BELCHERTOWN — A 20-year-old Northampton man pleaded not guilty to a series of charges in Eastern Hampshire District Court Thursday morning stemming from a hit-and-run crash in which a student was seriously injured on the University of Massachusetts campus Monday night.
Jacob A. Delisle, of 8 Tiffany Lane, Florence, was arrested at his home at 7 p.m. Wednesday on charges of leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, negligent operation of a motor vehicle to endanger, failure to stop for a pedestrian in a crosswalk, misleading a witness and trespassing. He was held overnight on $20,000 cash bail, according to the Northwestern district attorney’s office.
Following a joint recommendation from Delisle’s attorney, Jeffrey Brown of Greenfield, and Northwestern First Assistant District Attorney Steven Gagne, Judge Bruce Melikian ordered Delisle held on $5,000 cash bail, banned him from being on the UMass campus and prohibited him from driving a motor vehicle.
“He will be released on a condition that he stay off the UMass Amherst campus entirely and he not operate any motor vehicles,” Gagne said to the judge, adding that the definition of the campus includes all of its buildings, grounds and roads.
The case was continued for a pretrial hearing on May 20.
Delisle’s arrest came nearly 48 hours after the crash at 10:15 p.m. Monday that left a 20-year-old UMass student, walking in a crosswalk on Massachusetts Avenue at Sunset Avenue, with head and other bodily injuries. He is still recuperating at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
Based on a statement of facts provided by UMass Police, Delisle’s involvement in the crash was determined due to the district attorney’s office issuing a description and surveillance photos of the SUV that had struck the student.
UMass Police began cracking the case earlier Wednesday when Williamsburg Police Chief Denise Wickland alerted their detectives that an informant, who had seen news coverage of the hit-and-run crash, told her that Delisle’s Auto Body on Main Street in Haydenville might have information.
Wickland spoke to the auto body shop owner who confirmed that he had been asked to repair a 2015 Chevrolet Equinox, owned by his cousin, Scott Delisle, that had supposedly struck a deer and sustained damage to its hood and mirror Monday night.
At that point, Northampton Police went to Delisle’s home, but the vehicle was not there, instead having been driven to a company in Turners Falls, where Scott Delisle works. With assistance from a state police trooper, two UMass Police officers identified the damaged vehicle in the factory’s parking lot, also noticing an Airpod Plus device under the front driver’s side windshield wiper. That device matched one the victim had previously told police he was wearing at the time of the incident.
Scott Delisle told police that his son had been in control of the vehicle Monday from 7:30 to 11 p.m. and, before getting home that evening, Jacob Delisle explained to his father he had hit a deer, according to court documents. The statement about the deer constitutes a criminal charge of misleading a witness, the district attorney’s office said.
After impounding the vehicle at the UMass police station before any repairs could be made, police responded for a second time to the Delisle home, arresting Jacob Delisle on five charges, including trespassing after determining that in March 2021 he had been issued a 24-month notice to stay off the UMass campus, related to being a nonstudent and consuming alcohol there.
The crash remains under investigation by UMass Police, Massachusetts State Police detectives attached to the Northwestern district attorney’s office, the State Police Crime Scene Services Section and the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
