Jul 13, 2008 2:41 pm US/Eastern
Prosecutor Fought VT Murder Suspect's Release
MONTPELIER, VT (AP) ―
When Michael Jacques came up for early release from probation, a prosecutor didn't think it was a good idea, telling a judge that as a twice-convicted sex offender, Jacques shouldn't go without supervision.
In the 2004 court proceeding, Deputy Orange County State's Attorney Robert DiBartolo told Judge Amy Davenport that Jacques' actions in a 1992 kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault were too brutal to allow him unbridled freedom.
"The only reasons I can glean from Mr. Jacques wanting to be off probation is because it's embarrassing and it's inconvenient to be on probation and he wants closure," DiBartolo said, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained Friday by the Associated Press.
"Those are all understandable, but the fact of the matter is he's a twice convicted sex offender and I think society has the right to have him on probation and to have somebody checking up on him at least once in a while, even if it's just a monthly meeting with a probation officer to find out where he is, what he's doing, to make sure that his life is still stable and is going -- going the way it should go," according to DiBartolo, who alluded to a lewd-and-lascivious conduct charge against Jacques from 1987.
The hearing, which ultimately led to Jacques' release from probation in 2006, has received new attention since Jacques' arrest last week in the case of Brooke Bennett, 12, of Braintree.
Brooke disappeared June 25 and was found dead a week later. She had been killed, though authorities still haven't said how.
Jacques, 42, of Randolph, is charged with kidnapping the girl, who was his niece.
In the Oct. 18, 2004, hearing in Orange District Court, which was on a motion by Jacques' lawyer to release him from probation, Department of Corrections representative Richard Kearney -- who had supervised Jacques -- vouched for him, calling him a rehabilitation success.
Jacques, who had served more than four years for the 1992 conviction, completed sex offender treatment and all the other requirements imposed on him as part of probation, Kearney told the judge.
"When I make comments about successes in sex offender treatment, I have three names of which Michael Jacques is one," Kearney said, according to the transcript.
"At this point in time, Mr. Jacques has met all the requirements that the Court has imposed upon him. He's done that -- just hasn't met them, he's far exceeded them. If what we're looking to do is make significant life changes so that this doesn't happen again, Mr. Jacques has made those significant life changes," Kearney said.
But it did happen again, according to authorities.
On June 29, before he was charged in Bennett's disappearance, Jacques was charged with aggravated sexual assault in an unrelated case that police learned about while investigating the Bennett matter. Investigators said he molested a girl over a five-year period, beginning when she was 9.
If true, that would mean he was molesting the girl during the period of the probation hearing.
The aggravated sexual assault charge filed by state prosecutors has since been dropped, with federal authorities taking over Jacques' prosecution on the kidnapping count.
In the hearing, Jacques traced his behavior to abuse he'd suffered as a child, although he didn't describe it or name who was responsible.
"So, some of the things that were identified right in the very beginning was my own anger issues surrounding my own, my own abuse and from that stemmed, you know, my ... attitude towards people in generally, actually, but particularly towards women," he told Davenport.
Jacques, his wife, Denise, and Kearney all testified in the hearing, but DiBartolo was the only one who wanted Jacques to remain under supervision of some kind.
"I don't want to diminish the positive steps that Mr. Jacques has taken and the things that he has achieved in his life; that is commendable, but I have a hard time getting over the fact that this was a -- a horrible sexual assault that involved deadly weapons, it was a prolonged sexual assault. At one point, the victim was sure she was going to die and was begging for her life, and we still don't know why this happened all this time later," DiBartolo said.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
