New Haven Independent

The State Marshal Commission at its last meeting found probable cause to investigate two complaints filed against Vingiano by volunteers with the Temporary Restraining Order Project at the Yale Law School. If Vingiano is found guilty of either charge, he could lose his badge.

“There’s nothing to it. It’s going to be dismissed,” insisted the marshal last week.

Vingiano, of West Haven, is one of 57 state marshals serving New Haven County.

The first complaint against him stemmed from an incident at New Haven’s State Superior Court on Nov. 25.

Jeffrey Tebbs, a second-year Yale law student, was helping a woman apply for a temporary restraining order against the father of her kids. By law, applicants are responsible for finding a state marshal to deliver the restraining order to its intended target. When the woman asked Vingiano to serve the papers, he allegedly erupted in anger and refused to do so.

Tebbs filed a complaint with the commission the next day. Here’s what happened, according to the complaint:

Vingiano was stationed near the second-floor clerk’s office at 235 Church St., on-duty on a state-assigned shift to serve restraining orders. He approached the woman and asked her if she had a temporary restraining order (TRO).

The woman had just been granted a TRO; she asked Vingiano to serve it. She told him she didn’t have her abuser’s address, but she did have his phone number and “other information that could be used to locate him,” the complaint alleges. The marshal “abruptly and gruffly” refused to serve the document.

“No address, I don’t want it,” Vingiano allegedly said. “I’m not an investigator.”

Tebbs contended that his client had ample information to track down the respondent, who periodically visited the couple’s kids. Tebbs told Vingiano he had the responsibility to serve the restraining order. The marshal allegedly raised his voice, denied the charge, and berated Tebbs for “knowing nothing.”

“Marshal Vingiano’s dismissive attitude and verbal mistreatment of [Tebbs’ client] are simply unconscionable,” Tebbs concluded, “and I believe he is unfit to continue to serve as a licensed agent of the State Marshal Commission.”

In a letter to the commission, Tebbs argued that Vingiano’s actions were a violation of state law. According to state statute, a marshal shall face a hearing for removal if he or she fails to serve a restraining order without good cause.

Reached by phone Monday, Vingiano insisted he did nothing wrong.

“How can you find somebody without an address?” he asked. “I’m not an investigator. I’m a state marshal. Anybody who gives me an address, I deliver it.”

He declined to address the other allegations in the complaint, responding only: “Whatever they said, they said.”

“A Waste Of My Time”

The afternoon incident was one in a series of complaints against the marshal, Tebbs wrote in his letter.

Vingiano told one client of the TRO clinic that serving restraining orders is “a waste of my time” because “most women go back to [the Respondent] anyway,” according to Tebbs’ letter.

A second complaint, filed on Dec. 10 by Alice Hwang, a first-year-law student at Yale Law School, described two other incidents of alleged mistreatment by the marshal.

In one, a female client called Hwang to report that the marshal had served the restraining order to a respondent’s father instead of directly to respondent, as required.

When another female client called Vingiano to ask why a restraining order had not been served, he acted in a “rude and inappropriately hostile” manner, the complaint alleges.

In a letters of response dated Dec. 16 and Dec. 22, Vingiano urged the commission to dismiss both complaints against him. The letters were written on behalf of Vingiano by attorney Allison Near.

In the Tebbs case, Near argued that the marshal did indeed have “good cause” not to serve the order, since he was not given an address to serve it to. The onus is on the plaintiff to provide an address, she argued.

Vingiano has been a state marshal for over 20 years, Near wrote. “He is well respected and appreciated as one of the best marshals for serving TROs.”

As to Hwang’s accusations, Near dismissed them as “almost entirely based on hearsay.”

Prior to these complaints, Vingiano received three others, all of which were dismissed.

After reading the marshal’s defense, Tebbs penned a letter in response.

“I hasten to note that his characterization of events fails to capture the utter lack of professionalism he displayed,” Tebbs wrote. “Mr. Vingiano’s loud, combative comments drew the attention of everyone standing in the vestibule outside the second-floor clerk’s office, assuredly worsening an already traumatic situation” for the woman who was seeking his help.

