By DAVID OWENS Hartford Courant and Tony Terzi FoxCT
VERNON — A judge set a combined bond at $125,000 Thursday for a University of Connecticut professor who is on leave, charged with driving while intoxicated and assaulting a police officer.
Judge Rupal Shah Palanki set bond on assault charge $100,000 and bond on the DUI at $25,000 for Gabriel Fenteany, 47, who was arrested Saturday.
If he posts bond, he will be required to wear a monitoring bracelet and will be confined to his home, except for court appearances, doctors appointments or work. While in custody, he will be placed under suicide watch.
The University of Connecticut chemistry professor was already on probation for prior convictions for several prior incidents, including vandalizing and urinating on several cars in Greenwich in October.
The new cases are for alleged drunken driving Saturday night and a May 10 incident at Fenteany’s apartment when police went to check on his welfare.
According to a police report, Fenteany refused to answer his apartment door when officers went to check on him. Officers got the landlord to open the door and inside found Fenteany walking around naked.
Because of Fenteany’s mental health history, the officers decided to do an emergency psychiatric committal. As officers tried to take him into custody, he kicked one officer and spit in the face of another. One of the officers was African-American and Fenteany called him a racial epithet, police said.
In the Greenwich case, Fenteany was charged after he was seen urinating in a parking lot and ripping side view mirrors off a BMW, two Audis, two Lexuses and a Honda Civic in October. UConn police arrested him on a warrant obtained by Greenwich police in December.
The incident occurred on Lafayette Court in Greenwich on Oct. 26, when Fenteany, who was visiting a resident, became intoxicated and walked through parking lots “urinating, spitting, kicking, and ripping the side view mirrors off high-end cars,” Greenwich police said.
The case was resolved March 25 when Fenteany received a one-year suspended jail sentence and three years of probation. Three other cases against him — with charges ranging from third-degree assault to resisting arrest — resolved Feb. 26 in Superior Court in Rockville, also with one-year suspended jail sentences and probation.
Fenteany, who earns $97,600 a year, was placed on administrative leave after the December arrest and has been banned from campus since then, UConn spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz said.