The attorney for a driver charged with killing a Rutland police officer during a motor-vehicle chase wants a judge to throw out the most serious murder charge against his client.
The lawyer also wrote new court filings that he wants the trial moved outside Rutland County because of publicity the case has received.
David Sleigh, representing Tate Rheaume, in seeking to lower the murder charge his client faces, cited a Rutland City Police Department internal affairs report became public last year. That report strongly criticized officers’ actions in the July 2023 high-speed vehicle pursuit that led to the death of a fellow officer, 19-year-old Jessica Ebbighausen.
The pursuit ended on Woodstock Avenue in Rutland when Rheaume drove his pickup nearly head-on into a cruiser driven by Ebbighausen.
Months following the crash the Rutland City Police Department conducted an internal affairs investigation.
“The report’s conclusion is not merely that a policy violation occurred. It is that the pursuit should not have started and should have been stopped,” Sleigh wrote in the filing this week in Rutland County Superior criminal court.
“A prosecution that depends on a pursuit initiated outside policy, outside supervisory control, and without the required training is legally and factually defective where the charge itself is tethered to the asserted law-enforcement predicate,” he added.
Rheaume, formerly of Salisbury, has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including aggravated murder, the most serious offense in Vermont, which carries a penalty of life in prison without parole. He is currently held without bail awaiting trial.
Rutland County State’s Attorney Ian Sullivan, the prosecutor, cited several aggravating factors when he filed the aggravated murder charge against Rheaume. Sullivan said the case had met the thresholds that the defendant “knowingly created” significant risk of death, that the murder was committed to avoid arrest, and that the victim was a law enforcement officer.
Sleigh said Tuesday that if his motion challenging the aggravated factors is granted, his client at most would likely face a charge of second-degree murder. That charge carries a penalty of 20 years to life in prison.
“The State cannot transform an unauthorized and dangerous pursuit into the basis for aggravated murder simply because the pursuit ended in a fatal collision,” Seligh wrote in his filing this week.
“The legality of the police response matters,” he added. “Where the law-enforcement action was not authorized under departmental policy and was undertaken without the predicate serious offense, the State should not be allowed to rely on that conduct to elevate the charge.”
The internal report, which became public late last year after Sleigh filed it in court, stated that Ebbighausen’s death was “preventable” if officers had followed the proper procedures.
The policy violations, the report stated, ranged from not having the proper authority to initiate the pursuit to not following procedures while the chase was underway.
Ebbighausen was a part-time trainee officer at the Rutland City Police Department at the time. She was set to begin training the following month to get her full-time certification.
Rutland City Police Chief Brian Kilcullen announced his retirement shortly after the internal affairs report became public.
Two days after Kilcullen’s announcement, Sullivan, the prosecutor, issued a Brady letter naming Kilcullen, writing in it that despite his own attempts to get the internal affairs report, Kilcullen wasn’t forthcoming in providing it. Kilcullen’s actions, Sullivan’s letter stated, “demonstrate that he suppressed evidence favorable to the defendant in a criminal case in an attempt to shape the trial.”
Prosecutors issue Brady letters when an officer’s credibility is called into question.
Sleigh submitted a slew of other motions this week, including one allowing him to present evidence at trial of police policy violations.
“The proposed evidence is plainly relevant. The State will seek to prove that Defendant’s driving during the pursuit caused the officer’s death,” Sleigh wrote.
“The Defense, in turn,” he added, “is entitled to show that the police pursuit itself was conducted in violation of departmental policy and in a manner that materially increased the risk of the exact type of collision that occurred.”
In the filing seeking to move the case to a court outside Rutland County, Sleigh argued that the case received extensive media coverage.
“Particularly troubling is the documented efforts by police to withhold exculpatory information in an admitted attempt to influence the outcome of the trial,” Sleigh wrote. He added: “It does not merely reflect adverse publicity; it signals a coordinated institutional interest in conviction, which is likely to seep into the community’s understanding of the case.”
Sullivan could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
