[B]ENNINGTON — A lawsuit against a former high school basketball coach who last year pleaded no contest to misdemeanor counts of cruelty to a child has been dismissed at the request of the plaintiffs.
An attorney for the girl’s parents said they were now convinced they could not collect damages from the defendant even with a judgment in their favor.
Leo Reynolds and his wife, Pamela, were being sued by the parents of the girl victim in the criminal case, which ended in November 2016 with Leo Reynolds’ no contest plea.
In the criminal case, he was accused of inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl whom he knew while they were together in his home, with the girl’s mother downstairs with Pamela Reynolds at the time.
He originally was charged with felony counts alleging he inappropriately touched the girl on more than one occasion in 2013. A key turning point came when a judge ruled, and the Vermont Supreme Court agreed, that Leo Reynolds’ confession to police was involuntary and unconstitutional and could not be used as evidence.
With the trial set to start last November, he agreed to plead no contest to the lesser charges in exchange for the state dropping felony counts of lewd and lascivious conduct and aggravated sexual assault on a victim less than 13.
Leo Reynolds, 71, received a suspended sentence with a minimum of one year and maximum of two years, concurrent to each charge, and two years of probation.
The plea agreement also required him to have no contact with anyone under 16 with the exception of family members, unless another adult was present within the line of sight.
Leo Reynolds coached the Mount Anthony Union High School girls basketball team for 28 years until mid-season 2012. He wasn’t accused of improper conduct with any children he coached.
In a motion to dismiss the civil suit in Superior Court, filed July 5 by the plaintiffs’ attorney, Jerome O’Neill, of Gravel & Shea of Burlington, the attorney stated in part, “It is clear from information supplied by defendants’ counsel that to pursue this action is an exercise in futility. While plaintiffs are virtually certain to prevail at trial, and to obtain a judgment for substantial damages, plaintiffs have no reason to believe that a judgment” is collectible.
O’Neill said in an interview that lawyers routinely decline to take civil cases when there’s little prospect of collecting from the party being sued.
It’s more unusual to drop a case midstream, he said, but Leo Reynolds had spent down a significant portion of his assets on his criminal case. He added that made it “not worth the time and effort” to continue to pursue the case.
Judge John Valente approved the dismissal request on July 10.
Attorney David Silver, who represented the defendants, declined to comment on the development other than to say they expressed relief that the suit had ended.
