Pacherille Released

After Serving 9 Years

For Shooting Student

COOPERSTOWN – Anthony Pacherille, now 24, was released from the maximum-security Dannemora Correctional Facility Thursday after serving nine years of an 11-year sentence in the Good Friday 2010 shooting of a fellow student in Cooper Park.

After chasing Wes Lippitt into the Village Police Department, Pacherille winged him in the arm, then shot himself in through the chin, but survived when the bullet lodged behind his nose.

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FROM DAY OF SENTENCING

He had just turned 16 at the time of the shooting, which allowed him to be tried and, on July 21, 2011, sentenced as an adult.  He served eight years in state prison and one in the Otsego County Jail.  He turns 25 on March 24.

“The parole board didn’t ask me to weigh in; but he did the time he agreed to do,” District Attorney John M. Muehl, who prosecuted the case, said yesterday.

He said Pacherille was released into Herkimer County, where his parents now live, and is barred from returning to Otsego County.

The case divided the community.  Because Lippitt is black, racial motivations were prescribed to the shooting.  Supporters who put “Free Tony” signs on their lawns said he was simply a troubled young man.