Rodriguez is in jail in the Bronx, awaiting trial on the New York charges. She was found, asphyxiated, Jan. 3 on a bed in an apartment in the Bronx. She was at the time in the custody of the Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services. Paper trail Documents obtained by The Burlington Free Press from courts, from police and from an open records act request to the Vermont Corrections Department show a paper trail of Rodriguez's violations and charges that intensified as 2000 wore on. Rodriguez was paroled in 1999 after serving less than five years for bashing a man in the face with a cinder block while robbing him in Burlington's City Hall Park in 1993.
Paroled inmates leave prison but are still required to live under conditions and with supervision.
Rodriguez appeared Nov. 7 in Vermont District Court in Burlington to be formally charged for disorderly conduct stemming from an August fight and for having hallucinogenic mushrooms in his possession. He was arraigned and released. Judge Helen Toor did not know Rodriguez was wanted at the time on a warrant for failing to appear on an earlier marijuana charge. Within hours of leaving court, police stopped Rodriguez. They found what they suspected were tablets of ecstasy, a hallucinogenic drug, in his Ford Expedition.