Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan has refiled murder and attempted murder charges against a man who allegedly hacked his wife to death with a meat cleaver in Burlington in 2017.
The move comes three months after Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George dropped the same charges against Aita Gurung, who had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. In declining to prosecute the case in early June, George said she had concluded the defendant was legally insane at the time of the crime and would not be found guilty of the charges at trial.
She did the same for two other defendants — one in a murder and the other in an attempted murder case.
“These cases are among the most violent crimes committed in Vermont in recent memory, and with their dismissal, there is no longer a possibility of supervision by the Department of Corrections or conditions of release to protect Vermonters,” Scott said at the time in a letter written to Donovan.
On Thursday afternoon the AG’s office announced in an email to members of the media that an arrest warrant had been issued earlier in the day for Gurung, who spent much of his time in custody as a patient at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin, a secure facility, since shortly after his arrest.
Gurung is scheduled to be arraigned at 1 p.m. Friday. Assistant attorneys general John Waszak and Molly Gray will represent the state in court.
“The Attorney General’s Office will be available for questions immediately following the arraignment,” the alert read. “No statements will be made prior to the arraignment.”
Reached Thursday evening, a spokesperson for the AG’s office refused to comment further.
In response to an emailed request for comment, George wrote, “Until I know what AG Donovan’s justification is for re-filing, I do not have any comment on his decision.”
In dismissing his case, George said experts concluded Gurung was psychotic at the time of the crime. “Voices were telling him to kill his wife,” and he did so in a “violent frenzy beyond anything that he exhibited before,” she wrote.
George also dropped charges against Louis Fortier, who was accused of murder in 2017 for fatally stabbing fellow homeless man Richard Medina, 43, on the corner of Church and Cherry streets in downtown Burlington.
She also dropped first-degree murder charges against Veronica Lewis, who allegedly shot her firearms instructor, Darryl Montague, multiple times at his gun range in Westford in 2015. He survived.
Donovan’s office did not announce decisions on either of those cases.
In an emailed statement, Brittney Wilson, a Scott spokesperson, said the governor “appreciates that the Attorney General is reviewing each case and he hopes justice will be served for the victims and their families.
“The Governor believes public safety is the top priority of government and when heinous crimes are not properly adjudicated and could put the public at risk, he will speak up,” Wilson wrote.
The June dismissals were announced shortly after George successfully prosecuted another accused killer who raised an insanity defense. On May 22, a jury found Steven Bourgoin guilty of five counts of murder for driving the wrong way on Interstate 89 and crashing into a car that carried five teens in October 2016.
Last month, a judge sentenced Bourgoin to 30 years to life in prison.
Correction, September 13, 2019: A previous version of this story misstated where Gurung is currently being held.
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Maybe this will knock Sarah George down a couple of notches on her I am smarter then everyone else pedestal. Please show a little humility when you do comment. Your previous reaction to the Governor was very childish like.
So what changed, TJ? Two independent doctors made a medical diagnosis that supported Ms. George’s conclusion. Did you find a new doctor, willing to make an alternative conclusion? Ethical rules for prosecutors require that a prosecutor not proceed with a case where they believe they lack evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. TJ should be asked about this explicitly, because George concluded she could not.
I don’t know if this is more embarrassing, or just awkward for Sarah. Wonder what will happen with the other two…
@ Aurelius:
You wrote: “Did you find a new doctor, willing to make an alternative conclusion?”
Do you understand that that’s exactly what Sarah George did in the Bourgoin case??? Her original psychologist agreed with the defense that Bourgoin was insane at the time of his horrific act. So Ms. George went out and got a new psychologist.
You’re accusing TJ of doing exactly what George herself did. I’m sure politics, publicity, and pressure had nothing to do with her decision in a horrific case involving the death of five teenagers.
Sarah George is a whacko herself. It’s pretty bad when your states attorneys decisions have to be reviewed by another source. As mentioned in a previous post she didn’t have a problem proceeding with the Bourgoin case.
The jury found him guilty and rejected his defense of insanity. That’s what trials are for and that’s what juries do. Did SA George miss that class in law school? Maybe she should get some advise from the jail birds she’s so worried about.
Huge difference in Bourgoin case… court psychiatrist said not insane. She didnt go find him. Know your facts.
“Huge difference in Bourgoin case”
That doesn’t seem like a “huge difference.” Looks like we have a prosecutor who made a mistake, by deciding which shrinks to believe and which not to believe (including the one she herself hired). I’m glad we have a system where a higher-authority law enforcement official gets to review the local state’s attorney’s decision not to prosecute a guy who meat-cleavered a woman to death — in this case that reviewer being not a “hang ’em all” conservative but a politically-correct Democrat and experienced prosecutor who previously held Ms. George’s job.