VTDigger covers crime, the court system, illegal drug use, law enforcement and prisons. Alan Keays covers the criminal justice system for VTDigger. He can be reached at akeays@vtdigger.org.
Mayor Miro Weinberger announced in a press release on Friday that three brothers who sued the city for excessive force related to a 2018 incident will drop their lawsuit in exchange for the payment.
The federal lawsuit comes days after a court-issued deadline that required Banyai to move several buildings from his property, and it accuses town officials and Judge Thomas Durkin of attempting “to infringe on protected constitutional and state law activity by way of local zoning regulations.”
The city council approved the settlement during a special meeting on Tuesday. Three brothers brought legal action against the city related to an excessive force incident involving Officer Jason Bellavance in 2018. The settlement still needs to be approved by a federal judge.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office has asked a judge to reconsider an additional count of simple assault in a 2022 incident in which police fired a projectile at a man reportedly high on drugs, screaming and holding a bloody saw atop a Newfane homeowner’s roof.
The collision took place on Route 105 near Lumbra Road, according to Vermont State Police.
The state can order a further competency evaluation, and if Zaaina Mahvish-Jammeh is released from Department of Mental Health custody, they will be held by the Department of Corrections, a judge wrote.
A Superior Court judge issued a scathing order late last week, calling out the Vermont Department of Mental Health for “continued obstruction of the criminal justice process.”
Trooper Zachary Trocki and Sgt. Ryan Wood had been cited to appear in court on misdemeanor charges of simple assault and reckless endangerment, stemming from an incident in which a 61-year-old man was seriously injured last year.
In a civil lawsuit, Michael Lewis alleges Mike Lyon, who recently returned as superintendent of the Southern State Correctional Facility after he was cleared in an unspecified misconduct investigation, prevented him from reporting alleged sexual abuse by a corrections officer.
The facility would fill a gap left after the closure of Woodside in 2020, but local residents overwhelmingly oppose its development.
