VT- Sex offender files suit against police detective

5-17-2009 Vermont:

BARRE – A repeat sex offender from Winooski who was jailed on a new sex-crime charge in late 2007, and later had the charge dropped, is suing the state police detective who investigated that case.

John Grenier, 44, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Burlington last week, accusing Vermont State Police Detective Sergeant Ingrid Jonas of violating his due process rights for allegedly withholding key evidence that freed him from prison once it came to light.

Grenier, who has two convictions of lewd and lascivious conduct on his record, was charged in December 2007 with sexual abuse of a vulnerable adult after a woman accused him of assaulting her, court records state.

At his arraignment on that charge, Grenier was held without bail, and despite contesting that decision at a separate hearing, he remained jailed for 74 days, according to the lawsuit.

Grenier was freed and the charges against him were dropped after a message that the accuser left for Jonas on her voicemail came to light, and he argues the voicemail is what directly led to his release from prison. And Grenier contends that Jonas "intentionally, knowingly and with deliberate indifference" withheld the voicemail from prosecutors for more than a month in order to keep him behind bars.

The voicemail was left on or around Dec. 13, 2007, the lawsuit states, nine days after Grenier was originally held.

In the voicemail, Grenier's accuser made an additional accusation of sexual assault against another man, Travis Denton, the day after Grenier was believed to have assaulted her, the lawsuit states.

Jonas was apparently on vacation until early January 2008, but Grenier contends she would have received the voicemail by early January at the latest.

The lawsuit states that Jonas did not investigate the accusation against Denton "as it was immediately deemed to be false." Jonas never interviewed the accuser or Denton, the lawsuit states.

Soon after the voicemail was disclosed to the prosecutor, the prosecutor agreed to release Grenier on conditions, court records state.

Grenier was jailed from Dec. 3, 2007 until Feb. 15, 2008, and the charges against him were dropped on March 19, 2008, records show.

"Acting in her individual capacity, (Jonas) knowingly and intentionally withheld the voicemail left by Complainant from the prosecutor and from (Grenier's) attorney for more than a month, violating Plaintiff's constitutional rights," the lawsuit states.

Grenier argues there was other evidence that should have led authorities to question the accuser's story. According to the lawsuit, Jonas reviewed records from the Burlington Police Department and the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations. Both files included a number of sexual assault complaints made by the woman who accused Grenier of abusing her, according to court papers.

The two agencies determined that many of the allegations were unsubstantiated, and their files indicate the cases involving Grenier's accuser were either dismissed or not prosecuted, according to Grenier's complaint.

Jonas "knew or should have known based on her investigation of the incident that Complainant was known to have made false sexual assault reports in the past," the lawsuit states.

Grenier says that as a direct result of Jonas' actions, he was denied bail, which led to lost wages, emotional distress, mental anguish, stigmatization of his reputation, damage to personal relationships, attorney's fees and the denial of his constitutional rights.

Grenier does not seek a specific monetary amount in the complaint, but asks for compensatory and punitive damages in an amount deemed appropriate by the "trier of fact."

Jonas, an experienced sex-crimes investigator, declined to comment for this story.

She is currently the Special Investigation Unit Coordinator for the state police, according to information she provided in a recent affidavit in an unrelated case. She has been a certified law enforcement officer in Vermont since December 1998, she stated, and was a detective assigned to the Northwest Unit for Special Investigations in St. Albans for nearly four years, starting in 2001 where she investigated sexual crimes.

She was then assigned to the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations in 2005 and continued to investigate sex crimes there, she wrote. In November 2007, she was promoted to the rank of sergeant and supervised the detectives' unit for the Northwest Unit for Special Investigations until the end of March 2008.

The Vermont Attorney General's Office is representing Jonas, and Assistant Attorney General Keith Aten is assigned to the case.

Aten said he is "in the process of reviewing" the case, but added that it's too early to comment on how he plans to respond to the accusations.

"We haven't had a chance to really digest the allegations and ponder what the response would be," said Aten.

Aten said he plans to accept the service of the complaint. Then he will either answer the complaint on behalf of his client, which would mean admitting or denying the allegations, or file a motion challenging the basis of the lawsuit.

The complaint filed on behalf of Grenier makes it clear that he is not suing the Vermont State Police, but is suing Jonas in her individual capacity.

That is because in order to sue a state employee in federal court, a plaintiff must separate the individual from the agency, said Aten.

The lawsuit also makes it clear that Grenier believes Jonas withheld the evidence knowingly and intentionally, but Grenier's attorney Robert O'Neil, of the law firm Gravel and Shea, did not want to back those assertions up this early in the legal battle.

"The complaint speaks for itself, and if the explanation that the state officer has for this is that it was just an inadvertence on her part, we'll find that out in the civil suit," said O'Neil, who said he represented Grenier when he faced criminal charges.

O'Neil added that he knows a lot of Vermont State Police officers and doesn't believe most of them would simply forget about a key piece of evidence.

"They're not forgetful," he said.

Grenier was convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct in 1990 and 1999. He received a 1-to-5 year sentence for the 1999 charge and 2-to-5 year sentence on the 1990 charge, according to court records. Grenier was also convicted of failing to comply with the sex offender registry in 2007. He is not a high-risk sex offender, according to the state's sex offender registry. ..News Source.. by Thatcher Moats Times Argus Staff