A jury has convicted a former Connecticut man of murder in the death of a Northeast Kingdom man nearly six years ago.
The jury returned its guilty verdict on Friday in Orleans County Superior criminal court in Newport, convicting Brownswell Cedano, 31, of a charge of second-degree murder in the death of 37-year-old Richard Poginy of Glover in November 2019 in Barton.
The verdict followed a six-day trial.
Cedano, a resident of Hartford, Connecticut, at the time, assaulted Poginy outside a Barton home on Nov. 2, 2019, and fled the scene, according to charging documents.
Poginy, according to police, then drove away from the residence and crashed his vehicle a short distance away while driving at a low speed. He died a week later at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, court records stated.
Initially, police did not report his death as a homicide. Later, following an autopsy and additional investigation, a medical examiner ruled the cause of Poginy’s death was “complications of blunt impact head injuries” and the manner of death was a homicide, according to police.
According to the medical examiner’s findings, the “documented minor damage to the vehicle without airbag deployment suggests a low-speed collision that is inconsistent with the severity of the head injuries.”
A sentencing date on the murder conviction had not been set as of Monday afternoon. The conviction carries a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.
Orleans County State’s Attorney Farzana Leyva, whose office prosecuted the case, declined comment Monday.
Michael Shane, Cedano’s attorney, could not be reached Monday for comment.
Cedano had been sentenced in November 2022 to seven years in federal prison following a conviction for drug distribution in Rutland County, according to court records.
He was among four people arrested in November 2020 after authorities raided an apartment in Rutland City, seizing cocaine, fentanyl, illegal prescription drugs and four firearms, federal court records stated.
In addition to selling illegal drugs in Rutland County, according to federal prosecutors, Cedano was also trafficking heroin and cocaine in Orleans County. At the time of the drug raid in Rutland, court records stated, Cedano was on probation for a Connecticut drug offense while he was traveling to Vermont to sell drugs.
Cedano was listed by the Vermont Department of Corrections on Monday as incarcerated at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport.
