Dying in Prison in the ‘Live Free or Die’ State

News articles allege that Detective James McLaughlin falsified reports and/or evidence but this was kept hidden from the jury in the 1994 trial of Fr. Gordon MacRae.

July 13, 2022 by Charlene C. Duline

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by noted author, Charlene C. Duline. Retired from a distinguished career as a diplomat and Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. State Department, Ms. Duline served the United States in several nations across the African Continent, in East Pakistan and Panama, and at United Nations Headquarters in New York. She holds degrees in journalism and political science from Indiana University and a Master’s degree in International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

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I am outraged at the State of New Hampshire! Every citizen in the State should be! Recent news articles by Damien Fisher and Nancy West at InDepthNH.org have pulled the shroud of secrecy from a grave injustice. Few people in that State knew about a list formally called the “Exculpatory Evidence Schedule,” now better known as the “Laurie List.” The list was revealed in December 2021 by the New Hampshire Attorney General as a result of litigation filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism which remains a litigant seeking the full publication of that list.

The court-ordered release of the list of compromised police is based on a Supreme Court decision holding that if favorable exculpatory evidence has been knowingly withheld by the prosecution in a criminal case, the burden shifts to the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the undisclosed evidence would not have affected the outcome of a trial. If such a violation occurred and the State failed to meet its burden, a defendant has been denied his right to present all favorable proofs and is entitled to a new trial or to have his convictions vacated altogether.

Former NH detective James McLaughlin, the shady detective who was instrumental in pursuing lie after lie about Fr. Gordon MacRae sending him to a long prison term in 1994, was prominent on the Laurie List for “Falsification of Records” and/or evidence. Over 28 years of wrongful imprisonment in the New Hampshire State Prison, MacRae has consistently asserted that the case against him was built on lies, cheating and distortions aided and abetted by a dishonest police officer.

Just as Innocence Project founder Barry Scheck predicted in his 2003 book, Actual Innocence, those assertions have since been ignored or explained away at higher levels of the justice system by judges with a clear bias in favor of police and against defendants — and this defendant in particular. Judge Arthur Brennan, the first New Hampshire judge to hear this case, told jurors to “disregard inconsistencies” in accuser Thomas Grover’s testimony. As The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in The Trials of Father MacRae, they had much to disregard.

In addition to new evidence and witnesses that other judges declined to hear, much of MacRae’s failed 2012 Habeas Corpus petition was about Keene, New Hampshire sex crimes detective James McLaughlin and the shady tactics he employed to generate claims, prosecute, and convict MacRae in 1994 paving a path to lucrative settlement deals from the Catholic Diocese of Manchester.

Now it turns out that McLaughlin was sanctioned on a secret Attorney General’s list for “falsification of records” in 1985, nine years before the trial of Father MacRae. Under a U.S. Supreme Court precedent, Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors were required to reveal that fact to Defendant MacRae and his legal counsel. They did not. This was especially egregious because a central issue in this case has been the falsification of police reports and witness tampering.

Since there were no consequences, McLaughlin continued what he did best. The record in this case is filled with post-trial witness statements that he threatened, intimidated, coerced and lied to witnesses, and falsified records. At least one witness today claims that this detective attempted to suborn his perjury with a monetary bribe. Judge Joseph Laplante, the New Hampshire federal judge who heard MacRae’s Habeas Corpus petition, ignored all of this and allowed none of these witnesses to testify under oath.

Few people know that Fr. MacRae was offered two plea deals before his trial and one during trial. He was told that if he would plead guilty he would receive only one year in prison. This honest man turned down the plea deals. The lengthy criminal rap sheet of 27-year-old accuser Thomas Grover includes multiple arrests for forgery, theft, burglary, drugs, and assault. He broke his future ex-wife’s nose when she questioned his perjury.

The jury never heard any of this. Neither did they hear that Thomas Grover several times received financial payments from his personal injury lawyer, advances on his expected windfall in his accompanying civil lawsuit — a practice that is forbidden by the rules of professional conduct for lawyers. Grover was awarded almost $200,000 for crimes that never took place. There are photos of him dancing with stacks of $50 bills.

At the trial, Judge Arthur Brennan warned MacRae that if he took the stand in his own defense, the judge would open the door for Thomas Grover’s brothers to testify to their own false claims in related civil lawsuits. Gordon MacRae was the only person never heard from in this trial. In a flimsy 1996 appeal represented by a public defender (because MacRae’s diocese refused to help him), MacRae was not even allowed to be present. At three attempts at a Habeas Corpus appeal before state and federal courts since this trial, neither MacRae nor any witness for his defense were permitted to give testimony. At no time has any court official allowed a single word from this defendant.

