SALISBURY — One suspect linked to a Salisbury home invasion and brutal beating has been released on bail as another suspect has been located and arrested in Salem, N.H.
Joseph Sorrentino, 19, of Sandown, N.H., was released on bail Sunday, just days after a friend was shot to death in front of his home.
Florence Mae Stuart, 20, was taken into custody Friday by Salem, N.H., police outside a trailer home at 8 South Policy Street at 9 p.m.
Sorrentino is due back in Newburyport District Court for a probable cause hearing July 16. Stuart will be extradited from New Hampshire and could be arraigned as soon as today.
Police believe Stuart's brother and two friends, including Sorrentino, went to a North End Boulevard house May 25 and assaulted two of the residents. Stuart, who uses Mae as her first name, left a party there earlier in the evening after others tried to take her keys, saying she was intoxicated. Stuart returned, let the men in and watched the assault, according to reports.
After working with police in Sandown, N.H., and neighboring Hampstead, N.H., Salisbury police arrested Sorrentino and the other man identified in the assault, Methuen resident Casey Kipland, 17, and charged them with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery in a dwelling and home invasion. Police are still looking for Stuart's brother, Robert, on the same charges.
Sorrentino had been in Middleton Jail since June 16 but was released on $500 cash bail Sunday, according to Steve O'Connell, a spokesman for Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett.
O'Connell said the prosecutor sought $5,000 bail, but it was reduced by the judge. The DA's office also withdrew a request that Sorrentino have a dangerousness hearing, O'Connell said.
Sorrentino's release came three days after a 20-year-old friend of his was shot and killed in the driveway of his Sandown, N.H., home at 9 Morrison Lane.
Deidre A. Budzyna, 20, died after she was shot Wednesday night while sitting in a car with others. Budzyna was still alive when rescue workers arrived, according to a New Hampshire assistant attorney general, but was pronounced dead at Parkland Medical Center in Derry. Budzyna's death was automatically ruled a homicide because it was caused by a shot fired by another individual, but no charges have been filed in her death and may not be.
Sorrentino's MySpace page, littered with allusions to white supremacy and anti-Semitism on Friday, was mostly transformed into a tribute to Budzyna by Monday. The user name is now "i miss you d.a.b.," and the site has a large photo of Budzyna.
Prior to that, Sorrentino's page was filled with satanic, violent and white supremacist images and statements. On the page, with an ID picture of a tattooed torso read HATRED, Sorrentino listed his hometown as Auschwitz, Germany, and an occupation that alludes to mass killings of Jewish people.
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