Lawyers acting on behalf of a former local man and and his son have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the town and seven former and current police officers alleging they withheld evidence from defense lawyers during the criminal investigation and subsequent prosecution of both men for sexual assault of minors.
Both men were convicted and spent time in prison before they were freed after the missing evidence came to light.
The cause of action or claim filed in the United States District Court, District of New Hampshire on Dec. 9, 2011 alleges current Police Chief Ryan Heath (an officer at the time of the investigation) and former Alton Police Department employees Kevin Iwans, Glenna Heath-Roberts, Edward Correia, Tracy Shattuck, Tyler Hackett and Grant M. Nichols withheld 226 pages of material and exculpatory evidence during the separate investigations and subsequent prosecution of the two.
Only Heath remains with the Alton Police Department.
The details of the suit available electronically through the federal court Website are heavily redacted and supporting documents sealed for electronic accessing by an order of United States magistrate Judge Ladya McCafferty. The names of the two plaintiffs are not revealed. This story is based on the electronically available redacted complaint.
The elder of the two men was ultimately convicted of and sentenced to serve up to 40 years in state prison for three counts of sexual misconduct with a child.
According to the suit, the elder plaintiff was convicted on Feb. 25, 2009 of three counts of sexual misconduct against one child. In December of 2009, Judge Larry Smukler granted the man a new trial and all charges against him were dropped altogether on Oct. 25, 2010.
A spokesman for the N.H. Department of Corrections said he was incarcerated from April 9, 2008 until Feb. 12, 2010.
The younger man pleaded guilty on June 9, 2007 of two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault against his stepdaughter. Judge James O'Neill vacated both his sentences on July 1, 2010.
Prison records indicate he was incarcerated in the N.H. State Prison from June 9, 2008 until July 2, 2010 when he was transferred to Belknap County. He was released on July 12, 2010.
The suit claims the exculpatory evidence was uncovered by Belknap County Attorney Office prosecutors in February of 2009 while they were preparing their second case against the elder man for allegedly assaulting a second child.
Count 16 of the suit says the prosecution found "exculpatory evidence, consisting of pages A1-199 inclusive and B1-B27, which had not previously been disclosed to either the plaintiff or his counsel, even though the documents had been in the possession of the Alton Police Department for approximately six, or more years."
The civil suit claims the withheld information included paperwork by Corriea in September of 2002 stating the alleged second victim "came to his office to complain about (a Rochester, NY man ) by stating (the man) had been angry at (initials) and had decided to make a false report of sexual assault against (initials) stepfather, with the sole purpose of making (initials) life miserable."
Alleged exculpatory materials also included statements made to Iwans that one victim was allegedly assaulted by a different man with the same first name and a similar statement made in 2005 to Nichols, and an undated report of a similar nature made by Heath-Roberts.
The civil rights suit has four components all citing the Civil Rights Act of 1871, last amended in 1983 and the rights secured by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and well as similar rights established under the New Hampshire Constitution.
There are four separate causes of action: a civil rights violation filed for the father, a civil rights violation filed for the son, a civil rights violation against the defendant the (town) of Alton and supplemental claims against all of the defendants individually including a claim of malicious prosecution.
Link:
http://www.laconiadailysun.com/node/126364/18661
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I believe that those who aspire to positions of power and leadership in society need to be held to higher standards of moral and ethical conduct. In the case of intentional negligence and abuse of their position, I believe such persons should be held to severe standards of punishment for misusing the power of their office or badge.
Police, lawyers, judges, social workers, evidence technicians etc are not above the law. They actually have a sacred duty of sorts to the people they serve. If those police are found guilty of withholding or sitting on evidence that could have freed those men then they should be fined hugely, have their assets sold, and lose their pensions. Then they should be imprisoned a long time.
Aharon
"The civil rights suit has four components all citing the Civil Rights Act of 1871..."
The Duke Lacrosse players cited the same law, but the federal judge there ruled that the law only applied to African-Americans
(and no one else), and threw out portions of their suits relating to civil rights violations.
No kidding.
Apparently that is still the holding in the Fourth Circuit.
Apparently, Aharon, people in positions of power and leadership feel absolutely NO obligation to be held to highre standards of moral and ethical conduct, and abviously the public in general agrees with them.
Look at the uproar over injustices when someone does NOT go to prison(Casey Anthony, OJ anybody?) as compared to well over 200 cases of DNA exonerations(not a peep of protest)?
It would apprear your idea of "justice" does not suit moder day ethics.
The way Prosecutors are promoted and or elected needs to be re engineered. Prosecutors want to become judges or appointed to a higher office, this is why they need to have such a high conviction rate. For example Senator Kerry was a prosecutor and he almost made it to the White House. I am sure they are great people but I do agree that they should be held accountable for any Prosecutorial Misconduct that is done while they are in office. We must note that the Misconduct can happen anywhere in the investigative process from the cop who made the arrest, to someone else planting evidence, to the crime lab technicians. Prosecutors have a lot of power and they should never abuse that power. Prosecutors should not have any type of immunities to prosecution or lawsuits! Above all else there should be an outside agency monitoring prosecutorial misconduct, kind of like the NTSB, who can investigate and recommend & make changes to our legal system. These are all changes the Innocence Project have been advocating for years.
Coulda,woulda,shoulda...the general public does not give two shits about justice.
These are excellent suggestions - suggestions our Founding Fathers might have even endoursed.
The average American? Lock 'em up and throw away the key. Thumbs down. Screw 'em.
IT'S ALLLLL ABOUT ME! ME! ME! and the worshipping of all Victims.
Everyone sees themselves as a potential victim of crime. Look how many cops shows are on TV for God's sake.
No one EVER considers themselves a potential victim of injustice. Look how many exonerated victims of injustice shows are on TV.
Just like the Duke Lacross "rape",
The prosecution KNEW they were innocent, but sat on the evidence.
This makes me sick
Say what you will about the Duke LaCrosse case...if they hadn't had parents that culd pony up the 5 Million dollars to buy their justice, each and everyone of them would be in prison right now as we speak....
...just as God Only Knows how many innocent men are in prison because they lacked the 5 mil...
Nifong was held to task because he was male.
If it had been a FEMALE prosecutor, SHE would still be strutting her stuff in a courtroom...
Feminists have told American law enforcement to "Not Charge" false rape accusers, because it will deter the ones that are telling the truth from coming forward, And American law enforcement have changed their protocol to accommodate them.
Where are the studies that show this feminist theory (to not charge false rape accusers) has any basis in reality; because one thing is clear..Not charging false rape accusers is leading to false rape accusations for such trivial reasons as "She doesn't want to pay her cab fare".
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