Pair charged with squatting in home

A Springfield couple who police said they recently discovered inside a ransacked home are being held for lack of bail.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20130809/NEWS02/708099932

Published August 9, 2013 in the Rutland Herald Pair charged with squatting in home By Eric Francis CORRESPONDENT WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A Springfield couple who police said they recently discovered inside a ransacked home are being held for lack of bail. Ashley Blanchard, 20, and Dorian Thompson, 24, each pleaded innocent to a felony trespass charge during their arraignments in White River Junction on Monday afternoon. Blanchard also entered an innocent plea to a misdemeanor charge of violating court-ordered conditions of pre-trial release. Springfield Police said homeowner Sarah Freeman had been in the process of moving out of her residence on Buena Vista Place when she returned to find evidence, including open doors and toilets filled with human waste, that someone had been squatting in her property. Three officers conducted a sweep of the property at 2 a.m. Saturday morning and found Thompson and Blanchard asleep in a bed on the first floor, Springfield Police Sgt. Robert Simmons wrote in his report, adding the couple refused to answer police questions about what they were doing there. Simmons described the house as ransacked, saying that every drawer, cupboard, and moving box had been opened and its contents dumped out on the floors. Blanchard had just reached a plea agreement with the state this May in which she was convicted of a pair of felonies for selling oxycodone and heroin in early 2012 to cooperating individuals working with the Vermont Drug Task Force from the mudroom of her residence at the time in Chester. Blanchard was given a suspended 1- to 5-year sentence, ordered to do 30 days on the Corrections Department work crew, and enrolled in the state’s Intensive Substance Abuse Program. Simmons wrote that Blanchard’s mother had already reported her to police as being in violation of court orders that required her to live at her mother’s home and observe a nighttime curfew there while she was undergoing drug treatment. Blanchard was being held on $1,000 bail. Thompson is awaiting trial on several charges, including taking a car without the owner’s consent. Thompson was being held on $5,000 bail.