Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell

Detective James McLaughlin shows up on a previously secret list of dishonest police for falsifying records. In 1994 he falsified the case against Fr Gordon MacRae.

January 19, 2022

I was hoping to find someone else to write this, but information happened fast and time is critical. So I will write it myself even though I have an obvious conflict of interest. At this writing I am in my 28th year of unjust imprisonment. In that time, every avenue of appeal has been exhausted with no hope for justice. All resources for further appeals are also exhausted. And, frankly, so am I.

Many well-meaning friends and readers have nonetheless urged me in recent years to continue to explore and pursue any means to address what seems for most a clear injustice. My 67-year prison sentence — after rejecting plea deal offers to serve one year — just doesn’t sit well with fair-minded, rational people. That seems especially so given that if I were in fact guilty or at least willing to pretend so in 1994, I would have left prison 26 years ago.

From seemingly out of nowhere, a new development has arisen at the start of 2022. I am told that it has the potential to either right a wrong and set me free or simply fade away like all previous endeavors that left me to die in prison. I had come to accept that latter reality. My focus in the last two years, like that of my friend and patron, St. Maximilian Kolbe, was to set someone else free. I am proud of that accomplishment. It is all I have to show for this injustice. Then, at the very close of 2021, a bombshell exploded on New Year’s Eve.

The New Hampshire LEACT Commission

I received a message that day from an old friend, Joseph Lascaze. Like Pornchai Moontri, Joseph went to prison at age 18. Also like Pornchai, he accomplished something extraordinary in that time. After a few aimless years lost in an aimless prison system, Joseph fought against many obstacles to educate himself. Over those years, he became a close friend to both me and Pornchai. Prison is not a good place to grow up, but Joseph did, and in spite of all obstacles he became an exemplary citizen and gifted young man.

Joseph was released in 2019 and is today the “Smart Justice Campaign Manager” for the New Hampshire Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He also serves by invitation of NH Governor Christopher Sununu on the Governor’s LEACT Commission (Law Enforcement Accountability, Community, and Transparency). Joseph has been well received and even honored by New Hampshire law enforcement for his candor and unprecedented contributions to this Commission.

Among many other projects, Joseph has worked with LEACT to make public a previously secret document held by the NH Attorney General entitled the “Exculpatory Evidence Schedule.” It is more popularly known as the “Laurie List” named for the judicial ruling that created it. The ACLU, along with several NH media outlets, sued the state under the Freedom of Information Act to make the list public.

Joseph’s New Year’s Eve message was read to me by another friend who noted that Joseph attached an article he urgently wanted me to see. The article, by Damien Fisher at InDepthNH.org, was “AG Hides Some ‘Laurie List’ Names Hours After Release.” In short, the ACLU lawsuit settlement dictates that the secret ‘Laurie List’ is now to be a public list.

The potential bombshell for me is this: It turns out that Keene, NH Detective James F. McLaughlin, who choreographed the case against me in 1994, was sanctioned and placed on the list for “Falsification of Records” in 1985, nine years before my trial. Another recent InDepthNH article by Nancy West,entitled “AG Removes 28 Names From ‘Laurie List’ of Dishonest Police Outside the Law,” describes what this development potentially means:

“Officers placed on the list sustained discipline for dishonesty, excessive force, or mental illness in confidential personnel files .... If a criminal defendant finds out that such evidence existed, even many years later, he or she can petition the court for a new trial or try to have the charges dropped altogether.”

InDepthNH, November 24, 2021

More than a half century ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in ‘Brady v. Maryland’ that criminal defendants must receive all exculpatory evidence or their conviction could be overturned or vacated entirely.

The Suppression of Exculpatory Evidence

Needless to say, neither I nor my defense were made aware of the 1985 falsification of records infraction against Detective McLaughlin before my trial. But that was certainly not the only suppression of exculpatory evidence. In multiple police reports prepared by McLaughlin before trial — reports which steered the prosecutor’s case — McLaughlin made repeated references to tape recorded phone calls and interviews from which he made specific claims.

