A week ago we reported on the case of New London NH Police Chief David Seastrand. A young lady had told the NH AG’s office that Chief Seastrand had offered to drop the charges against her if she allowed him to take nude photos of her. The AG agreed to drop their investigation of the Police Chief in exchange for his resignation and relinquishing his certification to be a police officer. I observed that…
Seastrand has 27 years in. What are the odds this is the first time he’s used his position of power for his personal advantage or pleasure? And now he gets to retire at what, maybe 50 years of age? So the AG just lets him walk away, no in depth investigation, and very likely with his full pension.
Not exactly a punishment is it? You get caught using your police powers to bully a woman and they make you quit without charging you and (assuming he’s keeping his pension) give you a big bag of money every year until you die.
Exit question: Does anyone else come forward, Tiger Woods style, to start piling up accusations of improper conduct …
The answer to that part of my exit question is yes.
The AG was going to let him off based on their conclusion that this was a “he said, she said situation.”
Having spent a few years observing New Hampshire’s justice system at work, I can tell you that this was actually more of a “let’s hide this under the rug and hope it all goes away situation.” Think about it. This guy has been in the New London Police force for 27 years, and he has risen to Police Chief, and the AG run’s with…”yeah, this is probably the first time anything like this has ever happened with this guy. We’ll just let that go if he quits because quitting won’t mean that he’s done it a thousand times and doesn’t want to get busted for being a serial sexual predator hiding behind his badge. Yeah. One-time thing. We’re certain.”
Brilliant. The NH AG at work, encouraging acts of sexual harassment in New Hampshire. I wonder if they got any candid birthday-suit snaps of Seastrand in exchange for the sweet deal?
Well guess what? That may not have been the only time Seastrand played let’s make a deal with young women in New London. The Union Leader is reporting that…
To no one’s surprise, “several” women have come forward since the story of Seastrand and the college student broke last week, according to the AG’s office. They have reported similar stories. Now, finally, there is an extended criminal investigation. It should not have taken this long.
I bet there’s more than several. I bet there are dozens. Maybe hundreds. I bet we’ll never know how many. Twenty-Seven years is a long time and Colby-Sawyer College has been there the whole time. That’s a lot of college girls pulled over for suspicion of DUI, DWI, or internal possession of, um… alcohol.
So here’s my new exit question. If the chief was doing it…what about the rest of the guys on the force? Over all those years? Was it widely known, a dirty little secret, was there an ongoing cover up? Were officers who knew and objected but kept quiet encouraged to leave or fired? I don’t know. That’s an awful lot of work for another Democrat appointed NH AG to have to deal with.
It would probably be easier for the AG to just let that war on women continue and hope no one else comes forward with any credible evidence, right? Just call them all “he said she said stories.” Treat it like voter fraud. We don’t have any of that either. (cough-cough)
