A South Burlington man incarcerated at the St. Albans prison has been cited for attempted murder in what corrections officials called an assault that left his cellmate in critical condition last month.
Mbyayenge Mafuta, 21, was issued a citation Thursday for the felony charge and is due in Franklin County Superior criminal court on Feb. 14 for an arraignment, state police said in a press release Thursday afternoon.
Mafuta is accused of beating Jeffrey Hall, 55, in a cell they shared at the Northwest State Correctional Facility around 2 p.m. on Dec. 22.
Hall suffered life-threatening injuries and was hospitalized at the University of Vermont Medical Center, according to police. State police spokesperson Adam Silverman said he could not provide an update on Hall’s condition on Thursday. The medical center did not immediately return a phone call late Thursday afternoon.
State police said they are not releasing additional details of the case. The affidavit of probable cause will become public following Mafuta’s arraignment.
The corrections department issued a press release on the day of the incident, referring to it as an assault. State police provided its own news release last week identifying the parties in the case, terming the episode an “altercation.”
Silverman said at that time that the term “assault” had a legal meaning and that state police were still investigating at that point to determine what had happened.
The Franklin County State’s Attorney’s Office reviewed the state police findings and requested state police issue the attempted murder citation against Mafuta, according to the state police press release.
Hall had been incarcerated without bail since Nov. 13 on charges of petit larceny, driving a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent, and providing false information to police.
Following the assault and his hospitalization, the court suspended his bail while he is receiving medical care.
Mafuta was arrested in August and lodged on a bail condition that would allow him to be released only into the custody of a responsible adult approved by the court, according to the corrections department.
He was taken into custody in August after police said he vandalized 33 homes in Burlington, throwing objects through the windows that resulted in thousands of dollars of damage.
A competency hearing for Mafuta in the cases against him is scheduled for next week.