Some of the subjects on those tapes claimed that McLaughlin grossly misquoted them or included statements that they never made at all. Despite a court order to turn those recordings over to my defense, every one of them disappeared before trial. McLaughlin claimed, for example, that a specific tape was “recycled” and a transcript that his report referred to was never made due to a “clerical error.” Years later, McLaughlin sent that same tape to The Wall Street Journal despite the fact that it contained none of what he said it contained. Writing in The Wall Street Journal in 2005, Dorothy Rabinowitz addressed this:

“On the police tape, an otherwise bewildered-sounding Fr. MacRae is consistently clear about one thing — that he in no way solicited [anyone] ... for sex or anything else. ‘I don’t understand,’ he says more than once, his tone that of a man who feels that there must, indeed, be something for him to understand about the charge and its causes that eludes him. . . . He listens as the police assure him that he can save all the bad publicity. ‘Our concern is, let’s get it taken care of, let’s not blow it out of proportion. You know what the media does,’ they warned. He could avoid all the stories, protect the church, let it all go away quietly.”

A Priest’s Story Part 1: The trial, April 27, 2005

There was no evidence at all in the case brought against me in 1994. In New Hampshire — as in many states since the 1980s — no evidence is needed to convict someone accused of a sexual offense. No evidence was admitted at my trial beyond the word of 27-year old accuser, Thomas Grover, a man with a criminal record who stood to gain $200,000 for making the claim.

The story of how that trial unfolded has received much attention over the years. Dorothy Rabinowitz, a Pulitzer-prize winning member of The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, published two major articles on my trial and its back story in 2005 and a third in 2013 entitled “The Trials of Father MacRae.”

These articles sparked some national interest, but no one could have predicted the tidal wave of accusations against Catholic priests that arose in 2002 and continued until the present day. Other media — including most in the Catholic media — decided to look the other way in any case of injustice against a priest.

Seeking justice has been a steep uphill battle. In 2009, at about the same time this blog began, a new investigator began a fresh look at the case. A decorated career FBI Special Agent Supervisor, he ended his investigation in 2012 concluding, bluntly:

“In my three year investigation of this matter, I found no evidence that MacRae committed these crimes or any crimes. Indeed, the only ‘evidence’ was the statements of Thomas Grover which have been discredited by those who were around him at the time including members of his own family.”

Affidavit of former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott, Ret.

Alarming New Evidence Alarmingly Ignored

When no evidence is needed to put a man in prison there is no evidence to dismantle or challenge. Nonetheless, Mr. Abbott’s investigation uncovered many things, including allegations of misconduct by Detective James McLaughlin. New witnesses were interviewed and they bravely came forward to write and sign statements in the case. Their evidence is profiled by David F. Pierre at The Media Report under the title, “Alarming New Evidence May Exonerate Imprisoned Priest.”

Among the many statements described and quoted there is one from Steven Wollschlager obtained by the Investigator. Steven, facing a drug charge, described being summoned to the office of Detective McLaughlin where, he alleges, he was offered a direct monetary bribe in exchange for a fabricated accusation against me. He was given $50 in cash and told that “a large sum of money” could be obtained in a civil suit. “Life could go a lot easier for you with a large sum of money,” McLaughlin allegedly said.

Steven wrote that the detective “knew I was using drugs at the time and could have been influenced to say anything for money.” Enticed by the prospect, Steven agreed to come up with a fabricated claim. He then received a summons to appear before a Grand Jury to help bring a new indictment. It was a testament to his integrity that his conscience, instead of the proffered bribe, became his guide. He decided that he could not do this “to someone who only tried to help me.” He was then told to go away because “we won’t be needing anything more from you.”

I write that these witnesses “bravely” decided to come forward because some of them were threatened by Detective McLaughlin before my trial. One witness, former drug abuse counselor Debra Collett who treated Thomas Grover, denied that he accused me during therapy sessions as he alleged. She described being “bullied,” “coerced,” “overtly threatened” by this detective when she would not say what he wanted to hear. “I will come to your house and physically drag you out of it,” she was told.

Ms. Collett described that the entire interview was recorded, but that tape, like other exculpatory evidence, “disappeared” before my trial. It is shocking that judges reviewing my appeals declined to even hear from these witnesses. Innocence Project founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld described how such misconduct by police was sometimes covered up by judges. From their acclaimed book, Actual Innocence:

“For 64 percent of DNA exonerations analyzed by the Innocence Project, misconduct by police or prosecutors played an important role in the convictions. Lies, cheating, distortions at the lower levels of the system are excused at the higher ones.”

Barry Scheck, Actual Innocence, p. 225

That is exactly what happened when my habeas corpus appeal and its accompanying memorandum of Law was filed in 2012. One judge after another summarily declined to hold any hearing that would give these witnesses a chance to go on record. One possible reason for this is that Detective McLaughlin has brought forward hundreds of cases with an almost 100-percent conviction record through offers of lenient plea deals.

