Socialite in voyeurism case out of prison
— Hadley Palmer, a wealthy Greenwich socialite who was sentenced to one year in prison on a range of felony charges involving voyeurism, has been released early from state custody.
The state Department of Corrections posted her status this week as having “re-entered” the world beyond prison walls. The state requires that she stay in a half-way house or with a local sponsor for the remainder of the oneyear sentence, known as “supervised custody.” She was released on Wednesday.
Palmer pleaded guilty to three counts of voyeurism and one count of risk of injury to a minor in January 2022. In November, she was given a one-year sentence. As part of an earlier plea deal, she had earlier spent 90 days in the York Correctional Institution, the state prison for women in Niantic.
Palmer, 54, a mother of four, was admitted to prison on Nov. 29 of last year and allowed to leave incarceration this week, spending just over 70 days behind prison walls, in addition to the earlier 90-day sentence as part of the plea deal. All told, Palmer served less than half of her one-year sentence in a state lock-up.
Messages left with Michael T. Meehan, a lawyer representing Palmer, were not returned Thursday.
Palmer and her husband, Bradley Palmer, a finance executive, have been going through divorce proceedings initiated in 2020, after it was declared that “the marriage had broken down irretrievably,” according to the court filing seeking the dissolution of their marriage.
Palmer’s legal team were confident earlier this year that she was set to receive an early release from prison. In a motion filed in the divorce case, seeking an extension of time for a scheduled conference, her legal team stated “Plaintiff [Hadley Palmer] is incarcerated at York Correctional Facility. Through her participation in the transitional supervision program, she is scheduled to be released on or before 3/1/2023. Plaintiff wished to participate in the status conference.”
The state of Connecticut and the Department of Corrections allow for placement in a halfway house, or other residential placement, for prisoners who meet certain criterion. The criteria include a sentence of two years or less, and no history of disciplinary infractions.
Details about the criminal conduct that earned Palmer a prison sentence have not been publicly released. The case involved minors, and state law shields information involving young people and criminal matters. The Associated Press criticized the sealing of the Palmer criminal file, saying that the identities of young people could have been redacted, but their motion to access the file was turned down by a state judge last year.
According to the Associated Press, the move to seal the case was considered unusual by open government advocates and defense lawyers.
The case has garnered headlines around the country.
When she was sentenced last year, State’s Attorney Paul Ferencek said Palmer had shared illicit recordings to “arouse her sexual desire and that of an unnamed third party.”
Palmer was known as an active player on the Greenwich social circuit, regularly turning up in glossy lifestyle magazines at benefit fundraisers around southern Connecticut. She grew up in southern Connecticut, and her father, Jerrold Fine, was a leader in the financial field in Westport.
She had been living in the exclusive Belle Haven neighborhood, in a seven-bedroom home purchased in 2013 for $6.95 million.