By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — Matthew Millar is going home instead of prison.
The former corrections officer charged with killing Secure Psychiatric Unit patient Jason Rothe was found not guilty Wednesday on the second-degree murder charge that had him jailed pre-trial for more than a year.
The jury took less than two hours to deliberate the facts after a nearly three-week trial in Merrimack County Superior Court. Millar’s family and friends gasped and wept as the jury foreman read out the verdicts. Millar was found not guilty of second-degree murder, and he was also found not guilty on the lesser offenses of manslaughter, or negligent homicide that the jury could have picked.
Wednesday’s quick verdict came after defense attorney Eric Raymond reminded jurors about the inconsistencies, lies, and weak evidence used to bring charges against Millar in the first place. Echoing the testimony of the state’s expert witness Gary Raney, who was perplexed no one noticed Rothe had trouble breathing when he was supposedly dying of asphyxia, Raymond said that is because Rothe died of a sudden heart attack.
“It is perplexing when you’re trying to make a heart attack a homicide,” Raymond said.
Millar was accused of pressing his knee into Rothe’s back for several minutes after Rothe was handcuffed and in a prone position on his stomach in SPU at the State Prison for Men. But the state’s case mostly hinged on the testimony of former Corrections Corporal Lesley-Ann Cosgro, the only officer to testify Millar kneed Rothe after he was handcuffed.
The blame for the criminal case against Millar falls on former Department of Corrections Commissioner Helen Hanks, Raymond said. Hanks wanted to deflect attention away from her poor leadership and the DOC’s failed use of force policies in order to escape liability in Rothe’s April 29, 2023 death.
“They wanted it to be a situation where one rogue officer went outside the guidelines, they didn’t want it to be a situation where the DOC allowing dangerous extractions led to Mr. Rothe’s death,” Raymond said.
The June, 2023 interviews Hanks conducted with all of the officers involved in Rothe’s death laid the groundwork for Millar’s charges, according to Raymond. Hanks had been warned not to interview the officers by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office since they were all witnesses in a potential criminal investigation.
“But Helen Hanks did what Helen Hanks wanted to do,” Raymond said.
Lt. Scott Marshall, present for those interviews, testified during the trial that Hanks had a copy of the DOC’s internal investigation into Rothe’s death during the June 2023 interviews. Marshall did not understand why Hanks was speaking to the officers, he testified.
“I did not know the purpose of those meetings,” Marshall said. “It’s the first time something like that has taken place in my career.”
But as Marshall testified, Hanks discussed asphyxiation with each officer she met with, despite the fact the autopsy on Rothe was not complete and there was no known cause of death, Raymond said in his closing.
None of the officers reported that Millar kneed Rothe or otherwise used excessive force in their initial statements, in their interviews with Hanks, or in their subsequent revised statements. But Cosgro, the officer in charge of the botched room extra extraction that ended with Rothe’s death, changed her story in August of 2023 when she started to worry she could be criminally charged, Raymond said.
“She was willing to sacrifice Matt to save herself,” Raymond said.
Rothe suffered from a schizoaffective disorder and had a colostomy bag as a result of a past self-harming incident.
Rothe was committed to New Hampshire Hospital in 2019, the state’s psychiatric hospital, as he was deemed incapable of taking care of himself, according to the police affidavit filed in the case. On Aug. 16, 2022, New Hampshire Hospital sought a court order to transfer Rothe to SPU due to the likelihood of him causing harm to himself and others. The SPU is home to violent patients from New Hampshire Hospital and the state’s prisons. Though billed as a hospital, it is operated as a prison and staffed with corrections officers as well as some medical personnel.
Evidence and testimony at trial show Cosgro decided to lead an extraction team to get Rothe out of the SPU dayroom without enough officers to do it safely, without protective gear, without a plan of action, and without a civilian nurse present, among other violations of policy. She also tased Rothe multiple times, one in the head during the ensuing melee despite the DOC limit of three taser shots.