I believe judges are reluctant to deal with the “Pandora’s Box” of challenged convictions if this officer’s challenged integrity becomes public. I wrote more about this in a March 2021 post, “Wrongful Convictions: The Other Police Misconduct.”

I was entirely demoralized by the judicial lack of regard for truth and due process in this story. A witness, who directly accused a sworn officer of offering a bribe to suborn perjury before a grand jury has been simply ignored and silenced. I saw no further path if judges can willfully decline to hear such testimony.

So my attention turned then to assisting my friend, Pornchai Moontri, whose plight was even more brutally unjust than my own. I made a promise to him, to myself, and to God that I would use whatever time I had left in life to do all I could to bring forward the truth of his situation and free him.

With help from readers, I did just that. The person who arranged for him to be brought here from Thailand at age 11 — only to be horrendously exploited and sexually abused — was found and brought to justice in 2018. He pled “no contest” to forty felony charges of sexual assault of a minor in Penobscot (Maine) Superior Court in September 2018, but was sentenced (are you sitting down?) to zero prison time and 18 years probation.

I had no reason left to expect anything even remotely resembling justice from our justice system. But then, yet another ray of hope surfaced just at the dawn of a new year.

I do not know what to do. The prospect of possibly emerging as a free man after over 27 years unjustly in prison is daunting. The very infrastructure of my life has long since disintegrated. Even in prison I remain a priest, but in freedom I doubt that my bishop would do anything to help me. I will be 69 years old in April, 2022. At the age at which most people plan for retirement, I would be faced with starting life anew. But how? Where? Would I now be required to sacrifice priesthood for freedom?

It will be many months before there is clear direction on what comes next. I will keep you posted ... .

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ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Please visit our new “Documents” section in the Navigation Bar for more information about this story. Please also share this post. You may be interested in the following relevant posts:

Wrongful Conviction: The Other Police Misconduct

The Trials of Father MacRae by Dorothy Rabinowitz

The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud by Ryan MacDonald

LEACT commissioners include, from left, Rep. David Welch, Joseph Lascaze, John Scippa, Hanover Police Chief Charlie Dennis, and Lt. Mark Morrison of Londonderry.

Bishop Peter A. Libasci Was Set Up by Governor Andrew Cuomo

Before he was himself accused New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a window in the civil statute of limitations spawning claims against a Catholic bishop.

August 25, 2021

Back in 2010, I closely followed a story that appeared in most national news media outlets. It was about Bishop Eddie Long, a well-known preacher, TV evangelist, and pastor of a Baptist mega church in Georgia. He was accused of sexual assault in multiple lawsuits brought by three young adult males.

Unlike in nearly all similar claims against Catholic clergy, all three of the men, barely out of their teens, opted to allow their names to appear in media coverage. The story unfolded in stark contrast with similar claims against Catholic priests in other ways as well. Lawyers and victim advocates have explained away the sometimes decades-long gaps that have comprised 70-percent of the claims against priests. It is routinely claimed that accusers of Catholic clergy — the vast majority of whom were teens at the time of an alleged offense — may require decades to come forward due to the trauma inflicted on them. In contrast, the three young men accusing Bishop Eddie Long filed lawsuits within two years.

Bishop Long denied that the claims were true. Criminal charges were never filed so the claims were not investigated. The story came down to his word against theirs. When The Wall Street Journal published a 2010 account of Bishop Long’s vow to fight these claims, it was among the five most-read stories of that week at WSJ.com. Clearly, many in the news media presumed at first reading of the headlines that he was a Catholic bishop. The decision to fight the claims rather than simply settle thus stood out as a news story of its own.

In the end, however, Bishop Long and his congregation decided to settle the claims for an undisclosed sum in 2010. No one questioned their assertion that settlement of such claims is common and in no way should be seen as an admission of guilt or culpability. Beyond Bishop Long’s congregation, there were no deeper pockets to pursue. He simply resumed his ministry as though nothing had ever happened.

This could never happen when the accused is a Catholic priest. It was once explained to me by another bishop, Most Rev. John B. McCormack, formerly Bishop of Manchester, NH, that one of the hard lessons of the Catholic clergy abuse narrative is the fact that once a priest is accused, his legal interests and those of his bishop and diocese diverge. When I maintained my innocence against lawsuits that I knew were fraudulent, I was dropped as a defendant so I no longer had standing to challenge settlements.

