Saranac Lake police officer Travis MacDonald gives a presentation with Vigo the dog in April 2019 at the Saranac Lake Free Library. The plan was for MacDonald and Vigo to be the Saranac Lake Police Department’s first K-9 unit in 20 years, but that never came to fruition. (Enterprise photo — Jesse Adcock)

SARANAC LAKE — Village police officer Travis MacDonald was found not guilty by a jury in Franklin County Court on charges that he had given the Saranac Lake Police Department false information about his disciplinary history when he applied for the job.

MacDonald was acquitted on June 6 on both counts of offering a false instrument for filing — first-degree, a class E felony, and second-degree, a misdemeanor.

Franklin County Chief Assistant District Attorney David Hayes prosecuted the case, and Edward Narrow of Canton was MacDonald’s defense lawyer. Neither was available for comment Tuesday.

After MacDonald’s indictment last year, village Manager John Sweeney said the patrolman’s future employment in the department was being discussed. According to Narrow’s press release, MacDonald is still employed as an officer with the SLPD.

SLPD interim Chief Leigh Wenske deferred to Sweeney for verification of that.

“I’m not going to comment on this one because it’s a personnel issue,” Sweeney said. “I’ll let it go at that.”

Wenske said he’s been instructed to say he has no comment on the verdict.

The 12-person jury was composed of seven women and five men. After hearing from three prosecution witnesses and three defense witnesses they deliberated for three days and came out with a not guilty verdict.

In October 2020 Franklin County District Attorney Craig Carriero said the allegation was that MacDonald had been untruthful about his disciplinary history at the Massena Police Department when he applied to the SLPD in June 2017.

Carriero said the indictment happened because of the state’s repeal of 50-a, a section of civil law which shielded police officers’ personnel records from public view. It was rolled back in June 2020 amid nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd and other Black people at the hands of police officers.

With the repeal, Carriero said his office filed a Freedom of Information Law request to obtain MacDonald’s disciplinary records from the Massena Police Department, which he alleged held omissions of disciplinary issues.

MacDonald also previously worked for the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.

MacDonald’s indictment in October 2020 only became public knowledge through a fluke in timing and the coronavirus. He had been been advised by his former attorney Peter Dumas that if he turned himself in at the State Police barracks, the Franklin County Court could arraign him by videoconference, but upon his arrival there, he learned that because his indictment had been sealed, his arraignment had to be done in person. He ended up spending a night in jail.