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Former trooper avoids jail in restraint case



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By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff - Published: October 13, 2008

BRATTLEBORO — The former second-in-command at the Windham County Sheriff's Department has pleaded no contest to charges she took one of her law enforcement students on a secret trip to Florida without the girl's mother's permission or knowledge.

Heidi Nelson, 42, who resigned from the department shortly before she was charged in Brattleboro District Court with unlawful restraint, received a three-year deferred sentence and her case was referred to court diversion, according to Windham County State's Attorney Tracy Kelly Shriver.

Nelson, a Westminster resident and retired Vermont State Police trooper, taught at the vocational center at Brattleboro Union High School as part of her duties with the Sheriff's Department. The charge of unlawful restraint carried a potential five-year prison sentence.

The girl in question was a student at the vocational center.

Nelson pleaded no contest to a related misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct and received a 45-day sentence, all of it suspended, according to Shriver.

According to court records, Nelson was also the girl's coach on the school's junior-varsity softball team, and had been friendly with her for about two years.

The girl told police investigators that she and Nelson did not have a sexual relationship, which Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark told state police investigators he didn't fully believe.

But in e-mail messages between Nelson and the girl, filed in court as part of the affidavit of probable cause, Nelson appeared to coach the girl in what to say to investigators about the nature of their relationship.

Nelson and the girl had spent time together at the girl's home with the mother's knowledge, but their trip to Florida during winter vacation was made without the mother's permission.

According to court records, the girl told her mother she was going with a classmate, and when the mother asked Nelson if she knew anything about the trip, she said she didn't know.

Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.







READER COMMENTS


Dawn, I have nothing against gays and lesbians, quite the opposite, I have championed their causes such as the right to live their lives the way they want to, the right to marry, have children, get benefits they should be entitled to from their partners, I have gay friends that I care about, but one thing they would never, ever do, is seduce a child and engage in a sexual relationship with one like this pedophile has, this is the point I hoped I made and I guess you misconstrued what I said, I just find it disturbing that a police officer, someone kids and their parents should respect and trust, would do the unthinkable and engage in this illicit behavior, betraying her department, she was second-in-command to the Sheriff, she represented him, and also, she betrayed the trust of the child's parents and the whole thing just disgusts me to no end.
-- Posted by Linda Brown on Tue, Oct 14, 2008, 3:15 pm EST

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While I agree wholeheartedly that this woman's actions were criminal, and a terrible abuse of power, I question whether it's necessary to comment on her sexuality. Whether or not she's a lesbian isn't particularly germane to the case at hand. As a number of creditable studies have determined, homosexuals are no more or less likely to engage in pedophilia than heterosexuals. It may not have been the intention of the above comment to link this person's crime with her presumed sexual preference, but no one is well-served by continuing to perpetuate the myth of a homosexual-pedophile connection.
-- Posted by Dawn Nieters on Mon, Oct 13, 2008, 5:36 pm EST

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I just posted in the Reformer that I think this woman is nothing more than a pedophile and had she been a man, she would be sitting in a cell in Springfield. She took advantage of this girl as she was not of age to consent and I don't believe for one minute that it wasn't sexual, Sheriff Clark believes that it was and how hard this must be on him too, that woman was his second-in-command and she blew her oath of integrity right off the map, lying and coaching the girl what to say when confronted by the police and Thank God, she will never work in law enforcement again, What makes this even more disgusting is how many cases involving pedophiles do you think she had during her tenure as a police officer??? She deserves jail time in my opinion because when a police officer goes bad, it reflects on all of law enforcement, and the Sheriff's Dept was still reeling from the Sheila Prue debacle and now Sheriff Clark has this blight on his dept, a lesbian who could not keep her hand's off a child who misused her power to seduce this child and I find it reprehensible.
-- Posted by Linda Brown on Mon, Oct 13, 2008, 1:53 pm EST

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Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Vt create a punishable law specifically for adult persons who abuse their positions as teachers or some form of mentorship in regards to minors. This case reaks of parental neglect, afterall it was okay for her daughter to go somewhere with who knows which friend without contacting the other girls parent or parents to confirm the plans. I guess tween kidnapping by a police official is okay if the parent doesn't file charges? Does the state not get it, apparently this tween needs protection not only from a sexually charged predatory police officer (and their seem to be many out their) but from the stupidity or ambivalance of the parent. Cannot the State make further charges w/o the parents consent and by transporting this minor over the State line isn't this a federal offense? Where are the feds in thsi? I just give up with Vermont.
-- Posted by Justn Thyme on Mon, Oct 13, 2008, 9:14 am EST

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Just one more cop walking a way. I see the cops that do there job are punished and the ones that brake the law just walk. If a boy took that girl on the same trip everyone would want to send him away. What a system!
-- Posted by Dave Waite on Mon, Oct 13, 2008, 6:20 am EST

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