NORTHFIELD, Vt. (AP) - A county prosecutor in Vermont will decline cases involving the Northfield police chief, citing two drug cases where he searched people without consent.
State’s Attorney Rory Thibault sent a letter to the Northfield town manager and select board on Dec. 1 saying it would disclose information about the two cases to defense attorneys in cases where John Helfant, Northfield’s police chief, is involved, The Times Argus reported Wednesday.
“Effective immediately, my office will decline case referrals from Chief Helfant that are based on non-violent or non-listed offenses,” Thibault’s office wrote in the letter that the newspaper obtained through a public records request.
In one case, a judge compared body-camera footage to an affidavit from Helfant and found that the footage did not show he had gotten consent to search a backpack where he found drugs. He wrote in the affidavit that he had gotten consent. Thibault’s office dropped the charges against the defendant.
In a second case, body-camera footage showed that a person stopped at a traffic stop had revoked consent for Helfant to search a pair of sneakers, but he did so anyway. Helfant wrote in an affidavit that he had been given consent for the search. Thibault’s office dismissed the case.
Helfant served 28 years in the State Police and as a police officer in Berlin, before becoming Northfield’s police chief in 2018, the newspaper reported.
Last year, Thibault’s office asked Vermont’s attorney general to investigate the two cases involving Helfant, the newspaper reported.
Last month, Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan declined to bring criminal charges against Helfant but referred the file to the Criminal Justice Training Council, which could decide to sanction Helfant.
In an email to the newspaper, Helfant wrote that the attorney general had found no criminal wrong doing on his part.
“This was a failure of the body cam technology and nothing more,” he wrote.
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