Dear Paul Halvorsen, After receiving the letter from Stephen Endres in your office, who states that there are no records of Merrimack County Prosecutor Catherine Ruffle being informed by Concord City Council member Amanda Grady Sexton of witness tampering by former AG Michael Delaney during the trial of NH v Owen Labrie (which had been claimed by NH State witness Chessy Prout in her letter to the US Senate Judiciary Committee in Jan/February 2021), I looked into contacting the Administrative Offices per your original email suggestion.
We want to thank Claire Best for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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However, the only contact is Catherine Ruffle herself: https://www.courts.nh.gov/your-visit/find-court/merrimack-superior-court
I believe that you, as a publicly elected official, have a responsibility to pursue justice even for misconduct which preceded your tenure and even if it involves those who still work in positions as public officials with your court or with the City of Concord.
I draw your attention to the following statement:
“While the Board of County Commissioners is generally responsible for overseeing all aspects of county government, the elected County Attorney is solely responsible for overseeing the functions of the County Attorney’s office, including its investigative, prosecutorial and law enforcement functions,” Commissioners Chairwoman Tara Reardon wrote in a letter distributed Monday.
Catherine Ruffle was Merrimack County Superior Court Prosecutor. She is the Clerk for Merrimack County Superior Court.
Amanda Grady Sexton is the Chair of the City of Concord Council’s Public Safety Committee, on the Rules Committee, and she is the Director of Public Affairs for the NHCADSV, which trains police in “best practices”. She works with police and prosecutors to shape the message pretrial per her own statements in the NCVLI publication “Pretrial Publicity Friend or Foe – Advice for the Experts,” which she co-authored with Steven J Kelly.
Steven J Kelly is an attorney who was introduced to the criminal trial of NH v Owen Labrie courtesy of Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin, who introduced Laura L Dunn (who introduced Kelly) to the Prout family, having taken instruction from her at UNH in Spring 2015. This is documented in articles in the Union Leader, Women’s Media Center, and State Witness Chessy Prout’s “memoir” – “I Have the Right To” with introduction by Congresswoman Ann Kuster.
Police Detective Julie Curtin was a police officer for the City of Concord at the time of the investigation into Owen Labrie, at the time of his trial, at the time of his appeal, and worked under AG Gordon MacDonald’s direction in 2018 and 2019 when Gordon MacDonald represented the State to deny both Owen Labrie’s Supreme Court Appeals. Gordon MacDonald also blocked the release of corrupt police officers’ names from being made public, and his deputy AG, Geoffrey Ward, deleted the files of 28 or more police officers before the Laurie List was published. Gordon MacDonald has had to recuse himself from cases involving corrupt police officers in his position as New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice.
Police Detective Julie Curtin received a complaint about her that was denied by the NH Supreme Court in 2006.
Police Detective Julie Curtin admitted in the trial of Owen Labrie that she was trying to “catch” him and to get him to make a statement before rumors spread. The records show very clearly that Police Detective Julie Curtin did not abide by professional codes of conduct and that she falsified a SANE nurse report (corrected by the SANE nurse in the trial) for her affidavit which she then used to obtain electronic Facebook/texts etc. which she then tampered with causing the defense to provide unredacted versions.
Police Detective Julie Curtin obtained files from St Paul’s School without a warrant (documented by Lacy Crawford in her memoir “Notes on a Silencing”), which she did while she was working at the direction of AG Gordon MacDonald and Assistant AG Jane Young during the Grand Jury Criminal Investigation of St Paul’s School which yielded not only a contract for the NHCADSV but also several suits for Chuck Douglas (Chair of the NH Judicial Selection Committee) and Amanda Grady Sexton’s partner Steven J Kelly Esq.
Concord Police Chief Bradley Osgood admitted last year in an unrelated federal case that the City of Concord approves budgets for police investigations and payments to witnesses for the Grand Jury – leaving Judge Landya McAfferty quite astonished, per Concord Monitor, at the lack of regard for ethics and codes of conduct.
Police Detective Julie Curtin was the investigator into Primo “Howie” Leung at Concord Schools, and yet your office has not prosecuted that case for four years, and the investigation appears to be left hanging after Curtin’s initial report.
