Mortimer Attorney Withdraws Impound Motion

Less than a week after Thomas Mortimer’s attorney, Denise Regan, requested the , Regan withdrew her motion.  

“I’m going to file a motion to withdraw the motion to impound,” Regan said.

Regan would not expand on why she was withdrawing her motion to impound.

“That’s all I’m going to say with that,” Regan said.

Mortimer of his mother-in-law, Ellen Ragna Stone, 64; his wife, Laura Stone Mortimer, 41; his daughter, Charlotte Mortimer, 2; and his son, Thomas “Finn” Mortimer V, 4.

At last week’s hearing, Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Lynch disagreed with Regan’s attempt to clear the courtroom.

“There are no grounds to impound,” she said. “There is no reason for these pleadings to be impounded. The public has a right to know the court’s proceedings.”

Regan filed a .

According to Regan, she requested a closed hearing for the motion because she does not want to disclose certain information to the public.

When asked if it had to do with a mental health defense for Mortimer, Regan had no comment.

“I can’t say at this point,” she said.

At a fall hearing, Regan argued that Winchester firefighters and police officers did not have enough evidence to enter the Windsong home without first acquiring a warrant.

“The Commonwealth failed to establish that the firefighters made reasonable entry into the home under the emergency care exception,” Regan said at the hearing.

According to Regan, the emergency personnel should have based their entry into the home on what they knew, and not what was told to them by Debra Stone Sochat. Stone Sochat took the stand in September and testified that she went to the home because she was concerned about the health of her mother – Ellen Ragna Stone.

But according to Lynch, based on Stone Sochat’s concern for her mother, the firefighters had every right to enter the home without a warrant.

“It would contradict the response of an emergency if they were to do a full investigation before entering the home,” Lynch told Judge Kern.

A final decision on whether evidence will be suppressed from the case will be made on Wednesday, Feb. 15. However, at a previous hearing, Middlesex Superior Judge Julia Kern told Regan and Lynch that she is favoring the prosecution’s argument.

“It’s clear, in this case, that the purpose in entering the home was not to gather evidence for a criminal activity,” Kern said.