I was correct on one thing...there was court this morning it seems. Where I was wrong was in thinking that he was still in custody. It appears that he was let go on $2,500 bail. What?!? Did he not already jump bail once? Wasn't that one of the charges added?
On Sept. 2nd, 08 Karen Dandurant reported:
...Petty Officer First Class Jeffrey Ruggiero, assigned to Coast Guard Sector Charleston, S.C., was taken into custody without incident and is being held pending an extradition hearing. He was convicted on April 30 of three misdemeanor charges, sending obscene matter, criminal threatening and violation of a restraining order.
Ruggiero was released on bail by New Hampshire pending a sentencing hearing. On June 28, he did not show up but was sentenced in Exeter District Court to three years in prison, with one year deferred for two years of good behavior.
The charge came out of East Kingston, but police there said the warrant was issued by the Rockingham County Attorney's office.
"Mr. Ruggiero's bail has been revoked, and we have now charged him with bail jumping, a misdemeanor charge," said Tom Reid, deputy county attorney. "Now it will be handled by our office in Rockingham Superior Court."
Because Ruggiero, through his lawyer, had filed an appeal, Reid said he can not discuss details of the case.
"If the appeal is not accepted or if it is deemed waived because of his fleeing the state, he will have to serve the sentence imposed."...
Read the full article here: Coast Guard petty officer faces N.H. charges
So, in court today his lawyer says that the reason he failed to return for sentencing was because he would be deemed AWOL. And, furthermore, stated that if he was not granted bail AGAIN, the Coast Guard would consider him AWOL. Thus the court granted his bail....a second time!
The USCG is guaranteeing that he will remain in their care and will be monitored. This is an excerpt from Mrs. Ruggiero's email:
...The judge based her decision to grant Jeffrey Ruggiero bail on the ground of the USCG and his active duty status and how the USCG would guarantee he would not harm my daughter and I because they will and have been monitoring 24/7 and the USCG will guarantee he is on base and under their control because he is an active duty member...
Based on this...well, hhhmmm...they did a great job of monitoring 24/7 in the past....now haven't they, since it was apparently under this monitoring that he was able to violate the restraining order with threats made as recently as August 2008.
This family is supposed to feel safe with this? I can only hope that the USCG is going to do the right thing and that they will monitor this time all actions and movement of their service member.
Apparently there was news/media coverage in the courtroom from NECN, so waiting for that to be published as well.
Thoughts and Prayers are with the family!
The following was posted today by one of the writers at An Unofficial Coast Guard Blog.
ReplyDelete"A legal officer with the Seventh Coast Guard District wrote, in an email to Petty Officer Ruggiero's wife, today:
The Coast Guard was not present at the hearing. The Coast Guard was not consulted or requested to provide information to the court. Further, the Coast Guard did not make any guarantees to the court or defense attorney. The statements made by the defense attorney were his and did not represent the USCG in anyway.
The statement that the USCG would treat the member as AWOL if he attended the hearing is false. The member would have taken earned leave to attend the hearing and thus would not be AWOL."
It strikes me as a miscarriage of justice that someone who is charged with jumping bail is granted bail.
Thank you! I had not gotten over to the other blogs to check out what they had yet. I was in the military and had never heard of someone being deemed AWOL for attending court or getting arrested...thus why I didn't make a snarky comment about the CG for that. I was just sure there was more to that than was meeting the eye.
ReplyDeleteSo, I see now that he has hired professional liars just as most abusive men tend to do to get their butts outta the sling they wind up in after they are caught!
You should probably take this story down off your website & apologize to Jeffrey Ruggiero. He has been cleared on all charges in every state & Kristin Ruggiero is the one in jail. She was convicted friday 5/7/10 in Rockingham County Superior Court on 13 charges (12 felony + 1 misdemeanor) for crimes against Jeffrey. The judge called her a pathological liar. Hear for yourself (click on the Judge McHugh lectures Kristin link):
ReplyDeletewww.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=No+bail+for+woman+convicted+of+framing+ex-husband+by+texting&articleId=b0ca7b34-27a1-4771-a683-cb7ecdb65692