SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. -- Twenty-eight years after he did the deed, 74-year-old Carleton H. Winsor appeared in court Friday to find out when, if ever, he will do the time.
Wiry and wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, Winsor appeared before Superior Court Judge Melanie Wilk Thunberg after a recent tip brought him to the attention of law-enforcement after decades of slipping through the cracks.
A jury in 1988 found Winsor guilty of conspiring with another North Kingstown man on July 4 three years earlier, to burn down an ambulance barn on Tower Hill Road for $2,000. Now-retired Superior Court Judge Justice Joseph F. Rodgers Jr. sentenced him to serve two years in prison, with three years suspended with probation.
Winsor was represented at the time by now-Superior Court Judge Walter R. Stone. David Igliozzi prosecuted the case, court records show.
Winsor appealed the conviction to the state Supreme Court, which denied the appeal in 1990. Typically, a defendant would be notified of the rejection and be called in to court for a date to start his serving his sentence, but that notice never went out, according to Craig Berke, spokesman for the courts.
Winsor's hiatus ended last Wednesday, when he was summoned at his home in Tallahassee, Fla., to appear.
Winsor arrived at court accompanied by his son, Carleton H. Winsor Jr. Thunberg referred him to the public defender's office, where he conferred for more than an hour with Thomas Thomasian.
Thunberg gave Winsor 120 days to file a motion to reduce his sentence and ordered him to remain in Rhode Island. She ordered him released on the same bail imposed decades ago, $25,000 surety bail with his then-wife's 31 Main St. home in North Kingstown as collateral.
"We'll see what happens. It's certainly an interesting matter," North Kingstown Police Chief Thomas J. Mulligan said outside the South County courthouse. His department received a letter saying Winsor had bragged around town that he'd been convicted of arson but never served time.
He described Winsor as a well-known "character" in town who had no brushes with the law since 1985.
Mulligan speculated that perhaps Winsor's conscience had come into play and had a desire to "close the book so to speak."
Amy Kempe, spokeswoman for the attorney general, said the office is reviewing the case and "will make its recommendation to the judge at the appropriate time."