Drug case dismissed after MP Stone investigated as police officer for threatening behavior

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

Jon Stone never made the Laurie List, the list of police officers with credibility issues, after he was fired 18 years ago for having an inappropriate relationship with a teenage girl and threatening to rape and murder her.

However, allegations listed in Claremont Police Department internal investigation reports against Stone, now state Rep. Jon Stone (R-Claremont), were disclosed in 11 criminal cases at the time and led to the dismissal of several drug cases, said Sullivan County District Attorney Marc Hathaway.

“We have concluded that it is appropriate to make the disclosure pursuant to Laurie,” Hathaway said.

Before he was fired in 2006 for threatening to kill then-Claremont Police Chief Alex Scott, sexually assaulting Scott’s wife and children and committing a massacre at the police station, Stone was the lead investigator for Claremont’s narcotics team. Stone’s work was critical to Operation Summer Sizzle, a major anti-drug operation in Sullivan County that resulted in numerous arrests months before his firing. However, Hathaway said that five to six of the Summer Sizzle defendants had their charges dismissed or dropped.

Stone declined comment to InDepthNH.org.

These cases relied too heavily on Stone’s investigations and were unlikely to survive a trial because defense attorneys had to present internal reports as potentially exculpatory or favorable evidence to the defendant.

“It was decided they were not viable,” Hathaway said.

In addition to the dismissed cases, Hathaway informed defense attorneys of the reason for Stone’s dismissal of ten state criminal cases. Hathaway also informed federal prosecutors involved in a major heroin trafficking case involving one of Stone’s confidential informants.

Hathaway told InDepthNH.org that he made these revelations in 2006, although Stone was never officially placed on the then-confidential Laurie List by the Claremont Police Department.

“He doesn’t have to be on a list for a prosecutor to have the responsibility to review the information and make a decision about disclosure,” Hathaway said. “The interests of society were protected by the disclosure, the basis for the disclosure was subsequently defeated.”

Stone was expelled from two local committees by the Claremont City Council in late April after about a dozen citizens spoke out against his actions as a police officer at a city council meeting. The allegations were first reported on April 5 by Damien Fisher of InDepthNH.org, who had fought for several years to have the records released.

Some Democrats called for Stone’s removal from the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee after the allegations became public in April, but House Speaker Sherman Packard (R-Londonderry) took no action and has remained silent on the matter.

InDepthNH.org reviewed a copy of the agreement Stone reached with the department in 2007, which made no mention of Laurie List. But that union-negotiated agreement specifies that the incident for which he was fired essentially never happened and his personnel record will be expunged. Stone also received $3,000 in lost pension benefits as part of the agreement. In exchange for that compensation, Stone agreed to resign as a police officer.

Scott informed Hathaway of the situation with Stone in early 2006, before Stone used his union support to fight the termination. When Hathaway was informed by Scott about Stone, there was no official finding of misconduct in Stone’s file.

Hathaway made the decision to disclose Stone’s disciplinary actions in the pending cases he was handling at the time. Since Stone left New Hampshire law enforcement after the 2007 settlement, no new cases have surfaced that would have required new disclosures, Hathaway said.

“Stone was no longer a police officer. The fact that those disciplinary actions disappeared and that he was no longer a police officer played a big part in that,” Hathaway said. “The Laurie List is based on a disciplinary record. If there is no disciplinary action, there is no record, no findings, those findings have disappeared.”

In 1995, the New Hampshire Supreme Court overturned the murder conviction of Carl Laurie, who was accused of killing Lucien Fogg in Franklin in 1989. The court accused prosecutors of failing to present evidence that Franklin detective Steven Laro had been accused several times in the past of “abusing” and strangling suspects.

The Laurie List, named after this case and now known as the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, did not come into being until 2004. Former New Hampshire Attorney General Peter Heed published a memorandum in 2004 laying the foundation for what would later become a secret list of police officers with credibility and disciplinary problems who were to be disclosed to defense attorneys because they were potentially exculpatory or favorable to the defendant.

The Heed memo instructs police chiefs to send a formal letter to district attorneys when they have an officer who meets the criteria for the Laurie List. The district attorney was then instructed to maintain a secret list and inform defense attorneys about the officers only through nonpublic motions in court.

But Heed’s memo assumes that the officers in question would be placed on the list if they repeatedly commit misconduct. In addition, Heed’s memo states that any repeated misconduct cases older than 10 years do not count toward inclusion on the list and can be expunged from the officer’s record.

In 2017, then-Attorney General Joseph Foster issued a new memo renaming the list the “Exculpatory Evidence Schedule” and requiring all police chiefs to update their disclosures after a review of all department personnel files in search of ongoing funding for misconduct. This included restoring the names of officers who had been removed from the list after 10 years.

Because of his union involvement, Stone’s misconduct never resulted in permanent punishment. As Scott wrote to Police Standards and Training, the deal “rolled back” Stone’s record and effectively allowed him to resign before the incidents occurred.

Hathaway said it would be difficult criminally to bring charges based on conduct during the internal investigation. Stone never directly threatened Scott and his family, but made alarming comments to colleagues about Scott and his family, according to reports.

The New Hampshire Department of Justice currently administers the EES. Due to public pressure, a limited version of the EES is now publicly available.