Greenberg

PROVIDENCE — Seventeen-year-old Ryan Greenberg, awaiting trial for second-degree murder, admitted yesterday that he violated the terms of his bail after the police found him and seven other underage Barrington residents at a local pond with beer and liquor on April 19.

Special Magistrate Joseph A. Keough ordered Greenberg to remain at the Adult Correctional Institutions until June 23, when a new hearing will be held. He has been at the prison since being brought before the judge as a bail violator on April 22.

Keough said the maximum punishment for failing to keep the peace and maintaining good behavior while on bail is 90 days. When Greenberg returns to court next month, he will have been incarcerated for 60 days.

At that time, the judge indicated, he will likely, “at the very minimum,” release Greenberg on $100,000 bail with surety and strict home confinement until his trial. He had been free on $100,000 personal recognizance.

“You understand, Mr. Greenberg, if you get in any trouble [at the prison], all bets are off,” the judge told him.

Greenberg said he understood.

That trial may not occur for quite a while.

His case, in which he is accused of killing 17-year-old Patrick Murphy in a boating incident that involved alcohol, is in a legal limbo because Greenberg is one of the “gap kids,” arrested when state law said that 17-year-olds should be tried as adults.

The state has not figured out what to do with all the teens who were arrested before the state legislature put the age limit back to 18, so there’s been no progress toward trying the Barrington youth. The state Supreme Court will hear arguments on the issue on May 13.

If Greenberg is released on bail with surety, his family would have to post 10 percent of the amount in cash, or the full amount in property.

Keough warned Greenberg that home confinement would require him to wear an ankle bracelet and he would be allowed to leave his house only for school, medical treatment and meetings with his lawyer.

The courtroom was packed with family, police and some witnesses who, prosecutors said, were ready to testify that Greenberg had been drinking that night.

Wearing the same maroon golf shirt, khaki pants and sneakers he wore when Keough first sent him to jail on April 22, the teen was handcuffed throughout yesterday’s proceedings, with two guards behind him.

Keough noted that until he was discovered at Brickyard Pond by a Barrington police “party patrol,” Greenberg had been tested 32 times for drugs and alcohol; all were negative. But that night, he refused to take a breath test.

Of the seven youths taken into custody with Greenberg, six have also been charged with underage possession of alcohol.

gemery@projo.com