By Mike Donoghue, Senior Correspondent
Vermont State Police say no criminal charges are expected from an investigation that led to Woodstock Police Chief Joseph Swanson being placed on paid administrative leave last month.
Detective Capt. Scott Dunlap said the other two people who were involved in the Oct. 13 incident in Woodstock refused to cooperate with state police. With no statements, the case was closed, he said.
Swanson was present when two drivers, including his husband, Woodstock lawyer Nicholas “Nico” Seldon, became involved in a motor vehicle complaint on High Street the afternoon of Oct. 13, according to an investigation by the Vermont Standard.
The second driver filed a complaint at the Woodstock Police Department later the same day, officials have confirmed.
The Vermont Standard was able to track down the name of the second driver, but he declined to discuss specific details of the incident with the newspaper. Without a formal complaint, the Standard is not printing his name. Chief Swanson was cooperative with the state police investigation, Dunlap said.
Swanson was initially identified as a witness to the traffic incident on the narrow street. But after interviewing him, police learned he may have been more involved, Dunlap said.
“He injected himself. He physically separated the two involved,” Dunlap said.
“He was a witness to parts of the event, he didn’t see everything,” the captain said about Chief Swanson.
Three other people on High Street heard a commotion and saw parts of the incident, police said. One person took a partial video after the incident happened, Dunlap said.
Swanson’s attorney, William Vasiliou of Langrock, Sperry and Wool, said Wednesday his client is looking forward to returning to work serving the community.
“Chief Swanson is glad that the investigation of the High Street incident is completed. He wants the community to know that he fully cooperated with the investigation by VSP, and at no time was he suspected of committing any unlawful act. As witness to the High Street incident, Chief Swanson acted to deescalate the situation and prevent harm from coming to those involved,” Vasiliou told the Vermont Standard.
“Chief Swanson takes his oath as a law enforcement officer seriously, and he is honored to serve as Chief of the Woodstock Police Department. He looks forward to putting this matter behind him, and we expect that he will return to work in the very near future,” Vasiliou said in an email.
Meanwhile, Seldon’s lawyer, Manchester, N.H. Attorney Linda Fraas, also has maintained her client did nothing wrong and the second driver was the aggressor.
“We closed the case due to uncooperative individuals on both sides,” Dunlap said.
Without statements from the two main players, detectives have nothing to go on, Dunlap said.
Dunlap said Woodstock Municipal Manager Eric Duffy was notified this week that the case would not go forward.
Duffy declined comment to the Standard on Wednesday about the investigation. It was unclear when Swanson might be cleared by the manager to return to work.
Dunlap said Windsor County State’s Attorney Ward Goodenough also was briefed. Because there was nothing to review, Goodenough, who lives in Woodstock, did not have to find another state’s attorney to conduct an independent review of the statements and the investigation.
Seldon said Wednesday he had done nothing wrong, and the other driver was the aggressor. He also remains unhappy with Duffy’s handling of Swanson when the chief had done nothing wrong.
“As I previously stated, I was not the aggressor. The other motorist initiated an incident by exiting his car, blocking my path, and pounding on the hood of my car,” Seldon said.
“The fact is that there never was any type of allegation made against Joe Swanson by anyone at any point in time. The Town Manager – Eric Duffy – has mishandled this situation by misrepresenting the information provided to him and by refusing to clarify for the media that Joe was never a person of interest or under any type of criminal investigation of any kind,” Seldon said in an email to the Vermont Standard.
Duffy announced on Oct. 15, two days after the incident, that Swanson had been placed on paid leave earlier that morning. His statement said it was “as a precaution following a report of his alleged involvement in an incident that occurred on Sunday, Oct. 13.”
Fraas had maintained from the start she thought Swanson did nothing wrong and just happened to be there.
The request by Duffy for an independent investigation came one day after the incident, state police said.
The day Duffy put Swanson on leave, he named Woodstock Sgt. Chris O’Keeffe as the acting police chief to lead the department. There was no cap on how long O’Keeffe would be needed.