O’Meara Guilty of Misconduct; Facing Disbarment

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel: December 15, 2009

After 16 years of practicing law, a prominent Keene personal injury lawyer might have to find a new profession.

Timothy A. O’Meara committed deceit, dishonesty, fraud or misrepresentation while handling a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for the family of Anita Conant, a Hampton woman who was paralyzed in a crash four years ago, according to a hearing panel for the N.H. Supreme Court Attorney Discipline Office in Concord.

The panel, which is composed of three lawyers and a non-lawyer, heard four days of testimony from O’Meara, the Conants and other witnesses before finding “clear and convincing evidence” that O’Meara violated state rules of professional conduct, panel Chairman Robert C. Varney wrote in a Dec. 2 report.

Disciplinary counsel Landya B. McCafferty, who acted as a prosecutor during the hearings, recommended Monday that O’Meara be disbarred in the states where he is licensed to practice law: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

O’Meara’s attorney, Michael R. Callahan, asked that O’Meara not face any sanctions, or, at most, be reprimanded.

A reprimand is at the lowest end of the disciplinary spectrum; disbarment is the harshest penalty. Other sanctions include public censure and suspension.

While the panel has 60 days to determine what, if any, disciplinary action O’Meara should face, it is expected to release a recommendation within the next two weeks, Callahan and McCafferty said.

The panel’s recommendation will be forwarded to the state’s Professional Conduct Committee, which will issue its own decision, usually in less than six months.

The conduct committee consists of eight lawyers and four non-lawyers and has final say on disciplinary cases in which the maximum sanction is a six-month suspension from practicing law. The state Supreme Court determines cases involving possible disbarment.

Callahan said he will argue against any disciplinary action that is greater than reprimand. He can present his argument to the conduct committee and, if necessary, the state Supreme Court.

After exhausting those appeals, the final recourse is filing an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

After a horrific crash, family faces legal woes

In May 2005, Anita Conant was stopped at a traffic light in Pennsylvania, where she was attending her father’s funeral, when a dump truck slammed into the back of her car.

The impact launched Conant’s car 130 feet down the road before it landed on its roof in a ditch.

Conant’s spine was severed and she was paralyzed from the neck down.

A week after the crash, Conant’s husband, James Conant, hired O’Meara on the recommendation of his brother, Craig Conant.

After taking the case, O’Meara consulted a certified life-care planner who determined it would cost more than $23 million to care for Anita Conant during her lifetime.

Then O’Meara pursued an $11.5 million settlement from Lyons & Hohl Paving Inc., the company that owned the dump truck involved in the crash, and its insurer, The Cincinnati Insurance Companies, according to McCafferty.

He went after and eventually received the settlement without authorization from the Conants and with disregard for the life-care planner’s estimate because he wanted a quick payday, according to McCafferty.

O’Meara wanted to collect at least $2 million in legal fees from the settlement, but the Conants contested his fees and a judge awarded him $1.6 million — the largest payment of his law career.

Before the settlement was finalized, the Conants had asked O’Meara what would happen if they fired him. He threatened to sue them for a third of any settlement they received, according to McCafferty.

During the disciplinary hearing, O’Meara denied threatening the Conants with litigation.

But he also testified that he never informed the Conants that their contract gave them the right to fire him at any time.

If the Conants had fired O’Meara, the contract stated that they would have to pay him and any of his employees who worked on their case $275 per hour.

No one at O’Meara’s firm kept track of the hours that went into the Conant case, according to O’Meara’s testimony. That means O’Meara might not have been able to collect any legal fees if the Conants had fired him.

O’Meara also backdated a crucial letter to an attorney for The Cincinnati Insurance Companies, according to McCafferty.

The letter notified the attorney, Robert Davis, that the Conants were unwilling to accept the insurance settlement that was on the table.

The letter was written the same day Davis accepted O’Meara’s unauthorized offer to settle the case, but it was dated four days earlier, according to McCafferty.

O’Meara testified that the erroneous date on the letter was an innocent mistake.

In 2003, O’Meara was publicly censured for a similar mistake. He lied to a judge about having the wrong date on a document he filed with the court while representing himself in a divorce and child custody case.

Because O’Meara had maintained an unblemished disciplinary record since he joined the state bar in 1993, the conduct committee opted for public censure rather than a harsher sanction.

Few disciplinary cases in New Hampshire reach the level of disbarment, which usually cripples a lawyer’s career.

Only two lawyers were barred from practicing law in the state last year, and no lawyers were disbarred in 2006 and 2007.

Judge Delays Young Man’s Sentencing, Says Case Deserves More Thought

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel: December 11, 2009

A Cheshire County Superior Court judge has requested more time to decide the fate of a 19-year-old facing up to 21 years in prison for a slew of crimes.

Adam M. Laramie was slated to be sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty in August to conspiracy to commit armed robbery, attempted armed robbery, robbery, theft by deception, theft and receiving stolen property.

Laramie tried to rob the Beaver Street Market and the Connecticut River Bank in Keene on Dec. 15, 2008. He also duped an acquaintance into cashing a forged check, stole a co-worker’s purse and had a laptop that was purchased with a credit card from the purse.

Laramie was living in Swanzey when he was arrested. He has been locked up at the Cheshire County jail in Westmoreland for the past year, awaiting an end to his case.

Judge John P. Arnold was expected to send Laramie to N.H. State Prison at the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing.

Instead, Arnold asked Laramie’s court-appointed attorney, Adam P. Kossayda of Keene, to delve deeper into the young man’s background and present his findings in about a month.

Kossayda replaced Laramie’s original attorney, Michael C. Shklar of Newport, after Laramie accused Shklar of pressuring him to accept a plea deal. Shklar denied the allegation.

