Police arrested a prominent attorney and former assistant coach of the Winooski High School girls soccer team Wednesday on suspicion of lewd conduct involving a student athlete.
Kane H. Smart, 44, was arrested by state police Wednesday and arraigned in Rutland Superior Court. He was charged with one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child and one count of luring a child, both felonies.
He was released on $75,000 bond and conditions that require him to stay away from young people.
Smart, of South Burlington, was an assistant coach at Winooski High School for at least a decade. He is an environmental attorney for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
A police officer’s affidavit filed in court Wednesday alleges that Smart engaged in inappropriate contact with a girl under 16 in the fall of 2021. The allegation came to light when the former player informed her therapist in January 2025, according to the affidavit.
Police interviewed the girl, who alleged a pattern of inappropriate touching. She recounted that on one occasion, Smart drove her and two other players to a University of Vermont soccer game at Virtue Field. It was a chilly November day, and the girl told police that Smart sat next to her on the bleachers under a blanket. She reported that Smart rubbed her thigh through holes in her jeans, and then tried but failed to unzip her pants.
She also reported that after the game, Smart gave the girls a ride home. She said that once just the two of them were in the car, he pulled over and again put his hand on her thigh. She told him to take her home and he did.
In another instance, the girl recounted that Smart invited her over to his home when his wife wasn’t there, an invitation she declined.
Smart’s wife is a prosecutor in the Chittenden County State’s Attorney Office. To avoid a conflict of interest, the allegations were investigated by state police detectives from Rutland and the case is being prosecuted by the Rutland County state’s attorney’s office.
Head coach Roger Prescott told police he never noticed anything inappropriate about Smart’s behavior toward the girl, but that another player once told him that Smart’s conduct made the girl feel uncomfortable. Prescott, a tax lawyer at Burlington law firm Downs Rachlin Martin, told police that he explained to Smart that some players were “more sensitive than others” and to avoid physical contact with them.
Smart was an All-American soccer player in college, but had no coaching experience when he started in Winooski, Prescott said in an interview in the Vermont Law Journal in 2022.
Smart declined to be interviewed by detectives. His attorney, Frank Twarog, declined comment to Seven Days.
