By Michael Donoghue, Vermont News First

A career criminal, who once impregnated a Windsor County prison guard while she was on duty at work, has died while serving his latest sentence at a Newport prison.

James R. Ingerson, 54, of Hartford was found deceased in his cell at the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport shortly before 10 a.m. Saturday, Vermont State Police said.

Detective Sgt. David Robillard said the initial investigation revealed Ingerson had reported not feeling well and he had been receiving care for a medical issue prior to his cellmate finding him unresponsive on Saturday.

The cellmate notified a corrections officer and staff members soon began life-saving measures, police said.  Newport Ambulance Service was summoned to the prison and Ingerson was pronounced deceased at 9:54 a.m., officials said.

The veteran detective said the death does not appear to be suspicious. An autopsy will be performed at the Vermont Chief Medical Examiner’s Office in Burlington to determine the cause and manner of death.

Ingerson, who has a lengthy criminal record including at least nine felony convictions, was most recently sentenced in U.S. District Court in Rutland in January to two years in prison for a federal charge of possession of a Savage 20-gauge shotgun at his residence on June 7, 2023.  

Federal Judge Mary Kay Lanthier also told Ingerson that he would be on supervised release for three years with several special conditions once he was discharged from prison.  Lanthier said the two-year prison term would run concurrent with any sentence for pending state charges in Windsor County.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Wendy Fuller asked for a 57-month sentence based on the federal sentencing guidelines.  She noted that a large chunk of Ingerson’s criminal convictions were more than 15 years old and were not part of the calculations.

The old shotgun was found during a joint drug trafficking investigation by Hartford Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  They conducted a raid at the apartment shared by Ingerson and the former prison guard, Leanne Salls, then 41, also of Hartford, police said.

The one-month investigation, which was known as “Operation Hurricane Alley,” started as a state prosecution, but part was moved to federal court, which has stiffer penalties, especially in gun cases.  Court records indicated that state probation officers had reported that they had heard from clients in Windsor County about drug overdoses connected to the Ingerson/Salls apartment.

In one case, a parolee reported needing Narcan four times after an overdose in the parking lot of the apartment house, which is across the road from the Hartford High School, records show.

Ingerson has been considered a thorn in the side of the Vermont criminal justice system. Defense lawyer Matt Anderson of Rutland, in the federal gun case, maintained one state judge regarded Ingerson “as utterly irredeemable.”

He was sentenced to 20-to-30 years in prison as a habitual offender in 2003 after he was convicted for a nighttime burglary at a Brattleboro restaurant where he worked in March 2002.  Ingerson, who was on a prison furlough at the time, tried to break into the safe, but only ended up damaging it, court records show.  They noted he stole some money from the desk.

Ingerson also got a consecutive 2-to-3 year prison sentence for false swearing on his public defender application.

Then-Trial Judge Karen Carroll lowered the boom on Ingerson, saying she rejected a request to have the probation office supervise him.  Carroll said as a parent she was insulted that the court was being asked to let him avoid prison “because your poor kids are going to miss you,” court records show. 

“This court has wasted enough time on you.  We’ve had you in here too long.  The Department of Corrections has wasted too much time on you.  These people do not need to worry about supervising you except in a jail cell,” Carroll said, according to court records.

“I’m frankly surprised that you haven’t killed anybody yet.  You’ve got 7 DWI convictions, aggravated assault, two simple assaults, sexual battery, and here you are with all these victims in your wake, luckily none of them dead or seriously injured,” Judge Carroll said according to court records.  

Ingerson maintained the 20-to-30-year sentence was disproportionate for the burglary offense and was due in part to bias by the judge and prosecutor, Dan Davis.  The Vermont Supreme Court rejected the claims.

Carroll noted Ingerson’s “criminal history goes back to 1988 and includes repeated, successive violations of probation and furlough conditions.”

A 2006 Vermont law, introduced by then-State Rep. Kurt Wright, R-Burlington made it illegal for guards to have sexual relations with inmates they supervise.  Vermont was the last state to adopt the law.

Courts papers say the couple had sex multiple times in the staff bathroom at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield in 2011 and that Salls gave birth to the baby in May 2012. 

A judge in Windsor County later agreed to a request by the state for a DNA test from Ingerson, Salls and the baby.  

Salls was initially charged with sexual exploitation of an inmate — a 5-year felony — but she pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge of prohibited act.  She was issued a 1-year deferred sentence, which meant her record could be wiped clean, if she stayed out of trouble.  

Ingerson maintained at one point he had approached her, but he also filed a civil lawsuit against Salls, the Vermont Department of Corrections and the Commissioner on claims they failed to keep him safe and he was sexually exploited, records show.

Co-workers were suspicious of the relationship for many months and an internal investigation was conducted.  At one point a message from Ingerson to Salls was intercepted by the prison staff.  The message was simple:

“Are you happy about the loaf of bread we have in the oven,” court papers stated.