With neighbors, Pangburn steps toward trial

BERNE — Marcia Pangburn says she hasn’t done anything wrong, so she rejected a plea bargain and hired an attorney, she said, by taking out a loan. Tuesday evening, both sides agreed to go forward with pre-trial motions, frustrating some of Pangburn’s neighbors in court, who felt the case was being drawn out.

“I didn’t want you to leave frustrated or feeling like you were shut out,” Judge Albert Raymond told the group as they left, noting a judge addressing an audience is uncommon. “This is just a process.”

“We all know Ms. Pangburn,” he continued. “We’re a small town here. That’s the way it is. We’ve had meals together.”

In the early morning of July 13, two deputy sheriffs found Pangburn crying over her father’s and brother’s graves, which were next to her sport utility vehicle. When they questioned her about drinks she had that night and submitted her to a series of tests, Pangburn tried to go home, a short walk away, on foot, and one of the deputies arrested her for resisting arrest and second-degree obstruction of governmental administration, both misdemeanors.

Pangburn’s SUV was towed, costing her $265. A breath sample at the police station, according to the arrest report, registered a blood-alcohol content of .01 percent, well below the .08 percent minimum for driving while intoxicated. She arrived home so late she missed a day of work.

The discussion in town court Tuesday took about five minutes, setting Oct. 14 as Pangburn’s next court appearance.

Five of her neighbors had been sitting with her, some for two hours, since her attorney, Lewis Oliver, got lost driving to court.

Speaking after court, Pangburn, 57, said she was discouraged, since she had hoped the charges would be dropped. She told judges last month that the arresting officer, Javier-Luis Martinez, told her he would send a letter to the district attorney’s office recommending the charges be dropped. The assistant district attorney said last month it may have been sent, but he did not have a letter for the judge. The letter wasn’t mentioned in court Tuesday.

The district attorney’s office offered Pangburn a reduced charge of disorderly conduct, a violation, if she would plead guilty, but she declined, telling The Enterprise that she did nothing wrong. The offer on Tuesday was to adjourn the case in contemplation of dismissal.

Speaking to Pangburn’s neighbors outside of court, Oliver assured them he has a copy of the video recorded during Pangburn’s arrest.

“Marcia was perfectly correct and polite and nice to them. She did not resist arrest. They never told her she was under arrest,” he said, calling the case a false arrest. He said he expects the case will be dismissed during the pre-trial motions. If that happens, Pangburn can decide whether or not to go forward with a lawsuit, he said.

A spokeswoman for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office, Cecilia Walsh, declined to answer questions about the procedure, citing the ongoing case.

When the two deputies brought Pangburn to the sheriff’s substation in Clarksville, she took a chemical breath test that showed her blood-alcohol concentration was .01 percent. A concentration of .08 or higher is the legal threshold for driving while intoxicated, but a reading of more than .05 percent can be used as evidence for a charge of driving while ability impaired.

Pangburn told police she had a mixed drink that night. It was made by her brother-in-law at a house-warming party for her niece, she said, and she didn’t know what was in it. In the cemetery, she failed field sobriety tests, the report says. The tests are used to evaluate driving ability and for probable cause in making certain arrests. When the deputies asked Pangburn to blow into a machine that screens for alcohol, she grew frustrated.

“I said, ‘I’m tired. I’m going to go home.’ They grabbed me and handcuffed me,” Pangburn told The Enterprise in July. “They were mean to me.” Deputy Philip Milano said, “Now you made us put our hands on you. You refused to breath in the breathalyzer,” she recalled.

“I said, ‘I’ll blow in it.’ They said I wasn’t blowing right. I did it three times,” said Pangburn.

Pangburn said she suffers from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and perhaps, because of her difficulties breathing, the test wasn’t registering.

The deputy’s report says that, when she ran away, Pangburn “used her dead weight to keep deputies from handcuffing her.” She clenched her fists and held them to her chest, the report says, before she was finally handcuffed.

“I don’t want you to feel excluded,” Raymond told the group of neighbors as they stood to leave the courtroom with Pangburn, explaining the brief meeting as a matter of process.

“We’re Marcia’s neighbors and we know her very well and we know the situation very well,” said Kevin Hale, responding to the judge. The court should have already seen faults in the case and issued an apology, Hale said in court, adding that tax money “could be well spent on some remedial training for some young officers that probably need some sensitivity training.”

The arresting officer, Javier-Luis Martinez, was sworn in as a deputy sheriff in July 2013. He and Milano were responding to a “loud music call in Knox,” according to the arrest report.

Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple said he hasn’t seen the video of the arrest. The case was last brought to his attention when he spoke to The Enterprise in July, he said. He said then that he referred the case to Internal Affairs, which investigates accusations about police conduct.

“These are professional law enforcement officials that graduate the police academy,” Apple said Wednesday. “They go through a lengthy field-training program, which is kind of like on-the-job training. I’m very content with the training they’re receiving.”

Hale said in court his criticisms weren’t directed at most of the sheriff’s officers, but that some deputies in Berne use their sirens often in “code 3” responses, the minimum emergency classification when lights and sirens are used to respond quickly.

“It feels like Beirut, not Berne,” he said.

“Thank you for your show of support for your neighbor, for our neighbor,” Raymond concluded.

When told Wednesday of the comments in court, Apple questioned how informed they were. “I just don’t know how somebody could make that statement,” he said. He said his office is trying to increase its community awareness and sensitivity. He said he is open to addressing any complaints about his office.

“These cops that everybody likes to criticize, they’re your friends, they’re your neighbors, your relatives, and they’re the ones that are coming when you dial 9-1-1,” Apple said Wednesday.

More Hilltowns News

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  • A driver crashed into a Rensselaerville home early Sunday morning, causing it to go up in flames. The driver and an off-duty paramedic who assisted in the rescue both suffered only minor injuries while the occupants of the home were uninjured. 

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