LEBANON — A Lebanon district court judge has ordered lawyers to get their calendars synced for an expected upcoming trial of a former Lebanon police officer who has been accused of cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend.
Judge Michael Garner instructed lawyers during a brief telephone conference on Wednesday to let the court know when the parties would be mutually available between December and March for an expected two-day trial of Richard Smolenski, a former Lebanon cop charged with a misdemeanor count of stalking a former girlfriend, a state corrections officer, and sending her messages under fake online accounts threatening to release explicit information about their relationship.
The case against Smolenski, who has pleaded not guilty and maintains his innocence, appeared earlier this summer all set to be placed “on file,” meaning the defendant would have avoided a conviction as long as he adhered to certain restrictive conditions for at least a year.
But those plans were upended when the state prosecutors made the surprise about-face and announced during a June court hearing that they instead wanted to proceed to trial.
During the conference call, Assistant Belknap County Attorney Alexander Smeaton said the state is “ready for this case to be scheduled for trial” but Smolenski’s defense attorney, Tony DiPadova, said the state still has not responded to his repeated requests to schedule a witness deposition of a Grafton County Sheriff’s Department forensics examiner.
Although Smeaton attributed the problem to the lead state prosecutor on the case “having a lot going on” and being on vacation, Judge Garner said that if the state did not agree on a deposition date within two weeks then Smolenski’s attorney could “either subpoena this person or ask the court to decide based on one of the dates” the defense requests.
“I’m sure we can figure it out,” Smeaton replied to the judge.
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com