The man who actually controlled the Diocese of Manchester during much of MacRae’s sentence was Monsignor Edward J. Arsenault, now known as Edward J. Bolognini. He violated Church law regarding Father MacRae who was never told, despite repeated requests, what the Diocese conveyed to the Holy See in Rome about this matter. Arsenault was later dismissed from the priesthood after pleading guilty to stealing almost $300,000 from the Diocese and the estate of a deceased priest. He reportedly spent the stolen money in the company of a much younger gay musician.

At the time of his nearly $300,000 embezzlement, Arsenault held a $170,000 per year position as Executive Director of the St. Luke Institute for troubled priests in Maryland. He served only two years of a 20-year prison sentence before being released and his sentence vacated when an unnamed third party paid his entire restitution. Now a convicted felon with a new name, he today administers a lucrative contract for the City of New York.

I believe that Father MacRae’s bishop and diocese owe him apologies for their abandonment of him, their presumptions of guilt, their refusals to visit or even correspond with him for 28 years in prison where Father Gordon MacRae remains a priest. He offers Mass in his cell each week, and has been instrumental in saving lives and souls. One of them is the life and soul of my Godson, Pornchai Moontri, a conversion story beautifully told by Marian Helper Editor, Felix Carroll in the great Divine Mercy book, Loved, Lost, Found.

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Editor’s Note: Charlene Duline’s Godson, Pornchai Moontri, now residing in Bangkok, Thailand, was the subject of a stunning investigative report by Father Gordon MacRae:

“Getting Away with Murder on the Island of Guam”.

For additional information on Charlene Duline’s article, see the following:

AG Hides Some ‘Laurie List’ Names Hours After Release By Damien Fisher, InDepthNH.org

Famed Keene Cop Called Out for Federal Entrapment By Damien Fisher, InDepthNH.org

A Grievous Error in Judge Joseph Laplante’s Court By Ryan A. MacDonald

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

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest

Keene New Hampshire sex crimes Detective James McLaughlin developed claims against a Catholic priest while suppressing exculpatory evidence and coercing witnesses.

Editor’s Note: The following guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald is a response to Fr. Gordon MacRae’s recent, “Predator Police: The New Hampshire Laurie List Bombshell.”

January 26, 2022 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Last week, Fr. Gordon MacRae wrote here about the manipulation of facts and witnesses in his 1994 trial on charges brought forward by former Keene, NH Detective James McLaughlin. This manipulation included allegations that he coerced and threatened a witness, Debra Collett, to alter her first-hand testimony because it did not agree with his bias. Another witness, a former accuser of Father MacRae who recanted, alleged that McLaughlin presented him with a proffered bribe to concoct a false claim against MacRae and conspired to attempt perjured testimony before a grand jury.

These are very serious allegations. They were uncovered years after the trial by former FBI Special Agent James Abbott who conducted a three year investigation of this case. Mr. Abbott obtained signed statements from these witnesses and others that became part of a habeas corpus petition seeking to free Father MacRae from an unjust imprisonment.

As MacRae’s post linked above points out, New Hampshire judges at both state and federal levels overlooked these allegations, and declined to allow an evidentiary hearing to permit these witnesses to testify under oath. From a political standpoint, this may be business as usual in New Hampshire. From a justice standpoint, it is most disturbing.

At the start of 2022, advocates for Father MacRae learned that former Detective James McLaughlin appears on a newly published list of police officers with professional misconduct or credibility issues previously held in secret personnel files. The list had been held in secret for years by the NH Attorney General, but a recent legal decision required its public release. Formally called the “Exculpatory Evidence Schedule,” the list is also known as the “Laurie List” for the NH Supreme Court case that initiated it.

It came as no surprise to discover Detective McLaughlin on this list for a 1985 incident of “Falsification of Records.” That was nine years before MacRae’s trial. Over fifty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brady v. Maryland that state and federal prosecutors are required under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution to reveal to defendants and legal counsel all exculpatory evidence uncovered in the investigation of a case.

The failure of prosecutors to reveal the “falsification of records” charge against Detective McLaughlin was a violation of what is known as the “Brady Rule” that can and should overturn a conviction. As a minimum, it constitutes new evidence that can reopen a case for judicial review of the entire case.