Police Detective Julie Curtin admitted to Lacy Crawford, per Lacy Crawford’s public accounts, that she is aware of backdoor deals regarding St Paul’s School. Not only is she aware of them, but my research indicates that she is a beneficiary of them and that there is most likely a kickback scheme going on that involves Police Detective Julie Curtin, Amanda Grady Sexton/NHCADSV, Prosecutor Catherine Ruffle, civil attorneys and the AG’s office itself.
For the record, I was contacted in February or March 2020 by an alum of St Paul’s School who was the victim of an intercept call orchestrated by Detective Julie Curtin, who had obtained the files of an old girlfriend of his from his time at St Paul’s School, cold called her and then trained her for an intercept call to this man. He was threatened with criminal charges but advised that he could avoid these if he paid a significant amount of money – which he did.
For the record, I was contacted in February or March 2023 by an attorney out of state who had represented one of the complainants against Primo “Howie” Leung in a civil case against the Fessenden School Massachussetts. That suit was rejected by the judge and the attorney who contacted me suspected misconduct by Detective Julie Curtin in her role in the case. The attorney who took on the complainant was referred to her by Wadleigh Starr who brought the civil suit against Concord School District even though Robin Melone of Wadleigh Starr had been dropped from the investigation because of her role in defending Owen Labrie and Wadleigh Starr’s knowledge of Detective Julie Curtin’s misconduct in NH v Owen Labrie (evident in the motion for a retrial).
RULE 3.8 for PROSECUTORS:
I believe you are familiar with Rule 3.8 of the Prosecutor’s Code of Conduct regarding extra-judiciary comments either directly or indirectly via people working with police and prosecutors. I believe by now you will also be familiar with Concord Councilwoman Amanda Grady Sexton’s very public statements about her role in shaping the message pretrial for police and prosecutors as well as Catherine Ruffle’s daughter, Brooke Ruffle’s Facebook post calling for her mother to go and get some “rapist butt” under a photograph of Owen Labrie as her mother was headed into a retrial hearing in February 2017.
What kind of operation is Merrimack County Superior Court to not admonish that kind of behavior from a Prosecutor and her family and for that prosecutor to fail to remove that post and then become a clerk of the court? Under the Facebook post there were other posts seeking for Owen Labrie to rot in jail, to die etc. Catherine Ruffle did not remove these at the time (and they may still be there. I and others have screenshots).
Why is it that nobody takes action against those who violate public trust by violating rule 3.8 as Catherine Ruffle so very clearly did by working with Amanda Grady Sexton to shape the message pre criminal trial, during criminal trial and post criminal trial of NH v Owen Labrie?
Rule 3.8 was violated again when Chuck Douglas, Steve Silverman and Steven Kelly worked with Amanda Grady Sexton to shape the media message in Doe/Prout v St Paul’s School.
Rule 3.8 was violated again when Gordon MacDonald, AG for New Hampshire, worked with Amanda Grady Sexton for the news publicity of the Grand Jury Criminal Investigation into St Paul’s School which yielded a contract for the NHCADSV and the placement of an ex police officer inside the school who would report to AG Gordon MacDonald.
Why is it that Merrimack County Courts, officials for the City of Concord Council, its police, local attorneys and the AG’s office under Gordon MacDonald have absolutely no regard for Rule 3.8?
[5] Paragraph (f) supplements Rule 3.6, which prohibits extrajudicial statements that have a substantial likelihood of prejudicing an adjudicatory proceeding. In the context of a criminal prosecution, a prosecutor’s extrajudicial statement can create the additional problem of increasing public condemnation of the accused. Although the announcement of an indictment, for example, will necessarily have severe consequences for the accused, a prosecutor can, and should, avoid comments which have no legitimate law enforcement purpose and have a substantial likelihood of increasing public opprobrium of the accused. Nothing in this Comment is intended to restrict the statements which a prosecutor may make which comply with Rule 3.6(b) or 3.6(c).
