[Note: This article has been updated since charges against the arrested people have been dropped.]
The New Canaan teen arrested last month after police found that he had hosted and supplied alcohol for an underage drinking party where a juvenile suffered serious injuries is to enter a program that will see criminal charges dismissed next year on its successful completion, officials said Thursday morning.
The terms of the program that the 18-year-old will enter are unclear, as details of the deal struck between the state’s attorney’s office and lawyers representing the 2017 New Canaan High School graduate are sealed, according to a court clerk at state Superior Court in Norwalk.
Arraigned before Judge Alex Hernandez, the teen remained silent while an attorney advocated on his behalf, appearing serious and solemn in a dark suit, white shirt and green tie.
His attorney, April Pramer from the Greenwich-based Law Offices of Philip Russell LLC, told Hernandez that the teen was “hoping to go to college in the fall” and that his “plans for the fall have been disrupted and disturbed” because her client has been “prejudiced so severely” in the public mind due to media coverage.
She was objecting to an application filed with the Connecticut Judicial Branch by News 12 to videotape the teen’s arraignment. Hernandez denied the application, saying that while he shared her views, the “practice book does not provide for” such considerations in reviewing the application.
The rules favor “awarding public access,” Hernandez said.
His parents attended their son’s court appearance.
Police arrested both the teen and his father, [a New Canaan man], by warrant on May 19. The younger man was charged with providing alcohol to minors and permitting a minor to possess alcohol. His father was charged with interfering with an emergency call.
The charges stem from a March 25 party at the family’s Oenoke Ridge Road home. That night, a 17-year-old boy lay seriously injured and unconscious for nearly 40 minutes in the basement of the home, bleeding from his ear, before emergency responders were called, partly because [a New Canaan man] insisted that nobody phone police about it, according to New Canaan Police arrest warrant applications.
Norwalk’s lead prosecutor, Suzanne Vieux, represented the state’s attorney’s office during the arraignment.
—Caroline Grogan contributed to this article