'New Hampshire courts use the Associated Press, the Concord Monitor, NHPR, Boston Globe, WMUR and others to create propaganda and hearsay which are then quoted in court settings as if they were true and they use that to leverage the outcome.'
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New Hampshire’s courts are getting it from every direction — Family Court Corruption is the latest. When Hearsay supersedes Evidence and Evidence is suppressed — that spells Corruption.
New Hampshire Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald, Judge Garner and Judge King recently met the Family Court Commission to answer questions.
One of the questions posed was to do with the Rules of Evidence, Hearsay and hearsay exceptions. Whatever is being taught at the University of New Hampshire Law School and which ends up in the courts needs some urgent attention. These judges might all wish to brush up here and here.
The judges’ answer to the committee demonstrated just how far away from professional codes of conduct some members of NH bar have veered. Multiple records show very clearly that NH courts prefer hearsay to actual documented evidence, not just in family court but also in criminal cases.
What hope do family court proceedings have when judges, attorneys, victims advocates, prosecutors and police rely so heavily on hearsay, witness and police fabrications instead of actual written records, from emails to those of professionally trained medical experts?
History shows time and again that New Hampshire law enforcement, courts, judges and even governors just disregard any records that don’t serve their predetermined goals. They are operating exactly the same way as Santa Clara County California Superior Court with its “Bar, Bench, Media, Police committee” — working in lockstep with victims advocates, media, politicians and civil attorneys in a coordinated and orchestrated manner which keeps the public out and their own little club’s activities behind close doors (see here).
“The history of the committee suggests that the government officials who organized and ran the group — and the “off-the-record” meetings — used it to influence local media and protect judges and law enforcement officials from scrutiny, scandal, and accountability.”
If it sounds identical to what is going on in New Hampshire, it is.
Since very few cases make it to criminal trials, those that do are good to examine on this issue of Rules of Evidence vs Hearsay, and the use of media to taint a criminal trial and to leverage a civil suit resulting from it.
NH v Foad Afshar is one case that should be investigated since the child psychologist had his convictions overturned after three years in prison for child sex crimes which he didn’t commit.
When an elected representative tried to introduce a bill that would require more evidence in child sex abuse cases so others wouldn’t suffer the same atrocities of the system as Foad Afshar, Concord Police Detective Sean Ford nicknamed it the “Pedophile Protection Act”. Amanda Grady Sexton of the NHCADSV fought hard to successfully reject it (see here).
Ford is no longer with Concord Police department for undisclosed reasons. Ford is clearly (as you will see later in this article) an advocate of hearsay, not evidence (see here).
NH v Owen Labrie is another case where hearsay was given preference over evidence— everything can be easily verified in the trial records.
Here are examples from that trial of how written records/evidence were ignored:
EVIDENCE IGNORED
Police and prosecutors disregarded a school nurse report documenting that there was no name given of the person their state witness, Chessy Prout, had sex with. The nurse’s written report also noted that the sex was not coerced and was consensual because the state witness signed a document at the time to confirm this. Police and prosecutors ignored it. Media ignored the school nurse report in favor of hearsay.
Police and prosecutors also disregarded emails from their state witness and asserted that she did not mean what she said in those emails.
Police and prosecutors disregarded a SANE nurse report that disproved statements made by police about it which they used in their “sworn affidavit”.
Police and prosecutors disregarded a state lab technician’s report that proved that semen/sperm DNA could not be attributed to the defendant, Owen Labrie. The state lab technician testified to this. The media and prosecutors ignored it. Prosecutors did not give her lab report to jurors, only the lab report from the police department which did not do an extensive state lab analysis.
Police and prosecutors also ignored Chessy Prout’s interview with police in the Children’s Advocacy Center in which she claimed she was laughing so much that Owen Labrie couldn’t possibly have known that she wasn’t having a good time.
Prosecutors ignored police written statements in which they wrote down “I have never said he raped me”.
Here is an example of how Hearsay replaced the evidence and was used by prosecutors to argue their case:
HEARSAY APPROVED
The fabrication (for police and prosecutors) of a baloney story that their journalist lackeys pummelled to death in news media claiming that “Senior Salute” was a decades old sex game perpetrated by senior males upon younger females. The alumni had not heard of this “decades old tradition”. And the prosecutors failed to prove that it was necessarily sexual or that it was led by males only. A group of 2015 St. Paul’s School graduates (the year below Owen Labrie) wrote an article in the Boston Globe to refute the police and prosecutors’ assertions. They should know. They had first hand lived experience at the school and were not being fed some narrative concocted by local Concord Police and the NHCADSV who had a political goal to achieve. The latter stated: "First, the term “senior salute,” contrary to salacious assumptions, is used to describe any romantic encounter with a senior class boy or girl, and, in our experience, does not imply sexual intercourse or any type of competition. Further, this term is not some deeply rooted tradition but rather a phrase that arose in the past few years and is dissolving from student vocabulary just as quickly. Finally, we have not seen evidence that sexual activity at St. Paul’s exceeds or differs significantly from such interaction at any other high school.”
