NORWICH – With strict orders laid before them, three youths accused of vandalizing the Norwich Jewish Center returned home Wednesday. However, within hours of their release, one of them was picked up by police and sent back to a detention home in Syracuse.
The youth, whose name is being withheld due to his age, will spend the next 30 days in a detention facility, said Frank Revoir, the county attorney who is prosecuting the case.
“After getting notice that he did not return to school and he was hanging around in downtown Norwich, the judge signed a warrant to pick him up. He got picked up by the police and was brought back into family court the same day,” the prosecutor said.
Under the terms and conditions set up by the court, Judge W. Howard Sullivan said at no time would the three juveniles be allowed to be without supervision of family members.
“There is a clear inability of the family to adequately supervise him,” Revoir said of the teenager. “He is a substantial risk to the community, and we had to pull him off the streets.”
The prosecutor also said the only reason he consented to releasing the youths Wednesday, was because the families stated each child would be under “lock and key.”
The three young men who are accused of breaking into the Norwich Jewish Center and causing over $200,000 in damages are currently under evaluation by the Chenango County probation department. The evaluations will look at the physical, mental and social well-being of each child and interview their families.
Members of the Jewish Center community are in the process of putting together victim impact statements for the court.
The probation department has 50 days to complete the evaluations prior to sentencing the trio of vandals. Both the probation evaluators as well as the victims can give their input as to the sentencing the children should receive.
Under family court law, the boy who is currently incarcerated cannot be held more than 30 days and is scheduled to re-appear before Judge Sullivan May 28.