BURLINGTON — A judge said he wants more information before agreeing to a resolution to the drunken driving case against Addison County State’s Attorney Eva Vekos. The resolution could allow for the conviction to eventually be erased from her record.
Superior Court Judge John Pacht said Wednesday that he was considering accepting a possible resolution to the case that would allow Vekos to plead no contest to the misdemeanor DUI charge against her in Chittenden County Superior criminal court.
Pacht said Vekos’ sentence would be deferred for 90 days and she would be placed on probation. If after those 90 days, Vekos did not violate her probation, her conviction on the drunken driving charge would be cleared from her record, the judge said.
The judge said he would wait until he received the results of a presentencing investigation by the probation department before deciding whether to accept that resolution.
He added that the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, which is prosecuting the case, opposed that possible resolution, and he would consider their arguments at a future hearing before deciding whether to accept it.
A date for that hearing was not immediately decided Wednesday.
The attorneys met for several sessions with the judge in his chambers Wednesday before ultimately emerging in open court during what was scheduled to be a hearing on a defense motion to dismiss the case.
Pacht, speaking from the bench, told the courtroom what the parties had been talking about behind closed doors. He also offered a glimpse at why he may consider the proposal to be an “appropriate resolution.”
The case has already been pending for a considerable amount of time and a trial wouldn’t be straightforward, he said.
Pacht’s contemplation comes after Vekos’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss her drunk driving charge at the end of August. Vekos, who has served as the elected Addison County state’s attorney since 2023, was arrested on the night of Jan. 25, 2024, after she allegedly drove impaired to the scene of a suspicious death investigation in Bridport, according to the charging documents.
It’s been over a year and a half since she was charged with driving under the influence, and Pacht estimated the case probably wouldn’t reach trial until early 2026. And even if it did, the trial wouldn’t be simple, he said.
“My understanding from both parties is that this is clearly not a slam dunk if it went to trial,” Pacht said.
In the time since the charge, Vekos has had her driver’s license suspended for six months as a civil penalty. She has also completed a course on drinking and driving and engaged in counseling to get her driver’s license back, Pacht said, and followed all of her conditions of release while the case remains open.
“Typically a DUI is resolved within six months. This case is pending for going on two years,” Pacht said.
Neither Vekos nor David Sleigh, her attorney, would comment following Wednesday’s hearing. Assistant Attorney General Rosemary Kennedy, a prosecutor, also declined comment.
Vekos, 55, has continued to serve as the Addison County state’s attorney as the criminal case against her has been pending. And during that time, the consequences of her impaired driving charge appear to have directly impacted her office’s work.
Since Vekos’s arrest, detectives with the New Haven barracks have sent all the cases they investigate to the Vermont Attorney General’s office, rather than Vekos’s office, to avoid a conflict of interest, said Vermont State Police Maj. Steven Coote in an email earlier this week in response to questions from VTDigger.
Among the cases taken over by the attorney general’s office is the Bridport homicide where Vekos allegedly appeared impaired at the scene.
The decision to move those cases stemmed from Vekos’ pending criminal case, which involves state police detectives from that barracks serving as potential witnesses, Coote added.
Vekos also had her law license suspended by the Vermont Supreme Court in March 2024 for about three weeks after she was accused of failing to cooperate with an investigation into her paid medical leave following her arrest on the DUI charge.
During the time her law license was suspended, Vekos was able to remain in office, but she was barred from trying cases in court. Vekos subsequently faced criticism from local lawmakers who publicly called for her resignation, according to the Addison County Independent.
Sleigh, in his motion to dismiss, wrote that the night Vekos was arrested, she had been at home. For dinner, he wrote, she ate a hamburger and drank “most of one gin and tonic.”
Before finishing the meal, her attorney wrote, Vekos was called to meet with investigators at the scene in Bridport in a case that was later determined to be a homicide.
After finishing up at the scene, troopers prevented her from driving her car home “based upon their purported observations of breath odor and slurred speech,” Sleigh wrote. He added that Vekos was eventually taken to the New Haven state police barracks for processing where she declined to take a breath test. She was then issued a citation for drunken driving.
However, Sleigh wrote, body and cruiser dash camera footage from the scene did not “capture any such speech symptoms.”
“The only evidence regarding alcohol consumption is Ms. Vekos’ admission to having consumed most of a single gin and tonic,” Sleigh wrote.
Kennedy, the prosecutor, in a written response to Sleigh’s motion to dismiss, pointed to charging affidavits from police who had reported smelling alcohol from Vekos’ breath.
At one point, Kennedy wrote, Detective Trooper Ryan Normile asked Vekos how much she had to drink that night and she reportedly replied she had one gin and tonic with a burger for dinner about an hour earlier.
Kennedy wrote that after Vekos declined to do field sobriety tests, she stated: “Are you serious Ryan, can’t you just have a friend come and get me.”
After Vekos was taken to the New Haven barracks for processing, Kennedy wrote, Vekos “encouraged” Vermont State Police Sgt. Eden Neary to use his “discretion” and allow her to leave. Then Vekos told the sergeant if he arrested her, it “was going to damage” her office’s relationship with law enforcement, Kennedy wrote.
Kennedy also wrote in her filing that there is no evidence of how much alcohol Vekos consumed that night, beside her own “self-serving statement” claiming to have had one gin and tonic with dinner.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated in one instance the town where the homicide scene Eva Vekos drove to was located.