[6] Like other lawyers, prosecutors are subject to Rules 5.1 and 5.3, which relate to responsibilities regarding lawyers and nonlawyers who work for or are associated with the lawyer’s office. Paragraph (f) reminds the prosecutor of the importance of these obligations in connection with the unique dangers of improper extrajudicial statements in a criminal case. In addition, paragraph (f) requires a prosecutor to exercise reasonable care to prevent persons assisting or associated with the prosecutor from making improper extrajudicial statements, even when such persons are not under the direct supervision of the prosecutor. Ordinarily, the reasonable care standard will be satisfied if the prosecutor issues the appropriate cautions to law- enforcement personnel and other relevant individuals. [link]
Compare the above excerpts of Rule 3.8 with Amanda Grady Sexton’s statements in this article, where she talks about the dangers of live reporting, important editorial decisions, keeping tabs on the media, and using the trial as an opportunity:
And Amanda Grady Sexton’s statements and bio statements here.
“The NH Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence often hears from victims and their attorneys who are heading into court and are looking for advice about pretrial publicity and ways to influence media coverage throughout the trial. In recent years, New Hampshire has had a number of sexual assault and domestic violence cases that have captured the attention of the national news media. As a result, the Public Affairs team at NHCADSV has developed strategies or proactively working to shape the media’s coverage of crime. Publicity of any kind can be a mixed-bag, but when used effectively, pretrial publicity can be a powerful tool for creating a narrative and controlling a message.” -Amanda Grady Sexton
She has provided national training to prosecutors, civil attorneys, law enforcement officials and victim advocates on crisis communications, message development, and effective strategies for working with the media.
Take into consideration that Merrimack County Superior Court issued a restriction on media reporting from the trial of NH v Owen Labrie after a motion was filed that included the NHPR Journalist Paige Sutherland’s innocuous tweets. So the civil attorneys who worked with Amanda Grady Sexton and WMUR (Merrimack County Superior Court gave exclusive TV rights to WMUR (Amanda Grady Sexton’s husband is the Political Director of WMUR) got an NHPR journalist restricted while Susan Zalkind for Vice Media was welcomed and was given the Prout/Doe v St Paul’s civil suit before the school was served, as was the Concord Monitor and NBC Today Show.
Take into consideration that between the verdict of NH v Owen Labrie and the Sentencing of NH v Owen Labrie, Amanda Grady Sexton (whose organization, the NHCADSV, is a beneficiary of the Adam Walsh Act Sex Offender Registration Management Federal Grants)used her public official title to pen the following Op-Ed.
For the record, Amanda Grady Sexton orchestrated a national social media and phone call campaign to block ABC/GMA from airing an interview with Owen Labrie in July 2019, which had content that would have exposed attempts to bribe Owen Labrie. Her efforts to shut this program down just so happened to coincide with the mediation of a lawsuit against Dartmouth College by Steven J Kelly Esq & Chuck Douglas Esq (Rapuano & Does v Dartmouth). That mediation resulted in a settlement a couple of weeks later, in early August 2019, for $14 million, of which the NHCADSV appears to have received $2.865 million (20%) while Chuck Douglas Esq & Steven J Kelly Esq received $4.9 million.
The Rapuano & Does suit led to the suicide of Professor David Bucci, who was mentioned 31 times in the lawsuit whose publicity was paid for using a grant from Times Up LDF/NWLC, which shares the same PR company (SKDK) as “Its On Us” which worked with the Prout Family, NHCADSV to block ABC/GMA from airing the interview with Owen Labrie.
The NHCADSV and Dartmouth both have non-profit obligations to the State of New Hampshire to report conflicts of interest. Governor Sununu is on the board of the Board of Trustees at Dartmouth, and he approves the budget for the NHCADSV, whose IRS form 990s are opaque, to say the least.
I firmly believe that Professor Bucci would not have been driven to suicide had Amanda Grady Sexton not abused her position as a public official to deny Owen Labrie his first amendment rights and to speak for himself on ABC/GMA. The misconduct of civil attorneys would have been exposed, the misconduct of Concord Police would have been exposed, and the false statements of the NHCADSV and prosecutors would have been exposed.
You have a duty to the public interest.
Editor: This email to Merrimack County Attorney Paul Halvorsen has been very lightly edited (links embedded, punctuation/style) with minor reformatting for publication in this space. Emphasis is in the original.
