St. Albans
McAllister, 65, was acquitted on the most serious charge he faced — felony sexual assault.
He also was acquitted on a second prostitution charge, one that encompassed his entire relationship with his accuser, which prosecutors had alleged was a coercive sex-for-rent scheme.
Speaking on the courthouse steps after the verdict was read, a red-eyed beleaguered looking McAllister told reporters he was glad he got to tell his side of the story. The former lawmaker had unexpectedly taken the stand in his own defense earlier in the day.
“I’m disappointed we didn’t get all of them, but at least the jury got to hear my side, and they believed most of it,” McAllister said, “I feel pretty well vindicated.”
His defense attorney Robert Katims said they would appeal the single conviction.
McAllister expressed concern about a pending civil suit brought by his accuser, in response to a reporter’s questions. “It’s going to be a concern,” he said.
The woman is seeking monetary damages, and the burden of proof is lower in civil cases than criminal.
McAllister’s son, Heath McAllister, who had given confrontational testimony earlier in the day and has been a constant presence at the trial, told reporters that his father’s partial vindication had already come at a heavy price.
Defending against the charges had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and forced McAllister to “sign over” the family farm, Heath said. It’s unclear if Heath was referring to this case or cumulative, as the charges were dropped partway into a previous trial stemming from the same case.
That trial involved a different accuser, a young woman who had interned with McAllister at the Statehouse. Prosecutors dropped that case after it emerged that the woman had lied about a detail of her relationship with another person who worked on McAllister’s farm.
The Franklin County State’s Attorney’s Office, who prosecuted the case, declined to comment as they left the courthouse.
The charge on which McAllister was convicted stemmed from an incident where he prostituted his accuser, a woman living and working on his Highgate, Vt., farm property, to a friend for money that he used to pay her light bill.
The misdemeanor charge carries a sentence of up to one year in prison, and it had not been a focus of the trial. Instead, the trial focused on the felony sexual assault charge, which could have sent McAllister to prison for life.
That felony charge centered around whether a sex act between McAllister and his accuser, which she said caused her great pain, was consensual or amounted to rape. However, during their deliberation, the jury of seven men and five women asked several questions of the court about the incident where McAllister prostituted the woman to a friend.
The friend was not identified at any point during the trial or in any court papers filed during the case, which has stretched on for 2½ years.
McAllister’s 2015 arrest at the Statehouse brought an abrupt halt to the Republican’s tenure, with his senate colleagues suspending him before he went on to lose his seat in the 2016 primary.
The three day trial culminated Friday afternoon with closing statements following McAllister’s surprise walk to the witness box, where he delivered testimony that contradicted his accuser at every turn, casting their relationship as that of occasional lovers who bonded over loss.
VtDigger does not identify the victims of sexual assault without their permission.
The prosecution focused on its strongest evidence, a recorded phone call between McAllister and his alleged victim where they discuss their sexual relationship in graphic detail, including sex acts that caused her pain, plans to prostitute her in the future and transactional elements of their relationship.