Part 2 of 2.

MIDDLEBURY — Addison County State’s Attorney Eva Vekos has been working hard to clear up a backlog of cases, and she provided statistics showing some success in efforts to winnow down those cases.

But several victims/survivors of criminal cases she has prosecuted said they’re angry about the manner and pace in which their cases have been handled by the county’s top prosecutor.

Middlebury’s Abby Morsman was 16 when she went to a June 2022 party at a peer’s house that included several of her friends.

She left the party a changed person, after an alleged sexual assault that she said has left her distraught and estranged from a former circle of friends — so much so that she withdrew from Middlebury Union High School to attend private school. Holidays in Middlebury are now mostly spent inside her family’s house, where there’s less risk of accidentally bumping into people, including the alleged perpetrator, a sight that might trigger bad memories.

Bad memories and a closing chapter that’s yet to be written through the legal process.

Morsman — who asked that her full name be used in this article — acknowledged that it took her two years to muster the courage to tell her family about the incident and bring her complaint to local authorities.

Contributing to her silence, she recalled, was being told by a friend that her alleged assaulter could file a complaint against her, because he had allegedly been under the influence at the time. It was an assertion that, at age 16, she didn’t think she could challenge.

Morsman said she was also intimidated by the logistics of filing a complaint and the reaction it might catalyze.

“It’s an excruciating process, one that I knew I wanted to engage in for my own sake,” she said. “But this is a small community and small town, which definitely compounds the discomfort of any process like this.”

During her self-imposed silence, living with the incident took its toll.

She was hospitalized with an eating disorder during the fall of 2023, which Morsman ascribes at least in part to post-assault anxiety.

The tipping point for coming forward came after Morsman said she witnessed a pattern of sexual harassment at her new school.

She submitted to an interview with an Addison County Unit for Special Investigations official, who recommended prosecution as a sex assault/no consent case in criminal court.

Vekos eventually recommended a “deferred prosecution agreement (DPA)” for her alleged assaulter, a voluntary agreement between a prosecutor and a defendant to delay criminal charges in exchange for meeting certain conditions. Typically, if those conditions — which might include such things as staying away from the victim, not consuming alcohol, and/or completing counseling within a certain period of time — are met, the charges are dropped.

Morsman rejected the idea of a DPA resolution to her case. She said she’d consider supporting an enforceable deferred sentencing process that would see the case go through criminal court but allow the accused to have a clean record if they meet court-ordered conditions.

Vekos ultimately agreed to allow Morsman’s case to be assigned to a different prosecutor, according to court documents.

Victim’s advocates working with Morsman first checked in with the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, which declined to take on the case, citing a substantial pending caseload. The AG’s office instead suggested Morsman’s representatives approach Franklin County Deputy State’s Attorney Diane Wheeler, a seasoned sexual violence prosecutor.

Wheeler agreed to take the case, and on Sept. 20, 2024, informed Vekos of her availability, according to court documents.

Vekos, in a same-day email reply to Wheeler and copied to multiple court officials, replied, “Hold on folks. I never intended to allow this case to fall on the lap of another county prosecutor. The case will remain in Addison… I gave law enforcement an opportunity to go to the AGO — only.”

Morsman has been frustrated by the pace and handling of her case since it was filed last spring.

“The power rests with (Vekos), and there’s little anyone has been able to do to affect change in her disposition and manner of executing the case,” she said.

It’s a case that has drawn interest, she said.

“In a small town, people like to say it takes a village to raise a child, but when the village abandons the child, that has massive impacts. In my view, people are watching.”

The relative lack of action in the case thus far, she said, “is deeply injurious to me, and also to the community. It sets a precedent that when this happens, and when someone has the guts to speak up about it, nothing happens.

“It re-instills a lack of hope.”

CHANGE IN SENTENCING

Morsman is not the only local crime victim to be upset with Vekos’s performance as prosecutor.

Another young woman claims Vekos advanced a plea that she rejected and that could result in her assailant spending less time behind bars than she and her advocates had thought possible.

Tina is the victim in the state’s case against 31-year-old Kyle Wilson, who was charged in October of 2023 with four misdemeanor counts of disclosing sexually explicit images without consent, and one count of “disturbing the peace by phone — hate crime,” after having allegedly posted sexually explicit photos of the victim online in January 2022.

Wilson had previously been cited for felony second-degree aggravated domestic assault, felony interference with access to emergency services and felony unlawful restraint with risk of injury, all stemming from an alleged December 2021 incident involving the same survivor, according to court records.

Tina and her court representatives had lobbied for a sentence of 3–5 years in jail, less time served. They hoped Wilson would have access to counseling during his jail time.

Tina was also granted a 10-year relief from abuse order to keep Wilson away from her.

But at a courthouse sentencing hearing last November, there was confusion about the amount of prison time Wilson had already served and could therefore be deducted from his sentence.

Vekos had received information from the Vermont Department of Corrections (DOC) that Wilson, at the time, had served around 845 days in jail, according to court records.

