Prosecutors say Lake admitted he ‘exaggerated’ claim against wife Windsor Sheriff's candidate also had denied he said she brandished gun, harmed child

By Michael Donoghue
Vermont News First and 
Cynthia Prairie
©2026 Telegraph Publishing LLC

A Windsor County Sheriff’s candidate from Chester is denying that he ever made claims in a private conversation to a Walpole, N.H., police officer in December 2025 that his wife pointed a gun at him and that she also abused their child two to three months prior to the conversation. He also denies that the incidents happened.

However, new documents just obtained by Vermont News First call into question the candidate’s claim that he never spoke about the incidents. On Monday, the Windham County State’s Attorney’s Office and the Vermont Attorney General’s Office issued a letter questioning the credibility of Bellows Falls Police Officer Joshua Lake, a Chester resident and one of four candidates for Windsor sheriff.

The letter was sent to area defense lawyers and was co-signed by Windham County’s top prosecutor, Steven M. Brown Jr., and by Assistant Attorney General Domenica Padula, chief of the criminal division.

Lake admitted “he exaggerated” when talking about a crime he said he witnessed while off duty, according to the letter obtained by Vermont News First.

“The Vermont State Police conducted an investigation involving … Lake involving statements he made while off duty during a conversation with an on-duty New Hampshire Police Officer, a person he considered to be a friend, regarding a crime he said he witnessed off duty,” the co-signed letter stated.

“When asked by Vermont State Police investigators about the statement, Officer Lake stated he exaggerated what he told the New Hampshire Police Officer,” Brown and Padula wrote.

The saga began on the evening of Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025. According to public records, a Walpole, N.H., Police officer said in a written report that Lake, who was off duty, had confided in him that Lake’s wife had pulled a gun on the family while they were in a truck about a week earlier and also that she reportedly abused their child.

“No I never made those claims,” Lake told The Telegraph on Monday afternoon. “I never said it to anybody.”  He added that he believes the situation is politically motivated. “We thought this was over last year. We are really upset that Ryan Palmer is still running the Sheriff’s Department and this is being used to slander me and my wife,” Lake said.

The claims were first laid out early Monday in an article reported by Michael Donoghue of Vermont News First and published in the Vermont Standard.

According to that article, two independent investigations failed to substantial the claims that Mykala Eisner-Lake, Lake’s wife who also worked in law enforcement, committed either of those acts, according to public records obtained by Vermont News First and the Vermont Standard in recent days.

Records show that Walpole Police Cpl. Joshua Healy, who is a required by law to report any claim of child abuse, made the report through the chain of command, including notifying Lt. Roger Landry of the Walpole Police. Healy wrote he was especially concerned because the case involved the use of a firearm.

The report sparked a flurry of criminal justice activity and brought in the Windsor County Sheriff, the Vermont State Police, the police chiefs in Bellows Falls and Walpole, N.H., the Windham County State’s Attorney and the Vermont Attorney General’s office, among others. Walpole Police also notified the Vermont Department for Children and Families.

In the end, the claims about Eisner-Lake, 20, were “not substantiated” according to an internal administrative investigation by the Windsor County Sheriff’s Office filed July 15, the records show. The report also says that Eisner-Lake initially agreed to speak with the Sheriff’s Office, then backed out. Sheriff Ryan Palmer said in declining the interview, Eisner-Lake denied the allegations made against her.

Eisner-Lake offered a “no comment” Sunday when reached by phone by Vermont News First.

Lake denies incidents happened

J oshua Lake, 30, reached a few minutes later on Sunday afternoon, told VNF the two incidents never happened. When asked if a Walpole Police officer had made false statements about the incidents, Lake said he was losing cell phone service. He promised to call back, but Vermont News First still had not heard from him more than four hours later.

Sheriff Palmer’s internal report, completed two weeks ago, followed a letter from the Vermont Attorney General’s Office a month earlier that said it would decline the prosecution of Eisner-Lake based on the lack of evidence from a criminal investigation by Vermont State Police.

“From our review of the case, we do not believe we would be able to meet the legal standard that is required by law,” said prosecutors Jennifer A. Nelson and Nicholas Battey, who are in the criminal division in the AG’s Office, in a one-page letter shared with Vermont News First.

Palmer had to wait until after the criminal investigation by Vermont State Police was finished before he could start his internal investigation. Palmer compiled an 11-page internal affairs investigation report based on interviews and reports, including with Bellows Falls Police and neighboring Walpole Police.

The words “not substantiated” are typed in the determination box on the cover sheet of the internal administrative report. The phrase is used to close out the report when it lists the two allegations: “domestic assault involving a firearm” and “injury to a child.”

It was unclear exactly where the two incidents were alleged to have happened, including whether they were in Vermont or New Hampshire.