Advocates first learned of this Brady violation from an article published at InDepthNH.org by Damien Fisher entitled, “AG Hides Some ‘Laurie List’ Names Hours After Release.” The article, though largely accurate, contained some misinformation. It described MacRae as a “former” Catholic priest which is not accurate. It also cited that MacRae “claimed that McLaughlin offered to pay cash to one of his accusers.” That claim was not made by MacRae, but by the accuser himself who recanted in a signed statement obtained by former FBI Agent James Abbott.

Politics and Prosecution

The New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism, which publishes InDepthNH.org, is continuing its lawsuit seeking full and unredacted disclosure of the “Laurie List” in its entirety. A more recent article by Damien Fisher, “Famed Keene Cop Called Out for Federal Entrapment” (January 11, 2022) detailed a clear case of entrapment by McLaughlin. The article describes the original “Laurie List” charge of “Falsification of Records” by McLaughlin as “Falsification of Evidence.”

Noted Boston lawyers Harvey Silverglate and Alan Dershowitz are long-time associates in the cause of preservation of our civil rights and civil liberties. Mr. Dershowitz wrote the Forward for Silverglate’s acclaimed 2009 book, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. The following is an excerpt:

“Our system of investigation and prosecution is unique in the world. We [in America] have politicized the role of prosecutor, not only at the federal level but in all of our states and counties as well. Nowhere else are prosecutors (or judges) elected. Indeed, it is unthinkable in most parts of the world to have prosecutors run for office, make campaign promises and solicit contributions. In the United States, prosecutors are not only elected but the job is a stepping stone to higher office as evidenced by the fact that nearly every congressman or senator who ever practiced law once served as a prosecutor. Winning becomes more important than doing justice.” (p. xxv)

There were two prosecutors at Father Gordon MacRae’s 1994 trial. One inexplicably took his own life several years later after the first articles challenging this case appeared in The Wall Street Journal and were published along with the items in our Documents page at a site that preceded MacRae’s blog. The lead prosecutor was Bruce Elliot Reynolds. At the time of the high profile trial, he used its notoriety to campaign for another Assistant County Attorney in his office who was running to unseat the incumbent. In New Hampshire, a County Attorney is equivalent to a District Attorney in other states.

There was a lot that went on behind the scenes of this trial. The lead prosecutor was reined in by the judge for sensational media statements about the trial which could (and did) taint the jury pool. The trial drew lots of local news coverage. As it got under way, Mr. Reynolds was chastised by Judge Arthur Brennan for wearing his campaign button before news cameras.

On the day after the trial, for reasons unknown, Reynolds was fired by the winner of the election, the incumbent against whom he was campaigning. Sometime later, Reynolds decided to run for County Attorney himself. His campaign cited his “vigorous” prosecution of Father Gordon MacRae as his most significant “tough on crime” career achievement. Mr. Reynolds was then exposed for some sort of tax matter, dropped out of the race, and left the state. He relocated to the State of Wisconsin.

Prior to the trial, Reynolds sent a letter to MacRae’s defense counsel which laid out terms for a strikingly lenient plea deal for a sentence of one to three years in prison if MacRae would simply plead guilty. He refused this offer because he is not guilty. He refused a similar offer in the middle of trial when the offer was reduced to one-to-two years. The prosecutor asked what it would take to get MacRae to take the deal. His lawyer’s answer: “The dismissal of charges because he is innocent.”

It seemed clear throughout pretrial motion hearings and the trial itself that the real prosecution of this case was carried out by Detective James McLaughlin, the sole sex crimes detective among the 25 or so officers in the Keene, NH Police Department. An account of how Detective McLaughlin investigated this matter is laid out in “Wrongful Convictions: the Other Police Misconduct.”

A Conspiracy of Fraud

This trial was a classic example of why the blending of politics and the justice system often defeats justice. The trial was not about arriving at the truth. It was all about winning, at any cost, because political aspirations and careers were at stake. In no other arena but the political could a prosecution accept without question testimony from a grown man who claimed that he was sexually assaulted five times by a Catholic priest a dozen years earlier at age 15, but returned to be assaulted again and again for a total of five times because he repressed all memory of the vicious assaults from week to week.

Only political blindness could deny and obfuscate the fact that a $200,000 settlement from a Catholic diocese is a possible enticement for perjury and fraud. As Alan Dershowitz observed above, “Winning becomes more important than doing justice.” Such an arena requires the work of an unethical crusader to mold and shape a case toward that end. In Detective James McLaughlin, the State had just such a crusader.

