BENNINGTON — A local white nationalist is scheduled to plead guilty in a couple of weeks to a felony assault and a misdemeanor hate crime under a deal with Bennington County prosecutors.
Max Misch, 39, has agreed to plead guilty to first-degree aggravated domestic assault and to disorderly conduct as a hate crime. The Bennington County State’s Attorney’s Office, in turn, would recommend a suspended jail sentence of one to three years and two years on probation, according to court documents.
One charge alleges that, between December 2020 and July 2021, Misch reinjured the broken arm of a woman living at his home.
In the other, he is accused of getting into an argument with a Bennington woman in June after her teenage son said Misch used a racial slur against him and a teenage friend.
Under state law, the two charges altogether are punishable by up to 17 years in prison.
The State’s Attorney’s Office also agreed to dismiss with prejudice five pending charges against Misch, including another charge of first-degree aggravated domestic assault and a related felony charge of obstruction of justice.
Misch, a combat veteran of the Iraq War, is scheduled to enter his guilty pleas in Bennington Superior criminal court on May 24.
Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage declined to say why her office recommended probation for Misch, instead of a prison sentence. She said she wanted to reserve her comments until his sentencing is completed.
But Marthage confirmed that the cases were resolved as part of the state’s new “Act 14 pilot project,” launched earlier this year.
Under the pilot project, the Vermont Department of Corrections recommends probationary conditions for defendants, rather than have the prosecution and defense negotiate the conditions, Marthage said in an email.
“I believe the hope is that the conditions will be more tailored to the individual based on a number of standardized tools utilized by (the Department of Corrections),” she said.
The prosecutor said the choice of defendants who participate in the pilot project is “not discretionary.” She said all felony cases — other than those specifically excluded in the law — go through the pilot.
Bennington County is currently the only Vermont county taking part in the pilot project, but the plan is to apply it to all 14 counties, once all the unexpected issues are worked out, corrections department spokesperson Rachel Feldman said.
The pilot’s goal, Feldman said, is to help the court set the best conditions of probation to reduce violations and recidivism.
Misch’s plea agreement with Bennington County prosecutors covers five of his nine pending criminal cases. The rest are being handled by the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, including two counts of illegally possessing high-capacity firearm magazines in 2019 — his oldest and highest-profile charges.
That case is awaiting trial because Misch and the Attorney General’s Office couldn’t reach a settlement.
Misch had earlier asked the Vermont Supreme Court to invalidate the magazine law, saying the 2018 statute was unconstitutional, but the court upheld it last year.
A consequence of Misch’s pleading guilty to a crime is his being unable to possess a firearm, according to his plea agreement.
Misch is currently on house arrest 22 hours a day due to his mounting charges.
