Woman headed to Rutland drug court

The most serious charge against a Rutland woman accused of attempting to rob a gas station in North Springfield in April has been dismissed and instead she will participate in Rutland’s drug court.

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Woman headed to Rutland drug court By ERIC FRANCIS CORRESPONDENT | January 04,2016 WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The most serious charge against a Rutland woman accused of attempting to rob a gas station in North Springfield in April has been dismissed and instead she will participate in Rutland’s drug court. Diana Turgeon, 39, who has no prior criminal record, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of providing false information to a police officer and then apologized to the court in Windsor County late last month. “I’m sorry I wasted everyone’s time” she said as she described her actions during the bizarre April 6 incident, which briefly terrified a clerk at the North Springfield Irving station, as “out of character.” As part of the plea agreement, the state dismissed a felony attempted assault and robbery charge that had originally been filed against Turgeon and agreed to transfer the misdemeanor conviction over to the Rutland drug court for supervision. “This was a huge mystery for everybody,” Judge Nancy Corsones said as she approved the resolution of the case. Corsones expressed her own enthusiasm for Rutland’s court-supervised drug treatment efforts before adding from the bench, “I wish you the best.” Police responded to robberies or attempted robberies four times during 2015 at the North Springfield Irving station. At the second of those incidents, Springfield Police Detective Patrick Call said he was told by the “trembling and shaking” lone clerk on duty that a woman had just demanded she hand over the “tens and twenties” and, after being rebuffed twice, stated, “Don’t make me get my gun.” Turgeon ended up leaving the store empty-handed and was apprehended by police just a few yards down the road. Call said Turgeon initially tried to pass the whole encounter off as a joke that had fallen flat, something she said “spur of the moment” after scratching her way through several losing lottery tickets she’d purchased at the counter. However, Call said a search of Turgeon’s car turned up a hat that had two eye holes cut out of it which made it “look like a robber’s mask as depicted on TV or in movies.” Call said Turgeon eventually admitted that she was “struggling financially and was on the verge of losing her home.” “(Turgeon) advised she was incurring medical issues, had depression issues, and her son had numerous medical issues too which caused her to quit her job and stay at home to care for him,” Call wrote, adding that Turgeon said “this was not her and that she felt horrible (but) she did not want her children not to have a place to live.”