Prosecutor Pushed Burlington Mayor to Rein in Chief’s Comments

Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George lobbied Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak to get control of the city’s police chief in the days leading up to the mayor’s mandate that the department funnel all press releases through her office for approval, emails obtained in a records request show.

George had been calling for stronger oversight of the Burlington Police Department’s public communications for some time and raised the issue again on December 30 in response to a press release about Michael Reynolds, a Burlington man who police say they have interacted with nearly 2,000 times over the years.

The release featured a lengthy statement from Chief Jon Murad in which he called on George’s office to consider prosecuting Reynolds under an enhanced penalty known as the habitual offender statute. Reynolds has previously been convicted three dozen times, including for six felonies, and faces well over a dozen new pending charges.

Murad’s statement was later picked up by WBUR Boston’s syndicated “On Point” radio program, which is carried by hundreds of radio stations nationally.

“The obsession with Mr. Reynolds despite BPD’s own decisions to repeatedly cite him rather than lodge him is so disingenuous and misleading to the community,” George wrote on December 30 in an email to Mulvaney-Stanak’s staff, just minutes after Murad’s statement was released.

She called Murad’s missive not only “unnecessary and performative” but also legally inaccurate, and said pontificating about how someone should be charged is “not his role.”

The chief “really needs to knock it off,” George wrote.

George expanded on her criticism in a separate email to a WCAX-TV reporter seeking her thoughts on Murad’s statement.

The habitual offender enhancement is intended to address people who should be “incarcerated long term for extreme violence” but for whom prosecutors don’t have serious enough pending charges to pursue such a sentence, George wrote. The sheer number of pending cases against Reynolds already grants prosecutors the ability to levy a hefty punishment against him — “IF we decided that [he] should be in jail for years,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, rather than send Reynolds to jail, BPD officers often issue citations that allow him to leave crime scenes. Judges can’t impose bail when someone shows up for those dates, George wrote, which Reynolds “almost ALWAYS” does.

“I understand WCAX wanting to give time to things that BPD puts long press releases out about — Michael Reynolds and Patrick Ibbotson are good examples,” she wrote, referencing another notorious repeat offender. “But these are individuals in our community who are incredibly complicated and throwing them away is not the answer regardless of how many press releases BPD puts out about them.”

George’s December 30 email prompted a reply from Mulvaney-Stanak’s senior adviser on community safety, Ingrid Jonas. She worked her way through the ranks of Vermont State Police before retiring as a major in 2021. Jonas agreed that some BPD press releases “could be done more professionally,” but she also empathized with Murad’s position.

He seemed to be channeling widespread frustration in the Queen City, Jonas wrote. “It appears to many that meaningful and swift consequences for wrongful actions are either not in place, or not working effectively. People, at best, do not know what to make of it. At worst, they get angry and start to point fingers.”

She encouraged George to meet with Murad and other members of the court system to hash out their differences and seek solutions.

“Unresolved issues appear to be getting politicized, weaponized and are giving an appearance of simply discrediting one another. This is destabilizing,” Jonas wrote on January 2. “What has been done to date, to try and make things work better or show a good faith effort? Changing the policy, alone, is not going to be enough.”

George replied that countless discussions with Murad on these issues had never been productive.

“My experience has always been that he spends the time telling me (or yelling at me) about how to do my job,” George wrote. Reining in the PD’s public statements won’t solve Burlington’s problems, she added, but it would have an immediate, positive impact.

“The way the press releases are currently written only serve to throw fuel on a fire,” George wrote.

In a statement to Seven Days, Murad said he has never heard complaints about the accuracy of what he says in press releases or public settings.

He said he was “disappointed and hurt” by what George wrote about him in her emails and denied ever yelling at George or telling her how to do her job. “The State’s Attorney and I clearly disagree about a number of things, but our interactions have always been professional,” he wrote.

“I’ve certainly never shied away from advocating for better justice outcomes for our city and our citizens, and I will always seek actions that protect Burlington, particularly in instances when people are hurt, or when officers are assaulted, or when repeat offenders are involved and our city and our citizens—and the repeat offenders themselves—are being failed by what we’re all currently doing,” Murad continued.

He also said he has never publicly criticized George or her office and instead regularly defends their partnership. That included during an appearance on WVMT’s “The Morning Drive” on Tuesday, he said, when he “admonished an unkind caller” critical of George and Mulvaney-Stanak.

During that appearance, a man called in and thanked the police department for its hard work, especially in the face of “adversaries” such as “Sarah George Soros and Emma Mulvaney-Hitler.”

Murad responded that he appreciated the kind words about his officers. “I don’t think those terms or names are necessary,” he added. He noted that police receive “great cooperation” from George’s office on important cases, including murders and shootings.

“I’m grateful when that partnership works really well,” he said. The mayor, meanwhile, has done a lot to foster a good relationship with the department, Murad said, such as when she recently dropped by the Christmas Eve roll call to deliver cookies she made with her kids.

“For the most part, I think all of us are generally working in the same direction, which is a community in Burlington that is safe, and where people can express themselves and be who their potential allows them to be,” Murad said.

On January 6, a frustrated George emailed city staff again, this time with news of two impending motions from Reynolds’ defense attorney. Both were in response to BPD press releases and the pressure Murad seemed to be putting on the justice system to lock Reynolds up for a long time, she wrote.

The first motion sought to transfer the venue of Reynolds’ pending cases out of Chittenden County, which would mean that George or one of her deputies would need to travel to another county to arraign and try him, “something I have no interest in and no patience for,” George wrote. The second motion sought to limit further “extrajudicial” statements from BPD about Reynolds on the argument that they could taint a potential jury.

“I have no interest in taking a hit on my ethics to protect conduct by BPD that I have always felt was inappropriate, unprofessional, and unnecessary,” George wrote. She again urged the mayor’s office to instruct BPD to stop issuing press releases that contain any information beyond what was necessary to serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose.

On January 7, Seven Days broke news of the requested gag order, which George supported in court. The following day, Mulvaney-Stanak issued her executive order.

In an email to Murad that evening, her chief of staff, Erin Jacobsen, said the move was in “direct response” to the Reynolds press releases.

The order also reflects “ongoing concerns about the tone, tenor, and content of many BPD press releases, which we have discussed with you,” Jacobsen wrote. She said the order would remain in effect until the city can adopt an updated policy.

Mulvaney-Stanak told Seven Days last week that she believed people “need the basic facts” and “nothing more.”

She defended her decision in a Front Porch Forum post on Monday that cited two city policies related to media relations. One, Police Department Directive 30, prohibits press releases that include “‘comments regarding the character or reputation of a subject,’” she wrote.

On Tuesday morning, the police department issued a press release about three encounters officers had with Reynolds the previous day. The release noted a series of incidents.

It says Reynolds was kicked out of the University of Vermont Medical Center around 6:45 a.m. for reported aggressive behavior. Two hours later, police responded to a Lakeside Avenue property that Reynolds was refusing to leave; officers gave him a ride elsewhere. Finally, shortly after noon, Reynolds was taken into custody again after he allegedly returned to that same property and began acting “verbally aggressive.”

“This marks three incidents in the span of six hours where Reynolds exhibited aggressive behavior while trespassing, requiring a police response,” the press release said.