Editor’s note: This article is by Mike Faher, of the Brattleboro Reformer, in which it was first published Oct. 9, 2014.
VERNON — Newly released documents claim that Selectboard Chairwoman Patty O’Donnell attempted to intervene in a DUI investigation and threatened to terminate the town’s new contract with Windham County Sheriff’s Department if an officer didn’t “fix this issue.”
O’Donnell vehemently denies that she wanted the sheriff’s department to not arrest Lisa M. McKenney, 47, after a Sept. 20 traffic stop.
Rather, O’Donnell says she was concerned — in her words, “scared” — about the investigating deputy’s conduct, including his pulling a gun after the stop.
“That (DUI) case will be tried in court. That case has nothing to do with me,” O’Donnell maintained on Wednesday. “But the actions of the officer do have a lot to do with the Selectboard and the safety of this town.”
But in an official report titled “obstruction of justice,” it’s clear that sheriff’s department Lt. Mark Anderson believed something else was going on.
“O’Donnell advised me that something was going to have to be done about this and also advised that the town was going to need to get rid of the sheriff’s office contract. O’Donnell indicated that she wanted me to respond at the time to fix this issue,” Anderson wrote.
According to court papers obtained by the Reformer after a public document request filed with the sheriff’s department, the situation began when sheriff’s Deputy Ian Tuttle was monitoring traffic near the north intersection of Vermont 142 and Pond Road around 11 p.m. Sept. 20.
Tuttle wrote that a Jeep Grand Cherokee “came close to the right side of the road and then made an abrupt left as if to keep from going off of the road. I began to follow the vehicle.”
The Jeep crossed the yellow center line twice and, as it neared Newton Road, “the operator then crossed over the solid double yellow centerline and drove down the center of the road for approximately 50 yards,” Tuttle’s affidavit says.
After turning, the Jeep traveled about 100 yards on the left side of Newton Road and “the operator had to swerve to the right to avoid colliding head-on with another vehicle traveling in the opposite direction,” Tuttle wrote.
Tuttle said he turned on his emergency lights, but the Jeep did not slow or stop for about a quarter-mile and then turned into McKenney’s residence. After stopping, Tuttle reports, the driver — identified as McKenney — “advised me that she had not seen the lights until she had made it almost up her driveway.”
Also, McKenney “did not have a reason” why she had been driving on the wrong side of the road, Tuttle wrote. She advised that she had consumed two glasses of wine, but Tuttle said McKenney’s eyes were “bloodshot and watery.”
After field-sobriety testing, McKenney was transported to the sheriff’s Vernon Division office and processed. She has been cited to appear in Windham Superior Court Criminal Division on Oct. 28 to answer a DUI citation.
But Tuttle also wrote, in a more-detailed report released after the Reformer’s records request, that while processing McKenney “I received two phone calls from Patricia O’Donnell.” The first call was at 11:52 p.m. and the second was at 12:05 a.m.
“In both calls, P. O’Donnell was demanding that Lt. Anderson be called in. I advised her that, once I had things settled as far as processing, I would call Lt. Anderson,” Tuttle wrote. “She advised me that, if Lt. Anderson was not present within half an hour, she was going to call Sheriff Keith Clark. I advised her that she could do that if she felt the need to.”
O’Donnell did call Anderson, who later filed a report saying he “had five missed calls from O’Donnell” between 11:50 p.m. and 12:24 a.m. In a voicemail message left with Anderson and released by the sheriff’s department, O’Donnell says she has heard about McKenney’s arrest, “and the story I’m hearing is pretty disturbing.”
“And I’ll tell you, if he followed her for no reason, and all this is going on, there’s going to be hell to pay, ’cause I’m pissed,” O’Donnell says in the message. “She is at the Vernon Police Department right now, and I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable if you were there making sure what was happening was the right thing, because I’m not convinced that she was drinking enough to have been stopped, and I’ve been getting a lot of complaints about Ian following people and putting his lights on and pulling them over for nothing.”
In his written report, Anderson says, “O’Donnell advised that she was ‘pissed off’ regarding the arrest of Lisa McKenney and several times referred to Deputy Tuttle as a pissant. O’Donnell advised that Lisa McKenney was stopped ‘for no reason’ and that Deputy Tuttle had been following her since the post office.”
On Wednesday, when asked about those comments and others in sheriff’s department documents, O’Donnell said she has no intention of attempting to terminate the sheriff’s department contract, which is scheduled to expire June 30, 2015.
“That is going to be a town vote,” she said.
Furthermore, O’Donnell denied that she was attempting to influence the department’s decision to cite or not cite McKenney.
“We certainly don’t want to get in the way of legal issues,” O’Donnell said. “But we don’t want to close our eyes to issues that people are concerned about.”
The Selectboard chairwoman said she was upset about past complaints and about the circumstances of the traffic stop at McKenney’s home.
“(Tuttle) was aggressive. He pulled a gun,” O’Donnell said. “Her two teenaged children were watching from the window.”
She added that “it was midnight. I was scared. I was concerned. I wanted Mark (Anderson) there (at the police station).”
Tuttle’s report says he “performed a felony stop” and put McKenney in handcuffs “until she could be identified.” On Wednesday, Clark acknowledged that Tuttle drew his weapon as part of the stop but also defended his deputy’s decision to do that.
“Given the fact that Ms. McKenney failed to stop for the blue lights and was walking away from (Tuttle), he fell back on his training, which is to assume a level of danger not normally assumed with a traffic stop,” Clark said.
What the sheriff’s department perceived as possible obstruction of justice, however, O’Donnell defends as part of her duties as an elected town official.
“If we have issue with an officer, we can call and express our issues. And really, that’s our job as Selectboard members,” she said. “I see it as my job. I see it as my responsibility. I would do it for any resident in this town. In fact, I do.”
But Clark, who also received a call from O’Donnell after the DUI arrest, noted that, “of all the DUIs that my agency has arrested and charged (in Vernon), the only call that we have received from Ms. O’Donnell was in regard to her friend, Lisa McKenney.”
Asked about whether he believes O’Donnell was trying to get the charges dropped, Clark said only that “I’m always concerned when public officials get involved in criminal cases, because it creates the perception of impropriety.”
It is not clear whether the obstruction of justice allegation will go any farther.
The incident also could damage relations between Vernon Selectboard and the sheriff’s department, less than four months after deputies took over enforcement in the wake of town voters’ decision to shutter the Vernon Police Department.
O’Donnell and Selectboard member Janet Rasmussen met with Anderson two days after the DUI arrest. In his report, Anderson says O’Donnell “advised that the board’s interest in this matter had nothing to do with the DUI or the arrest, but how McKenney was treated.”
On Wednesday, in a joint interview with O’Donnell, Rasmussen told the Reformer that the meeting was “constructive and instructive.” She also backed the Selectboard chairwoman.
“I truly, truly believe Patty would have had the same concern about any resident in town,” Rasmussen said.