In a letter to The Sentinel in late November, Laramie wrote that he wanted to back out of the plea bargain he accepted while Shklar was representing him, but the court has denied his requests.

Arnold announced his decision to continue the sentencing hearing after lengthy discussions in his chambers with Kossayda and Assistant Cheshire County Attorney Kathleen G. O’Reilly. He said Laramie’s case raised “interesting issues.”

O’Reilly had asked Arnold to send Laramie to prison for four to 21 years, followed by a suspended prison sentence of seven to 14 years.

The suspended sentence would hang over Laramie’s head for 15 years after his release from prison. The sentence could be imposed if he was caught breaking the law during that time.

O’Reilly said in court that she would have asked for a lengthier prison sentence if Laramie were older.

“We have some very serious crimes here,” she said.

Kossayda argued during the hearing for six months to be shaved off the minimum end of the proposed prison sentence. He agreed to the remaining terms of the plea negotiation.

“He (Laramie) stands here pleading with you to have those six months of his life,” Kossayda told Arnold. “He’s owned up to (the crimes) by pleading guilty. He’s asking for some sort of leniency here.”

Saying that he was not offering excuses or justification for the crimes, but only some sort of explanation, Kossayda told Arnold about Laramie’s tumultuous childhood:

Laramie and his five siblings were raised in hotel rooms and homeless shelters as their mother struggled to make ends meet. When he was 7, Laramie was sexually assaulted. He was also physically abused.

That Laramie has a juvenile criminal record, which O’Reilly mentioned in court, is no surprise, given his upbringing, Kossayda said.

The string of crimes that led Laramie to the courtroom Thursday began soon after he was introduced to heroin on his 18th birthday in September 2008, Kossayda said.

Soon, Laramie had trouble staying employed and needed money to feed his addiction, he said.

Three months after he tried heroin, Laramie and three accomplices called in a bomb threat to Keene State College to create a diversion so they could rob the Connecticut River Bank, according to O’Reilly.

After making the bomb threat, the foursome approached the bank, some of them carrying weapons and masks, but abandoned the plan when a police cruiser rolled by them.

Later that day, Laramie entered the Beaver Street Market wearing a mask. He displayed a gun and demanded all the money in the store’s cash register. But the clerk didn’t take Laramie seriously — he thought the gun was a fake.

“Then I just played dumb, acted like I couldn’t open the register,” the clerk said in an interview after the incident.

“Finally he just got frustrated and left the store.”

Four police detectives who played a role in the investigation that led to Laramie’s arrest, or who were interested in the case, attended the hearing, as did Laramie’s father, stepmother and girlfriend.

Laramie glanced back toward his supporters before a bailiff led him from the courtroom. Arnold warned him to stay out of trouble in jail as he left.

“The issue now is: What’s the appropriate sentence?” Kossayda said after the hearing. “I’m going to figure out why we’re here and hopefully provide the court with enough information to make an appropriate sentence.”

Did Prominent Personal Injury Lawyer Break the Rules?

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel: November 11, 2009

CONCORD — Testimony ended Tuesday in the case of a Keene lawyer accused of lying to his paraplegic client and forcing her family to accept an insurance settlement so he could collect a large payment.

A hearing panel for the N.H. Supreme Court Attorney Discipline Office in Concord will decide whether Timothy A. O’Meara violated any rules of conduct in his dealings with the family of a Hampton woman whose spinal cord was severed in a May 2005 crash.

If the panel determines O’Meara violated any rules, it will decide what penalty he should face and make a recommendation to the Professional Conduct Committee. The panel and committee are both composed of lawyers and non-lawyers. Possible penalties O’Meara could face include reprimand, public censure, suspension or disbarment.

During the panel hearings, which began in October, disciplinary counsel Landya B. McCafferty presented the evidence against O’Meara, who was defended by Concord attorney Michael R. Callahan.

The family of Anita Conant hired O’Meara about a week after the crash that left her confined to a specialized wheelchair. Conant was attending her father’s funeral in Pennsylvania when a paving company’s dump truck slammed into the back of her car at about 55 mph while she was stopped at a red light.

The Conant family received $500,000 from the paving company, Lyons & Hohl Paving Inc., and $11 million from its insurer, The Cincinnati Insurance Companies. O’Meara wanted to collect at least $2 million in legal fees from the settlement, but the Conants contested his payment and a judge awarded him $1.6 million — the largest payment of his law career.

The settlement will not cover Conant’s daily medical expenses — it’s expected to cost more than $23 million to care for her during her lifetime, according to a certified life-care planner O’Meara hired while suing the paving company and its insurer.

O’Meara went after the $11.5 million settlement despite the life-care planner’s estimate for Conant so he could get paid quickly, McCafferty said.

Conant was positioned directly across the room from O’Meara during Tuesday’s hearing, watching him as he testified for about five hours, her ventilator unleashing an air-sucking whistle with each breath she took. Her husband, James, and their two sons, Sean and Todd, and daughter, Ashley, also attended the hearing.

The Conants say O’Meara settled their case without their authorization and pressured them to agree to pay him $2 million in legal fees at the last minute during a mediation hearing in Philadelphia. They also say he threatened to sue them for a third of any settlement they received and lied during testimony about his handling of the case after they contested his fees.

O’Meara contends that he had the authority to request an offer from the paving company, but not accept it. He says he never finalized the offer, which the Conants initially rejected but later accepted after hiring a new attorney. The Conants said they felt they had no other choice but to take the offer because of O’Meara’s dealings.

As for threatening to sue the Conants, O’Meara said he only mentioned during an emotionally charged meeting at their house months before the case was settled that litigation would be an option if they fired him. He denied making any threats.