At the “Documents” section on this site is a three-part case history which was the result of substantial research. It includes a most telling document entitled, “United States District Court: Gordon J. MacRae v. James F. McLaughlin, et al.” It requires a little background. Prior to the 1994 MacRae trial, the suppression of evidence and one-sided media coverage was so great that Father MacRae felt his only recourse was to file a lawsuit of his own. It lays out the bold but simple truth of this matter. No one refuted even one of its many claims.

The lawsuit was upheld and survived several attempts to have it thrown out, but in the end it had to be dismissed without prejudice — meaning without a judicial ruling — when MacRae was convicted at trial. He could only bring the lawsuit again if the underlying convictions were resolved. This document lays out perhaps the most chilling factual abuse of police power in this or virtually any other case. It is well worth a review.

Prior to this trial MacRae voluntarily took, and conclusively passed, two polygraph examinations with a noted expert. Some of Detective McLaughlin police reports made allusions to the possible creation of child pornography by MacRae. At the time of his sentencing, Judge Arthur Brennan cited this, claiming that “This Court has heard clear and compelling evidence that you created pornography of your victims.” This never surfaced at all during the trial, but the ugly accusation at sentencing was later used for a purely evil endeavor. It was used by SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, to bolster a crimes against humanity charge targetting Pope Benedict XVI at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Mercifully the effort failed. Eleven years later in 2005 Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal questioned Detective McLaughlin about the nature and substance of that evidence. “There was never any evidence of child pornography,” he admitted. In this entire matter, that was the only time McLaughlin told the truth.

During the trial, two court observers reported spotting a woman in the gallery giving hand signals to Thomas Grover to begin crying during his testimony. It came after he testified that he was unaware of any plan to sue the Catholic Church. He was asked by MacRae’s counsel to reveal to whom he went first with his accusations: the police or a lawyer. At this point, Ms. Pauline Goupil was observed from the gallery signalling Grover to cry. He was riveted upon her for his entire testimony. At that point she was seen placing her fingers below her eye and then down her cheek in a pantomime of crying. In response, 27-year-old Grover wept loudly and at length. The two witnesses who observed it reported it to the defense counsel who then approached the bench. Judge Brennan cleared the jury from the court and called Ms. Goupil to the stand. She identified herself as a therapist retained by Thomas Grover at the behest of his attorney. All treatment records of Mr. Grover were to be reviewed by the defense pretrial, but neither Pauline Goupil’s records nor the fact of her treatment of Grover were revealed.

Hard evidence surfaced pretrial that Detective McLaughlin conducted some of his one-sided investigation, not from his Keene police office, but from 60 miles away in the law office of Robert Upton, the personal injury lawyer who brought a lawsuit on behalf of Thomas Grover and obtained a $200,000 settlement from the Diocese of Manchester. Family members of Grover revealed years later that Grover was coached to “act crazy” before the jury, to appear vulnerable, and to commit perjury in regard to some of his testimony. When asked who did this coaching, their answer was Pauline Goupil and Detective McLaughlin. These family members, the former wife and stepson of Thomas Grover, were also barred from giving testimony under oath. The two people who observed Pauline Goupil’s courtroom witness tampering were also barred from testifying.

A public debt is owed to the NH Center for Public Interest Journalism which publishes InDepthNH.org. The Center continues an open lawsuit contending that the new law that only partially released the “Laurie List” does not protect the public right to know its extent.

In a 2003 Concord Monitor article — now apparently removed from the Internet — fellow Keene, NH officer Sgt. Hal Brown defended McLaughlin’s shady tactics and actions:

“It’s our job to ferret the criminal element out of society.”

I believe Father MacRae would today agree with me that those are very scary words!

Be Wary of Crusaders! The Devil Sigmund Freud Knew Only Too Well

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Editor’s Note: Please share this important post on your social media.

You may also be interested in these related articles:

Predator Police: The New Hampshire ‘Laurie List’ Bombshell

Police Investigative Misconduct Railroaded an Innocent Catholic Priest

A Grievous Error in Judge Joseph LaPlante’s Court

Several years after sentencing Father Gordon MacRae to life in prison, Judge Arthur Brennan was arrested in Washington, DC in 2011 during a protest in which he tried to occupy the US Capitol Building.

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.

Wrongful Convictions: The Other Police Misconduct

A new article by Ryan MacDonald, linked herein, spotlights police detective James F. McLaughlin who orchestrated the wrongful conviction of Father Gordon MacRae.

