Gutierrez court hearing over before it started

Susan Gutierrez confers with her attorney shortly before the continuance is announced. (Harrison Thorp photo)

ALFRED - A pretrial hearing today for an Epping woman charged as an accomplice in the January shooting of a Lebanon man was continued until later this month.

Susan Gutierrez, who along with her boyfriend, Ronald Bauer, is charged in the shooting of a Lebanon man in his Second Street home in January, had a scheduled 9 a.m. hearing in front of Superior Court Justice John O'Neil, but was not transported as expected from the York County Jail in Alfred.

Moments before court reconvened around noon, Gutierrez arrived and was seen conferring with her defense counsel.

Soon afterward, O’Neil announced the continuance.

Gutierrez pleaded not guilty to the charges at her arraignment in April.

Gutierrez, 48, of Epping and Bauer are accused of conspiring to rob a house in Lebanon for money and items to fence, but when Bauer was confronted by the homeowner as he returned home for lunch he was allegedly shot in the shoulder by Bauer, who then fled in the homeowner’s SUV.

Gutierrez, who allegedly waited in her BMW convertible at the Dunkin’ Donuts on Route 202 in East Rochester for Bauer to do the dirty work, met up with her boyfriend at the Big Lots on Milton Road where they made off with some stolen belongings but no cash.

About a week later they were arrested in Somersworth. Bauer was returned to a New Hampshire State Prison for parole violations, while Gutierrez wound up at the York County Jail in Alfred on $400,000 bail where she remains today. Bauer is currently under indictment in Strafford County as a career criminal and faces up to 40 years in prison. The latest New Hampshire indictments came as a result of an armed robbery in Somersworth last December.

Gutierrez is charged with elevated aggravated assault, a Class A felony; and hindering apprehension, a Class B felony, in connection with the Lebanon shooting.

Bauer has no file at York County Superior Court as he has not made an appearance there.

The Lebanon man shot was paralyzed from the mid-chest down.