By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
A retired Keene Police officer fighting his placement on the Laurie List for dishonest cops is getting a do over with the department, according to court records.
The John Doe lawsuit filed in Cheshire Superior Court is heavily redacted, but details that have been made public match the discipline record for retired investigator James McLaughlin obtained by InDepthNH.org through a right-to-know request.
According to motions filed in the case, a settlement agreement between Doe and the City of Keene is close to being finalized that will have the reasons for Doe’s Laurie List status sent back to Keene Police for review. The Laurie List is also called the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule (EES).
Keene’s attorney, Amanda Palmeira, declined to comment citing the pending litigation.
Michael Garrity, spokesman with the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, said under the law passed in 2021 making the list semi-public, officers can go back to the department that put them on the list and have their alleged disciplinary missteps reviewed.
“RSA 105:13-d contemplates a remand to the law enforcement agency to provide additional due process as to the conduct resulting in placement on the EES. The placement is not subject to review on remand. The incidents that led to placement will be reviewed to determine if they are sustained, not sustained, or unfounded.”
It’s not clear what happens if the Keene Police Department were to now decide that the incidents that resulted in Doe’s Laurie List placement were unfounded or not sustained upon review. The list itself is controlled by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, and whether or not a particular incident is exculpatory or not is a legal question and not something that can be determined by a departmental administrative review.
McLaughlin’s name appeared on the very first Exculpatory Evidence Schedule released by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office January of 2022, but was redacted within hours. A lawsuit challenging placement on the list was cited at the time.
The case number for this John Doe lawsuit appears on the most recent published version of the Laurie List, though details like names, dates, and the nature of the alleged incident are redacted.
According to the lawsuit, Doe was placed on the Laurie List in 2018 by the Keene Police Department for incidents that had taken place decades earlier. One incident involved Doe attempting to shoot a hole in a beer keg when he went to break up a teen drinking party. Doe was disciplined for initially lying about the shooting, telling a superior officer that a fireworks had gone off at the party.
According to the records obtained by InDepthNH.org, McLaughlin was suspended for firing his gun during the first reported incident. McLaughlin and another officer went to an area off Drummer Road to break up a teen drinking party in November of 1986. After the teens fled the approaching officers, McLaughlin and his partner, Edwin Bourassa, put out the fire. McLaughlin then decided to destroy the beer and took out his service revolver and fired two shots at the remaining beer kegs, according to then Keene Police Chief Harold Becotte’s disciplinary letter.
The other Doe discipline incident involved a verbal altercation with a citizen during which Doe reportedly used profanity. There was also an allegation that Doe tampered with the police department’s audio tape of the incident. While Doe was disciplined for the altercation, the allegation of evidence tampering seems unfounded, according to the lawsuit.
According to the records obtained by InDepthNH.org, McLaughlin received a letter of reprimand from then-Chief Thomas Powers in the spring of 1988, after McLaughlin was involved in the December, 1987 verbal confrontation with a civilian on the phone, and later inside the station. It was during this incident that the audio recording of the phone call was destroyed under suspicious circumstances, according to Powers’ letter.
“In the subsequent interview concerning the incident, no reasonable reason for the blank tape was found and an electronic examination of the tape revealed unintelligible voices,” Powers wrote. “You provided statements that you had ‘words’ with the complainant and had rewound the tape to get his name, yet did not purposefully erase and part thereof. You could not explain the misfiling of the tape, nor why the log did not indicate the tape cleaning or changing at 2400 hours.”
Powers indicates that McLaughlin already in 1988 had a record for bad behavior as a police officer.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, McLaughlin was a celebrity investigator, gaining fame for his then-innovative use of the internet to catch child sex abusers. He made cases against the suspects by posing as a teen in online forums and engaging in sexually charged conversations with adult men.
Damien Fisher is a veteran New Hampshire reporter who lives in the Monadnock region with his wife, writer Simcha Fisher, their many children, as well as their dog, cat, parakeet, ducks, and seamonkeys.
