A defense lawyer is accusing the Vermont Attorney General’s Office of unethical actions and wants it thrown off a murder case in Chittenden County.
David Sleigh, a St. Johnsbury attorney, represents Louis Fortier, 42, who’s accused of stabbing and killing Richard Medina, 43, on the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington in March 2017.
Sleigh filed a motion this week calling into question alleged actions by the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and Assistant Attorney General Robert Lees. Sleigh accused the prosecution of engaging in “unethical conduct in an attempt to seek an unfair advantage.”
The Attorney General’s Office, in a statement Thursday, called the allegation “meritless” and said it would file its response in court.
“The Office remains committed to the pursuit of justice for Richard Medina and his family,” it said.
The judge gave the Attorney General’s Office until Monday to reply to Sleigh’s filing.
He alleges the prosecution contacted Dr. Cassandra Hobgood, a psychiatrist, and “inquired about her recollections of her treatment” of Fortier and “whether or not she would be able to testify about the same,” according to his court filing.
That move, Sleigh wrote, came after the prosecution asked the court for judicial summonses to obtain medical records and the testimony of the 28 treatment providers who had provided care to Fortier.
“In a pleading,” Sleigh wrote of the prosecution, “they acknowledged they could not access either without such a subpoena or a (federal medical privacy law) release from (Fortier).”
But still, the defense attorney wrote, the prosecution reached out to Hobgood.
“The State’s contact and interview of Dr. Hobgood was an effort to obtain evidence in violation of Defendant’s privileged relationship with her,” Sleigh wrote.
Sleigh said he has called on the Attorney General’s Office to provide him with all records regarding the prosecution’s contact with Hobgood, including interview recordings or summaries, but has received no response.
The allegations against the Attorney General’s Office follow a blow to its case, when an expert the state hired found Fortier to be insane at the time of the crime.
Sleigh said Thursday that he believed that’s when prosecutors “changed tack,” seeking Fortier’s psychiatric history “to try to show that there were times when Louis was violent when he may not have been insane.”
Fortier’s sanity has been the main issue in the case for several years. His was one of three high-profile cases dismissed in 2019 by Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George, who contended in each one she could not rebut insanity defenses based on expert opinions.
Prompted by Gov. Phil Scott to review the cases, then-Attorney General TJ Donovan made the unusual move of refiling charges in all three cases.
One of those cases has since ended in a plea deal and another ended with a conviction following a jury trial last month.
If the court rules in his favor, Sleigh said he expected the case would be turned over to a prosecuting entity with “concurrent” jurisdiction, which in this case would be the Chittenden County State’s Attorney’s Office.