The New Hampshire statute of limitations for lawsuits was six years then. (In 2020 the civil limitation statute was removed entirely.) The allegations against me were from twelve years earlier. My defense against the claims was that they never took place. The sole argument of my diocese was that the statute had expired so the lawsuits should be time barred. Judge Carol Ann Conboy ruled in Merrimack County Superior Court that the six-year statute begins to toll “only when a victim becomes aware” of a connection between a claim of abuse and a current injury.

My diocese opted to settle rather than appeal that dubious lower court precedent which has since evolved into a pattern of unquestioned mediated settlements in other claims against priests going all the way back to 1950. In many cases no lawsuit was even filed. In his once published resume, former Msgr. Edward J. Arsenault (now Edward J. Bolognini) claimed that he personally negotiated 250 settlements in allegations against NH priests.

Of interest, one NH lawyer told the news media that he personally obtained 250 settlements in claims against NH priests. In a 2002 media report he added,

“During settlement negotiations, diocesan officials did not press for details such as dates and allegations for every claim. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ [Attorney Peter] Hutchins said.”

— Mark Hayward, NH Diocese Will Pay $5 Million to 62 Victims, NH Union Leader, November 27, 2002

Manchester Bishop Peter A. Libasci

Misuse of the word, “credible” has been a source of injustice in the U.S. Church since 2002. Prior to the events described above, Bishop John McCormack told a lawyer and a media producer that he believed I was falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned. His statements were documented in a pair of independently sworn affidavits in 2001.

In 2002, after the USCCB adopted the Dallas Charter and “zero tolerance,” claims against me entered a category used by all bishops since. Once money changed hands, they became “credible.” I wrote of the fallout in “Our Tabloid Frenzy About Fallen Priests.”

What the bishops collectively mean by “credible” is not a standard of justice used in any other circumstance. It means no more than “possible.” If a priest and an accuser lived in the same parish or community 30, 40, 50 years ago, then a sexual abuse claim against the priest is “credible.” It is deeply unjust that bishops continue to use that term while knowing that the public and the news media wrongly interpret it as “substantiated.”

There has been a point of contention with my current Ordinary, Bishop Peter A. Libasci. In 2019, while under no pressure from anyone to do so, he published the names of 73 priests of this one diocese who, he says, were “credibly” accused. Many are deceased. This resulted in a pair of pointed articles by Ryan A. MacDonald: “In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List,” and “Our Bishops Have Inflicted Grave Harm on the Priesthood.”

Now Bishop Libasci has himself been “credibly accused.” On July 22, 2021, the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, in an article by Mark Hayward, reported, “NH Bishop accused of sexual abuse by an altar boy decades ago.” Whatever differences I have had with Bishop Peter Libasci and his published list, I was and am deeply saddened by this development. The accusation stems from 1983, the same year as the accusations against me. The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk County, New York, alleges that then Father Peter Libasci sexually assaulted a boy aged 12 to 13 “on numerous occasions” at a parish and Catholic school in Deer Park in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York.

Bishop Libasci maintains through counsel that he is entirely innocent of these claims. I believe that he is in fact innocent. I do not find the claims to be credible at all, but I do not use that term in the same manner the bishops use it against priests. I will get back to this.

One of the claims from the now unnamed 50-year-old accuser is that he was assaulted in the sacristy while setting up for a Mass. That has all the earmarks of a “copycat” claim that is almost verbatim a claim in a different but much more notorious New York case, that of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. No one who knows Bishop Libasci could or should conclude that these claims are at all credible. It would be a grave injustice if such claims prevail without clear evidence.

However, that also leaves the matter in a conundrum. If that accuser lived in Deer Park, New York and attended that parish or school at the time Bishop Libasci was there, then this is more than enough for his fellow bishops to conclude — as they would in the case of any similarly accused priest — that the claims are “credible.” Bishop Libasci has not, at this writing, been removed from ministry by the Vatican. As unjust as that would be, any priest in the same circumstance would have been removed immediately.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo

This is happening to Bishop Libasci and others with roots in the State of New York because in 2019, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo promoted and ultimately signed a bill that opened a window to allow civil claims to be filed even if they had been time barred by the statute of limitations. The window in which these claims could be filed expired on August 14, 2021. The Catholic bishops of the state of New York knew well what the result would be so they opposed the unjust bill.

