BRATTLEBORO — A 31-year-old Montpelier man, who attacked staff at a Main Street business Wednesday after he was confronted about shoplifting, was released from jail Thursday so he could get himself admitted to the Brattleboro Retreat.
Jeremiah Conrad told Windham Superior Court Judge Katherine Hayes he was in Brattleboro in hopes he could be admitted to the Retreat. He pleaded not guilty to six different charges.
Conrad caused a disturbance inside a Main Street business Wednesday morning, and was eventually arrested by the Brattleboro Police that afternoon. He had fled and then returned. He is also charged with attacking two people on the Whetstone Pathway.
Conrad, who said he was homeless, told Hayes he had been in Brattleboro for a few days and hoped to get himself “committed to the Retreat.”
His attorney Albert Fox said that Conrad was “currently homeless and hoping to get in to the Retreat.”
When the judge asked him where the court and his attorney should send his mail, Conrad emphatically said he didn’t trust the mail and didn’t use it.
“I hate mail. I don’t like mail,” he told the judge in explaining why he didn’t have a mailing address.
“I’m really unsafe,” he added.
Conrad said he was estranged from his family. “I don’t speak to them,” he said.
Hayes finally ordered Conrad, until he had set up a mail agreement with Groundworks, to contact his lawyer weekly to keep up to date with his court case.
The judge also ordered that Conrad be screened once he was transported to the Brattleboro Police department from the state prison in Springfield.
As conditions of release, Conrad was ordered to stay away from the Brattleboro Food Co-op, and to stay away from Brattleboro’s Main Street from the co-op to High Street, the entire length of Flat Street and the Whetstone pathway.