Asking the woman to produce an address for her alleged abuser posed an added risk to a woman who was seeking to terminate contact with the man, Tebbs argued. He cited administrative guidelines to back up his claim that on-duty marshals are required to serve the orders, with or without an address.

After weighing both sides in each case, the State Marshal Commission took a vote on Feb. 25. It found probable cause to investigate both complaints. The matters will be scheduled for a hearing. A date has not yet been set.

Women’s Safety At Risk

The complaints shed light onto a broader issue facing victims of domestic abuse who seek help from marshals.

As part of a Legislative Advocacy Clinic at Yale, Tebbs has been pushing to reform the restraining order process statewide to include more accountability.

As it stands, serving such papers is not high on marshals’ lists of desirable tasks. To serve a restraining order, a marshal gets $30 plus the cost of mileage to find the respondent. That’s not much, compared to the marshals’ other lucrative types of work.

“To begin with, it’s not something that most marshals are interested in,” Tebbs said in a recent interview.

Susie Voigt, the only woman out of 57 marshals in the county, has become the go-to person for victims to call when they need a restraining order filled, but find no one in court to help.

She’s one of the few marshals in the county, if not the only one, who speaks Spanish. Serving the papers takes perseverance, she said, and often requires extensive conversations with the client to pinpoint where a respondent is likely to be and arrange delivery.

The job can be dangerous. One afternoon, Voigt got called to serve a restraining order on the 40-year-old adult son of an elderly woman. The mother feared for her safety: her son had stopped taking his meds for a mental illness and had grown out of control. So she filed papers to kick her son out of the home.

When she made the delivery to a home on the east side of town, Voigt brought two cops with her as backup. She found the pair inside the home together. The mother, grappling with feelings of guilt, refused to leave the house. The man refused, too. With two cops at her side, Voigt served the papers to the man as he sat on the couch. Then she tried to calm down the mother as the cops led the man out of the house. The incident got ugly: The man resisted removal, and the incident ended in a struggle and pepper spray.

Not all restraining orders are as difficult, Voigt said, but in general, the labor required is worth more than $30.

“We’re paid abominably little” for the trouble, Voigt said.

Reform Sought

Connecticut is the only state in the country that uses independent contractors as the exclusive providers to serve restraining orders, according to Tebbs. Other states use government staff, such as law enforcement officers or sheriffs.

When victims of violence apply for a restraining order, the responsibility falls to them to get the order served. If a marshal happens to be on-duty in the courthouse, a victim can ask for his or her help. In New Haven, marshals are only available Monday to Friday during two brief shifts: 12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m.; and 4:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Otherwise, a victim must go down a list of 57 marshals and cold-call them for help.

That leaves victims largely alone in the vital step of getting word to their abusers to stay away.

“It’s not good,” said Voigt, “because very often I’m the 10th or 12th person they’ve called, and I may not be able to do it. That puts them in a terrible position.”

The state has no record of how many restraining orders actually make it into respondents’ hands, Tebbs said. He would like to see more accountability built into the system.

When a client gives papers to a marshal to sign off on, but there’s no paper trail of the transaction. If a client loses a marshal’s name or number, “there’s no accountability” for getting the task done, Tebbs said.

At the request of State Rep. Mike Lawlor of East Haven, Tebbs is drafting language for a bill that would reform the way the state handles restraining orders.

A bill would relieve victims of abuse from having to locate and secure a marshal. Instead, it would require the clerk’s office in each courthouse to assign restraining orders to marshals, Tebbs said.

The proposal would “distribute restraining orders equitably across all marshals” and would create a central record system that would track whether restraining orders were successfully served.

“The hope is that increased transparency will improve performance,” Tebbs said.

Getting the papers served quickly is crucial because if a temporary restraining order is not served, then there’s no proof that the respondent is aware of the order. If the respondent doesn’t show up to a hearing before a judge, then a victim can’t secure the protection of a long-term, 6-month order. He or she has to return to court and go through what may be an emotional, humiliating process, to apply for another temporary order.

“This is a really important topic that threatens the safety of women,” said Tebbs.