The contract the Conants signed with O’Meara gave them the right to fire him at any time and pay him and other employees at his firm who worked on their case $275 per hour, McCafferty said.

But no one at O’Meara’s firm kept track of the hours that went into the Conants’ case, and O’Meara never told the Conants they could easily fire him because he knew he’d have trouble collecting any fees, McCafferty said.

O’Meara is also accused of backdating a letter to Robert Davis, an attorney for The Cincinnati Insurance Companies.

The letter notified Davis that the Conants were unwilling to accept the $11 million insurance settlement. It was written the same day Davis accepted O’Meara’s offer to settle the case for that amount, but dated four days earlier, McCafferty said.

O’Meara said the erroneous date on the letter was an innocent mistake.

This is not the first time O’Meara has been accused of changing the date on an official document, McCafferty said during Tuesday’s hearing.

In 2003, he was disciplined for lying to a judge about having the wrong date on a document he filed with the court while representing himself in a divorce and child custody case.

The conduct committee publicly censured O’Meara rather than suspending or disbarring him because he’d maintained a clean disciplinary record since joining the state bar in 1993.

While attending law school at Franklin Pierce University, O’Meara was suspended for a semester for cheating on a group project. He said he was the first person in his group to admit to cheating because he felt guilty.

The hearing panel is expected to decide by mid-December whether O’Meara violated any rules while representing the Conants.

Intended Victim in Murder-For-Hire Plot Dies

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel: November 10, 2009

Constance and Guido Boldini

In a tragic twist, the intended victim of a foiled murder-for-hire plot hatched by a Hancock mother and son has died.

Michelle L. Hudon, 37, lost her battle with cancer Sept. 3, according to an obituary. Her ex-boyfriend Guido Boldini and his mother, Constance, were in N.H. State Prison when Hudon died. A year earlier, they were meeting with an undercover officer posing as a hit man, arranging to have Hudon killed.

Guido Boldini, 43, wanted Hudon dead because they were involved in a custody battle over their 4-year-old boy, according to testimony during his sentencing hearing in April.

Constance Boldini, 76, solicited the hit man — she walked into Gino’s Bar & Grill on Court Street in Keene and told the owner, Gino C. Mola, that she “understood he was a man who could get things done,” Cheshire County Attorney Peter W. Heed said during her sentencing hearing in May.

Mola contacted Keene police and agreed to let them record his phone conversations with the Boldinis and set up surveillance at his business. The police had an undercover officer act as a hit man and meet with the Boldinis. They also warned Hudon about the plot.

Hudon told police and prosecutors she was leaving Guido Boldini because he was “controlling” and “domineering,” Heed said. Guido Boldini also easily manipulated Constance Boldini, Heed said.

While sitting inside a vehicle parked outside Gino’s and wired with audio and video surveillance, the Boldinis hashed out a deal with the fake hit man: They would pay him $10,000 to kill Hudon and give him what they had in their pockets, $100, as a down payment, according to Heed.

The Boldinis were arrested when they stepped out of the vehicle.

Guido Boldini pleaded guilty to criminal solicitation to commit murder in April and was sentenced to eight to 20 years in N.H. State Prison. Constance Boldini pleaded guilty to the same charge in May and was sentenced to 4 1/2 to 15 years in prison.

Hudon’s parents, Richard and Arlene, of Merrimack, are fighting for custody of the child she had with Guido Boldini and declined comment until the dispute is resolved.

Hudon also had two older sons, Bryan and Gregory, who are living in Merrimack, according to the obituary.

Con Man Pleads Guilty

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel:  November 07, 2009

The charismatic convicted felon who conned a pair of Chesterfield business owners while posing as a U.S. marshal was sent to prison Thursday.

Wearing a charcoal blazer and blue jeans, a shackled John P. Baldasaro, 46, pleaded guilty in Cheshire County Superior Court to two felony-level counts of theft by deception. He’d vowed months earlier to take the case to trial and represent himself.

Judge John P. Arnold accepted the deal Baldasaro and his attorney, Michael D. Hulser of Acworth, reached with prosecutors and handed down two concurrent sentences of six to 12 years in N.H. State Prison.

In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors dismissed two counts of kidnapping and one count of robbery.

If Baldasaro had gone to trial and was convicted on all five counts, he could have faced 60 years in prison, Hulser said after the hearing.

Hulser said he has also negotiated a plea deal for Baldasaro in Maine, where he is accused of stealing a vehicle from a dealership and duping a family out of $7,000 in a bogus investment scheme.

The Maine negotiation calls for a shorter sentence than the N.H. State Prison sentence and will be served concurrently with the New Hampshire sentence, he said.

Meanwhile, Baldasaro faces a federal parole violation charge in Vermont that could keep him in prison for another 12 years. By pleading guilty to the theft charges, Baldasaro effectively admitted to violating parole.

“The Vermont Parole Board will not say what they’re going to do,” Hulser said.

The parole violation stems from a conviction for kidnapping and robbery in White River Junction, Vt. Baldasaro spent 12 years in federal prison, where he married his wife, Vanessa, who works at a law firm in Boston. He was released in September 2008.

Hulser said he hasn’t heard from authorities in Massachusetts, where Baldasaro is accused of impersonating a federal agent and robbing a man at gunpoint. He also hasn’t received word from the federal authorities who are building an impersonation case against Baldasaro.

In Chesterfield, Baldasaro conned Fayyaz Awan, owner of Khyber Convenience Store, and Paul Saba, owner of Big Deal, out of more than $10,860 on May 11, according to court documents.

Baldasaro flashed what appeared to be a holstered gun and U.S. Marshals badge, told Awan and Saba he was investigating a counterfeit cash operation, and took money from both stores before emptying Awan’s bank account, prosecutors said.

