Tempest faces hearing on bail violation
Hearing set for Jan. 4 on alleged violation of bail; judge also sets date for re-trial
WOONSOCKET – Suspected murderer Raymond D. “Beaver” Tempest Jr. is due back in Superior Court for another violation hearing on Jan. 4 to determine whether his bail will be revoked after the disputed discovery of opioids in his system.
Superior Court Judge Robert D. Krause set the date for the violation hearing Monday, according to Craig Berke, a spokesman for the judiciary. Also scheduled was a firm date for the start of Tempest’s retrial in the 1982 bludgeoning murder of 22year-old Bellingham prom queen Doreen C. Picard – Feb. 12.
Tempest, 64, spent the Columbus Day weekend at the Adult Correctional Institutions after his bail was revoked for having the prescription opioid Suboxone in his system. But Krause released him back to home confinement on Oct. 10 when his defense lawyers presented the judge with the results of privately procured laboratory tests that showed conflicting results.
When the judge released
Tempest back to home confinement, he also ordered more tests in attempts to resolve the conflicts in the two sets of laboratory results.
According to papers filed in Superior Court, Tempest tested positive for Suboxone on state-run tests four times before he was presented as a violator on Oct. 6. The drugs were found in random urine samples he supplied as a condition of his bail at the request of the state Department of Corrections.
Laboratory analyses yielded positive results on initial screenings and confirmation tests on Sept. 9, Sept. 11, Sept. 13 and again on Oct. 4 – two days before he was presented in court as a bail violator.
Suboxone is prescribed for the therapeutic treatment of addiction to heroin and other opioid drugs. It’s the brand name for a combination of two generics, burprenorphine and naloxone, and is normally prescribed to stave off the cravings associated with opioid withdrawal. The drug emerged in the mid-1990s as an alternative to methadone.
Tempest does not have a doctor’s prescription to take the Suboxone lawfully, prosecutors say.
Tempest, 64, served more than 23 years in prison for Picard’s murder after a Superior Court jury convicted him of the crime in 1992. His conviction was erased more than two years ago after Associate Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini, ruling in a lengthy hearing for postconviction relief, concluded that he did not receive a fair trial, but the judge left the 1991 indictment accusing Tempest of the crime intact.
Tempest was later released on home confinement, with bail set at $100,000 with surety posted in the form of real estate, in September 2015, after the state Supreme Court affirmed Procaccini’s decision. Meanwhile, the state vowed to put him on trial a second time.
His retrial in the murder was originally scheduled to begin earlier this month, but Krause agreed to push the date ahead after his lawyers asked for more time to obtain DNA analysis of a cigarette butt found at the crime scene some 36 years ago.
Tempest is accused of strangling Picard with her own sweater and pummeling her to death in the basement of 409 Providence St. on Feb. 19, 1982. Prosecutors argued Tempest murdered Picard to eliminate her as a witness to an attack on her landlady, Susan Laferte, and that his brother, Gordon Tempest, a detective on the Woonsocket police department, helped cover up his involvement by tampering with evidence.
A Superior Court jury convicted Raymond Tempest of second-degree murder in April 1992 and he was subsequently sentenced to serve 85 years at the ACI.