BURLINGTON – An unlawful arrest lawsuit filed against the town of Bennington and three members of its police department by a multi-time convicted felon has been settled out of court, according to court records.

John Chinnici, 39, of Bennington had initially filed the civil rights lawsuit against the town, Police Chief Paul Doucette, and former Detectives Lawrence Cole and Anthony Silvestro for their actions concerning an armed robbery investigation of two convenience store employees as they attempted to make a night deposit in January 2016.

Federal Magistrate Judge Kevin J. Doyle agreed to dismiss the lawsuit Wednesday after both sides filed a stipulation saying the case could be closed out. 

Terms of any possible settlement were not immediately available.

“The Parties shall bear their own costs and attorneys’ fees,” the stipulation said.

The stipulation said the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.  It was signed by Burlington lawyer Mick Leddy on behalf of Bennington and ACLU lawyer Lia Ernst on behalf of Chinnici.

After a five-day trial, a federal court jury found Chinnici guilty on July 27, 2018 for using a handgun to rob two employees of Martin’s Mobil Mini Mart on West Main Street.  Co-workers Scott Galusha and Anthony Falace had crossed the street to make the $1,700 night deposit at the Citizen’s Bank about 12:15 a.m. when confronted by two masked men.

Chinnici later obtained a new defense lawyer, David J. Williams, who got Federal Judge Christina Reiss to overturn the conviction on Dec. 19, 2019 because the defendant’s trial lawyer had a conflict of interest.

Chinnici had waived the conflict — that his defense lawyer Bud Allen had once represented Galusha, one of the robbers, in an earlier bank robbery.  Reiss ordered a new trial.

Chinnici, who maintained he was innocent, instead agreed to plead guilty to a drug crime — providing 20-30 Oxycodone pills to Vanessa Garcia and Austin Mayhew every two weeks between November 2015 and January 2016, according to his plea agreement.

Chinnici would charge them $25 a pill, records showed.

Reiss sentenced Chinnici in the drug trafficking case to time served — the 4 years and 4 days he had been held in the armed robbery case. 

Reiss said she was concerned whether Chinnici would or could stay out of trouble.  She also placed him on one year of federal supervised release.

The ACLU, on behalf of Chinnici, filed the civil lawsuit in Vermont Superior Court in January 2023 and the case was later transferred to federal court.

The ACLU maintained there was no probable cause for the arrest and that that the co-defendant for the armed robbery, Mayhew, was pressured by police to name Chinnici as his accomplice.    

The case dragged on for over two years and Doyle called lawyers into court in May to tell them to pick up the pace.  He directed them to set a new timing schedule to get a possible trial date moved up.  The lawyers set a target date for the trial by Nov. 1.

The lawyers noted in June that a potential settlement was being discussed.  Discussions had been slowed because Chinnici had been jailed again during the summer of 2024, court records show.

Earlier there had been a fight on whether the statute of limitations for pursing a false arrest claim had expired by the time the civil lawsuit was filed in January 2023 — seven years after his arrest on Jan. 14, 2016.  

Doyle ruled under the law that the four years Chinnici spent in pre-trial detention had put the statute of limitations on hold.  The case could proceed. 

Ernst has maintained Chinnici was unlawfully arrested, interrogated and searched by Bennington Police after they repeatedly pressured others to name Chinnici as an accomplice in the January 2016 robbery.

Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage initially charged Chinnici in Vermont Superior Court, but the case was later taken over by the U.S. Attorney’s Office because of Chinnici’s past criminal record and the potential for a tougher sentence, prosecutors said at the time

When he took over the case, Williams said his client would not admit to the robbery or being a felon in possession of a firearm.  He did agree to the drug count, which had not been charged earlier.

Chinnici is well known to police across Southern Vermont.

He was sentenced to 7 ½ years in federal prison for an earlier conviction of being a felon in possession of firearms, records show.  Chinnici and a co-defendant were charged in connection with the theft of 29 firearms from the Wardsboro General Store on the night of May 7-8, 2004. 

The defendants attempted to sell the stolen handguns for drugs, and some firearms ended up in the hands of drug dealers in New York and Massachusetts, records show. 

Chinnici also had two earlier felony convictions for residential burglaries in Windham County, court records show.  He was on probation when the federal gun case happened.  While in prison he attacked another inmate and received an additional 12-month sentence, court records show.

The Bennington armed robbery came six months after he was released from prison, records show.