The police and prosecutor’s assertions (via their use of media) that the defendant was an entitled, wealthy, elite student. Owen Labrie was on a full scholarship. His parents earned a combined income that was the equivalent of the $100,000 “gift” donated by the state witness, complainant’s family to St Paul’s School the Spring before she started. The media claimed that she and her family were suffering financial hardship while Owen Labrie had hired the best attorney that money can buy. They didn’t mention that an entire entourage of attorneys came up from DC for their state witness/complainant of course. The letter from the St Paul's graduates to The Boston Globe went on: “Moreover, those who blame the reported event on wealth and privilege overlook the fact that a large portion of the St. Paul’s student body receives financial aid; Owen Labrie was on scholarship himself” (see letter here).
THE DANGERS OF HEARSAY
Hearsay when it comes to family courts, child sex abuse and custody cases is a dangerous tool that the courts and their affiliated agencies have weaponized to game the system. Destroying or tampering with evidence, as Police, DCYF, Deputy AG Geoffrey Ward and Judge Julie Introcaso have demonstrated — is acceptable practice. “Whiting out” is an acceptable practice among judges in New Hampshire until they get caught. Even then the punishment is minor requiring no jail time since former AGs will step in to sort out a plea. I have heard members of the NH Bar giving up on police statements which they know are incorrect, dismissing them with just “it's what they can get away with”.
That’s not acceptable. A lie can ruin multiple lives. A lie under the color of the law is a lie paid for by the public (see here).
Section 242 of Title 18 makes it a crime for a person acting under color of any law to wilfully deprive a person of a right or privilege protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States.
“For the purpose of Section 242, acts under “color of law” include acts not only done by federal, state, or local officials within their lawful authority, but also acts done beyond the bounds of that official’s lawful authority, if the acts are done while the official is purporting to or pretending to act in the performance of his/her official duties. Persons acting under color of law within the meaning of this statute include police officers, prisons guards and other law enforcement officials, as well as judges, care providers in public health facilities, and others who are acting as public officials. It is not necessary that the crime be motivated by animus toward the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin of the victim.
The offense is punishable by a range of imprisonment up to a life term, or the death penalty, depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and the resulting injury, if any” (see here).
Tampering is much more common than the NH courts would like you to know. GALs meet privately with attorneys without informing their clients (Kathleen Sternenberg who gets paid using Apple Pay per Judge Julie Introcaso’s orders — they vacation together in Niagara Falls).
The very AG (Michael Delaney), who defended Judge Julie Introcaso for her felonies, was accused of witness tampering with state witnesses in NH v Owen Labrie by none other than Chessy Prout — the primary state witness and accuser.
The US Senate Judiciary Committee’s records include this information — Delaney then withdrew his application to the First Circuit but members of the NH Bar have gone silent on it. New Hampshire’ AG’s office, Merrimack County DA’s office have closed down the hatches and are pretending the dog ate their homework. It didn’t. They know what it is they are hiding — the rigging of a criminal trial using bribery, blackmail, tampering, media and fraud: The prosecutor was informed about the tampering by Concord Councilwoman Amanda Grady Sexton according to the letter to the US Senate.
The prosecutor (now Clerk for Merrimack County Superior Court: Catherine Rufffle) admitted a deal had been made with one of these witnesses to Judge Larry Smukler. She got away with that by retracting the statement as a mistake when the records of that conversation were unsealed months later.
“Prosecutors tried last month to seal the transcript from the bench conference, but the Supreme Court said it has no legal grounds” (see here).
Make no mistake, New Hampshire police, prosecutors, victims advocates and judges make the rules up as they go along. The list of blatant disregard for professional codes of conduct and ethics is staggering.
There’s a problem when both the complainant/state witness and the defendant agree that there has been witness tampering and the DA & AG’s office dismiss the claim and have no interest in investigating it.
It should be no surprise that in the course of the last three years the University of New Hampshire’s Law School has dropped in the rankings from 87th to 105th, according to Forbes (see here).
