Man found not guilty of sex assault charge
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By Thatcher Moats Times Argus Staff - Published: October 29, 2009
BARRE – A man accused of raping a woman in Plainfield in 2007 walked away from a Barre courtroom a free man on Wednesday after a jury declared he was not guilty of sexual assault.
The defendant, 50-year-old Dale Podolece, said he was glad the case — which stems from Halloween night two years ago — is finally closed.
"I'm glad it's over, for them as well as us," Podolece said, referring to the accuser, Heather Chouinard, and her family, who Podolece had been close friends with for years before the night in question.
The jury deliberated for one-and-a-half hours and announced the verdict at 2:15 p.m.
Chouinard and her family members appeared upset with the verdict and did not want to comment as they left the courtroom. But Chouinard, who said her name could be used in this story, later made a statement by telephone and thanked the state's attorney's office and the Sexual Assault Crisis Team for their hard work and support.
"I just want to kind of say how I appreciate the amount of work the (prosecutor) and the Sexual Assault Crisis Team put into it and helped support me," she said.
But the conclusion of the case hasn't brought closure for her, said Chouinard.
"It'll never be over," she said. "I'm going to struggle with knowing that some people don't believe me, and I'm going to have to go through the process of accepting what happened to me."
Chouinard, 35, said she doesn't blame the jury, even though she thinks their decision was wrong.
"I respect the choice the jurors made even though I don't necessarily see that it's accurate," she said. "But they did do the job."
Podolece, a retired military man who once worked with Chouinard's father, is a Mississippi resident who came to Vermont in 2007 to help Chouinard's parents move to Plainfield, where she was living.
Podolece admitted to having sex with Chouinard at her Plainfield apartment, but said it was consensual.
Chouinard took the witness stand on Tuesday, which was the first day of the two-day trial, and yesterday Podolece took the stand in his own defense.
His testimony clashed with testimony from Chouinard, her mother and other witnesses regarding where conversations took place the night of the incident, what was said the next day and about the sexual encounter.
Chouinard said she became sick after drinking less than three vodka drinks, became incapacitated and felt like she was having an "out-of-body" experience. Then Podolece took advantage of her and she was incapable of saying "no" to him, she testified.
But Podolece claimed she exposed herself and said: "you want some of this" don't you? And then they went to the bedroom and had sex, he said.
Podolece testified that the next day, Chouinard's mother told him not to worry about any accusations, because Chouinard had made similar accusations before.
"She said, 'Don't worry about this. Heather has done this before two or three times,'" Podolece said.
Leona Chouinard denied she ever disbelieved her daughter and said she didn't recall telling Podolece that her daughter had previously made false claims.
Without making direct accusations in the courtroom, both sides in the case have danced around the question of how Chouinard became suddenly sick that night after just over two drinks.
The prosecution has implied that Podolece may have drugged Chouinard's drink, pointing out that Podolece was alone with Chouinard's drink at one point. Chouinard said that after Podolece had been alone in the room with her drink, she started drinking it again and suddenly started feeling dizzy and light-headed and passed out.
Podolece denied he was ever alone with the drink.
Podolece, on the other hand, said he saw crushed up pills on a countertop in Chouinard's apartment bathroom, along with eight or 10 pill bottles that were not prescribed to her.
In an interesting twist, Washington County Deputy State's Attorney Megan Campbell recalled Leona Chouinard to the stand on Wednesday, and she testified there was no countertop in the bathroom where Podolece claims he saw the crushed pills and pill bottles.
"There was no room" for pills or bottles, said Leona Chouinard.
In her closing argument, Podolece's attorney, Maggie Vincent, questioned why the prosecution didn't have a photo of the bathroom if the counter was such important evidence and called testimony about the counter in the bathroom the "biggest red herring" in the case.
Instead of a photo, "we get to hear an angry mother's statement about the bathroom counter," said Vincent.
The pills in the bathroom have another role in the defense's case other than hinting that Chouinard may have used the drugs that night. Podolece has said it was after he found the drugs and Chouinard begged him not to tell her parents about the drugs that she propositioned him with sex.
Another theory the defense put before the jury in the closing argument was that Chouinard essentially made up the story in case Podolece told her parents the two had sex.
"If I'm a victim, I get attention and I get support," Vincent said, while a co-conspirator who sleeps with her parents' friend would be "ostracized."
Washington County State's Attorney Tom Kelly characterized the case against Podolece as a tough one to prove.
"It's a he-said she-said," according to Kelly, who also said he did not regret that his office pressed the charge.
Kelly pointed out that it's tough to prove something "beyond a reasonable doubt" and the jury apparently couldn't reach that point based on the facts put before them.
Podolece said he harbors no ill will towards the accuser or her family, even though he has claimed all along he was wrongly accused.
"I don't wish no harm on them," said Podolece, who has no criminal record.
Podolece does feel bad about cheating on his wife, who testified during the trial and stood beside him when it was over.
"I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make this right with her and with God," he said.
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