[M]ONTPELIER — The interim head of the Washington County state’s attorney’s office topped the list of attorneys who have been recommended to Gov. Phil Scott to fill the post for the remainder of the term.
The Washington County Democratic Committee met Saturday morning at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier and heard from three candidates interested in the position. The committee overwhelmingly selected Rory Thibault as their first choice.
Thibault has held the position on an interim basis for about two weeks, appointed by Scott a day after the resignation of Scott Williams, a Democrat, who had held the state’s attorney position before going out on medical leave in mid-November.
Caucus members were asked Saturday to rank Thibault and the two other candidates on their ballots.
Thibault was the top choice on 19 ballots. Ashley Hill, a current Washington County deputy state’s attorney, had five first place votes, and Stephen Craddock, a longtime attorney in Washington County, had two first place votes.
The three names and their vote totals will be forwarded to the governor. Scott had asked the Washington County Democratic Committee to forward him a list of nominees to be considered to fill out the remainder of Williams’ four-year term, which is up for re-election in November.
“The decision will be up to the governor,” Thibault said Saturday after the vote totals were announced. “I hope he considers the candidates and picks someone who will do the best job for the county.”
The governor generally selects a name from the slate of the candidates forwarded to him from the party caucus, but is not bound by the list.
At the caucus meeting Saturday morning, Thibault, Hill and Craddock talked of their experience and took questions from caucus members about their priorities if named to the post.
Williams, who took office in 2014, resigned two weeks ago, citing post-traumatic stress disorder prompted by the fatal shooting 2½ years ago of Lara Sobel, a state social worker. Williams responded to the scene of the crime.
He has been on medical leave from his office since mid-November, when the sentencing hearing took place for Jody Herring, who killed three of her relatives in addition to Sobel.
The now-former prosecutor was with Sobel when she died and had been credited with disarming Herring. However, witnesses who testified at the sentencing hearing said it wasn’t Williams who disarmed Herring, but instead she put down the rifle on the ground.
Williams was excused from testifying at Herring’s sentencing after he filed a motion to quash a subpoena. At the time he was excused from testifying, Williams was reportedly receiving psychiatric care at the Brattleboro Retreat.
The state Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, with help from county attorneys from across Vermont, has been assisting the Washington County state’s attorney’s office since Williams went on leave.
In a strongly worded order, a judge earlier this month ruled that the Washington County state’s attorney office dropped the ball in a child sex case, prompting him to dismiss a felony charge that carried a possible life sentence.
“It was a matter that brought a lot attention and many phone calls,” John Campbell, head of the state Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, told caucus members Saturday of that judge’s ruling. “One of those phone calls was from the governor … I told the governor we had to get somebody in there now.”
Campbell said Scott agreed that somebody needed to fill the state’s attorney role full time in the office, adding that Williams was “gracious” and agreed to resign.
Campbell said he was then asked by the governor for a recommendation for someone to fill the job on an interim basis and he suggested Thibault, the former chief deputy in the office.
The next morning, Campbell said, Thibault was sworn in by the governor as the interim head of the Washington County state’s attorney’s office.
Brandon Bantham, chair of the Barre City Democratic Committee, said at the end of the meeting Saturday that people should be grateful for Williams’ efforts in office.
“It’s a tragedy what happened to him. I don’t want us to forget the Scott Williams we elected, and the Scott Williams that served prior to the tragedy that occurred in Barre, it would affected any us,” Bantham said. “It shows that PTSD knows no bounds.”
