NEWPORT — A local fraternal organization has denied overserving a Sharon woman who was later involved in a fatal car crash that killed two Newport residents in 2017.

“(The victims’) deaths and damages were caused by the acts of third parties for whom the Defendant is not responsible,” David Johnson, an attorney for the Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge on Golf Club Road in Newport, wrote in court documents filed this month.

The lodge’s filing was a response to lawsuits brought by the families of Michelle Fenimore, 20, and Nicholas Carpenter, 17, who died in the crash.

The suits, which were consolidated to one complaint in June, accused the lodge and its employees of negligently overserving Kristen Lake, then 22, when she visited the lodge in September 2017.

After she left the lodge, Lake drove north on Route 10 in Croydon and collided with a car driven by Fenimore with Carpenter in the passenger’s seat. Fenimore was engaged to Carpenter’s brother, and the three had recently moved to Newport from the Northeast Kingdom, according to family members

Fenimore and Carpenter were returning from working shifts at the J.C. Penney store in West Lebanon the night of the crash, family members have said.

Lake was initially charged with negligent homicide and aggravated driving under the influence, but was acquitted of all charges in a jury trial the following year. Authorities at the time said Lake was driving under the influence, fell asleep and crossed into Fenimore’s lane; a sample of her blood taken at a hospital after the crash registered a blood alcohol content of 0.14 percent, according to the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, the family members said the lodge employees recklessly served alcohol to Lake even though she was “visibly intoxicated,” and that their actions resulted in Fenimore and Carpenters’ deaths.

But the lodge, through Johnston, denied all accusations in the response, saying they were not responsible for the deaths, and denying that employees served Lake until she was intoxicated.

Johnston also claimed that Fenimore was “comparatively negligent,” though he did not elaborate. Defense attorney James Valente argued during the 2018 trial that Fenimore may have been on her phone at the time of the crash — an accusation her mother, Jennifer Rhodes, has denied.

The crash was the “result of a superseding/intervening act of a third party over whom the defendant had no control,” Johnston wrote in the July response.

A call to Johnston for comment was not returned Monday.

Philip Waystack, an attorney for Carpenter’s family, said he’s waiting to review discovery evidence in the case.

“The tragedy here is that two young people are dead,” he said.

Both sides are requesting a jury trial in the case, but a date has not been set.

Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.