Sex Offender Set For Sept. Release

The Springfield, Vt., man who sexually assaulted a woman in 2000 in Weathersfield after he forced her into his car while she was out for a walk with her young children will be released from prison later this year.

This article by Bob Hookway of the Valley News, is no longer online. The offender is Alan E. Benoit.

http://www.vnews.com/07292010/6871624.htm                                                                                   Published 7/29/2010  •  Sex Offender Set For Sept. Release  •  By Bob Hookway Valley News Staff Writer  •  White River Junction -- The Springfield, Vt., man who sexually assaulted a woman in 2000 in Weathersfield after he forced her into his car while she was out for a walk with her young children will be released from prison later this year.  •  Despite the protest of the victim's ex-husband, now deployed overseas with the military, Vermont District Court Judge Theresa S. DiMauro and Windsor County State's Attorney Robert Sand, the prosecutor, said at a hearing yesterday there was no legal justification for keeping Alan E. Benoit incarcerated.  •  “This court has no authority to keep Mr. Benoit in after he has served his time, absent a violation,” DiMauro said.  •  Benoit, who is to be released Sept. 17, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2002. Because he committed the crime before Vermont enacted truth-in-sentencing legislation, it was understood at the time that with credit for pre-sentence incarceration plus time off for good behavior, Benoit, 30, would be scheduled for release this year.  •  “Mr. Benoit has upheld his end of the bargain,” Sand said during the hearing.  •  The victim, Carissa Dowd, 39, has from the start of the case rejected the anonymity typically afforded by the media to victims of sexual assault, saying she opposes the stigmatization it suggests and would refuse to behave as though she had done anything wrong in the incident.  •  Dowd, who lives in Grantham, declined to appear in court yesterday, wanting to avoid proximity to Benoit, but e-mailed a statement to the Valley News.  •  “I'm just thankful that my perpetrator went to jail. Most never do -- sexual assault is the most underreported crime -- 60% of victims never tell law enforcement. It wasn't easy, but I feel this successful conviction set a precedent, which will serve as a guideline as punishment for other offenders of violent crimes and a deterrent for potential offenders.”  •  “This was a win for victims, for children and ultimately a society which does not tolerate sexual assault. The criminal justice system has more power to help rape victims than any other institution.  •  “The State of Vermont is moving in a good direction to support the victims that come to them despite the stigma that rape still holds. Once the courts show they are taking sexual assault seriously, any support the victim has been able to maintain generally becomes stronger.  •  “Without the support of law enforcement and the justice system, support for the victim erodes quickly, discouraging future victims from coming forward. I made it through the court system at a time when victims weren't taken very seriously and I have WISE (Lebanon-based Women's Information Service) to thank for supporting me and helping me see step by step that I wasn’t asking the court to do anything other than what they should be doing, which is helping victims and sending a message out into the world that as a society we will not tolerate sexual violence.”  •  In court yesterday, Kevin Griffin, Benoit's public defender throughout the case, told DiMauro, who sentenced Benoit in 2002, that he couldn't recall a client who had better complied with his sentence and kept out of trouble in prison. At the 2002 sentencing hearing, Griffin described Benoit as having “borderline” intelligence with an estimated IQ of 79.  •  Griffin said Benoit, who completed a sex offender treatment program while incarcerated, has the support of family members who were looking forward to his release, and that he would likely have a job shortly after his release.  •  In an interview following the hearing, Griffin said he would be “shocked” if Benoit re-offends.  •  Sand, calling the mater an “absolutely awful case,” pointed out that if he reoffends, Benoit faces life in prison, according to the terms of his sentence.  •  On May 6, 2000, Benoit was a 20-year-old worker at an area concrete plant when he attacked Dowd, who was in Weathersfield visiting relatives. She was pushing her 14-month-old child in a stroller as her three-year-old walked by her side on Old Ferry Road, which runs between Route 5 and the Connecticut River when they encountered Benoit, who after driving past them several times, stopped his 1989 Oldsmobile, approached the family while wielding a tire iron and ordered Dowd into his car.  •  Dowd later told police she believed she and her children would all be killed and told Benoit, who weighed 260 pounds at the time of the attack, she would do whatever he wanted if he agreed not to hurt her children.  •  After she placed the children in the backseat and got in the front passenger seat, Benoit drove to a spot beside the road and forced Dowd to perform a sex act on him. He did not hurt the children physically, and when she was able to persuade him to release them a few minutes later, she ran with them to the nearby home of the relative they had been visiting and called police.  •  Dowd had taken careful note of a number of objects in Benoit's car, police said in their report, and later that night, after police stopped Benoit's car in Springfield, they brought Dowd to the scene and she identified Benoit as the attacker.  •  At Benoit's two-and-a-half-hour sentencing hearing in November 2002, DiMauro praised Dowd for protecting her children.  •  “To be accosted by a stranger with no help in sight is a woman's worst nightmare,” the judge said at the time, adding that to have one's children similarly threatened was “a parent’s worst nightmare.”   •