By Annmarie Timmins
Concord Monitor (New Hampshire)
CONCORD, N.H. — A Concord District Court judge acquitted former state police trooper James Conrad of charges he resisted detention and placed a threatening call to his wife during divorce proceedings in 2007. Conrad was arrested in November 2007 by the Concord police after an altercation with his supervisors at state police headquarters.
Judge Gerard Boyle ruled yesterday afternoon that the city prosecutor’s office failed to prove that Conrad, a 14-year veteran of the state police, had knowingly or purposely committed the offenses. Those states of mind are required for convictions.
“The evidence presented at both the (April) hearing on the motion to suppress and during trial on the merits was overwhelming that the accused was suffering on the day in question from extreme emotional distress and was incapable of forming the requisite (state of mind),” Boyle wrote.
After his arrest, Conrad was admitted to the state hospital for his emotional distress, according to court testimony.
Boyle also acquitted Conrad of a disorderly conduct charge for the same reasons.
Meanwhile, city prosecutor Tracy Connolly dismissed a fourth charge of criminal threatening that alleged Conrad said during his arrest that he was going to take a Concord officer’s gun and “shoot him and everyone in the room.”
Connolly said she could not say why she dropped the charge. She did say, “As prosecutors, ethically we can’t proceed with cases we can’t prove.”
Conrad, 49, was in court yesterday morning for a trial on the charges. But neither he nor his attorney, Eric Wilson of Nashua, could be reached after Boyle issued his ruling at 4 p.m. Connolly received the ruling as she was leaving work yesterday and had not had time to thoroughly read it.
She can appeal the ruling only if she disputes a matter of law.
Conrad was fired from the state police in March, and in April appealed his termination with the state Personnel Appeals Board. If he is reinstated within nine months of his filing, he would be eligible for full retirement.
Conrad’s former supervisors at state police headquarters could not be reached yesterday. It was unclear yesterday whether the acquittal will allow Conrad to return to police work.
Conrad had been under internal investigation by the state police for nearly a month when he was arrested by the Concord police in late 2007. The internal investigation and the arrest both stemmed from marital disputes between Conrad and his estranged wife, Laura Conrad.
According to court records, Conrad reported his wife missing in September 2007 after she left their home “to clear her head” and failed to return home. Conrad went searching for his wife and was seen speeding through Meredith as he passed cars with his SUV’s flashers going, the court records said.
Conrad refused to stop for a Meredith police officer, the records said. He came to a stop only when he found his wife’s empty car at a school parking lot. When the Meredith officer arrived behind Conrad, Conrad said, “I’m a f--- trooper,” according to the court records. He went on to accuse the Meredith police of failing to properly search for his wife.
Although Laura Conrad’s vehicle showed no sign of foul play, Conrad asked a trooper from the Troop E barracks in West Ossipee to bring in a police dog to search for his wife, the records said. Conrad permitted the police to unlock his wife’s vehicle and arranged to have it towed, the records said.
Using the state police dog, another trooper determined that Laura Conrad had parked her vehicle and left in another vehicle, the records said.
The state police initiated an internal investigation of Conrad after learning of the incident. Laura Conrad filed for divorce several days later. The couple’s temporary divorce decree forbid either spouse of harassing, intimidating or threatening the other.
Conrad was at the state police headquarters in Concord answering questions about the internal investigation on Nov. 28 when he became very agitated, according to court records. He told his supervisors that he believed his marriage, career and life were over. He punched a steel door, injuring his hand, and accused supervisors of siding with his wife at his expense, the records said.
He did not respond to supervisors’ efforts to calm him down and offered his resignation. Supervisors refused to accept it because of Conrad’s state of mind, the court records said. They also told him he could not leave the office and physically restrained him when he tried, the records said.
At one point, Conrad called his wife and told her, “I hate you, you ruined my life, you f--- bitch, you had to call, you ruined my life,” the records said.
The state police eventually asked the Concord police to respond to headquarters and take over the matter.
The Concord police charged Conrad on several offenses. They alleged he violated the divorce decree by placing a harassing and intimidating call to his wife. They charged him with disorderly conduct for allegedly creating a loud outburst inside the office that alarmed others.
A criminal threatening charge alleged he had taken the Concord officer’s gun and threatened violence with it. And the resisting arrest charge accused Conrad of struggling against supervisors when they tried to detain him prior to the Concord police’s arrival.
Earlier this year, Conrad’s attorney asked Judge Boyle to suppress the evidence, arguing it was seized illegally. After a hearing where several state police supervisors testified, Boyle declined to throw out the evidence. But he issued a ruling that foreshadowed his decision today.
He wrote then, “If there is no further evidence provided at trial, I am hard pressed to see how the state is going to prove (the required state of mind) given the testimony I have heard here today.”
Yesterday, Connolly called two witnesses to testify. Laura Conrad, who remains separated from Conrad, and Kelly Westgate, an administrative employee with state police who witnessed some of Conrad’s behavior before he was arrested last year.
Laura Conrad, who was reluctant to testify and did so only because she had been subpoenaed, testified that she reported her estranged husband’s call to the state police because she feared for her husband’s well-being, not her own safety.
Westgate testified that the incident at headquarters between Conrad and the supervisors concerned her enough that she rounded up other office staff and retreated to an empty office for safety reasons.
Wilson, Conrad’s attorney, called Trooper Christopher LaPorte, a state police union representative, who testified that he was concerned for Conrad’s state of mind when he spoke to him at headquarters prior to his arrest. He said Conrad was behaving out of character and appeared capable of hurting himself.
Connolly did not call the state police supervisors who were with Conrad at headquarters the day of his arrest, she said, because they had testified at the suppression hearing and Boyle had agreed to accept that testimony as part of the trial record.
In her closing argument, she told Boyle she believed she had proven that Conrad had committed the offenses and done so with the required awareness. “While this is a sad case and while we can all feel for James Conrad . . . we are here today and these are crimes, and the state believes it had proven them beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said.
In his closing, Wilson described Conrad as an out of control “freight train” on the day of his arrest that should have been handled differently by the state police. Had they allowed him time to cool off rather than detain him and call the Concord police, he could have gotten the mental health help that he went on to seek, Wilson said.
“He has spent considerable amount of time since, seeking psychiatric treatment and he’s much different today,” Wilson said. Conrad did not testify or speak in court yesterday.
Before leaving the bench, Boyle congratulated both attorneys for a “professional” job. He issued his ruling about four hours later, writing it between an afternoon of court proceedings.
Boyle wrote that it was not enough for Connolly to show that Conrad committed the acts or was aware that he was doing so. Instead, she had to show that Conrad intended to cause a certain result, like alarm or fear in those around him.
Boyle didn’t’ see that evidence, he wrote.
Copyright 2008 Concord Monitor/Sunday Monitor