Baldasaro told Awan and Saba the money he took was counterfeit, police said. He acted like he was scanning the bills with a laptop computer to determine whether they were legitimate, Saba said in an interview shortly after the incident.

Chesterfield police spent dozens of hours investigating the scheme alongside the U.S. Marshals Office, and Chief Lester C. Fairbanks said it was gratifying to see the case come full circle.

“It’s just nice to see everything fall into place,” he said. “None of us would have gotten here without the U.S. Marshals. That was just a huge stroke of luck that he picked the wrong agency to mess with.”

During the plea and sentencing hearing, Baldasaro spoke only to answer the judge or confer with Hulser. But he was outspoken during a jailhouse interview with The Sentinel in June, when he said he wanted to represent himself during trial and take on Cheshire County Attorney Peter W. Heed.

“John speaks spontaneously very often,” Hulser said outside the courtroom. “I think he would like to retract those statements upon reflection.”

Baldasaro also made “very incriminating” statements to detectives after he was arrested at a Manhattan hotel several days after the Chesterfield incident, Hulser said.

Hulser said he would have tried to prevent jurors from hearing those statements if he was unable to negotiate a plea deal with Heed and Assistant Cheshire County Attorney Keith W. Clouatre.

If the case had gone to trial, Hulser planned to argue that Awan and Saba were acquainted with Baldasaro before he stole from them. He said they owed Baldasaro money, but would not disclose the nature of the debt.

Heed dismissed Hulser’s theory as “baseless” and said Awan and Saba were on board with the plea negotiation, which saved taxpayers the expense of a trial.

“We also don’t want New Hampshire taxpayers to pay for his whole incarceration,” he said. “He has a lot of sentences he can serve” in other states.

Vermont Man Fights New Hampshire City in Court

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel: November 03, 2009

A Vermont man has filed a right-to-know lawsuit against the city of Keene that could affect the way public records requests are answered across the state.

Wallace S. Nolen of Barre, Vt., presented his case Monday in Cheshire County Superior Court. He wants an electronic document containing the names, titles, salaries, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and work locations of every city employee.

The city has already provided paperwork containing that information to Nolen, with the exception of work locations for each employee, because no such record exists and the city is not required to create one, according to City Attorney Thomas P. Mullins.

The city was not even required by state law to comply with Nolen’s request because he is not a New Hampshire resident, Mullins said.

He said the city has already gone “above and beyond” by giving Nolen paperwork with the employee information he requested, and should not be required to provide it again in electronic form, he said.

But Nolen said he doesn’t want paperwork. He wants the information to be provided on a CD or e-mailed to him so he can easily plug it into a massive database he’s building. The database contains employee information from tens of thousands of municipalities in 30 states, including much of New England, he said.

Nolen is building the database in preparation for a class-action lawsuit aimed at overhauling unclaimed property laws. He wants banks and state treasurers to be more diligent in helping people claim lost assets.

Nolen is gathering the employee information because he says states consistently fail to notify not only residents but their own employees of unclaimed property to which they are entitled.

Nolen said he was spurred to action after being deprived of funds in his deceased father’s bank account because of flaws in the laws.

Because the city of Keene has refused to provide employee information electronically, Nolen said he must manually enter the information into his database, which will take too much time.

Nolen also wants the city to be required to answer right-to-know requests sent by e-mail.

The city typically requires requests to be submitted in writing and dropped off at the City Clerk’s office or mailed.

Communicating via e-mail will streamline the process, make it more environmentally friendly and save the city money in printing and paper costs, Nolen argued.

“In today’s day and age, things should be sent electronically,” he said. “Are you telling me that if I want something from Los Angeles, I have to drive all the way to Los Angeles?”

The city should not be forced to answer right-to-know requests via e-mail, Mullins said. The clerk’s office, which handles the requests, would become inundated with frivolous public records demands and unable to function, he said.

“If we have to do that, the city is going to be placed in a very difficult situation,” he said. “We could be receiving potentially thousands of e-mails.”

The N.H. Supreme Court has never addressed the transmittal of information tied to a public records request, according to Mullins.

“I haven’t seen a case on it,” he said, “and I’ve definitely been looking.”

In a separate right-to-know issue, Nolen has requested any evidence in the case of David Ridley, an activist and videographer from Grafton. Ridley was arrested in March at Keene District Court when he refused to turn off his camera in the court’s lobby.

The Keene Police Department initially refused Nolen’s request, saying the Ridley case was an open investigation and therefore exempt from public record.

But after contacting Mullins, the department acknowledged that certain information could be released.

Mullins said he provided Nolen with paperwork containing basic details in Ridley’s arrest, but Nolen demanded any audio or video evidence the authorities may have from the courthouse incident. That evidence does not exist, Mullins said.

Judge John P. Arnold is reviewing both prongs of Nolen’s right-to-know lawsuit. He is expected to render a decision in a matter of weeks.

During the hearing, Mullins accused Nolen of verbally abusing city employees over the course of his right-to-know requests — the first was filed in March. He said Nolen’s lawsuit is baseless and constitutes harassment.

If Arnold determines the lawsuit is harassment, he could order Nolen to pay the city for legal fees it incurred in fighting the suit.

Nolen is also seeking compensation for legal fees. He has accused city employees of stonewalling him.

A Town Without a Police Detective

By PHILLIP BANTZ
Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel:  October 22, 2009

SWANZEY — After nine years of investigating major crimes and specializing in cases involving children, a Swanzey police detective is slated to lose his job so the department can increase wages for its patrol officers, who are being poached by other agencies offering better pay.

