GREENWICH – Hadley Palmer, a regular on the Greenwich social circuit who was sentenced to prison on felony charges involving voyeurism, has been placed at a residence in the community that was “vetted and approved” by a parole officer, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Palmer was released from prison, after completing less than half of the full-year prison sentence that was handed down by a judge last year, on what is known as “a re-entry furlough,” said DOC spokesman Andrius Banevicius.
“A reentry furlough is the discretionary release of an inmate to an approved residence in the community for any compelling reason consistent with rehabilitation, prior to a planned discharge or release to discretionary parole supervision during which the inmate must report to a parole officer,” Banevicius explained.
“The residence she was released to is not a halfway house,” the prison spokesman continued.
Palmer pleaded guilty to three counts of voyeurism and one count of risk of injury to a minor in January of 2022. In November, she was given a one-year sentence. As part of an earlier plea deal, she previously spent 90 days in the York Correctional Institution, the state prison for women in Niantic.
Messages left with Michael T. Meehan, a lawyer representing Palmer, were not returned Thursday.
Palmer, 53, a mother of four currently in divorce proceedings with her husband Bradley Palmer, was accused of sharing illicit recordings involving minors. Palmer, who comes from a wealthy background in southern Connecticut, has been the focus of intensive media coverage. The Associated Press criticized the sealing of Palmer’s 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.
Palmer is under a number of conditions imposed by the corrections department. Banevicius declined to say specifically what the conditions are.
Typically a released prisoner is forbidden from using drugs or alcohol, can only leave the state with permission, and must meet regularly with a parole officer.
Banevicius said Palmer would be designated into a category called “transitional supervision,” on March 1, essentially under the same conditions. She will be free of the DOC supervision on Aug. 20, when she will be put on probation with another set of legal guidelines.
Banevicius said the re-entry furlough program has been demonstrated to be effective. “It’s to help with their re-entry, back into their community, it’s been shown that a period of supervised release, prior to the end of an individual’s sentence, is beneficial in reducing recidivism,” he said.
The program is eligible to prisoners who have clean records in prison and have sentences of less than two years.
