The plot thickens for Gordon MacDonald, Jane Young, The Diocese of Manchester, and Edward Arsneault:
RTK emails received start to reveal what’s going on.
I am now in receipt of 6 pages of Right to Know emails from the Attorney General’s office. These are communications from that office regarding the Diocese of Manchester. While these don’t paint a full picture of exactly what’s been going on behind the scenes between the Attorney General’s office and the Diocese or its representatives, there is enough there to know that there were backdoor conversations that the AG’s office did not want to document on paper.
That should be a red flag. Why doesn’t a public office want to put something on paper when corresponding with the private attorney for the Diocese of Manchester about a senior member of the church who pled guilty to fraud?
What did Jane Young have to hide and why? Let’s start here:
In 2014, Assistant Attorney Jane Young posted “Monsignor” Edward Arsenault’s sentencing on the AG’s site: 4-20 years in State prison after he pled guilty to defrauding the Diocese of Manchester, a dead priest’s estate, and the Catholic Medical Center between 1999 and 2009. She shook his shackled hand at the hearing, and off he went to Concord men’s prison, or so the public was led to believe.
BUT, it transpires that the handshake may have been a secret deal. Jane Young lied. Arsenault was quickly transferred to Cheshire County Jail instead. Her statement on the AG’s site misled the public.
Jane Young’s sentencing press release has been removed from the DOJ site, but this one still remains, outlining the sentencing for Arsenault’s offenses:
*Strike 1 against Jane Young for public corruption*
In March 2016, RTK correspondence between Jane Young and Gordon MacDonald (a partner at Nixon Peabody and representing the Diocese at the time) reveals a phone call between them to discuss an upcoming parole board hearing for Arsenault. Soon after, Arsenault was released on home confinement after barely 2 years in county jail, not State prison. News headlines did not mention the home confinement part. He was living in Salem for the last two years of his sentencing.
The bold text below is copied from the emails without redactions except for repetitive addresses and heading (to/from/subject etc)
From: MacDonald, Gordon (mailto:GMacDonald@nixonpeabody.com)
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 7.06PM
To: Young, Jane
Subject: Arsenault
Jane,
I hope all is well. The Diocese is receiving media inquiries about a parole hearing for Edward Arsenault, scheduled for April 19, 2016. No doubt you will as well. The link to the parole board docket appears below.
There is confusion and concern about whether he is even eligible for parole. Was his minimus sentence 2 years?
Thank you very much for any help.
Gordon
From: Young, Jane (mailto: Jane.Young@doj.nh.gov)
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2016 09:28
To: MacDonald, Gordon
Subject: RE: Arsenault
I was going to give you a call today. When are you free?
MacDonald replies:
“All morning. Want to set up a time? How about 10.30?
Young replies:
Can we make it 11?
MacDonald replies:
Sounds good. Thank you.
Young replies at 10.23am:
Are you free now?
MacDonald:
Yes
*Strike 2 against Jane Young for public corruption.*
Three years later, in 2019, Arsenault had the remainder of his sentence vacated. Gordon MacDonald was the AG and Jane Young worked right under him as Assistant and Associate AG.
*Strike 3 against Jane Young for public corruption*.
*Strike 1 against Gordon MacDonald for ignoring his own conflicts of interest and allowing Arsenault to go free, contradicting a previously agreed upon sentence by Jane Young under his predecessor *
On January 1, 2020, a Dr. Robert Warren wrote the following letter:
“Dear Attorney General Gordon MacDonald,
My name is Robert Warren and I am a research associate at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. Pursuant to a research project that I hope will result in an article published in a peer reviewed academic journal, I request copies of whatever documents are publicly available from the prosecution file of Monsignor Edward Arsenault (see attached article). I am particularly interested in any forensic account reports provided by the Diocese of Manchester, correspondence between your office and defense counsel, and any memorandums of interview of Msgr. Arsenault.
My contact information is as follows:
Dr. Robert A. Warren
Research Associate
The Busch School of Business
The Catholic University of America
620 Michigan Avenue NE
Maloney Hall, Room 129
Washington, DC 20064
(202) 701-1040
warrenr@cua.edu
Thank you for your attention this matter.
