In a lengthy press release Sunday afternoon, Grand Isle County State’s Attorney Doug DiSabito lambasted a judge’s sentence of probation for a local man convicted of selling drugs, accusing the judge of imperiling public safety by not ordering the man to prison.
The fiery statement from the Democratic prosecutor — whose office only rarely sends press releases — also suggested Judge Samuel Hoar’s ruling was part of a larger trend of Vermont judges issuing sentences for drug-related crimes that, in DiSabito’s view, are too light.
The prosecutor also pointed to ongoing construction of new fencing and gates around much of the Chittenden County Superior courthouse in Burlington, which he said are going up in response to an uptick in violence and drug use there. DiSabito suggested that similar fencing could have to be put up around Grand Isle County’s courthouse in North Hero, too.
“It’s just disturbing,” DiSabito said Monday. “I was beyond disappointed.”
Renovations to the courthouse property in Burlington are slated to cost about $120,000, according to Connie Ramsey, one of Chittenden County’s assistant judges. That includes fencing and brighter lights along the back and both sides of the building, and a gate across the parking lot.
Ramsey said that courthouse staff routinely feel unsafe walking outside the building, pointing to discarded needles and broken bottles, as well as people fighting.
“Why shouldn’t these dealers foot some of the Chittenden County Courthouse’s six-figure fencing bill?” DiSabito wrote, in the press release and an op-ed published on the conservative news site Vermont Daily Chronicle.
DiSabito also shared the press release to his Facebook page, where he wrote that he was soliciting comments from local residents who were “dismayed about the sentence.” The state’s attorney said Monday that numerous residents had contacted him to share their concerns.
The Grand Isle case in question was that of Michael Larrow Sr., who as part of a June plea agreement with the state pleaded no contest to possessing at least 70 milligrams of fentanyl and pleaded guilty to distributing 200 milligrams or more of heroin, court records show.
Larrow was convicted in federal court in 2011 of selling oxycodone in Grand Isle and served about four years in prison, according to DiSabito. In 2019, Larrow served 30 days in prison for illegal possession of Diazepam, a prescription anxiety medication.
In the most recent case, Larrow sold drugs to a police informant on multiple occasions in 2020 and 2021, according to court records. Because he was a repeat offender — “relentless in poisoning our community,” Disabito told the court — who also was found with as potent a drug as fentanyl, the state’s attorney said a harsh sentence was in order.
DiSabito sought a combined sentence of 30 years to life in prison, plus a $20,000 fine.
Larrow’s attorney, on the other hand, argued more prison time would not help the 66-year-old man but actually set him back because Larrow has been attending drug rehabilitation classes and is being held to biweekly drug tests since his arrest in the latest case.
Mark Kaplan, the attorney, asked Hoar for a probationary sentence, describing Larrow in a sentencing memorandum as “a street level dealer” who sold small quantities of drugs “to support his habit.”
Hoar agreed with Kaplan’s characterization, according to a transcript of the hearing. Larrow was sentenced to four to 10 years in prison, all suspended with a four-year term of probation instead. He was released on conditions that he submit to random drug testing and searches of his property, and that he inform the court of any prescription drugs he’s using, among others.
DiSabito acknowledged that Hoar’s sentence was “entirely within” Vermont’s sentencing guidelines for drug-related crimes. But he pushed back on the “street level” description, saying the scope of Larrow’s dealing needed to be weighed against its setting — the Lake Champlain Islands, which have about 7,500 residents spread out among five rural towns.
“If you were to take this individual and pluck them out of Grand Isle County and put them in Times Square, I would wholeheartedly say, yes, this person is a low-level drug dealer,” DiSabito said Monday. “But not in Grand Isle County.”
He said Hoar’s ruling would, in his view, “encourage” and “embolden” more people to travel to the county to traffic and sell illegal drugs.
Hoar did not respond to a request for comment Monday afternoon.
In an interview Monday, Falko Schilling, advocacy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, pushed back on the notion that harsher sentences for people convicted of drug-related crimes would help reduce illicit drug use. More resources for rehabilitation, he said, were a better use of public funding than more resources for law enforcement to prosecute and incarcerate people.
Schilling added that the organization thinks it’s a good thing when judges use their discretion in a given case to limit the most punitive sentences.
“We have, for far too long, seen sentences be far too high,” he said. “And it’s good when that discretion is used to take smarter approaches, and not just rely on incarceration — which we know doesn’t actually solve the problem.”