March 24, 2021

I read somewhere that the State of New Hampshire — the “Live Free or Die” State — has this nation’s second highest percentage of prisoners over the age of 55, second only to West Virginia. To be certain, the offenses that put most of them in prison did not occur at age 55, however. New Hampshire is also one of only three states with a “Truth in Sentencing” law. In effect it means there is no avenue to reduce a prison sentence based on rehabilitation.

I admit that I do have a vested interest in this subject. I will be 68 years old on April 9th. I was 29 when my fictitious crimes were claimed to have taken place. I was 41 when I was sent to prison for them. I could have been set free at age 43 had I actually been guilty or willing to pretend so.

I have already learned the hard way that growing older in prison is its own special cross. I severely sprained my right knee early this month. I’m not exactly sure how or why it happened. I awoke one morning with a painful knee. At almost age 68 in my 27th year in prison, that is not at all unusual. But me being me, I just ignored it. Later that morning I had to go to the commissary to pick up food and hygiene supplies that I ordered a week earlier.

The pickup process can be a little daunting. After 23 years in a place with very little “outside,” I love living on the top floor in a place where I can step out onto a walkway and see above prison walls into the forests and hills beyond. But this also involves stairs. Lots of them. Among the items I had ordered that day were a supply of bottled water because I had become a little dehydrated. My net bag was substantially heavier than usual.

Leaving the commissary, the walk across the long walled prison yard was no problem. The series of ramps to the upper levels left me huffing and puffing just a bit. But the final leg involves carrying the heavy bag up eight flights of stairs — 48 in all. Just a few steps from the top that day, my knee exploded. Now I use a cane — temporary, I hope — and a knee brace and lots of ice.

Police Brutality Is Overblown, but Not This

I have read that one of the common traits of the wrongfully convicted in prison is that they simply cannot let go of the injustice that befell them. For me, this injustice is as vividly felt today as it was on September 23, 1994.

But there comes a point at which it is no longer even about freedom. When freedom suddenly comes to a man who has spent more than a quarter century in prison, then freedom itself becomes an intimidating affair. We have seen this faced head-on in some recent posts about my friend, Pornchai Moontri. His imprisonment came to an abrupt end after 29 years on February 24, 2021.

Pornchai went to prison at age 18 after years forced into homelessness. Freedom brings lots of firsts for him. He has never driven a car, for instance, and has no frame of reference for how that would feel except to feel scary. I told him that driving became second nature to me as it will one day for him as well.

If I ever regain my freedom, I will likely find it to be less new and intimidating than Pornchai did at first, but I try not to set myself up for disappointment by thinking about it too much. However, being deprived of justice still remains a gnawing insult to both my psyche and my soul. I cannot help but ponder this and it has never relented. After 27 years it still leaves me fending off bitterness and resentment. Justice and freedom were stolen from me by a dishonest police officer.

I find it strange, but just and merciful, that even after more than 26 years unjustly in prison, people are still writing about it. In a thoughtful pair of posts written in France, Catholic writer Marie Meaney arrived at some boldly incisive conclusions after doing substantial research. Both are available in English at her blog, Cheminons avec Marie qui défait les nœuds (“Let Us Walk with Mary Who Unties the Knots”). Marie’s first article published in June 2019 was “Untying the Knots of Sin in Prison.” It was mostly about my friend, Pornchai Moontri, and how the knots of abuse were untied for him through a team effort.

Marie Meaney’s second article, published in November 2020, was a model of thoughtful, honest research. Its understated title was simply, “A Priest Unjustly Imprisoned.” It strikes me as highly ironic that most American Catholic writers — with the bold exception of Catholic League President Bill Donohue — go to great lengths to avoid any mention of this story lest they be targeted by the cancel culture crowd for whom questioning a claim of victimhood is a mortal sin. Meanwhile in France, a nation known for its anticlerical Catholic culture, my story is told with guns of truth blazing. Here is an excerpt from her excellent post:

“This same man had been accusing so many people of sexually abusing him ‘that he appeared to be going for some sort of sexual abuse victim world record’ according to (Thomas) Grover’s former counselor, Ms. Debbie Collet, who said that Grover never mentioned Fr. MacRae during their sessions — though pressure had been put on her by the Keene (NH) police to alter her testimony. This small, 20,000 inhabitant town had been assigned a detective, James F. McLaughlin, to uncover sex abuse cases.”

