Back
Left temple to jaw. Broused [sic]
both eys [sic]

Attorney General’s Office and
State Police

Attached to the list in George Smith’s
file is a letter from Steven Pitonyak,
identified as a “Civil Rights
Investigator” on letterhead from the
Office of -the Attorney General and
dated October 25, four days after the
assault. Pitonyak thanked “Mr.
Smith” for talking with him about the
experience at the Longhorn Trout and
enclosed a brochure on hate crimes
produced by the Attorney General’s
Civil Rights Unit. Pitonyak said he
would speak to Ron Goff (the local
police chief) and request copies of
any repoI'ts.

A month later, Investigator
Pitonyak wrote to George Smith
again, enclosing a copy of the affi-
davit filed with the Franklin County
State’s Attorney by Senior State
Trooper Craig Gardner of the St.
Albans barracks.

In the affidavit, Trooper
Gardner (at the time a four-year vet-
eran) relates his interview with
George on the night of the assault,
including a breathalyzer test showing
George’s blood alcohol content to be
at .108 percent. above the legal limit

   

rri the bar.

The trooper reports that
George said he was talking to one
man in particular at the end of the
evening, but that “he was not ‘hitting
on the man and was not trying to
bring him home to have sex.”‘ The
rest of the reported interview with
George Smith matches in most
details the way George related the
incident to me — except that no men-
tion is made of the sexual assault.

A few days later. Gardner
had interviewed the owner of the bar.
Dennis Deuso. who was present that
night. According to the affidavit,
Deuso agreed to be interviewed but
rcftised to give a written and sworn
statement. Deuso said that George
(whom he called “Steven”) often
came into the bar and “stares at
men.” Deuso suggested that George
had “nudged" ;t‘man sitting near him.
who then‘ moved to the other end of-
the bar. Later, near closing, Deuso
said he heard a disturbance by the
door and thought perhaps Adam
Fortier had “taken a poke” at George
Smith, but says Smith was not
injured or bleeding, and that he
helped separate the two. =
Montgomery Police Chief

- Ron Goff participated in Trooper

Gardner’s interview with Adam
Fortier, the man George identifies as
his primary attacker. Fortier’s first
question to the trooper was whether
he was under arrest, his second
whether he should have a lawyer. In
Gardner’s affidavit, Fortier accused
George of “hitting on him all
evening,” “making suggestive and
rude sexual comments to him,” offer-
ing him a place to stay since Fortier
was too drunk to drive, and then
grabbing his buttocks.

Fortier admitted grabbing
George and shoving him into the
door, which was locked, but denied
kicking or punching him. He also
refused to give the trooper a sworn

' s..:l2ut.Qs.9Ige *ila<.1_.x%si!1<es1...

written statement without the advice
of an attorney.

Another man, James
Blodgett, was interviewed as a wit-
ness to the event, and - as related by
Trooper Gardner — his statement
roughly matches Fortier‘s, with the
additional observation that a woman
he didn’t know pushed George
(whom he also called “Steven”) to
the floor near the door. Blodgett also
suggested that another altercation
involving George occurred outside
the bar, but -that he did not witness it.

Senior Trooper Craig
Gardner’s affidavit concludes that
there is “probable cause to charge
Adam T. Fortier with the crime of
Simple Assault.” The affidavit was
submitted to the Franklin County
State’s Attorney.

Brian Miller, a member of
the Northwest Unit on Special
Investigations who had spoken with
George. said at press time that there _
was no active investigation, that the
results of the investigation had been
sent on to the Franklin County State's
Attomey’s office, and that he could
not otherwise comment on the case.

George received a letter in
mid-March from Franklin County
Victim Advocate Cathy Waltz, saying
that the State’s Attorney had declined
to prosecute. No other explanation

was offered.

The Human Rights

Commission

George Smith didn’t stop there. In
January of 2002, three months after
the assault, he filed a complaint with
the Vermont Human Rights
Commission charging the owners of
the Longhorn Trout with discrimina-
tion in public accommodations on the
basis of his sexual orientation and
disability.

That complaint charges that
Susan Deuso (Dennis’s wife and co-
owner), a bartender, and several
patrons verbally harassed him, that a
patron restrained him and struck him,
that bar owner Dennis Deuso held
him down on the floor and several
patrons struck him. According to
copies of documents George provid-
ed to OITM, within three days,
Human Rights Commission Case
Vlanager Carol Bliss was writing to
Dennis Deuso to inform him of the
complaint. provide a copy of
George’s charge, and request a long
list of information: names, phone
numbers and addresses of the bar’s
owners, employees. and patrons pres-
ent on October 20; training manuals
and orientation materials; and any
information about the “alleged inci-
dent of physical assault.”

As of press time — nearly a
year after George Smith’s initial
complaint to the HRC — an investiga-
tor is still conducting interviews, and
no hearing has been scheduled.

The Longhorn 1rout’s
Response

Within two weeks of receiving their
letter from the Human Rights
Commission, Susan and Dennis
Deuso responded to the discrimina-
tion charge, providing the requested
names and addresses (although no
training manual or orientation materi-
als were listed) and giving their ver-

sion of the evening's events: “Dennis
see Stevent[George] push Celeste,

1__and so I went over and grabbed

Steven and put him to the floor and
told him he didn’t want anybody to
get punched and to go home.

“Earlier in the evening he
was harassing Adam Fortier and a
few others and making obscene ges-
tures with suckers [lollipops].

“No one called him a Fag
and he knows that, we are not that
kind of people. We have all kinds of
people in here and no one cares about
his or her sexuality.” The statement
was signed by Susan Deuso, and a
copy was forwarded to George Smith
by the HRC.

The American civil Liberties
Foundation of Vermont

Running out of options and feeling
that no one was helping, Steven
George Smith called and then wrote
to the ACL Foundation of Vermont:
“Is the ACLF of V the same as
ACLU?” George wrote. He explained
why he couldn’t afford a long dis-
tance call and asked for someone to
call him. Then he responded to ques-
tions: “91l was called to my home —
I don’t know if charges were pressed
— I don’t know if the matter is going
to court. I’ve been told because I
remember being sexuly assault [sic]

in my nightmares that I'm not sopose — ‘

[sic] to talk about it. If you have I-
800 # send it Benson — hope I
answered some of you Qs [sic].”

In his reply, Executive
Director Benson Scotch explained
that the ACLU focuses primarily on
“violations of civil liberties under the
Bill of Rights” that had been “com-
mitted by the State of Vermont or the
federal government.”

' Scotch added that although
George had requested a phone inter-
view, he did not have the staff or vol-
unteers to accommodate him, and
asked for more written information.

Waiting for Justice

At the end of January, George Smith
went back to see Dr. Robert Zelazo at
the Richford Health Center and was
diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress

Syndrome. Since then he’s been wait-
v ring, rarely going out at night, worried

that the people he says assaulted him
in the Longhorn Trout might attack
him again. I-Iecalls the various agen-
cies '— on their 800 numbers — and ’
waits for some action. He finds new
agencies that might get involved: the
Liquor Control Department to con-
sider suspending the bar’s license;
SafeSpace to get help for himself and
his case.

George Smith is still wait-
ing, though he’s not quite so alone
now that SafeSpace is helping him
track his case. George says that
SafeSpace Advocate Mike Bensel lis-
tens to his frustration with the sys-
tem, helps him find other agencies to
enlist, is working on getting him a
lawyer who will take on a civil case
against the bar, and is trying to get
answers from the law enforcement
agencies that have so far let him
down. But its slow work.

Perhaps for one outsider
living in eastern Franklin County jus-
tice is coming —- but then again, so’s
Christmas. V