[B]ENNINGTON — Christina Rainville, a candidate for Bennington County state’s attorney, has escalated her attacks on her former boss, three-term incumbent Erica Marthage.
Rainville alleges in a release that she was forced from her job as chief deputy in the office in 2016, and contends that Marthage has mismanaged the office during her 11 years as the county’s top prosecutor.
After the withdrawal last week of Arnold Gottlieb from what had been a three-way race, Marthage and her former deputy are now facing off in the Nov. 6 election.
Rainville is running as an independent while Marthage is on both the Democratic and Republican ballot lines.
Rainville, 56, has worked in private practice since leaving the prosecutor’s office as a defense attorney and is handling employment-related and discrimination civil litigation with Ellis, Boxer & Blake of Springfield. She currently resides in Chester but said that if she is elected she would move to a home she and her husband have in Manchester.
Marthage, 48, of Manchester, was first elected to the post in 2006, defeating longtime incumbent William Wright, who served as state’s attorney for 20 years.
Rainville said Marthage’s mismanagement has resulted in frequent staff turnover. She said that 22 employees, including 11 lawyers, have left the office during Marthage’s 11-year tenure, leaving the office “perpetually understaffed.” Right now, she said, the office has three of the four deputy state’s attorneys it is supposed to have.
“At least 10 employees were fired,” Rainville said. “The office has only nine employees. One of the nine leaves on average every six months.”
She added, “The chaos that the state’s attorney’s mismanagement has caused since she has been in office, and which continues to this day, is a great disservice to Bennington County, as cases cannot get the attention that they require.”
Marthage said that many attorneys have left for better jobs, including state’s attorney elsewhere and Rutland city counsel.
“In truth, junior positions in my office are often a stepping stone individuals use to further their careers. … I did terminate Ms. Rainville’s employment, which is why her complaints now seem like a bunch of sour grapes,” Marthage said.
In her press release, Rainville contends the reason she left the Bennington state’s attorney’s office “was a fundamental disagreement between myself and the present state’s attorney over the need to abide by legal and ethical obligations that apply to prosecutors. I always insisted that we needed to abide by the law. She disagreed.”
Rainville added, “There is a clear legal and ethical requirement that prosecutors must turn over evidence that a criminal defendant might find helpful. The [state] Department of Labor made an explicit finding that my determination to comply with that law was the reason the present state’s attorney forced me to leave on Christmas Day, 2015.”
In paperwork concerning Rainville’s claim for unemployment compensation, the labor department stated in January 2016 that it had determined she was “discharged from this employment for disclosing information [she] felt was pertinent to a case.”
The notice states that, “based on the available evidence, you were discharged by your last employing unit but not for misconduct connected with your work when the employer has failed to substantiate such.”
However, the notice, sent Jan. 15, 2016, also states that “to date, your employer has not responded to a departmental request for further information regarding this matter.”
Marthage responded this week: “It is unfortunate that Ms. Rainville has chosen to be disingenuous in her statement and to distort the facts to serve her own political purpose. This is troubling behavior for someone who wants to be the state’s attorney.”
Marthage said she could not comment further on Rainville’s termination due to state personnel policies. But, she added, “I can say that, as a matter of policy, our department does not dispute unemployment claims unless for gross misconduct or if the employee resigns.”
Rainville also said she has been asked about criticism of her by a Philadelphia judge in a case in which she represented a client pro bono.
After that U.S. District Court judge’s decision in 2011, and a subsequent complaint filed anonymously in 2013 with the Vermont Professional Responsibility Board, the Vermont Office of Disciplinary Counsel, Rainville said in her release, “found no evidence of unethical conduct and dismissed the case without even proceeding to a hearing.”
Marthage “was aware of that determination since the day it was issued in 2013,” Rainville added. “More than two years later, when I correctly insisted that I nonetheless had a legal and ethical obligation to disclose that court opinion in a DUI case in which I was listed as a witness, the state’s attorney forced me out of the office.”
Marthage responded on Monday: “Ms. Rainville’s claim that I instructed her to act unethically is ridiculous. In a Pennsylvania matter, a federal court found Ms. Rainville’s testimony there was ‘contradictory, incorrect or demonstrably false.’ That case related to a matter she handled before coming to my office, so Ms. Rainville’s ethical challenges were of her own making.”
In the 2011 ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Judge Paul Diamond was critical of Rainville’s testimony during an evidentiary hearing.
“Reluctantly, I find that significant portions of Ms. Rainville’s testimony at the October 29th hearing were not credible,” the judge wrote in denying an appeal from an imprisoned man convicted of murder and other charges in 1994.
In later explaining that situation to the Vermont Office of Disciplinary Counsel, Rainville stated in part, “I certainly made mistakes in my testimony. Despite my best efforts, my memory was proven faulty on cross-examination when I was presented with documents that I had not seen in ten years and simply did not remember.”
In a review decision, dated March 22, 2013, Vermont Disciplinary Counsel Beth DeBernardi closed the complaint without action. She wrote that she found no “clear and convincing evidence of a lack of diligence or an intent to mislead the [federal] court.”
Rainville said she will post on her campaign website [ChristinaRainville.com] the Department of Labor’s decision on her unemployment claim, as well as the decision of the Office of Disciplinary Counsel concerning the 2013 complaint filed against her.
Rainville has issued two prior releases critical of Marthage since announcing a run for state’s attorney prior to the Aug. 14 primary. In those, Rainville alleged Marthage was slow to realize the impacts of the opioid addiction crisis and criticized the incumbent’s position that a formal drug court docket is not needed in Bennington County because of the existence of other court diversion programs.
The state’s attorney candidates are scheduled to meet at a campaign forum on Sept. 25 at the Bennington Firehouse, in an event that will be recorded by the local cable network, CAT-TV.
