Updated at 7:14 p.m.
Vermont prosecutors are pressuring one of their own — Franklin County State’s Attorney John Lavoie — to resign after an internal investigation found that Lavoie harassed and discriminated against his employees.
Lavoie has refused at least twice to voluntarily step down, according to the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, which began a public campaign on Tuesday to force his resignation and has recommended that the Vermont House consider impeaching Lavoie.
Conor Kennedy, chief of staff to House Speaker Jill Krowinski, D-Burlington, said Tuesday that the House is looking into the possibility of impeachment, though it’s unlikely it could kick off proceedings before the legislative session concludes in the next several weeks.
According to the Department of State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs, the investigation found that Lavoie has a pattern of making derogatory comments targeting almost every protected class, including women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, people with disabilities and people of varying religions. He also allegedly made comments about other people’s “body composition.”
On at least two occasions, Lavoie allegedly touched two separate employees against their wishes. These instances of physical contact were not sexual in nature, John Campbell, the department’s executive director, said at a press conference Tuesday. Campbell described the incidents as nonaggressive invasions of personal space.
Cumulatively, Campbell alleged, Lavoie’s behavior created a hostile work environment — especially in an office composed of mostly women.
Lavoie has worked in the State’s Attorney’s Office for two decades, but was only elected to the top role last November. He was listed on the ballot as a Democrat.
While Campbell held a press conference at the Statehouse on Tuesday calling for Lavoie’s resignation and offering only vague details on the allegations against him, Lavoie sat just feet away, at one point interjecting from the crowd.
After the press conference concluded, Lavoie held his own scrum with reporters during which he doubled down, refusing to resign. He didn’t dispute the fact that he made derogatory comments and jokes in the workplace — in fact, he said he has had the same off-color sense of humor for the entirety of his 35-year career as a prosecutor.
“I am the same guy that I have been all that time and I guess I have to apologize for now suddenly being out of step, maybe, with the times,” Lavoie told reporters.
Lavoie said that he has individually apologized to people he has offended, including two attorneys outside of his office, as well as at an all-staff meeting Tuesday morning.
But the numerous incidents of his inappropriate workplace behavior, he said, “are not sufficient to warrant my resignation.”
“If you took my female staff off the street and introduced them to me and I began talking the way that I often talk, that might be shocking and dismaying,” Lavoie told reporters. “But these are not people that I met two, three months ago. These are people I’ve been with for 20 years, some of them. … As long as they’ve been there, I’ve been the same.”
During the press conference, Campbell noted that Lavoie had a reputation for inappropriateness that predated the investigation. In his decades working in the office, there have not been official complaints lodged against Lavoie for his behavior, nor have there been internal investigations.
The difference now, Campbell continued, is that Lavoie doesn’t answer to a boss. He is the boss.
“He is now the boss. He is now the one who creates the atmosphere in the office,” Campbell said.
Campbell’s office did not provide direct quotations of Lavoie’s comments or further details on their contents, but it estimated that roughly 70% of employees in the State’s Attorney’s Office were subject to his comments, and every employee had heard them.
Asked by a reporter whether his constituents should be confident in his ability to fairly prosecute cases without sexist, homophobic, ableist or otherwise prejudiced bias, Lavoie said yes.
“I would say talk to my — and I know what this sounds like, right? This sounds like, ‘Some of my best friends are Jewish’ — I would say, talk to my gay friends. Talk to my disabled friends. Ask them if I should still be doing what I’m doing,” Lavoie said.
With Lavoie digging in his heels refusing to vacate office, Campbell said he’s worried about the employees at the Franklin County State’s Attorney’s Office, citing “emotional damage to our people, to our employees.” But as for what his department can do about it, there’s not much.
“We’ve talked to these women involved and it is really very difficult to hear some of the situations that occurred, knowing that there’s not much that we can do to prevent the individual from being able to remain in that position where they can continue acting like they have,” Campbell said.
Without Lavoie’s voluntary resignation, removing him from office likely requires legislative action. It’s situations like Lavoie’s that have motivated Campbell to push harder for the state to enact greater enforcement mechanisms for elected officers such as state’s attorneys and sheriffs — a change that would require the long, arduous process of a state constitutional amendment.
When a constitutional officer behaves badly, Campbell said observers wonder, “How can they not be punished, or how can they not be brought to task?”
“It’s, unfortunately, something that I think requires a constitutional amendment,” he said.
(The Senate began contemplating such an amendment, Proposal 1, earlier this session, though it has not yet made it out of committee.)
Campbell was first made aware of the allegations against Lavoie in March, according to a press release issued Tuesday. A final report with the investigators’ findings was issued to the department last week. On Friday, the executive committee reviewed the report and recommended to Campbell that he call for Lavoie’s resignation. The findings of the investigation have been sent to Vermont’s legislative leaders, but the department is declining to release it to the public.
Should the House pursue impeachment, the people of Franklin County could be in for a tumultuous time. The county’s sheriff, John Grismore, is already facing an assault charge for allegedly kicking a shackled man in custody in August. Grismore’s law enforcement certification is currently under review, and some legislators have considered pushing for his impeachment as well.
Lavoie has played a major role in the oversight process of Grismore’s case. On Tuesday, Lavoie said the timing of his own misconduct allegations is “interesting.” But he stopped short of alleging that his own accusers were directly retaliating against him for his work on Grismore’s case.
“If you look at the motivation for bringing these allegations forward, now, someone’s going to be sitting down making a list, right?” he said. “The comments are what they are, right? They’re real, let’s say. The motivation for bringing them forward, I think, is a separate question.
“You know, if somebody’s trying to get rid of me, here’s the way to do it.”
