BENNINGTON — There’s a new Bennington County Deputy State Prosecutor, and she’s a Vermont native with a passion for balancing the rights of defendants, community safety, and the constitutional requirements of the law.
Anna Cykon grew up the middle child of a prosecutor and an occupational therapist in Montpelier, the place she still calls home and the town her parents still live in. Her upbringing was “wonderful” and one of the main reasons she moved back to Vermont.
“My parents were my best friends,” Cykon says with a smile. “My parents were the kind of people who took care of all the neighborhood kids. Looking back now, I don’t know how they did it because we were all pains ,” she says with a chuckle.
Cykon told us that she wanted to be an attorney before she knew what that was.
“My dad and I were very similar,” Cykon says. “I always loved writing, and there's a lot of that in the law. My favorite part about being a lawyer is doing the research and writing.”
Cykon attended her undergraduate studies in D.C. at George Mason University for two years while clerking in Congress for an unnamed Republican House Chairwoman, the highest-ranking woman in the House leadership at the time, after graduating high school.
“I didn't know anything about politics,” Cykon says. “I quickly learned that I don't want to do politics, but I thought I might at that time, but I just missed Vermont. I mean, it's just a totally different world down there.”
Cykon returned home soon after graduation, attending law school at Champlain Law School in South Royalton, where she met Jared Bianchi, on of Bennington County’s leading Deputy State’s Prosecutors. She graduated in 2012, took the bar, passed the bar, and immediately wanted to be a prosecutor, but there were no available jobs at that time. For a time, Cykon clerked at the Chittenden County State's Attorney's Office and the SA’s office in Grafton County, New Hampshire, before going into private practice doing real estate foreclosures and bankruptcy law in South Burlington, eventually becoming a partner, all the while still dreaming of becoming a prosecutor.
Cykon eventually wound up at the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, where she shared a cubicle with her college friend, Jared Bianchi. She was there about two-and-a-half-years before, once again, moving back down to the D.C. area.
“I had married while I was back in Vermont, and my husband at the time worked for the federal government, so we moved down, and I became a Magistrate for the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Cykon said.
Cykon also became a supervisor at Legal Aid in Maryland, then a supervisor at the Children's Law Center, both nonprofits. The last job she held there was as a prosecutor right outside of D.C. Of the several jobs, she says nothing fit quite right.
“I love the law. I always have, but I was never satisfied,” Cykon said. “What I realize now is it wasn’t necessarily the jobs I wasn't satisfied with. I really just wanted to come back to Vermont. I mean, it's where my family is, and I missed being there.”
Cykon's friendship with Bianchi is what ultimately led her back to Bennington.
“I was a year ahead of him in law school, so I wasn't really friends with him back then. I knew his name, but then we wound up sharing a cubicle at the Attorney General’s Office, and we continued to be friends, even when I was down in DC. When we would catch up, he would say, ‘I just started working in Bennington, and you would love it here.”
Bianchi later introduced Cykon to Erica Marthage, Bennington County’s State’s Attorney. When a position opened, it was, according to Cykon, a perfect fit.
“We had a conversation, and I was like, this feels like what I always wanted to do my whole career,” Cykon said. “That’s actually true. I mean, being here, I feel like I'm now doing the job I always wanted, and it just took me 13 years to get there.”
We asked Cykon what was it about the law, from the time when you were a little kid to now, that was important to you. What drew you to law?
“Well, I mean, I really like history and reading and writing, and I also like puzzles, so I think about the law as a puzzle,” Cykon says. “Okay, so here are the facts, here's the precedent, the law. How do you mesh those all together? How do you then factor in all the mitigating factors, whether it is substance abuse, mental health, all those issues. What is the best thing for society? It's tough, but somebody's got to do it.”
Cykon says being in Bennington at the Bennington County State’s Attorney’s Office is what she always wanted.
“I love the office. I feel like I've known everyone there forever, and people treat you, not just like a job or an attorney, but like they care about your life,” Cykon says. “People ask about your dogs, stuff like that, and we work together as a team, so it always feels like you're never on your own. It's what I always wanted in a job, but never actually had, if that makes sense.”
When asked what, if anything, has surprised her in the three months since she’s been here, Cykon says she was really surprised at the amounts of drugs involved with so many of the cases she’s seen so far, but also at the time and case each case gets here.
“When I was a prosecutor in Prince George's County, Maryland, I had 200 cases a day, and didn't even have time to look at discovery before walking in,” Cykon said. “We would sometimes go to trial that very day, but I guess the thing that has surprised me the most is the amounts of drugs, and the way that drug deals are done. Putting cases together is so difficult because of how drug deals happen, the use of burner phones, and drugs and defendants coming from everywhere. There's just so many different levels to it. That surprised me.”
Cykon says she strives for balance in everything that she does, even if it hits close to home, like in animal cruelty cases, and that a lot is going on behind the scenes that the public sometimes doesn’t get to see.
“Dogs are my life,” Cykon says, “but we can't put someone in jail for life for that. No matter what, it's just not an option. People wonder, ‘Well, the prosecutors, the judge, everybody is just letting them (the criminals) out. They don't care.’ There’s actually a lot more that goes into it because we can't prove everything."
"Sometimes, using something like a plea deal to try to help make sure that they don't continue to have dogs and abuse them is a far better option than going to jury trial and losing all of it, especially if you might not be able to prove the charges due to the circumstances or the witnesses," she continued. "It’s challenging. It goes into every calculation for every single case, and that's why I think plea deals are really important because, sometimes, it can get people the help they need. It can let victims feel like they're being listened to. There's just so much into it. I guess it's all matter perspective.”
“I really do believe in looking at people as human beings and not just what it says on their criminal history,” Cykon says. “I hope that people do the same about us because we're also people. I'm really excited to be here. I learn something new every single day, good or bad. It’s all a balancing act. I think number one is to make sure that the process is done correctly, to the law, and the constitution, making sure that the defendant is treated fairly, because that is what the Constitution says has to happen, but then there's also another element, which is if you do something illegal, there is punishment, there are consequences. You have to balance all of those things.”
“I don't know the answer every time,” Cykon says before leaving. “You have to figure it out every single day, and sometimes you don't get it right. Then, hopefully, you learn from that and move forward.”