Sincerely,
Dr. Robert A. Warren CPA, CFF, EA
Research Associate
Special Agent (Retired)
IRS – Criminal Investigation
When Dr. Robert Warren wrote this letter, he was clearly unaware of the correspondence and phone calls between Gordon MacDonald as counsel for the Diocese and Jane Young, in the AG’s office in March 2016. He would also have been unaware of the internal correspondence that followed his January 1, 2020 request – emails that I now have thanks to Right To Know:
– An email from Geoffrey Ward in the AG’s office, copying Jane Young – the very person who shook Arsenault’s hand when he pled guilty in 2014, lied about his sentencing to the public, allowed him to continue his “consultancy” business behind bars and had a secret phone call with Gordon MacDonald about his parole/home confinement after a mere 2 years in jail.
From: Ward, Geoffrey
To: Chernieske, Heather; Ziegler, Stacy
Cc: Smith, Nancy; Young, Jane
Subject: FW: Catholic University – RTK request re Edward Arsenault
Date: Tuesday, January 7, 2020 10:09:41 AM
Attachments: Catholic University re Diocese of Manchester.pdf
Heather/Stacy,
Can you please put together a 5-day letter and work on the response to this matter.
Also, can you please see me when you both have a moment on this matter.
I believe we had done a prior RTK response on this case, so that may be available as well.
Thanks,
Geoff
*Strike 1 against Geoff Ward for conspiring with members of the AG’s office on how to respond to Dr Robert Warren regarding the Arsenault case.* – it was a simple Right to Know and since it was a criminal matter relating to fraud by a senior member of the Diocese of Manchester, Catholic Risk Retention Management, Virtus LLC – there should not have been anything to discuss in person that couldn’t be written in an email.
Consider this:
a) Monsignor Arsenault personally sorted out 250 civil claims against the Diocese filed by Chuck Douglas and Peter Hutchins with Gordon MacDonald and David Vicinanzo representing the Diocese. These included false claims which Gordon MacDonald was happy to process for quick settlements, using (incarcerated) Father Gordon MacRae’s name even though he knew MacRae hadn’t ever met the claimants. (Documented in articles by Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal).
b) Working on the Diocese investigation with these was Keene Police Officer James F McLaughlin who was added to the Laurie List in June 2018 while he was working on the St Paul’s School Grand Jury Investigation for MacDonald and Young. MacDonald had brought him out of retirement specifically for the job and because he knew him from the Diocese business. The St Paul’s School investigation used the criminal trial and discovery from NH v Owen Labrie as a raison d’être – Heather Chernieske’s relative (husband?), Joseph Chernieske, was one of the prosecutors for the State.
c) MacDonald argued to keep the Laurie List of police officers private in August 2018 and in April 2019 he disavowed Judge Charles Temple’s ruling that the Laurie List should be made public. Instead he decided to use public funds and resources to challenge the superior court ruling at the Supreme Court.
d) James McLaughlin’s name was accidentally leaked on a list of officers by the AG’s office (noticed and reported on by In Depth New Hampshire). It quickly disappeared and then DA Chris McLaughlin hired James McLaughlin in his office while the latter’s Lauris list case was pending. Three years later, as if by magic, James McLaughlin got a “do-over”, had his name removed from the Laurie List in 2024 with the AG’s office present at the hearings behind closed doors. And now the AG’s office claims they don’t have any records of him because he’s not on the Laurie list.
e) The AG’s office now claims (in response to my Right To Know) that it can’t release the Grand Jury Criminal investigation report on St Paul’s School because Merrimack Superior Court Judge Richard McNamara blocked it.
Who needs a white wipe board when you’ve got the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office?
Starting to see a pattern here?
What would Gordon MacDonald’s and the AG’s office argument be for disavowing the ruling of one superior court judge when it comes to the public’s right to know about corrupt police officers while using another superior court judge’s ruling as an excuse not to publish a grand jury criminal investigation report that resulted in no criminal prosecutions but yielded several lawsuits for the Chair of the Judicial Selection Committee?