“I’m not so much angry or upset as disappointed. I do a job that no one else here is trained to do. It also takes a lot more than training to do the job; you need a decent amount of experience,” said Paul Bertolami, whose position at the Swanzey Police Department is scheduled to be terminated by Dec. 31. He has already submitted a letter of resignation, effective Dec. 25.

Bertolami began his law enforcement career in 1983 with the N.H. State Police. He also worked for the Marlborough Police Department and N.H. Fish and Game Department before he was hired by the Swanzey Police Department in 2000 as a part-time detective and crime scene photographer.

“He’s one of the best investigators in the state regarding offenses against children,” said Cheshire County Attorney Peter W. Heed, who has worked on many cases with Bertolami. “He is uniquely and rarely skilled at being able to talk to children, getting them to relax and trust him.”

Looking back on his time with Swanzey, Bertolami said he’ll never forget the 52-day-old baby who showed up at the pediatric ward with broken bones, some partially healed.

“Only days into his young life, he’d already suffered so much,” he said. “I photographed his injuries at the hospital. His dad was there with other family members and I managed to get a pretty good confession out of him in the four or five hours I was there.”

Police Chief Richard V.C. Busick 4th said he eliminated Bertolami’s position because he’s tired of losing well-trained, full-time patrol officers to other agencies.

He said his department, the second-largest in Cheshire County, is working with a tight budget and this was the only way he could offer competitive pay to his officers. He also eliminated a vacant animal control officer position.

“This was a tough, difficult decision and it will have a significant impact on the department. Detective Bertolami is one of the most talented investigators I’ve come across,” Busick said. “Now we’re going to have to take his caseload, along with the responsibilities of the animal control officer, and distribute it among others in the department.”

The annual wage Bertolami received, about $17,000, will also be distributed among the department’s 11 full-time patrol officers, who will receive a yearly pay increase of $1,200 to $3,000, according to Busick, who said he is not receiving a raise.

“This isn’t about me. It’s about our patrol officers. Swanzey hasn’t been competitive in terms of salary with other agencies of similar size,” he said. “Many departments start their officers out at higher salaries than what veteran patrol officers earn here in Swanzey.”

Swanzey’s patrol officers make $16 to $19.28 an hour, while patrol officers are paid $20.28 to $27.78 an hour in Jaffrey, $19.29 to $28.94 in Peterborough and $17.37 to $24.32 in Rindge, according to this year’s N.H. Local Government Center survey of wage, salary and benefits for municipalities.

In the past four years, at least four Swanzey officers have left the department for better paychecks at other police agencies, Busick said. Testing, hiring, certifying, training and equipping each new replacement officer can take more than seven months and cost about $20,000, he said.

“We’ve invested time and resources to get excellent officers, only to lose them to another agency for more money,” Busick said. “This needs to stop.”

When it comes to losing officers to better-funded agencies, Swanzey is not alone.

In Hinsdale, where patrol officers are paid $16.76 to $20.61 an hour, five officers have left in the past five years for other police agencies, predominantly Brattleboro and Keene, according to Chief Wayne T. Gallagher.

Patrol officers make $16.33 to $23.96 an hour in Brattleboro and $19.06 to $26.78 an hour in Keene, according to Brattleboro Police Chief Eugene Wrinn and the local government center survey.

“In the history of the Hinsdale Police Department, we’ve only had one officer retire from here,” Gallagher said. “They get their training and certification and spend a few years here and then they leave. The people who come down here, they enjoy working here, but they can’t make a decent living.”

To make ends meet, many Hinsdale patrol officers moonlight as traffic directors for local construction companies, Gallagher said.

Patrol officers in Winchester are among the lowest paid in the Monadnock Region, earning $16.63 to $16.91 an hour, followed by Charlestown’s $16 to $17 an hour and Fitzwilliam’s $15.12 to $20.26 an hour, according to the local government center survey.

Because recruiting experienced officers is cheaper than hiring and training new ones, many police agencies offer sign-on bonuses in addition to pay raises to officers coming from other departments in New England.

“We’re always looking to hire certified officers,” said Wrinn, whose department offers $2,000 sign-on bonuses. “It’s truly a benefit when you hire someone who is already certified.”

Even as Busick works to retain the department’s patrol officers, one of his most valuable and experienced officers is on another area police agency’s short list for recruitment, he said. He declined to identify the officer or the agency seeking him.

Meanwhile, Busick knows he must eventually hire a full-time detective or pluck an officer from the department’s ranks and train him to become a detective to replace Bertolami. He’s also building the department’s budget for next year and has been working with the town’s three selectmen, who did not return messages seeking comment on the axing of Bertolami’s position.

“We’ll need to identify a full-time detective because we have a lot of investigations that require interviews and follow-ups. It’s definitely more specialized work,” Busick said. “But patrol is my big focus now. Patrol is the backbone of this organization. We need to keep our resources in patrol so we can respond to calls and have quality officers.”

While Busick prepares for the loss of his only detective, Bertolami will be searching for another law enforcement job in the region, preferably one that allows him to continue to help victimized children.

“Children live in a very simple world. That’s what I find so appealing about working with them — their innocence, their sense of things,” he said. “They’re very interesting little creatures.”

No matter where Bertolami ends up or what he ends up doing, he said he already knows he’ll miss working with the residents of Swanzey.

“What it all amounts to is this: I love the people in this town,” he said. “We have some of the best people in the state, and I’m glad I’ve had the opportunity to help many of them.”

Lost Wallet Returned to WWII Vet After 65 Years

By PHILLIP BANTZ

Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel: October 19, 2009

A curious Swedish teenager and a historian in Oklahoma helped return a worn leather wallet to a World War II veteran living in Keene, more than 65 years after he lost it in the wake of a fierce air battle.

