Grand Isle County State’s Attorney Douglas DiSabito was arrested April 14 on a drunken driving charge after driving to the Franklin County Superior Court in St. Albans, according to court documents filed this week. Police said the 57-year-old prosecutor told them he had taken two prescribed Xanax pills before getting behind the wheel.
DiSabito was taken to the St. Albans Police Department after the arrest and later released that evening. He blew a blood alcohol concentration of 0.084, just over Vermont’s legal limit of 0.08. The probable cause affidavit filed in Franklin County Superior Court this week gives the first detailed account of what police say happened at the courthouse.
He arrived at about 1:30 p.m. after driving from his father’s nursing home, and court employee Heidi Tessier told police he was unusually cheerful and giddy and that his breath smelled of alcohol. Another employee, Samantha Trayah, said he pulled into the courthouse parking lot rather quickly, honked his horn and said, “I just had to do it.”
Franklin County Sheriff’s office Capt. Chad Miles confronted DiSabito at the courthouse, where the prosecutor allegedly told him, “You can’t put me behind the wheel,” according to the affidavit. Miles said DiSabito seemed confused and smelled of alcohol. After Goldman arrived at the courthouse, he said DiSabito had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech. DiSabito failed a field sobriety test by losing his balance during the walking and one-leg stand.
Police said DiSabito initially told Goldman he was not taking any prescription medications. He later said he was taking prescribed Xanax for stress and had taken the medication before driving. Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George will handle the case.
The arrest lands on an elected prosecutor who first won office in 2014 and has been re-elected without challengers in every election since then. It also comes two years after Addison County State’s Attorney Eva Vekos was cited on similar charges; she pleaded no contest to DUI in December, and the Vermont Supreme Court temporarily suspended her law license just days before DiSabito was cited.
DiSabito’s case now moves to a prosecutor from another county, and the question is not whether the courthouse episode was unusual — the affidavit already answers that — but how a sitting state’s attorney will be treated when the facts point to the same offense he would normally prosecute.
