POUGHKEEPSIE – Dutchess County District Attorney William Grady has announced plans to dismiss an indictment he brought against Vincent Carozza, 25, who had already been found legally incompetent to stand trial as a result of Autism, less than 24 hours before a planned rally and protest was scheduled to take place in front of his office.
Late Thursday afternoon the district attorney issued a statement saying that he was withdrawing the indictment and would be filing the necessary paperwork with Dutchess County Court Judge Edward McLoughlin.
“In an effort to facilitate the competency process and an eventual disposition of the criminal case coupled with mental health programing, I requested and recommended placing Mr. Carozza in an ‘outpatient status’ under a rarely used section of the Criminal Procedure Law so that he could continue to receive the necessary ‘competency’ treatment at or near home with his family support system. This would then provide the beneficial environment consistent with our efforts to resolve this case,” said Grady.
Carozza was the resident of the Taconic DDSO facility in Amenia where he was supposed to be receiving “one to one” supervision. According to family members, Carozza was subjected to repeated bullying by another resident. On one night, Carozza went to the kitchen and place a notebook on a burner of the electric stove and turned the burner on. The notebook smoked but did not ignite. Law enforcement was summoned to the group home and arrested Carozza on arson charges.
Carozza spent a week in the county jail before being released on bond to his uncle and legal guardian. While out on bond, Carozza went to work for a landscaping company. At a subsequent court appearance, Carozza was ordered to Sunmount, an upstate facility, to determine his mental capacity as Grady’s office prepared to prosecute the special needs individual. The doctor at the facility determined that Carozza was not mentally capable of standing trial. At that time, Grady was continuing to prosecute the legally incompetent man.
Republican Grady’s Democrat opponent in the November election, and former assistant, attorney Rich Berube, has chastised Grady for his handling of this case from the beginning, calling his Grady’s actions “horrific.” Berube said, “The Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs, created under Jonathan’s Law was established exactly for cases like this and The Center had determined that Carozza was incompetent.”
Jonathan’s Law was passed in May of 2007 in response to the death of 13-year-old teenager with special needs, Jonathan Carey, due to the abuse and neglect of the worker charged with helping and caring for him. Jonathan was autistic and non-verbal so he had no voice with which to report his abuse or neglect, and when he died in the care of his school facility’s Direct Care worker Edwin Tirado, his parents faced an uphill battle getting records and exposing what happened.
Jonathan’s Law made access to those records mandatory within three weeks of an investigation ending, and made telephone calls to family mandatory after any incident of potential abuse or neglect. It also created the Justice Center for the Protection of People with Special Needs to help prosecute cases of abuse and neglect within these facilities together with local DA’s offices.
“It was for this reason I was horrified to learn that Bill Grady’s Office is prosecuting a person with special needs, who the justice center already adjudicated and determined was a victim of neglect at the hands of his caregivers,” said Berube.