USE OF MEDIA TO CREATE HEARSAY and THEN USE THAT HEARSAY AS EVIDENCE TO RIG CASES
New Hampshire courts use the Associated Press, the Concord Monitor, NHPR, Boston Globe, WMUR and others to create propaganda and hearsay which are then quoted in court settings as if they were true and they use that to leverage the outcome. It’s straight up rigging — just like Santa Clara County in California.
PRETRIAL PUBLICITY TO SUPPORT CHARGES AGAINST PRIMO “HOWIE” LEUNG
The Concord Monitor was used this month for pretrial publicity to help the State’s case against Primo “Howie” Leung- piggy backing off a plea deal he agreed to in Massachusetts. According to Jamie Costa, the journalist who penned the article, she wanted to get his accuser — Fabiana McLeod’s- story out and stated that criminal charges in New Hampshire are forthcoming.
The link to the article reads “Leung to face sexual assault charges in Concord”. But the article itself is disguised as “I am not ready to give up” — it’s a victim impact statement placed strategically for prosecutors — a violation of Rule 3.8 of their professional code of conduct which prevents ex-parte statements which might influence a trial. For prosecutors to claim they had nothing to do with it would be laughable since the “Leung to face sexual assault charges in Concord” is the giveaway that this article was a strategic piece of propaganda for the prosecutor: Paul Halvorsen, DA of Merrimack County.
The authenticity of the statements by Fabiana McLeod should be questioned since they smack of the work of the NHCADSV and their PR team and therefore cannot be treated as original (see here).
The Concord police records for Howie Leung’s arrest in April 2019 are scant. Thus, everything is basically hearsay — a story given to reporters who are strategically placed to get out the message for the police while the police themselves have a problem with coming up with records to support their claims. The chances of finding a jury in Concord whose members will not have some knowledge of the pretrial articles are remote. And that is the intention.
From Leung’s arrest in 2019 it appears that Concord Police only dug up enough for misdemeanor charges and a potential computer felony for alleged activities within Concord School District. They asserted that the felony rape happened at the Fessenden School in Massachusetts.
But, any discerning reader might start to see some bizarre inconsistencies in the whole tale about Primo “Howie” Leung and his alleged sexual abuse of Fabiana McLeod. Her credibility is unfortunately undermined by her statements in the latest report since the information contradicts earlier articles in the same newspaper: the Concord Monitor:
In the “I am not ready to give up” article, Jamie Costa writes:
“In a civil suit, McLeod sued the Fessenden School for $1 million. A settlement was reached for less than the requested amount, McLeod said.”
But in earlier Concord Monitor article, the McLeod civil attorney who filed the suit against Fessenden stated:
“We’ve tried to communicate with these people and get them to do the right thing and they have simply refused to do the right thing, so we have no choice but to take this thing to suit,” Rufo said. “They have a $25 million insurance policy, and our girl deserves every penny of it. We intend to get that for her.”
So which is it? $1 million or $25 million? (see here).
RELYING ON HEARSAY TO GET PLEA DEALS & SETTLEMENTS
I suspect that prosecutors are counting on a plea from Leung and for the case not going to trial so that Fabiana McLeod doesn’t have to say anything under oath at all. That was the tactic Concord Police Detective Julie Curtin tried to use with Owen Labrie — over charge and hope for a plea. She is the same police detective who arrested Primo “Howie” Leung with Lieutenant Sean Ford (the one who nicknamed a proposed bill “The Pedophile Protection Act”) — her partner in getting student files out of St Paul’s School (under AG Gordon MacDonald’s instructions) without a warrant — files that also showed signs of tampering. Files that the Concord Police refused to give to their owners who had to get them from the school instead.
Neither Julie Curtin nor Sean Ford work in Concord Police Department now for reasons that have never been disclosed. Dishonesty might be at the top of those but AG Gordon MacDonald protected dishonest police officer names from going public and his deputy, Geoffrey Ward, deleted the files.
HEARSAY IN MASSACHUSETTS REGARDING THE PRIMO “HOWIE” LEUNG ALLEGED SEXUAL ABUSE WAS REJECTED BY THE JUDGE
But now comes the kicker — from the actual case text (evidence as opposed to Concord Monitor hearsay spin) and legal opinion from the court in Massachusetts handling the McLeod civil suit against Fessenden:
“The complaint, exclusive of exhibits, is 152 pages long; it names 49 defendants and purports to assert 65 counts. Portions of it read more like a tabloid story than a legal pleading, and large sections of it are obviously irrelevant and improper” (see here).
“The complaint contains numerous statements that refer to news reports of the charges brought against Leung and counsel’s pre-litigation communications with Fessenden. Those statements are unrelated to plaintiffs’ claims of alleged abuse or defendants’ failure to stop that abuse and will be struck" (see here).