Cosgro told State Police investigators during her August, 2023 interview that Millar used his full body weight to press his knee into Rothe for up to five minutes. But, after Millar was arrested in 2024, Cosgro changed her story again.
Facing discipline for her multiple policy violations, Cosgro told Hanks in April of 2024 that she only saw Millar’s knee on Rothe’s back for “seconds, flashes of seconds.” That April, 2024 meeting with Hanks was also problematic. Hanks had again been told by the Attorney General’s Office not to take statements from the witnesses when she conducted the hearings.
Those April, 2024 hearings were kept secret from both prosecutors and defense attorneys until March of this year, weeks before the original trial date. The DOC did not turn over 5,000-plus pages of evidence for more than a year, according to court records.
By then, the damage was done, according to Raymond. Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Mitchell Weinberg used Cosgro’s statements to inform his opinion that Rothe’s injuries and death were the result of “traumatic compressional and positional asphyxiation” caused by Millar’s knee.
Raymond told jurors, though, that Weinberg’s opinion does not match the actual evidence. Rothe had signs of serious heart disease, was overweight, and suffered from bipolar disorder and a schizo-affective disorder, all of which increased his risk of a sudden cardiac dysrhythmia.
Defense medical expert Dr. Emma Lew told jurors that the medical evidence all points to a sudden heart attack, and not asphyxia in her day-long testimony.
Weinberg agreed Rothe’s heart could have been a factor during his deposition, but changed his mind when it came to the trial. Raymond reminded jurors that Weinberg based this new conclusion not on any new evidence, but on the fact “because he’d thought about it more.” Weinberg testified that he never considered that Rothe’s heart was to blame when he conducted the autopsy, but his own notes from April 30, 2023 state the death was a “possible cardiac.”
“He kept that from you and he expects you to believe him,” Raymond told jurors in his closing.
During his testimony, Weinberg stated he wished he had more information before he came to his official opinion that labeled the death a homicide. Raymond told jurors that is a damning statement on the whole case.
“That’s reasonable doubt,” Raymond said.
Assistant Attorney General Christopher Knowles closed out the state’s case, reminding jurors about Rothe’s humanity, and said Millar killed him in anger. Knowles characterized the room extraction as a minor struggle that lasted seconds.
Testimony from the officers, however, painted the picture of a violent and chaotic struggle in which the officers feared for their lives after Rothe threatened to kill them all. He was tased, punched in the head, and physically manhandled before Millar entered the room to help handcuff him and keep him under control.
Chief Probation/Parole Officer Seifu Ragassa, president of the Probation and Parole Command Staff Association Union, called Wednesday’s verdict a great day for New Hampshire’s corrections officers. Millar’s actions during the room extraction likely saved the lives of his fellow officers, Ragassa said.
“He was doing his job, that’s what he did,” Ragassa said. “This man was absolutely trying to defend his brother officers from fatal harm.”
The decision to bring charges against Millar was a colossal mistake and a knee-jerk failure from the former Hanks administration, Ragassa said. It shows the lack of support corrections officers dealt with on a day to day basis under Hanks, he said.
“Whatever happened to standing by those who did their job and protected their brothers and sisters in uniform from harm,” Ragassa said.
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office issued an unsigned statement Wednesday expressing disappointment in the verdict.
“While we believed in this case and are disappointed by the outcome, we respect the verdict and remain committed to upholding the law and pursuing justice wherever the evidence leads,” the statement reads.
Matthew Millar was jailed for close to a year and a half pre-trial based on the testimony of a compromised witness, with exculpatory evidence – evidence in his favor – hidden from attorneys, and facts that a jury dismissed in less than two hours, according to court records and testimony.
Millar’s journey home required one more trip to Merrimack County House of Corrections Wednesday where he was held pre-trial. Once he was acquitted by the jury, Millar was sent back for formal processing so that he could be released later in the day to his family.