By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

Former state Senator Jeffrey Woodburn was taken to Coos County Jail Wednesday after six years of legal battles, two criminal trials, and multiple trips to the state Supreme Court, but his lawyer said he is considering one last court filing.

Woodburn, 58, of Whitefield, was taken into custody from the courtroom Wednesday in Grafton Superior Court in Haverhill sentenced on two misdemeanor criminal mischief convictions in what started as a domestic abuse case.

Woodburn, the former state Democratic Senate Minority Leader with ambitions for the executive office, appeared before Superior Court Judge Lawrence MacLeod, who imposed the 12-month sentence with all but 30 days suspended Wednesday.

Woodburn’s lawyer Mark Sisti said after the hearing that Woodburn will decide soon whether to file a habeas corpus petition arguing the sentence is “unreasonable, unwarranted and unconstitutional.”

Sisti said the only reason Woodburn was jailed is because, “He had the audacity to go to trial twice and appeal twice. Nobody goes to jail for this. He is the exception.”

He called it a public announcement to people that if you exercise your rights, “you will get burned.”

Sisti argued to keep Woodburn out of jail, saying that sending his client to jail is only punishing him for fighting the charges, not for the relatively minor convictions on two counts of criminal mischief.

“Let’s end the drama. It’s gone on way too long,” Sisti said.

But Judge MacLeod said the sentence is appropriate, given the violent nature of the criminal mischief.

“I’m not going to second guess that,” MacLeod said.

The two criminal mischief convictions involved Woodburn kicking the door to the home of his then-fiancee Emily Jacobs when she refused to let him inside and kicking her clothes dryer door, breaking the appliance.

Sisti’s motion to amend the sentence, called an “11th-hour Hail Mary” by prosecutors, argued Woodburn has already been punished enough.

“The expense of litigation has been backbreaking, his reputation has been attacked for years, and the impact on him cannot be measured,” Sisti said in his motion for a suspended sentence.

Sending Woodburn to jail is unjust, and serves no purpose, especially in light of the dozens of similar cases Sisti cited that resulted in no incarceration.

“The real question is: why is Jeff being singled out for incarceration when many others, some as high profile or higher profile than he is, receiving suspended sentences for offenses as bad or worse than his,” Sisti wrote.

But Senior Assistant Attorney General Joshua Speicher rejected that argument, saying it’s Woodburn who is trying to upend justice and get special treatment.

“Although he claims that he is the victim of unfair punishment, what the defendant actually asks of this court is special treatment that is unavailable to other defendants,” Speicher wrote in a court filing. “The defendant is not special and does not deserve special treatment. He stands before this court as a convicted criminal who has been sentenced to serve stand committed time and has exhausted all rights to appeal.”

Woodburn’s political career ended in 2018 when he was charged with a total of nine misdemeanors at first. The legal case against Woodburn has been ongoing for six years, with him overturning his 2021 convictions for simple assault and domestic abuse by appealing to the state Supreme Court.

At his first trial Woodburn was found not guilty on five of the charges involving one incident of biting Jacobs, throwing a cup of water at her face, punching her in the stomach and trespassing.

The original guilty verdicts included the two counts of criminal mischief, one count of domestic violence and one simple assault, including breaking the dryer door and a door at Jacobs’ residence and biting her in a separate incident.

The simple assault and domestic violence charges were retried in Coos County Superior Court, but a mistrial was declared in March when the jury couldn’t reach a verdict. Attorney General John Formella decided to drop those charges instead of a third trial.

That left just the two criminal mischief convictions, which the state Supreme Court refused to reconsider. 

Woodburn argued in this year’s second trial that he was acting in self-defense.

InDepthNH.org has no contact information to reach Jacobs.

Reporter Nancy West contributed to this report.