And:
“The trustee defendants collectively have moved to dismiss Counts 16 through 52 pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6)for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. For the reasons set forth below, the motion to dismiss will be granted“ (see here).
“To survive a motion to dismiss under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), the complaint must state a claim that is plausible on its face. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). For a claim to be plausible, the “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level….” Id. At 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (internal citations omitted). “The plausibility standard is not akin to a `probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. At 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955). When determining whether a complaint satisfies that standard, a court must assume the truth of all well-pleaded facts and give the plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences. See Ruiz v. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp., 496 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2007) (citing Rogan v. Menino, 175 F.3d 75, 77 (1st Cir. 1999)). Dismissal is appropriate if the complaint fails to set forth “factual allegations, either direct or inferential, respecting each material element necessary to sustain recovery under some actionable legal theory.” Gagliardi v. Sullivan, 513 F.3d 301, 305 (1st Cir. 2008) (quoting Centro Medico del Turabo, Inc. v. Feliciano de Melecio, 406 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2005)).”
Yes, it is true that Primo “Howie” Leung took a plea deal in Massachusetts. But what we will never know is how guilty or not he actually is of the crimes of which he is accused. He could be guilty or he could be innocent and have taken a plea on advice as the course of least resistance. Foad Afshar sat in prison for 3 years before his case was overturned. Father Gordon MacRae was urged several times to take a plea deal but sits in prison 29 years later for not having done so. Owen Labrie lost 8 years in the legal process, jail, appeals, GPS monitoring, solitary confinement and probation. He is relegated to the sex offender register for life despite ample evidence of tampering and malfeasance by police and prosecutors. The odds for justice or fairness for anyone once New Hampshire’s orchestrated machine goes after them are slim to none.
The judge in the Mcleod v Fessenden school claim regarding Primo “Howie” Leung dismissed the suit in August 2022:
“Dismissal is appropriate if the complaint fails to set forth “factual allegations, either direct or inferential, respecting each material element necessary to sustain recovery under some actionable legal theory.”
Compare that to the April 3, 2019 arrest of Leung in Concord, New Hampshire by police officers who are no longer at the department:
“CONCORD -The Concord Police Department arrested Primo “Howie” Leung on Wednesday, April 3, 2019, as a fugitive from justice on felony level sexual assault charges out of Massachusetts. Leung is a credentialed educator in New Hampshire and at the time of his arrest, was employed in the Concord School District (SAU 8). He had been under formal investigation by the New Hampshire Department of Education since mid-February when the department was notified by the superintendent of SAU 8 concerning Leung having inappropriate contact with a female student” (see here).
The Concord Monitor Jamie Costa is effectively a agent of police & prosecutors by not seeking answers or Right To Know about the lack of documented evidence for Leung’s alleged crimes in New Hampshire (see here).
The saying “You get what you pay for” does not apply in the “Live Free or Die” state where there is no sales tax and no state income tax. The State gets millions in federal grants each year which are supposed to benefit the public interest. But, when it comes to anything involving law enforcement or the courts, child and sex abuse agencies, they don’t.
NH State Senator Donna Soucy’s office maintains that it cannot get involved in family court complaints due to separation of powers. She has amnesia too. She was legal counsel for the Banking Commission when the FRM Ponzi scheme took place which demonstrated (via the Governor’s report) that the banking commission and AGs office were involved as well as other agencies. There was no separation of powers then and there isn’t now, 13 years later. As disclosures have revealed, judges have figured out how to hide the spoils of their corruption. Attoneys General and Governors have been only too happy to do nothing about it. If they are all profiting from the practice, why would they?
In the words of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo who was taken down on hearsay only:
“Facts and truth still matter. When the justice system plays politics unchecked, we all lose” (see here).
If any judge, prosecutor, victims advocate or attorney in New Hampshire believes that the State’s law enforcement and courts uphold the rules of evidence and hearsay, they should look in the mirror and watch it crack.
By Claire Best
Claire Best heads Claire Best & Associates, an international talent agency representing some of the most respected names in the entertainment industry for film, television, and commercials that was established in 2010. She had 16 years of experience in the agency business as an owner, C.E.O. and C.O.O. before Claire Best & Associates. Prior to becoming an agent in 2002, Claire was a production executive at New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features where she oversaw the production of many well-known domestic and international feature films from 1996-2001. Claire has also produced and executive produced a number of award winning and critically acclaimed features, shorts, and documentaries. She is a voting member of B.A.F.T.A. and the Television Academy (see: clairebest.net).
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