The wallet arrived at Robert H. Brookman’s apartment earlier this month, bringing an end to a long and incredible journey that began in April 1944, when Sgt. Brookman was a 19-year-old tail gunner on a B-17 bomber flying over Germany.

Enemy fire hit the bomber, named “Bottled in Bond,” severely damaging the aircraft’s engine, and its pilot set a course for Sweden, a nearby neutral country. The bomber was hit again with anti-aircraft fire as it descended into Sweden.

“I’m out there at the end of the aircraft. I don’t know nothing. I’m just listening to the intercom,” said Brookman, now 85. “I was scared. I wanted to jump out. I wanted to leave. I’m not a hero.”

The bomber crash-landed, sliding on its belly across a field. Brookman walked away with minor facial injuries, but said his assistant gunner, Sgt. Joseph L. Masqula, had his “head blown off,” either during the fight over Germany or as the bomber entered Sweden. He said he never learned why the Swedes fired on the bomber.

The Swedish Army watched over Brookman and the rest of his crew after the harrowing landing. It also assigned soldiers to guard the downed bomber until it was repaired or salvaged for parts.

While guarding the plane during a moonlit night two days after the crash, Bo Andersson found a wallet near a tree stump — how it got there remains unknown. Andersson, then 20, slipped the wallet in his pocket, according to Gary D. Simmons, the historian from Oklahoma.

Years later, Andersson brought the wallet out from its hiding place in an old cabinet and showed it to his children, telling them the story of how he came to find the war souvenir. One of Andersson’s children, Tord, grew up and had a son of his own, Emil, who heard the story of the wallet while visiting his grandparents.

Fascinated by the wallet and the mystery of its contents — an immunization record, bicycle registration, loan payment receipts, an off-base pass, B-17 crew member pass, utility blade, a photo of a young woman and the name and address of an Army nurse scrawled on a scrap of paper — Emil Andersson, 18, decided the story from his grandfather wasn’t enough. He wanted to find the wallet’s owner.

He tracked down Simmons, who has a Web site chronicling the history of the Ardmore (Okla.) Army Air Field and Air Force Base, where Brookman was stationed before his deployment, and asked for help in his quest.

After six months of searching online records, which indicated Brookman lived in the Monadnock Region, and talking with local historians and town officials, Simmons finally found Brookman’s contact information.

“It was a good feeling to know he was alive and that there was a possibility of returning his long-lost wallet after 65 years,” Simmons said.

Simmons had found the right Brookman. But Brookman was suspicious when he first heard from Simmons: A Swedish teenager has my wallet? You’re calling from where? Oklahoma? What’s this all about? Is this some kind of scam?

“I would have been a little suspicious, too,” Simmons said. “He didn’t know me from Adam.”

But when Simmons detailed the contents of the wallet, Brookman lowered his guard.

He’s holding the wallet now, sitting at his kitchen table on a raw, rainy Sunday afternoon. His wife, Nora, sits on the couch behind him, watching TV. He has the contents of the wallet spread out on the table in front of him. His left hand is wrapped in gauze; he says he broke one of his fingers during a recent fall. He says he has colon cancer. The items from the wallet seem foreign to him, dug up from a time capsule from another life.

“Christ, I can’t remember all this stuff,” he says. “It will probably mean more to my great-grandchildren than it does to me.”

The young woman in the photo and the Army nurse, Barbara Kolas — he doesn’t remember her, doesn’t know if the name matches the photo. The name means nothing to him now, buried deep beneath the layers of all those years.

“I don’t know why all this is coming up. Everything was fine,” he says. “I don’t need it.”

But Emil Andersson did. He tacked an ending onto a story that had been passed down from one generation to the next.

“I have to say that I’m stunned by (the) information you got!” he wrote in an e-mail to Simmons. “Me, my father and my grandfather are very happy that you found all this.”

Owner of Bankrupt Greyhound Track Closes Wal-Mart Deal

By PHILLIP BANTZ

Sentinel Staff

The Keene Sentinel: October 02, 2009

HINSDALE — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. finalized a multimillion-dollar land deal Wednesday with the former owner of the bankrupt Hinsdale Greyhound Park and his business partner.

Construction on the new Walmart Supercenter on Brattleboro Road in Hinsdale is slated to begin in the spring, company spokeswoman Alexandra Serra said.

The store will replace an older store about a mile south of the new location, she said.

The $2.1 million deal for 23 acres took about three years to reach the closing table and ought to come as welcome news to the defunct greyhound track’s creditors.

The track owes about $500,000 to its bettors and another $1.7 million to other creditors.

The bettors were not given warning about the impending bankruptcy; they were informed after the track closed that the money they had in their wagering accounts was gone.

A dozen of the track’s biggest bettors have hired Manchester attorney Jennifer Rood to help recover the hundreds of thousands of dollars they lost when the track went under.

As part of a court order, $500,000 from the land sale to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will be set aside in an escrow account to be used to help repay the track’s creditors.

The other $1.6 million from the sale goes to Hinsdale Real Estate LLC, a holding company that bought the track’s 102 acres and buildings for $3.3 million about a year before the track filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last December.

The track’s former owner, Joseph E. Sullivan 3rd, and his business partner, Carl B. Thomas of Spofford-based Thomas Construction Corp., run the holding company.

The creation of the holding company and its acquisition of the track’s assets are under investigation by Michael A. Askenaizer, a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee. Askenaizer is investigating whether the track’s bankruptcy involves fraudulent property transfers, perjury or is an abuse of the bankruptcy system. He is also liquidating the track’s remaining assets to repay its creditors.

As part of the collection process, Askenaizer is attempting to reclaim a $100,000 bond the track paid to the N.H. Racing and Charitable Gaming Commission.