The Lakes were known to be living in Rockingham in Windham County at the time, so Vermont authorities took the lead, records show. It is unknown what, if any, action Bellows Falls Police Chief David Bemis took, but Vermont State Police was asked to do the independent criminal investigation.

Lake’s political materials list Chester as his residence. State records show he has been registered to vote in Chester since Feb. 24, 2016. But Chester Town Clerk Amie Record said Lake had been purged from the voter rolls in 2023 after he failed to answer a 2019 challenge to his registration after which he did not vote in two general elections. She added that on Feb. 16, 2026, he appeared to have re-registered online. Lake said he doesn’t recall re-registering.

Four seek to replace Palmer as Windsor Sheriff

Lake, who has been a police officer for a couple of years in Bellows Falls, is one of three candidates running as a Democrat for county sheriff in the Primary Election on Tuesday, Aug. 11. He is facing Capt. Claude Weyant of the Windsor County Sheriff’s Office and Sgt. Christopher Norton of the Windham County Sheriff’s Office.

The primary winner will take on the expected Republican candidate, Lt. Richard King of the Windsor County Sheriff’s Office in the November General Election.

They all seek to replace Ryan Palmer, 39, who is facing scandals of his own. In April, according to VT Digger, he pleaded not guilty to five criminal charges, bringing the total number of counts against him to 12. Palmer has been accused of paying three women to watch him perform sex acts in person or online. According to charging documents, Palmer also was accused of stalking two of the women, driving past them in his cruiser after they ended contact with him.

Palmer of Windsor, has pleaded not guilty and was released on conditions. He continues in his role as sheriff, which he won in 2022, but decided not to seek re-election. In January, Palmer said that he has stepped away from his work, which he reiterated to VT Digger in June. Capt. Weyant, according to VT Digger, is  overseeing day-to-day operations.

Lake told Vermont News First on Sunday it appeared somebody was attempting to make the domestic incident report into a political issue because he was running for Windsor County Sheriff.

Palmer wrote in his report that the investigation found Lake’s conduct very troubling.

The sheriff said the investigation showed that Lake never reported either the gun or the child abuse allegations at the time each supposedly happened, but later made those troubling claims to a police officer with another department while in the midst of a dispute with his wife.

Palmer said that Lake urged Healy, the Walpole officer, to not share their conversation. Healy followed the law about reporting child abuse claims, only to have Lake later state he never made those comments, Palmer’s report said.  Healy was insistent that he got the comments by Lake correct, Palmer told Vermont News First in a phone interview over the weekend.

Lake told The Telegraph that he and Healy are “cordial” and “we spoke, but how it got manipulated into what was told to Palmer stumps me.”  He added that he and Healy “speak on the phone now and again.  I don’t know how our conversation got turned into what it became.”

Palmer questions Lake’s professional ethics

In the end, Palmer said the investigation noted “serious concerns about the role, motives, timing, truthfulness and conduct of the reporting party (Lake) which bear directly on the weight his statements can be given.”

The sheriff also wrote that Lake “is a certified law enforcement officer who, by his own account, witnessed his wife point a firearm at himself and his infant child, yet made no report to any Vermont law enforcement agency, to his own department, or to child protective services at any time in the roughly one week that followed. When he did disclose the allegations, he did so informally to a personal acquaintance at an out-of-state agency, in the midst of a marital dispute, and expressly asked that officer not to repeat what he was told,” Palmer wrote.

“He likewise provided no details regarding the alleged injury to the child, an incident he claims occurred months earlier and also never reported,” the sheriff wrote.

“The timing, manner, selectivity, and requested secrecy of these disclosures, made by a trained officer who understood the reporting obligations they would trigger, raise legitimate questions about the reliability of the account and the circumstances under which it was offered. These concerns do not, and cannot, disprove the allegations; they are noted because they materially limit the evidentiary value of the sole source supporting them,” Palmer said.

He said Officer Lake’s conduct “as a certified officer of another agency is a matter for his employing agency and the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, and the facts documented here are available to those authorities upon proper request.” Under the law, any possible complaint to the VCJC concerning Lake or his wife is unlikely to become public until it is brought before the council.

Lake told Vermont News First he did not expect any allegation to go to the justice council, which oversees the Vermont Police Academy.

Eisner-Lake was a relatively new hire at the Windsor County Sheriff’s Office and was considered a probationary deputy sheriff, records show.

She was placed on administrative leave one day after the complaint was received in December 2025 and remained there until she resigned in February 2026, records show. Lake told The Telegraph that his wife resigned so that they could concentrate on his run for office, which they began discussing “in late November or early December” of 2025  after he was “approached by friends who wanted to see a more progressive stance taken in the department.”

Eisner-Lake initially agreed to participate in the internal affairs interview, but later withdrew the offer, Palmer’s report noted.