Legal Briefs: News from Around NH

New legislation for political advertising, charity director pleads guilty to fraud ... and more

Publisher’s conviction inspires proposed law change

A Londonderry publisher’s conviction over political advertising has inspired new legislation.

A bill being heard by New Hampshire legislators would clarify the rules that determine who is responsible for identifying the source of a political ad.

The proposal follows the conviction of Debra Paul, publisher of The Londonderry Times, who was charged in 2023 with six misdemeanor counts after failing to properly label political advertisements in the Londonderry Times, from 2019 to 2021.

She was convicted on five of those charges in December 2023 by the Derry District Court and ordered to pay a fine of $620 later that month.

On Feb. 27, the House Election Law committee held a hearing on proposed House Bill 1150, which would shift the responsibility for alerting the public to the source of a political advertisement from the publisher to the advertiser.

The bill was presented by Rep. Clayton Wood of Peterborough. He said the intention of the bill is to clarify state election law, specifically as it pertains to political advertisements.

The first change is removing the requirement that political advertising printed in newspapers, periodicals, or billboards “shall be marked at the beginning or end as ‘Political Advertising.’”

The second change, expected to be added as an amendment, will make it clear that responsibility for labeling political advertisements falls on those paying for the advertisements, not the organization publishing them.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve read through the things I need to do for signs, and I get confused,” said Wood. “It seemed the confusion on who to put responsibility on, that was a big part of the case.”

Brendan McQuaid, publisher of the New Hampshire Union Leader and President of the New Hampshire Press Association, testified in support of the bill. He suggested Paul was targeted because of her political activism.

He said the current law governing political advertising, RSA 664, is convoluted and confusing, and was used to target Paul.

“It’s a terrible, terrible piece of legislation because you guys wrote it in little pieces over the past 45 years,” McQuaid said about RSA 664. “It’s very confusing about what races it applies to, what it doesn’t apply to, and everything else.”

The supporters of HB 1150 say it will add clarity to the law, and prevent publishers from being prosecuted for mistakes made by political advertisers.

“I’ve learned, in my past few years as publisher, way more than I ever wanted to learn about campaign finance law and how it affects advertising, because it’s a bit of a nightmare,” said McQuaid.

The next step is for the bill to be presented at a committee executive session on March 5 at 9 a.m. If it clears committee, the final bill will be presented for a vote on the House floor. — Katelyn Sahagian/Northofboston.com

Former Listen director pleads guilty to fraud

The former head of one of the Upper Valley’s leading charities has pleaded guilty to embezzling donations, acknowledging that he spent the money for personal use and to gamble at a casino in western Massachusetts.

In U.S. District Court in Concord on Tuesday, Kyle Fisher pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud and that he is liable for paying back the nearly $240,000 he stole from Listen Community Services.

Fisher’s guilty plea is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, three years supervised release and a maximum fine of $250,000, or twice the gross gain or loss, according to federal statute.

Judge Paul Barbadoro set a sentencing date of June 11. Fisher remains free on bail until that time.

Fisher requested that he be allowed to surrender for his sentence at a federal facility in Butner, N.C., which is “less than 30 minutes from where he lives” in Holly Springs, N.C., his attorney, Charles “Chuck” Reeve, of Nashua, said in court.

The guilty plea comes about 10 months after Fisher, formerly of Grantham, was indicted on four counts of wire fraud that and he stole a total of about $240,000 from Listen over 19 months in 2021 and 2022. He gambled away “a large amount of the stolen funds” at the MGM casino in Springfield, Mass., according to court documents.

Although Listen subsequently said it did not expect to suffer financial damage as a result of the embezzlement, it nonetheless raised questions about how Fisher had been vetted.

The board members that hired him overlooked red flags detailing Fisher’s troubled financial history — including bankruptcy, a prior financial wrongdoing conviction and a documented penchant for gambling — when it hired him to head the nonprofit.

“All of us at Listen Community Services would like to thank the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Hampshire and the FBI investigative teams who we’ve been working with from the moment we first learned of this abuse of trust and authority,” Listen’s board of directors said in a written statement on Tuesday afternoon. “We’ll have more to share after the sentencing hearing.”

Fisher, wearing a light blue dress shirt and tie and carrying his suit jacket over his arm, declined to comment “at this time” after leaving the courtroom on Tuesday morning. Fisher told a reporter that he would speak publicly about his crime “at the time of sentencing.”

Asked by the judge before entering his guilty plea if he was on any medications, Fisher said that he is being treated for bipolar disorder in addition to depression. During the approximately 30-minute hearing, he clearly and directly answered the judge’s largely perfunctory questions to assess whether he was making the plea voluntarily and cognizant of the consequences.

Fisher, 43, was appointed head of Listen in 2016, working his way up after initially joining the nonprofit as a volunteer in 2013.

He succeeded longtime Executive Director Marilyn Bourne, who had led Listen for 17 years.

According to the indictment, Fisher used his access to Listen’s PayPal account, which was set up to collect donations, to transfer funds into his personal bank account at Mascoma Bank. Then he transferred money into his casino account.

He also “created fake invoices and receipts and altered the charity’s accounting records” in an effort to cover his tracks, the government said.

The next step will be for the prosecutor and defense separately to file memorandums with the judge arguing what each side thinks is an appropriate sentence for Fisher. In the plea agreement, the prosecution and defense stipulated that for determining the his sentence Fisher that is liable for making restitution of up to nearly $240,000.

Prosecution sentencing memorandums usually highlight the risks the defendant  presents to the public in pressing for the  higher end of what the statute allows.

Defense sentencing memorandums are typically accompanied by testimonials and letters from a defendant’s friends, associates, counselor and family arguing why a lesser sentence is justified. — John Lippman, Valley News

Casino agrees to suspend lawsuit against Conway

The Conway Poker Room and Casino LLC have agreed to suspend its lawsuit against the town since the planning board granted conditional site plan approval.

Dick Anagnost of Bedford and partner Stefan Huba are seeking to turn the former Tiney’s Grocery in Conway into a sports restaurant with table games and electronic machines called Revo.

They filed suit against the town Nov. 14. 2023, saying that Deputy Town Manager Paul DegliAngeli’s denial in June of the commercial amusement permit application “was illegal and unreasonable.”

They also asked for a jury trial so they could seek damages and attorneys’ fees.

John Cronin of Cronin, Bisson & Zalinsky PC of Manchester, the Conway Poker Room and Casino’s attorney, said the developers relied on a permit that a previous town planner issued to start the $500,000 worth of construction.

Following the filing of the suit, the town allowed the developers to move forward with a plan to classify Revo as a restaurant and charitable gaming as opposed to a commercial amusement. On Feb. 8, the planning board granted the project conditional site plan approval.

On Feb 20, the town’s attorney Jason Dennis of Hastings Law Office in Fryeburg, Maine, filed a motion to stay the lawsuit, and Cronin agreed.

“Because this matter arises out of a site plan application and, now, an approved site plan with conditions that must be satisfied in order for the parties’ resolution to be complete and final, the interests of judicial economy and the resources of the parties both support a stay to allow this case to resolve ‘naturally,’ without further involvement of the court,” said Dennis.

“The parties agree on a stay of 120 days that would specifically include a stay of the filing of the certified record by the town and a stay of all other case deadlines.”

The motion to stay the lawsuit was approved by the clerk of court last Friday.

“We are in the process of meeting the conditions of that approval so that we can draw the building permit,” said casino spokeswoman Tiffany Eddy, adding the project is slated for spring construction. — Daymond Steer, Conway Daily Sun