Every track in New Hampshire is required by state law to make a bond payment to the state racing commission before it receives its pari-mutuel license.

Tracks also must send money to the commission each year to cover the cost of winning tickets that were not cashed. But the Hinsdale track filed for bankruptcy before making a payment for the $88,000 it collected last year from unclaimed tickets, according to Sudhir K. Naik, deputy director of the commission.

“Usually the tracks give us the unclaimed ticket money, but this is an unusual situation,” Naik said. “We’re trying to use the bond money to pay the unclaimed ticket holders that come forward.”

Senior Assistant Attorney General Peter C.L. Roth is fighting Askenaizer’s request to reclaim the Hinsdale track’s bond payment. Roth stated in court documents that the bond payment belongs to the state because the track forfeited its pari-mutuel license after it handed over the money, making the cash abandoned property.

Askenaizer is arguing that the state has violated the “priority scheme of the bankruptcy code” by keeping the track’s bond payment.

He asserts that the track’s bankruptcy estate, and not the state, will be held responsible for paying ticket holders who come forward, which is why he wants to reclaim the bond payment.

Askenaizer alleges in court documents that the state has not paid for any of the track’s unclaimed tickets for 2008.

“If unclaimed ticket holders have presented claims to the state which have not been paid, it is not acting under state law (which requires it to pay such claims), and therefore not protected from a fraudulent transfer claim,” Askenaizer wrote in his argument to the court.

Unclaimed ticket holders have 11 months to claim the money they’re owed before the funds become state property and are placed in a general fund. The Hinsdale track’s unclaimed ticket holders have until December to collect what they’re owed.

A bankruptcy judge will consider both arguments from Askenaizer and Roth, who did not return messages seeking comment, during a hearing scheduled for Oct. 14.

The Dark Side of the Court System

By PHILLIP BANTZ

The Keene Sentinel: February 23, 2008

Life-altering decisions are often made by lawyers haggling for justice behind closed doors. In nearly all criminal cases, plea deals are negotiated and defendants admit guilt in exchange for lighter sentences.

Prosecutors are bound by state law to work with defense attorneys and make an attempt to reach a resolution before trial.

And while victims and their families may voice their opinions to prosecutors and judges, they ultimately have no say in the process.

Some end up feeling betrayed by a cold legal machine that allows justice to slip through their fingers.

This is a glimpse of the lesser-known side of the business of law.

***

“I felt lost. It was like I was in a different country. We obviously had no say in the matter,” James P. McCarthy Sr. said of his experience with Cheshire County’s court system.

“My kid was killed in a car accident,” he said, “and the guy who killed him only got a slap on the wrist.”

His 21-year-old son, James P. McCarthy Jr., known to friends and family as “Jimmy,” was riding in Seth R. Olson’s convertible in September 2006 when the car hit a sharp turn in Jaffrey and flipped.

McCarthy was thrown head-first into a pole. His young daughter was left fatherless.

Authorities said Olson had been speeding and his recklessness caused the crash.

Olson and his family contend it was a tragic and unintentional accident.

“My brother didn’t mean for this to happen. That night in that car, it could have been anybody. It just happened,” Meghan A. Olson, 19, said. “I saw my brother that night. I’ve never seen him more destroyed in my entire life. … He would have taken Jimmy’s place if he had the chance.”

Seth Olson declined to be interviewed for this story.

He was initially charged with negligent homicide, reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, vehicular assault and driving with a suspended license.

After a year of court proceedings, prosecutors and Olson’s public defender negotiated a plea deal.

The deal was influenced by tire skid marks and other evidence at the scene that would have weakened the chances of securing a conviction during a jury trial, according to Cheshire County Attorney Peter W. Heed.

“A plea deal is usually a good thing,” Heed said. “It may not be the best sentence, but it’s still a guilty plea. It’s not an acquittal.”

The deal shocked the McCarthys, who said they learned about Olson’s agreement after it was finalized.

Both sides had agreed on a deal that would send Olson to the Cheshire County jail in Westmoreland for six months on one misdemeanor charge of vehicular assault.

All other charges against him would be dropped.

“I almost threw up on the table. I left the county attorney’s office crying,” said McCarthy’s mother, Gail A. McCarthy. “I never expected Seth Olson to spend the rest of his life in jail, but his dangerous driving caused Jimmy’s death. I still haven’t gotten over the anger of it and I don’t feel that Jimmy got justice.”

“My jaw just dropped. We didn’t have any say in it,” said James McCarthy Sr., who was sitting beside his wife in the county attorney’s office when they learned of Olson’s plea deal.

“They shoved the plea down our throats. Six months. I still can’t believe it.”

After he’d served less than four months of his sentence, which began in mid-October, the jail’s disciplinary board determined Olson was ready for release.

The decision was based on his good behavior, work history and minimal criminal record, said Richard N. Van Wickler, the jail superintendent.

“The prosecutors left the decision up to us,” Van Wickler said. “We made the best decision we could at the time. Unfortunately, we’re not always right.”

Olson was arrested again Feb. 7 while on work release. He’d submitted a urinalysis test to the jail that tested positive for marijuana, according to Van Wickler.

He spent another 10 days in jail, serving out the remainder of his minimum sentence, and was released.

Olson’s obligation to the jail’s disciplinary board and the court system is finished. The plea deal did not require him to serve probation.

The McCarthys recently asked Mothers Against Drunk Driving and state representatives to investigate their son’s death and the way it was handled by the courts.

“I want people to know that you don’t plea bargain a beautiful life like Jimmy’s,” said McCarthy’s grandfather, Philip J. McCarthy. “This is a miscarriage of justice as far as my family’s concerned.”
***
Lawyers are not immune to the flammable mix of emotions in criminal cases involving death or life-altering victimization.