Before signing it into law, Governor Cuomo accused the bishops and other Church officials of threatening politicians who did not support their opposition to the bill. In response to similar bills that were not passed in previous efforts, Cuomo said, “I believe it was the conservatives in the Senate who were threatened by the Catholic Church, and this went on for years.” Catholic League President Bill Donohue pointed out in “Cuomo Had A Different Standard for Priests,” Catalyst, April 2021,

“When teachers’ unions oppose a bill, it is called lobbying. When bishops oppose a bill, it is called a threat. Cuomo’s double standard, and his animus against the Catholic Church, could not be more plain.”

— Dr. Bill Donohue

Governor Cuomo also promoted and signed a June 2020 bill that set a very low bar as a standard of evidence in claims of sexual abuse or harassment in the workplace. The New York Times reported that the legislation eliminates the state’s “severe or pervasive” standard. When signing the bill into law, Governor Cuomo said,

“The ongoing culture of sexual harassment in the workplace is unacceptable and has held employees back for far too long. This critical measure finally ends the absurd legal standard for victims to prove sexual harassment in the workplace and makes it easier for those who have been subjected to this disgusting behavior to bring claims forward.”

— Governor Andrew Cuomo, June 2020

I once wrote a post entitled, “Be Wary of Crusaders! The Devil Sigmund Freud Knew Only Too Well.” It documented multiple stories of crusaders against sexual abuse who turned out to be guilty of the same sorts of offenses they were crusading against. It was the result of a combination of forces within the psyche in the form of two classic defense mechanisms described by the Father of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. From recent news accounts of his resignation to avoid a pending impeachment, Governor Cuomo seems to have been a textbook case for this.

As accusation after accusation emerged against Cuomo, he insisted on a presumption of innocence and his due process rights. He responded to the allegations with, “You can allege something. It might be true or it might not be true. You may have misperceived. There may be other facts.” All true, but when it came to allegations against priests — whether in the present or in the distant past — innocence was never a possible conclusion. As Catholic League President Bill Donohue observed in the link above,

“Cuomo showed no respect for the due process rights [of priests]. He was happy to sign legislation that gave rapacious lawyers out to sue the Church all the leeway they wanted.”

— Dr. Bill Donohue, Catalyst, April 2021

This is the Pandora’s Box our bishops opened with their use of the term, “credible” as a standard of evidence for removing priests. The current claims against Bishop Peter Libasci arose only because Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law in New York a bill that takes advantage of the lowest possible standard of evidence to score lucrative windfall settlements from the Catholic Church.

According to the standard our bishops have adopted, however, those claims are as “credible” as many of the claims against the priests on Bishop Libasci’s published list. I would like to believe that Bishop Libasci may now, in hindsight and humility, rethink his decision to publish that list. Injustice, however, is often a bell that cannot be unrung.

Nonetheless, absent compelling evidence — and so far there is none — I firmly believe Bishop Peter Libasci is entirely innocent. I hope and pray that his good name is restored and he is delivered from this injustice.

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Update by Editor — September 8, 2024: In July 2024 it was announced in news media that the accuser of Bishop Peter A. Libasci has died in Rockville Centre, New York. The cause of death has not been public, but he would have been a man in his mid-fifties. This sadly leaves the case against Bishop Libasci unresolved both civilly and canonically.

Since then, the Diocese of Manchester under Bishop Libasci has revised its policy regarding accusations against Catholic clergy. Bishop Libasci has approved a new standard to be applied to cases of accusations against priests. The “credible” standard has been discarded within this Diocese. Now any priest merely accused, from however long ago, substantiated or not, will be removed from ministry and his name added to a public list of the accused. The Diocese has announced that financial compensation for all accusers will be arranged by “trauma-informed consultants.” This new standard will apply to all diocesan personnel, except apparently, Bishop Libasci himself.

To Fleece the Flock: Meet the Trauma-Informed Consultants

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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Please share this post. Please also pray for a just outcome for Catholic priests falsely accused, and for legitimate victims of sexual abuse and exploitation. Let us remember as we walk through this minefield that we are a Church.

You may also like these relevant posts:

In the Diocese of Manchester, Transparency and a Hit List by Ryan A. MacDonald

Our Bishops Have Inflicted Great Harm on the Priesthood by Ryan A. MacDonald

A Weapon of Mass Destruction: Catholic Priests Falsely Accused by Father Gordon J. MacRae, LinkedIn Pulse

Accused Priests Deserve Better by Catholic League President Bill Donohue (Catalyst, March 2020)

Bogus Charges Against Priests Abound by Father Michael Orsi, Ed.D., Ave Maria School of Law