An attorney for Daniel Banyai, the owner of Slate Ridge, has asked the state Environmental Court to press pause on Banyai’s pending arrest while he appeals the court’s decision to the Vermont Supreme Court.
Slate Ridge, a paramilitary training facility that invited militia groups to train on its grounds in West Pawlet, has been the subject of local outrage, statewide controversy and national media attention.
The July 19 filing marked the latest in a yearslong back-and-forth between Banyai and officials in the town of Pawlet over the facility’s zoning violations. The matter seemed to culminate earlier this month when Judge Thomas Durkin issued an arrest warrant, declaring that Banyai was in contempt of a March 2021 court order that required him to dismantle unpermitted structures on his property. Banyai had amassed fines totalling more than $100,000.
The warrant was issued on July 6, but Banyai has not yet been arrested. The stay, if granted, would kick off a new process that would further delay Banyai’s arrest.
At first, a disagreement between Rutland County Sheriff David Fox and the town of Pawlet appeared to hinder the effort to arrest Banyai.
On July 10, Michael Beecher, chair of the Pawlet Selectboard, penned a letter to Fox addressing the sheriff’s initial response to the town’s mandate that he arrest Banyai — that the sheriff didn’t have a contract with Pawlet and therefore couldn’t carry out the task.
In the letter, obtained by VTDigger, Beecher countered that the town was within the sheriff’s jurisdiction.
“The Town of Pawlet has and will continue to accrue damages in the form of attorneys’ fees required to seek enforcement of the lawful writ that you have refused to execute,” Beecher wrote. “The Town asks that you promptly confirm that you will follow the law, as required.”
More recently, the sheriff has been making attempts to arrest Banyai, according to the Bennington Banner. Fox did not respond to multiple requests for comment from VTDigger on Tuesday.
Now, the issue may be complicated by Banyai’s pending request for a stay on his arrest.
In the court filing, which asks the Environmental Division of the Vermont Superior Court to stop the arrest order until the state Supreme Court reviews the appeal, Robert Kaplan, Banyai’s attorney, argued that the arrest order is not proportionate to Banyai’s civil offense.
While Banyai’s zoning violations are a civil matter, his continued violation of his court orders allowed the judge to order his imprisonment. Kaplan argues that judges use civil contempt penalties “to coerce the defendant to do some act ordered by the court for the benefit or advantage of the opposite party.” Accordingly, the person under court orders is commonly thought to hold “the keys to the jail” because he can be freed as soon as he cures the violation.
But Kaplan argues that the environmental court order is “punitive as opposed to coercive” because, along with Banyai’s imprisonment, the judge issued a fine of $100,600 that continues to rise by $200 every day until Banyai removes the unpermitted structures on his property.
“Defendant cannot coordinate the removal of structures while incarcerated nor will he be able to afford the cost to pay others to complete such removal” due to the court’s fine, Kaplan wrote. Instead, the town could enter the property and bring it into compliance with the court order while Banyai was in jail, which would “provide the Town, not Defendant, with the ‘keys to the jail,’” Kaplan wrote.
Kaplan also argues that Banyai has mostly come into compliance with the court order.
“Mr. Banyai has effected substantial complaince (sic) with Environmental Court’s enforcement order and he expects the issue of compliance to be resolved shortly,” Kaplan wrote in an email to VTDigger on Tuesday.
In June, when town officials arrived at Banyai’s property to assess whether he had complied with a court-ordered schedule to remove the structures on his property, Banyai didn’t show.
In a reply motion, Merrill Bent, the attorney for the town of Pawlet, argued that the court should not grant Banyai’s request for a stay.
Banyai “should not be able to raise his own noncompliance as a shield,” Bent wrote. “He has been well aware of the consequences for his failure to act. The Court has warned him, repeatedly and clearly, and has created numerous ‘off-ramps’ for Defendant to comply so that he could avoid the sanctions he now faces.”
Banyai’s appeal has not yet been processed by the state Supreme Court.