They may feel passionately about a defendant’s guilt or innocence, but that does not sway the law.

“Of course it can be hard. We may not be happy with the sentence in some cases. We just can’t make everybody happy,” said Heed, the county attorney. “We’re not the attorneys for the victims or the police. We’re the attorneys for the law.”

Prosecutors often deal with grief-stricken families and scarred victims. These are people whose lives have been devastated, and they’re desperate for some sort of justice.

They are not invited into the closed-door legal meetings. They will never see the inner workings of the courts.

But while prosecutors are not required to confer with victims and their families, they still usually try to keep them in the loop.

“You don’t intentionally try to create a poor relationship,” Heed said. “We fight as hard as we can on every case. We also try to develop a rapport with the victims. We try to minimize their pain and confusion.”

The McCarthys said they consistently received updates in their son’s case, and applauded a court-appointed advocate who helped them through the experience.

“We were involved in the process and Lyndi Horn, our victim advocate, was wonderful,” James McCarthy Sr. said. “We just had no say. … We’re riled up at Peter Heed for plea bargaining.”
***
Forget the courtroom dramas on television in which a suspect is arrested, convicted and justice is served in an hour, minus commercial breaks.

The real legal system is a high-stakes game of strategy, and it can be incredibly tedious – imagine a chess game that plays out for years.

And a trial can be a costly gamble. Lawyers never know what a jury will do, which is why most cases are resolved with a plea bargain.

“At least 95 percent of all cases are settled by plea negotiations,” Keene defense lawyer Paul G. Schweizer said. “Plea bargains are absolutely essential to the judicial system.”

Without plea deals, the courts, jails and prisons would become clogged with defendants and inmates.

“As a practical matter, we would have to build 10 new courthouses in Keene if we took everyone to trial,” he said. “We would have to hire five times as many police officers and prosecutors. The judicial system would come to a screeching halt.”

A plea negotiation often hinges on the defense’s adeptness in arguing for a judge to exclude certain pieces of evidence from a case, or the prosecution’s ability to keep that evidence in court.

The defendant’s age, criminal history, willingness to accept responsibility and the extent of the damage he caused are also significant factors in plea negotiations.

In the end, though, it’s the judge who decides whether to accept or deny a plea deal.

If the case against a defendant is strong, he may agree to an open plea deal and essentially throw himself on the mercy of the court in hopes of leniency.

A defendant may also be offered a capped plea deal, which allows him to withdraw his admission of guilt if a judge doesn’t accept the sentence recommendation.

No matter the type of plea deal, people connected to both sides of the case are often left feeling slighted, Schweizer said.

“Plea bargaining is a negotiation where everybody walks away with a bad taste in their mouth, having not gotten what they wanted,” he said. “If one side gets everything they wanted, that’s not a compromise, it’s not a plea negotiation.”
***
Lost evidence and a pair of traumatized victims recently led to a plea deal for a 31-year-old Marlborough man.

Thomas L. Pickford pleaded guilty to abusing two underage girls for three years and was sentenced to one year in jail.

He could have been sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison if he’d been taken to trial and convicted on the two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault that he originally faced.

He pleaded instead to lesser charges of second-degree assault and indecent exposure with lewdness.

The prosecution’s case had been dealt a blow when Cheshire County Judge Brian T. Tucker agreed with the defense’s argument that Pickford’s statements to police about the abuse were made under duress and not admissible in court.

Heed called Pickford’s interviews with police “crucial” to prosecuting the case.

“There’s a huge difference between what we know or think we know,” he said, “and what we can prove in court.”

Further weakening the prosecution’s case was that the victims, now 11 and 13, did not want to be dragged through a trial.

“Our heart goes out to these victims,” Heed said. “These cases often rely on testimony from people that have gone through a difficult situation. Some of the hardest cases are sexual assault.”

Assistant Cheshire County Attorney Christopher D. McLaughlin, who worked for about 12 years defending the accused before becoming a prosecutor, said the courtroom can be a scary place for victimized adults and downright terrifying for abused children.

“Sometimes you’re asking a 6-year-old child to face a dozen strangers and talk about being abused in front of the person who did that to them,” McLaughlin said. “Calling it an intimidating atmosphere would be an understatement.”
***
A few weeks after Pickford was sentenced, a distraught Vermont woman contacted The Sentinel.

The woman said she’d just learned that her ex-boyfriend was being offered a plea deal.

He had been arrested in Hinsdale last year and charged with sexually assaulting their daughter.

Authorities said the girl was first abused when she was 7 years old, and that a second incident occurred when she was 11.

Identities are being withheld because it is The Sentinel’s policy not to identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

As part of the plea deal, court records show the man could receive a six-month jail sentence on one count of simple assault.

He will not have to register as a sexual offender.

“I was told there wasn’t enough evidence. That’s how the county attorney felt,” the victim’s mother said. “It’s just overwhelming and I’m really, really frustrated with the system.”

The woman said her daughter had been ready to testify during the trial.

Before plea negotiations, the girl’s alleged attacker was facing two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault.

Hinsdale police Sgt. Todd Faulkner spent more than a year investigating the case.

“It’s out of our hands when it goes to the county attorney. … Most of the time a sexual assault case is one person’s word against another’s, which makes it difficult to prove in front of a jury,” he said. “I understand how upset (the victim and her mother) are.”

A Cheshire County judge will decide whether to accept or deny the man’s plea deal during a hearing this week.

“My main concern is that he’ll be out of jail in four months and will try to fight me for custody and visitation rights,” the victim’s mother said. “My kids are scared. They don’t know what he’ll do to them.”