State police: Multiple violations added to Neville case; criminal threatening incident reported

November 6, 2023  |  By Lisa Scagliotti 

Vermont State Police have released information in the past several days on separate cases involving two Waterbury men. 

Repeated communications considered violations

On Friday, Nov. 3, state police issued a release listing multiple new charges for John Neville, 51. In September, Neville was released from state custody and ordered to live in Maine while awaiting court proceedings on a number of criminal charges from multiple incidents over the past several months.

The new violations announced on Friday include 411 counts each of violating conditions of his release, violating an abuse prevention order and disturbing the peace using a telephone or other electronic communications.  

Trooper Riegler states that Neville contacted the individual connected with the relief from abuse order “a total of four hundred and eleven times by means of an electronic device over the course of five days.” The police report says that the time period was from Oct. 16 to 20. 

“This violates his current conditions of release and an active abuse prevention order. John was cited into the Washington County Superior Court - Criminal Division through his assigned counsel.”

Neville is to appear in court to face these new charges on Dec. 12, according to police. 

In court hearings late this summer, Neville successfully petitioned Washington County Superior Court to release him from jail to go live at a home he owns in Gilead, Maine. The court agreed and stipulated that he not return to Vermont except for court-approved hearings and meetings with his lawyer or medical appointments. Neville also is to comply with conditions in an abuse prevention order. 

Prior to the new incidents announced on Friday, Neville was facing more than two dozen other criminal charges including felony counts of unlawful trespass into an occupied residence from an incident in Waterbury in September; another is attempted first-degree arson in connection with a July incident in which police say he tried to light a Molotov cocktail at a home in Waterbury Center belonging to a business associate with whom he had a dispute.

Blush Hill criminal threatening 

On Saturday, Nov. 4, Vermont State Police issued information regarding an incident on Blush Hill Road where a man has been cited for criminal threatening. 

Trooper Benjamin Goodwin from the Berlin barracks reported that Shane Sweeney, 50, of Waterbury was involved in a verbal dispute with another man. Troopers responded and found that Sweeney had “threatened to cause harm” to the other individual, police said. 

The two men were separated, police said, and Sweeney was issued a citation to appear in Washington County Superior Court - Criminal Division on Dec. 28, to answer to the offense of Criminal Threatening.