Former Rutland cop has bail set after second rape conviction vacated
WORCESTER — A former Rutland police officer sentenced to 28 years in jail following two rape convictions a decade ago had bail set at $25,000 Wednesday after the state’s high court vacated one of the convictions and ordered a new trial.
Jason D. Briddon, who has completed the 10-to-12-year sentence he received on the conviction that was not overturned, would be released to home confinement and GPS monitoring should his family post bail in the vacated case.
“We’re back to square one now. Mr. Briddon is presumed to be innocent,” the man’s lawyer, Darren T. Griffis, noted during a Worcester Superior Court bail hearing Wednesday in which the woman prosecutors say he raped in 2007 wept and became angry as she sat in the front row.
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Briddon worked as a part-time police officer in Rutland for about three years.
After Briddon’s bail was set at $25,000 — $15,000 more than he had requested and $25,000 less than prosecutors had requested — emotions ran high as the woman shouted at members of the man’s family as she left the courtroom.
The family members walked outside the courtroom, where the woman shouted obscenities at them as employees of the district attorney’s office escorted her to an elevator.
The family members declined to comment. The woman, Shawna C. Callahan, told the Telegram & Gazette in a telephone interview after the proceedings that she became overcome with emotion during the hearing.
“He ruined my life,” Callahan said of Briddon. “I beat him (in court) once. Why do I have to beat him again?”
Callahan said she plans to testify at another trial because she believes Briddon needs to be behind bars. She said she believes he will hurt other women if released on bail.
'Use my name'
The T&G does not normally name victims or alleged victims of sexual assault, but Callahan said she wanted to be identified.
“Use my name. I don’t want him to forget me,” she said. “Because I won’t ever be able to forget him.”
Callahan became upset in court Wednesday as prosecutors detailed Briddon’s conviction for raping the other woman in 2010, as well as the allegations in her own case.
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Summarizing Callahan's case for the judge Wednesday, Assistant District Attorney Tara L. Nechev — without naming Callahan — said the woman met Briddon at a bar in 2007 and he told her he was a part-time Rutland Police officer.
After receiving a drink from Briddon, the woman became dizzy and sick, Nechev said, and accepted his offer to drive her home.
“Because he was a police officer, she thought she could trust him,” Nechev said, but instead he took her to a nearby home, carried her inside and slammed her on a bed, where she passed out.
The woman awoke to the sound of bodies slamming together and realized she was being raped, Nechev alleged. As the prosecutor spoke, Callahan alternated between tears and anger in the front row of the court gallery.
Charged in 2008
Callahan was eventually was able to identify Briddon following that evening and he was charged with rape and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in 2008.
He was released without bail being required, Nechev said, and was arrested again after allegedly, while on release, beating and raping a woman he had agreed to pay for sex.
Briddon was convicted in that second case and sentenced to 10 to 12 years in prison for it in 2010.
A separate trial in Callahan’s case ended in a hung jury, but he was convicted during a second trial in 2012 and sentenced to 18 to 20 additional years in prison.
That conviction was vacated in June by the Supreme Judicial Court, however, after the justices agreed Briddon’s defense lawyer made a substantial error during the second trial.
The ruling centers on testimony Briddon’s wife gave at his first trial granting him an alibi for the time of the alleged rape that was not introduced at his second trial.
By the second trial, Briddon and his wife were in a contentious divorce and Briddon’s lawyer, David R. Yannetti, elected not to call her to the stand.
Briddon argued on appeal that Yannetti’s decision was a mistake, noting that he didn’t bother to reach out to the wife to see whether she would, again, testify as an alibi at the second trial.
State Appeals Court
The state appeals court agreed and ordered Worcester Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Wrenn to determine whether Briddon had been deprived of a “substantial ground of defense.”
In a ruling he wrote last January after hearing from the wife in a closed-door proceeding, Wrenn determined that Briddon’s lawyer, even if he had contacted the woman, would not have been able to introduce her testimony because of ethical rules.
Wrenn ruled the wife, if called a second time, would have invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and refused to testify, and that ethical rules would have precluded Yannetti from introducing her testimony from the first trial.
The SJC disagreed, writing that while court rules bar a lawyer from introducing testimony they know to be false, the facts of this case did not prove Yannetti would have sufficient basis to know whether the wife’s testimony was false.
“(The ethical rule) does not apply if a lawyer merely suspects that a witness’ testimony may be untruthful,” the SJC wrote, opining that in this case, the lawyer could not have known for sure whether it was false or was not.
The justices further noted that the wife’s testimony in the first trial was key because she was the only alibi Briddon had. They said they lacked “substantial confidence” that the guilty verdict against Briddon in the second trial would have been the same if Yannetti had introduced the wife’s prior testimony and accordingly vacated the conviction and ordered a new trial.
The justices noted, at the end of their 12-page opinion that, “there appears to be no reason the Commonwealth could not grant (the wife) immunity from prosecution … in which case her live testimony would be available at a retrial.”
Bail conditions
If Briddon posts bail and is released prior to his retrial, he will be ordered to be on probation, be confined to his home and wear a GPS monitor.
Griffis, his lawyer, told Judge Valerie A. Yarashus Wednesday that he expects Briddon would live with a family member in Millbury should he make bail.
Griffis said the man’s family stands by him. He told the Telegram & Gazette outside the courtroom he did not believe the family would be immediately able to post the $25,000, but will be making an attempt to do so.
In his argument for $10,000, Griffis had listed, in addition to financial concerns, a concern about Briddon — who he said has been diagnosed with stomach cancer — catching COVID-19 in jail.
Briddon is due back in court Aug. 30.
Contact Brad Petrishen at brad.petrishen@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BPetrishenTG.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Former Rutland cop Jason Briddon has bail set after second rape conviction vacated
