Convicted Stepdad Denied Bid for Fourth Trial

April 15, 2011

Vermont: Judge Michael Kupersmith has ruled that a Washington County man convicted of sexually assaulting his pre-teen stepdaughter does not deserve a new trial, which would be the man's fourth.

Prosecutors have charged the mother and the 41-year-old stepfather together, stating that the couple continually sexually assaulted the girl and that the mother even invited other men into the home to sexually assault her daughter.

During the couple's third trial, the 43-year-old mother pleaded no contest to a lesser charge, this being unknown to the jurors, but Dan Maguire, the stepfather's attorney, argued that the jury likely suspected the mother had pleaded guilty, due to her sudden absence from the courtroom, and therefore "very likely speculated that (the stepfather) was also guilty."

These events sparked Maguire to cite as grounds for a new trial, but on Monday, April 11th, Judge Michael Kupersmith, who presided over the second and third trials in the Vermont Superior Court, denied the motion for a new trial.

The stepfather denied the allegations and was convicted on two counts of aggravated sexual assault, each account carrying a possible life sentence, which Kupersmith is scheduled to sentence the man on April 26, 2011.

The mother was found guilty of a lesser charge by Kupersmith after she pleaded no contest to sexual assault on a child. He sentenced her to more than three years in prison and ordered her held until her deportation to her native country of England.

Maguire intends to appeal the ruling to the Vermont Supreme Court.