A former Williston Selectboard member pleaded guilty to stalking on Monday afternoon after reaching a plea deal with the state.
Gordon St. Hilaire, who resigned from the board in December, was given a deferred sentence and will serve six months probation — a deal Judge Thomas Carlson accepted during a hearing on Monday.
As part of the agreement with Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George, the state dropped a charge against St. Hilaire of unlawful mischief. In addition to typical conditions of probation, St. Hilaire must also avoid contact with the victim, the agreement states.
During the hearing in Chittenden County Superior Criminal court, George told Carlson that the victim supported the agreement and that the state would have sought more than the six-month probation if that wasn’t the case.
George also noted St. Hilaire’s cooperation.
“Mr. St. Hilaire has been seeking to take responsibility since the night he was (spoken) to by police and since the start of this case has been doing what we would have asked him to do on probation,” George told the judge.
St. Hilaire was arrested on a stalking charge after Williston police said he let the air out of the tires on a woman’s vehicle on multiple occasions beginning in October 2022. When St. Hilaire was eventually stopped and questioned by police in November, St. Hilaire said he was reacting to a breakup with the woman.
During Monday’s hearing, the victim in the case described the fear she felt as the episodes continued.
“After learning this wasn’t a faulty tire at all and someone was physically doing this to me, makes me tremble with fear, distrust, anxiety, anger and a sense of personal violation,” she said in court. VTDigger is not naming her because she is a victim of relationship violence.
St. Hilaire acknowledged that he knew his actions would cause emotional distress and apologized to the victim while reading from a statement.
“I can sense her nervousness, her worry, how scared she is, and I’m truly, really, very sorry for that,” St. Hilaire told the court. “I want her to know that she can be reassured that this will never happen again.”
Attorney Brooks McArthur, representing St. Hilaire, said his client’s actions were part of an attempt to get the victim “to reach out to him for help.” McArthur sought to link some of St. Hilaire’s behavior to a prescribed medication which had a “bizarre effect on him” but also noted that St Hilaire was “here today to take responsibility.”
St. Hilaire is a former teacher of grades five and six at Camel’s Hump Middle School in Richmond. He resigned that position in early December, according to the Mt. Mansfield Unified Union School District.
Clarification: An earlier version of this story omitted part of St. Hilaire’s sentence.