Chuck Douglas got plenty of business out of the Diocese and St Paul’s School cases and Gordon MacDonald needed his endorsement to ascend to the Supreme Court with no judicial experience whatsoever.
The St Paul’s investigation also provided plenty of business for his former partner at Nixon Peabody – David Vicinanzo – and his client, the NHCADSV who, of course. endorsed him for his position on the Supreme Court.
This is what Gordon MacDonald, David Vicinanzo, Jane Young, Chuck Douglas and the NHCADSV don’t want you to know:
The Diocese of Manchester and St Paul’s School Grand Jury Criminal Investigations were straight up extortion rackets, born and orchestrated by the AG’s office. AG Phil McLaughlin remembered the “creative solutions” from the Diocese investigation upon his retirement in 2015. His son, Timothy McLaughlin Esq (at Shaheen & Gordon) threatened me with a defamation suit in 2021 because I said that his client, the NHCADSV, Amanda Grady Sexton, Lyn Schollett were involved in a “Kids for Cash” racket with Gordon MacDonald, Chuck Douglas & Concord PD.
Guess what? THEY ARE and they documented it. It’s no secret. It is not defamation if it is true. But it is witness intimidation of a member of the public by public officials that Shaheen & Gordon were engaging in on behalf of Concord’s Councilmember Amanda Grady Sexton and the State & federally funded NHCADSV.
Gordon MacDonald and Jane Young allowed their police investigators to get files without a warrant from St Paul’s School, to cold call alumni and to convince them they could be “victims” for cash. (Just what James McLaughlin did when he told Thomas Grover to accuse Father Gordon MacRae so he could get $200K from the Diocese – a fact he admitted to Charles Glenn and affirmed by Charles Glenn in an affidavit submitted by Father Gordon MacRae who just happens to be a resident in Concord men’s prison where Edward Arsenault was transferred from. Arsenault had previously said to MacRae that he would get him legal help on two conditions: a) that he cease speaking to Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal and b)that he send his files to David Vicinanzo, a lawyer with whom Arsenault was striking up a relationship. (Ironically, David Vicinanzo registered a business in 2014 with a Mary Arsenault and exited it in 2019 – possibly coinciding with Arsenault’s release).
The NHCADSV trained the police for intercept calls to wealthy targets (St Paul’s alumni) who could hear the police training the solicited victims on the end of the line. The wealthy targets would then go to NH Attorney referral service to find lawyers and would then be told by their attorneys that the threat of charges would go away if they just handed over 6 figures. I know this because I was contacted by a target in 2020. As soon as I reported this to Archie Cox, Chair of the Board of Trustees at St Paul’s School at the time, the relationship between the “independent compliance officer” (aka spy/snitch for the NHCADSV and the AG’s office and their attorney pals sniffing for lucrative suits) soured. He abruptly quit 6 months later.
If this was going on with the Diocese and St Paul’s School cases, imagine what’s going on with the YDC and why there is such uproar from David Vicinanzo that his and MacDonald’s buddy, Justice Broderick, is no longer overseeing the claims.
We can all agree that sexual abuse happens at these institutions and that there are cover-ups. But we must never endorse an extortion racket backed by the Attorney General’s office and its lawyer and “non-profit” allies.
Democracy dies at the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, enabled by the NH Bar Disciplinary Committee (for which Jane Young is a board member), because this fails to ever take action against lawyers involved in public corruption, conspiracy, collusion, or fraud.
Geoffrey Ward deleted the files of 28 corrupt police officers before the Laurie List was to become public. He failed upwards from the AG’s office to become a federal prosecutor.
Jane Young failed upwards to become a US Attorney.. She hired David Vicinanzo’s son, Matthew, to be a federal prosecutor.
Gordon MacDonald failed upwards to become New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice.
The game of cover-up continues. The New Hampshire “Judicial Conduct Committee” should be known as the “New Hampshire Judicial Collusion and Cover Up Committee”.
The legislature should be asking many more questions. There are three branches of Government for a reason – checks and balances. Let’s not forget them.
Why would the AG’s office be so lenient about fraud by Monsignor Edward? What was in it for them?
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