[B]ARRE – A second drug case involving a police officer accused of conducting improper searches is under scrutiny.
Defense attorney Avi Springer is challenging the legality of a search John Helfant, then a sergeant with the Berlin Police Department, carried out a year ago on a defendant facing drug charges.
Helfant, now the chief of the Northfield Police Department, is currently under investigation by the Attorney General’s Office because of questions Springer raised about whether the police officer legally searched a defendant in a separate drug case. Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault, the prosecutor, opted to dismiss that drug case earlier this year.
Springer contended that the account Helfant gave in a sworn affidavit regarding consent for a search did not match the footage from the body cam he was wearing. Helfant has argued that he did get consent, though he admitted it was not audible on the recording.
Thibault referred that matter to the state Attorney General’s Office for investigation, and the review is still ongoing.
Now, Springer is challenging the legality of a search Helfant and other officers carried out in a case involving a defendant in a separate case — Jermaine Parsons, 36, of the Bronx, New York, who is facing drug charges.
“Although the officers attempted to justify that search by framing it as a ‘consent search,’ Mr. Parsons’ purported consent was invalid because it was given in response to a threat that the officers would seize him if he did not agree to the search,” Springer wrote in his recent filing to suppress the evidence seized from the case and dismiss charges against Parsons.
“This threat was without legal basis,” the defense attorney wrote, “since the officers never gained probable cause to search or arrest Mr. Parsons, and therefore rendered his consent to a search involuntary.”
Helfant said Friday that motions to suppress evidence and dismiss cases are “common,” particularly in cases involving drugs or drunken driving.
“I will say this, there is always more to a case than what a defense attorney files in their motion to suppress, there is always something more,” he said. “I’ll leave the facts of the case for the suppression hearing because that’s the proper place for it to be argued.”
David Sleigh, a St. Johnsbury attorney representing Helfant, was out of the office Thursday and Friday and couldn’t be reached for comment.
According to an affidavit filed by Helfant in support of the drug charges against Parsons, at around 1:45 a.m. on July 2, 2018, he received a tip from another law enforcement officer reporting that he had received information from a “reliable informant.”
That tip, according to the affidavit, was that Cherie Salls, of Greensboro Bend, and Parsons would soon be driving in a silver vehicle with heroin and cocaine hidden on Parsons, heading to Hardwick.
The officer providing the tip also sent Helfant a photo of Parsons, according to the affidavit.
A little more than an hour later Helfant wrote that he saw a silver Kia Sportage driving in Barre Town. Helfant wrote that along with another officer he set up an “observation point” on Route 14 in East Montpelier to see if the vehicle would return north as the informant had stated.
At about 3:30 a.m., Helfant wrote, he spotted the same Kia heading north, and it then pulled into a driveway where he pulled over the vehicle based on “reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity (drug possession).”
He wrote that Salls voluntarily agreed to exit the vehicle, and identified Parsons as a passenger in the vehicle.
During a search of the vehicle, the affidavit stated, Helfant found four buprenorphine pills, two amphetamine pills, two heroin packets, two crack pipes, a pill grinder and a “snort tube.”
According to the affidavit, Helfant said he then told Salls and Parsons that he had probable cause to search the “entirety of the vehicle” as well as each of them.
“I gave them the options of allowing a search of their persons at roadside or that they could require that I seize them and apply for a search warrant from a judge to search them,” Helfant wrote.
“I advised them that the choice was theirs,” according to the affidavit. “Salls and Parsons both consented to a search of their persons at roadside.”
During the searches, Helfant wrote officers found 11.98 grams of cocaine in a sneaker belonging to Parsons and 1.45 grams of suspected heroin, though it later tested as oxycodone. Police seized $3,546 from Parsons’ “person,” the affidavit stated.
Also, according to the affidavit, officers found 2.5 grams of crack cocaine on Salls.
Salls was released on a citation on cocaine possession charges, while Parsons, due to his out-of-state address, was lodged and charged with cocaine and heroin possession, both felonies, and a misdemeanor count of possession of a narcotic, according to court records.
Springer, Parsons’ attorney, wrote in his filing to dismiss the charges against his client that there were body recordings from other officers at the scene, but Helfant’s body camera footage could not be located by the Berlin Police Department.
Springer wrote that after the Kia was stopped Parsons told Helfant he was not consenting to a search of himself.
After the officers searched the vehicle, Springer wrote, Helfant then told Salls and Parsons that he “found a couple of things” in the vehicle that give him probable cause to “seize” them both.
According to Springer’s account, Helfant told Salls and Parsons: “I can seize you both and apply for a search warrant to search you completely, head to toe, everywhere.” Helfant allegedly continued, “Or you can allow a search of your person now at roadside.”
Then, according to Springer, Helfant said, “You have two choices: allow me to search you here at roadside or I’m going to seize you and apply for a warrant.”
Springer wrote that faced with those options, his client told Helfant to proceed with the search.
According to the defense attorney, the charges against Parsons should be thrown out for several reasons, including a lack of justification for the initial stop and the unlawful search of his client.
For example, he wrote, the drugs found in the initial search of the vehicle came from inside Salls’ purse.
“Although Officer Helfant asserted that the contraband found in Ms. Salls purse gave rise to probable cause with respect to Mr. Parsons, this is not the case,” Springer wrote.
“Probable cause for an arrest exists,” he wrote, “when the facts and circumstances known to an officer are sufficient to lead a reasonable person to believe that a crime was committed and that the suspect committed it.”
Because the contraband found “clearly” belonged to Salls, Springer wrote, it did not create probable cause to search or arrest Parsons.
In addition, according to Springer, Parsons’ later consent to search was invalid because it was given in response to an unlawful threat that he would be arrested.
“Officer Helfant had no legal basis to carry out this threat since the information he possessed was insufficient to create reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause for an arrest,” Springer wrote.
Thibault, the Washington County prosecutor, said he intends to file a response to the motion to dismiss by the court-ordered deadline of July 3, declining to say what he intended to include in that filing.
This case has also been referred to the Attorney General’s Office for review, according to Thibault.
That decision was made, Thibault said, after his office reviewed all pending cases involving Helfant following questions raised in the initial case referred to the Attorney General’s Office. They are the only two cases that he had sent to the Attorney General’s Office for review, Thibault added.
He also said that the lack of the body camera footage in this case from Helfant was looked into and it was determined that there was “no malfeasance,” but rather a technical issue.
Body camera footage from the other officers at the scene also captured the incident, Thibault said, and those recordings have all been turned over to the defense.
Helfant retired after serving 28 years with Vermont State Police. He then served a short stint with the Berlin Police Department before being named chief in Northfield last year.
Parsons has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and has been released on $35,000 bail. Salls has since resolved the case against her stemming from the stop as part of an agreement involving other unrelated offenses, Thibault said.