By WILSON RING, Associated Press
A Vermont judge refused Thursday to seal the records from a decades-old sexual assault case that had been scheduled to go to trial this year, but was canceled after the death of the defendant.
In a Thursday ruling, Vermont Superior Court Judge Cortland Corsones said it was in the “interest of justice” to keep open the records in the case of Leonard Forte who was convicted after a 1988 jury trial, but the verdict was overturned after a judge ruled the prosecutor had been too emotional.
Corsones ruled that sealing the records would further traumatize the victim, who was 12 when the alleged assaults took place at Forte’s Landgrove vacation home in 1987 and 14 when she testified about the experience in open court.
“The complainant was still willing to go forward with her testimony 33 years later,” said Corsones’ ruling, filed in Superior Court in Bennington. “If the defendant’s records are sealed or expunged, it would have a further traumatizing effect on her, as there would be no legal record regarding or confirming what has occurred.”
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Forte’s attorney did not return a message Thursday seeking comment.
Thursday’s ruling was first reported by the Bennington Banner.
Forte, 80, a retired investigator with a New York prosecutor’s office, died of cardiac arrest at his LaBelle, Florida, home on Dec. 22. Forte had for years used his ill-health to avoid returning to Vermont to stand trial on charges he sexually assaulted the victim.
In January, after Forte’s death, Corsones dismissed the charges against him.
Under Vermont law the dismissal of the charges could lead to the removal, or expungement, of the case from the official record. But prosecutors asked the judge not to expunge the case, arguing it would be a miscarriage of justice for the victim.
Last year Corsones ruled Forte was physically capable of standing trial on the sexual assault charges. Forte was also charged with obstruction of justice for his efforts to avoid returning to Vermont for trial.
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