WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A Norwich Selectboard member charged with financially exploiting a former Upper Valley lawyer with Alzheimer’s disease pleaded not guilty in Windsor Superior Court on Tuesday morning.
Mary Layton, 72, faces one felony count of financial exploitation of Bill Clauson, who died at 81 in July 2025 from Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia.
If convicted, Layton, who in addition to serving on the Norwich Selectboard also teaches at Open Fields School in Thetford, could face up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.
On Tuesday, Judge Dickson Corbett ordered Layton released on conditions, including that she refrain from contact with and abuse and harassment of Laura Clauson, Bill Clauson’s eldest daughter, and that she is prohibited from divesting of or distributing tens of thousands in funds from Clauson’s Social Security deposits allegedly transferred into her own checking account between July 2022 and April 2024.
Layton’s attorney, Simone Washington, of Langrock, Sperry and Wool, which has offices in Burlington and Middlebury, Vt., initially disputed the condition of freezing the aforementioned funds as, she argued, “we don’t have an idea of where the funds are and whether they were allegedly transferred to (Layton’s) account.”
Layton and Washington both declined to comment when approached in court in White River Junction on Tuesday.
The allegations stem from a report Laura Clauson made to Adult Protective Services in June 2025, regarding financial exploitation by Layton against her father. In July 2025, Vermont State Police launched an investigation into Layton.
Over nearly a decade while Clauson and Layton were living together, the state alleges that Layton transferred multiple hundreds of thousands of his money into her own checking account.
In its affidavit, the state alleges that Layton used Clauson’s money for her own use, including a divorce settlement and a luxury cruise for her family.
“This is not a violent offense … but it is an impactful offense,” Windsor County Deputy State’s Attorney Taaha Rehamni said in court on Tuesday morning.
In Clauson’s final year of life, his family struggled financially to care for him and pay for funeral arrangements, Laura Clauson previously told the Valley News.
Clauson lived with Layton at her Norwich residence from October 2016 to July 2024. When he moved in with her, Clauson had more than $200,000 in retirement savings and received between $3,000 and $4,000 in monthly Social Security income, according to the affidavit.
By February 2024, Clauson’s family found that he only had little more than $1,000 in savings left, the affidavit states.
In his over 40 years of practicing law, Clauson took on cases against Upper Valley institutions such as Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and the Dresden School District, the Valley News previously reported. He practiced law until 2013, when the state suspended his license over a conflict of interest violation.
While he was living with Layton, his condition worsened and “(he) went from Stage 4 to Stage 6 Alzheimer’s disease,” according to the affidavit in support of the charge against Layton.
Layton previously told the Valley News that she managed Clauson’s money as his health declined, spending it on living expenses including railings on the stairwell of her Norwich home to help him get around.
Reached by email on Monday, Laura Clauson wrote that she is grateful to APS and the Windsor County State’s Attorney’s Office for pursuing the case.
“Financial exploitation of cognitively vulnerable adults is vastly underreported and rarely prosecuted,” she wrote. “As more families face dementia and cognitive decline, we need a much wider conversation about how we protect the people we love and what accountability looks like when that trust is violated.”
No future court dates had been scheduled as of Tuesday.
