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Video: Former Sheriff’s Sergeant Dennis Carry up for parole in October

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Possibly marriage on the horizon to one of his two former wives

Former Washoe County Sheriff’s Sergeant Dennis Carry is up for parole as early as October. For the first time since he was sentenced in early April, Carry spoke on Monday about why he committed crimes and was married to two women at the same time.

Carry was convicted of three felonies after pleading down from seven original felony counts. He was sentenced to three years in prison on April 2 for bigamy, forgery and giving false evidence to other law enforcement officers.

Carry was accused of breaking into a Washoe County courthouse to forge a divorce document to attempt to show he was divorced from his first wife after getting married to his second wife, federal judge Carla Baldwin. He has since divorced both women. 

“I was in a very difficult, dark place.”

“I was just an idiot for what I did,” he told two members of Nevada’s parole board. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a good excuse other than just being completely stupid for what I did.” 

The parole board members questioned Carry about his case. 

“I have certainly learned my lesson when this crime was committed over five years ago, with nothing occurring since then, since that time,” he said. “I have been in a custody status one way or another, six months of pretrial house arrest, and two and a half years of court services check-ins.”

The members pressed Carry for more, calling his initial statement vague. 

“I was in a very difficult, dark place, and ultimately found a need to be happy and found somebody that made me happy,” he said. “I had a lot of other issues going on at that time, and I made a lot of poor decisions as a result of that, which led to a cascading effect of one decision after the next for a period of time, and unfortunately, that cascading effect just impacted my life and two people I really care about.

Carry then admitted to forging the divorce document.

“I lied about it; I tried to conceal it,” he admitted. “There’s no rhyme or reason as far as why I did that other than just making poor, poor decisions. It was nobody else’s fault except for myself. I take responsibility. I took responsibility, pleading guilty as a result of what I did.”

Carry said he would agree to the terms of his parole, including no contact with the victims in his case. That includes his former wives. But he said he is still in a relationship with one of them. Parole board members asked him about that. The terms of his parole prevent him from having contact with her. He did not mention which of his former wives it was.

“That person is my only contact now,” he said. “They are essentially my family. Now we have an ongoing relationship that actually is probably leading back to marriage again.”

Carry said he wanted to move on from his convictions and continue consulting upon release from prison. Parole board members told him he would not be able to have contact with the former wife, which Carry said he was surprised by. 

“I think what you should do is worry about what your responsibilities are if you are going to parole,” a parole board member said. “It is a standard requirement for parole to not have contact with the victim.”

She said the condition of no contact could be modified based on parole conditions.

“While you’re on parole, you’re not supposed to have contact with the victim,” she said. “Just talk to the officer and see what they say, and they may grant you. It may be a process of you asking for contact, but you just have to follow the rules until you don’t have to follow that rule.”

A request for comment about Carry’s parole eligibility in October to the District Attorney’s Office was not returned by the time of publication. A sheriff’s office representative said they had no comment.

Bob Conrad
Bob Conradhttp://thisisreno.com
Bob Conrad is publisher, editor and co-founder of This Is Reno. He has served in communications positions for various state agencies and earned a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2011. He is also a part time instructor at UNR and sits on the boards of the Nevada Press Association and Nevada Open Government Coalition.

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