A trial date has been set for a former New York police detective facing child rape charges that have been working their way through the court system in Bennington County for more than three decades, though it is still several months away.
Leonard Forte, who turned 80 on Monday, has been scheduled to stand trial in March on sexual assault charges.
During a video hearing in the case Monday from Bennington County Superior criminal court, Judge Cortland Corsones set the jury drawing and trial date after hearing views on the matter from the prosecution and from Forte’s attorney.
Corsones still has motions to decide before the trial, including the scope of a mental competency examination that Forte is set to undergo later this week.
Deputy State’s Attorney Linda Purdy, a prosecutor in the case, pushed for the need to set a trial date.
“Give us a date certain that’s further out so that at least all of us can be working toward that goal,” Purdy said. The prosecutor said the lack of a trial date “doesn’t give any sort of sense of finality to the victim in this case who has been waiting all these years.”
Attorney Susan McManus, a public defender representing Forte, said a great deal of work remains to be done before the case will be trial-ready and didn’t think March would be realistic.
“It would be our intention to depose all of the state’s witnesses in order to determine their own competency to testify as witnesses as 30 years have passed, your honor,” McManus said. “Some of the witnesses are not even alive anymore.”
McManus added, “Getting these depositions done would be a substantial amount of resources, both time and otherwise.”
Corsones said the case had been tried previously, so a record of what witnesses previously testified to should be available.
“There’s been a lot of press, your honor, about this case,” McManus replied. “We want to make sure none of their testimony is tainted.”
Purdy echoed some of the judge’s comments.
“The defense has all of the evidence and the trial transcripts of what these witnesses are going to testify to,” the prosecutor said. “The preparation and the time it’s going to take to depose these witnesses is not that great; it’s not that complicated of a case.”
Corsones then set the trial date.
“I think March gives everybody plenty of time to be prepared,” the judge said. “We are not starting from scratch.”
Forte is a retired New York detective who now lives in LaBelle, Florida. He is accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in Bennington County in 1987.
In 1988, a jury convicted Forte of three counts of sexual assault. However, the judge in that trial threw out the convictions because he said he had found the female prosecutor in the case to have been overly emotional during her closing arguments.
The case was subsequently set for retrial.
However, the case faced decades of delays after a doctor reported that Forte was on “death’s bed” and too ill to travel to Vermont for a trial. But, a USA Today report revealed that Forte didn’t appear to be nearly as ill as he was portraying to the court.
Vermont State Police then investigated Forte’s health claims, along with authorities in Florida. New charges of obstruction of justice were brought against Forte earlier this month, alleging he faked a doctor note and lied about receiving hospice care. He has pleaded not guilty to those two felony offenses.
The trial in March would be just on the sexual assault charges against Forte. A trial on the obstruction of justice charges would take place sometime after.
The judge also asked the attorneys Monday how long they thought a trial on the sex charges would last.
“I would say two weeks would probably be enough,” said Purdy, the prosecutor.
McManus, Forte’s lawyer, said she thought the trial would last a bit longer.
“I think three weeks is more realistic,” the defense attorney said.
Corsones didn’t challenge that assertion and put the case down for a March trial.
Forte, who has been free while awaiting trial, is in Florida and did not take part in Monday’s hearing.
Editor’s note: The headline in an earlier version of this story insufficiently described the nature and severity of the allegations against Forte.
