, who was pregnant, was jailed overnight because Eaton put the wrong date of birth on the arrest warrant, and did not look at DMV photographs prior to issuing the warrant. This would have proved it was a different woman with the same name who had the warrant. The woman was arrested in front of her two children and parents, and was held on $25,000 bail, which she could not afford. After learning it was the wrong person, the state took steps to drop the case.
September 2025
Shelburne police officer Kyle Kapitanaski plead guilty to negligent operation of a vehicle with death resulting when he hit and killed a cyclist with his patrol car in November 2024. After hitting the cyclist, Kapitanaski claimed the cyclist “appeared out of nowhere” but an investigation determined Kapitanaski was driving over the speed limit and not paying attention, and lying about being alert on the road and seeing the cyclist, as he was watching a video featuring transphobic, fascist YouTuber Matt Walsh on a laptop in his police cruiser which was directly in his line of sight.
November 2025
Former South Burlington Police officer Cody Wilson was fired after the Chittenden County State’s Attorney called into question his credibility in a Brady letter, stating that Wilson “made a patently false statement in a probable cause affidavit and neglected to include exculpatory evidence.” Wilson also accepted beer as a gift, which violated department policy, and he also violated the city’s excessive force policy by pulling in front of a suspect on a bicycle and hitting him with his patrol vehicle.
December 2025
An internal probe found that Rutland City police officers violated numerous department policies during a chase and pursuit of a suspect fleeing in a motor vehicle, which resulted in the death of police recruit Jessica Ebbighausen from a head-on collision in 2023. The death was found to be preventable, as officers did not have the proper authority to initiate a pursuit and did not follow procedures during it. The Rutland County State’s Attorney’s Office, which was prosecuting the case, failed to disclose the findings of the internal investigation to the defense’s counsel, and Police Chief Brian Kilcullen had hid the report from the police commission.
February 2026
Former police officer and Caledonia County victim’s advocate Anthony Jackson-Miller was arrested on charges of using his position to sexually exploit a crime victim, and then tried to cover it up. Jackson-Miller threatened to get the case against a woman’s abuser dropped if she did not delete evidence about the coercive relationship with Jackson-Miller.
March 2026
Former Bellows Falls Village Police Chief Ron Lake was accused of forging signatures on his former partner’s mortgage loan documents. It took police over a year, and two investigations, before Lake was cited in January.
