Heather G. Doyle
Prince Frederick, MD – Another legal matter related to the ongoing expansion of a Calvert County gas plant was the subject of a court hearing Monday, May 9. The matter before Circuit Court Judge Mark Chandlee was the state’s case against Heather G. Doyle, 32 of Washington, DC. Doyle pled guilty to trespassing last year.
The charge stemmed from an incident that occurred in February 2015 at the staging site in Lusby for the Dominion Cove Point Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Plant’s expansion project. Doyle and another woman—Carling Sothoron, 30 of Baltimore—climbed a construction crane at the work site to hang a large banner reading “Dominion, get out. Don’t frack Maryland. No gas exports. Save Cove Point.”
At a district court hearing in April 2015, Doyle turned down a sentence of probation before judgement, which carried with it a three year period of unsupervised probation. The stipulation of the probation would require Doyle to stay off Dominion property for three years and have no contact with company employees. Instead, Doyle chose to serve 40 days in jail.
While Doyle was serving the sentence at the Calvert County Detention Center, an organization called Stopping Extraction and Exports Destruction (SEED) released a lengthy statement accusing the three deputies involved in the women’s arrest of “unprofessional, unsafe and violent” conduct during the incident.
Doyle accused one of the officers, Sgt. Vladimir Bortchevsky, of pressing down on her throat with his forearm after she was wrested away from the crane. “I was surrounded by cops watching this other cop do something to me,” Doyle stated. “There was no one there who could see what was happening to me and I was all alone at the bottom of the crane. He was assaulting me because he wanted to.”
Both Doyle and Sothoron filed complaints with the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office in May 2015. The sheriff’s office then filed charges against both women alleging they made false statements to an officer. According to court documents, the false statement was made April 30.
According to SEED, the charges were filed in retaliation for filing the complaint.
During the May 9 hearing, Calvert County Deputy State’s Attorney Kathryn Marsh presented the state’s offer to place the case against Doyle on the STET docket provided she write two letters of apology to two of the deputies involved in the arrest. Attorney Sean R. Day, on behalf of Doyle, rejected the offer.
After that matter was concluded lawyers from the Office of the Maryland Attorney General, Calvert’s County Attorney John Norris and an attorney from Dominion asked the court to block subpoenas filed by Doyle’s defense. Day is seeking access to the personnel files of 14 area law enforcement officers who are assigned to Dominion Cove Point.
“We are not asking for any sensitive security information,” said Day.
Chandlee stated he would take arguments from both sides under advisement prior to Doyle’s current trial date of May 24. Doyle could be sentenced to six months in jail if she is found guilty of the charge.
Contact Marty Madden at marty.madden@thebaynet.com