“The state (Vekos) communicated this fact to the defendant, which served to encourage him to enter into the plea deal. It was understood by the parties that the defendant was anticipated to serve a minimum of 399 days,” reads a Nov. 6 motion to reconsider sentencing, filed by Wilson’s attorney, Steven J. Howard.

But soon after the sentencing, Howard noted the DOC issued a new sentencing calculation that changed the time served calculation to 371 days, which would result in Wilson spending more time behind bars. This new calculation was done by the DOC’s “sentence computation specialist.”

Howard complained on behalf of his client. Vekos on Nov. 19 filed a motion to modify Wilson’s sentence.

In her motion, Vekos acknowledged Tina.

“(I) cannot know exactly where the victim got her information about sentencing expectations but can only assure this court that up-to-date information about credit owed to the defendant was regularly provided to the victim advocate, Martha Bowdish,” Vekos wrote in her motion.

Tina is outraged by the sentence and said the state’s attorney’s office should have received its initial time-serve information from the DOC’s sentence computation specialist, rather than a different DOC source.

“They clearly didn’t do a sentence calculation prior to the (sentencing) hearing,” Tina stated in a letter to the court opposing the amended sentence proposal while alleging Vekos hadn’t contacted her for feedback on it.

“I was not informed about the motion or the state stipulating to the motion until it was filed. SA Vekos failed to tell my victim advocate about the motion, and my victim advocate learned about it after it was filed,” she said.

Wilson will be eligible for release in around a year, with good behavior and time served. Court documents indicate he plans to move to another state. But that’s done little to assuage Tina’s concerns.

She attends twice-per-week therapy sessions and said security staff escorts her each day from her Burlington workplace to her vehicle.

Her case simmered for more than two years before coming to what she calls an unsatisfactory resolution. Her case at one point was handled by former Addison County Deputy State’s Attorney Kim McManus, who has since moved to another job.

“(McManus) made me feel like she cared about me and what I went through. She was willing to go the long mile. With Eva, I feel she wants to be done (with the case), to call it a number,” Tina said.

Vekos challenged that assertion.

“They should never feel like a number, or that they’re not being heard, or not being involved in important decision making. There isn’t a prosecutor anywhere who doesn’t have a case where a victim feels dissatisfied with the result. And that’s especially true in cases of domestic assault and sexual assault — cases that are so personal and so hateful and intense,” she said. “Feelings are very strong and I never want a victim to feel like they’re feeling cut out or not listened to.”

MAKING A PLEA DEAL

“Roberta” (who doesn’t want her true name used) is the listed victim in a Jan. 23, 2023, case charged as a felony lewd and lascivious conduct. The defendant is Jonathan Gay, 26, of Starksboro. The case was reassigned to Vekos in March following McManus’s resignation.

The case was originally put on a September trial list but has gone through a series of court reschedulings. Roberta said she’s now been told that sentencing in the case might not occur until this summer.

In the meantime, she said Vekos has crafted a plea deal that would call for the felony lewd & lascivious charge to be reduced to a misdemeanor “prohibited conduct” charge. Roberta’s representatives said they didn’t receive the plea deal paperwork until the Friday preceding the Monday, Dec. 16, court date at which at which the deal was to be unveiled.

Roberta said she’s opposed to the proposed plea deal and is prepared to see the case go to trial.

“I won’t go down to a lesser charge just to have her get done with (the case),” Roberta said. “I deserve justice, too.”

DRAGGING OUT A CASE

Emma is a listed victim/survivor in state v. Robert Ritchey, who was charged with felony sexual exploitation luring a child and felony lewd & lascivious conduct with a child for an incident in 2020. She said she was concerned upon hearing that Vekos had elected to take on the case, given that Vekos had been assigned (while an attorney in private practice at Marsh & Wagner) to represent Emma in the Ritchey case.

Emma said that Vekos at the time had been representing another juvenile (in a separate matter) against whom Emma had a relief from abuse order. Emma said that at that time — and while she was under 18 — Vekos had reached out to her for information without her parents’ consent.

Vekos ultimately stepped down as counsel of the juvenile against whom the relief from abuse order had been filed and stated that she hadn’t talked to Emma about the Ritchey case, according to court records.

But Emma, among others, called on Vekos to enlist a different prosecutor.

McManus, in a March 23, 2023, email, stated, “our state’s attorney has a conflict with this case so it will more than likely be assigned to (then assistant prosecutor) Mike Novelli.”

Vekos disagreed with McManus’s assessment. Novelli would soon switch jobs, and Vekos would take the case.

Ritchey on Jan. 23 pled guilty to L&L with a child, and the felony sexual exploitation charge was dismissed, according to court records.

Emma’s reaction is one of sad resignation.

“I had agreed to just go with what they wanted. I just didn’t want this to get dragged out. Now I can finally not worry about the next court date and what’s going to happen.”

Vekos told the Independent that she wants to have constructive discussions with crime victims.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate to engage in a public debate with unidentified sources about specific cases,” she said. “However, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with anyone involved in a case that I have prosecuted to have a constructive discussion. I stand by the record of my work in the hundreds of cases I’ve handled in over 27 years of legal practice, including the cases of the Addison County SA’s office.”

John Flowers is at [email protected].