— "A Priest Unjustly Imprisoned," by Marie Meaney

Please do not misunderstand me here. I am very much pro-law enforcement. I do not at all subscribe to the left’s notion that police brutality has been rampant in America. Hyped-up exceptions must not overcome the rule of law. You may be surprised to learn that most prisoners believe this as well. In the heat of the political left’s promotion of anti-police policies in 2020, I wrote of the danger this represents in “Don’t Defund Police. Defund Unions that Cover Up Corruption.”

Detective James F. McLaughlin

Marie Meaney was correct in her assertion that between 1988 and 1993, the time in which much older claims against me were probed, the City of Keene, New Hampshire, with a population of about 22,000 then, had a full-time sex crimes detective named James F. McLaughlin. He is now mercifully retired. A 2003 Boston Sunday Globe article by Carlene Hempel (“Hot Pursuit,” Nov. 23, 2003) described him as a detective who “focuses specifically on men interested in boys.” The news media, especially The Boston Globe, has since then gone to great lengths to separate the Catholic sexual abuse narrative from having anything to do with homosexuality.

Carlene Hempel reported that McLaughlin separated himself from his initial involvement with ICAC, the “Internet Crimes Against Children” Task Force. Instead, he decided to go it alone, but Hempel avoided writing about why. She infers something, however, in an interview with a former ICAC police trainer who spoke of McLaughlin more generically:

“Cops who ... operate outside the ICAC system put some people at risk. ... You can’t be posing as a 15-year-old and throw something out like, ‘I’m really questioning my sexual orientation and I wonder if someone out there can help me with that.’ That’s really leading, and in my opinion, entrapment.”

— Police ICAC trainer

It was some time after my 1994 trial that McLaughlin took up the cause of Internet crimes. He made 1,000 arrests luring men to Keene, NH from other states in a process that many described as entrapment. In The Boston Globe article, McLaughlin said in his own defense that no judge has ever said that he has gone too far. That did not remain entirely true. In 2005, a federal judge reprimanded McLaughlin for sending child pornography to an online subject of his entrapment effort. At the time, McLaughlin’s supervisor said one of the scariest things I have ever heard from law enforcement. He told a reporter for The Concord Monitor, in an article that has since disappeared from the Internet, that, “It’s our job to ferret the criminal element out of society.”

Detective McLaughlin’s focus on Internet crimes involving men and teenage boys came well after the case he built against me. It is interesting that in her article from France, Marie Meaney mentioned my accuser at trial, Thomas Grover, who in the end was awarded close to $200,000 from the Diocese of Manchester for his easily identifiable lies. The problem with an accuser’s lies in the hands of a crusading sex crimes detective, however, is that they are easily covered up by finding witnesses willing to corroborate the accuser’s story. There were none here to be found, however. Consider this excerpt from a sworn statement of accuser Thomas Grover’s therapist, Debbie Collett:

“Thomas Grover never revealed to me that Gordon MacRae perpetrated against him. Mr. Grover spent a great deal of time being confronted (in therapy) for his dishonesty, misrepresentations, and unwillingness to be honest about his problems. Thomas Grover did reveal that he had been sexually abused, but named no specific person except his foster father. When asked if he meant Mr. Grover, he responded ‘yes, among others ...’ He accused so many people of sexual abuse that we thought he was going for some sort of sexual abuse victim world record. But he never accused Fr. MacRae.”

— Sworn statement of Debbie Collett

Of her experience with Detective James McLaughlin and his pre-trial investigation, Ms. Collett wrote:

“I was contacted by Keene Police detectives McLaughlin and Clarke ... I was uncomfortable with (the) repeated starting and stopping of the tape recorder when my answers to their questions were not the answers they wanted to hear ... I confronted them about this and their treatment of me which included coersion, intimidation, veiled and more forward threats of arrest ... McLaughlin said that he would personally come to my home, drag me out of it bodily if necesary, and force me to testify despite my information to him ... They presented as argumentative, manipulative, and threatening me via use of police power to get me to say what they wanted to hear.”

— Sworn statement of Debbie Collett

Perhaps the more important part of Debbie Collett’s statement is her assertion that it was recorded. Under court rules, the prosecution was required to turn over to the defense all material including any recorded interviews. Despite repeated references to tapes in police reports, however, none were ever provided. The recording of McLaughlin’s interviews with Debbie Collett simply disappeared.

In the article linked at the end of this post, Ryan MacDonald raises the issue of recorded interviews.

“Unlike his protocols in nearly all other cases, Detective McLaughlin recorded none of his interviews with claimants in the MacRae case. A reason for the absence of recorded interviews may become clear from a statement of Steven Wollschlager, a young man who accused MacRae during one of McLaughlin’s interviews, and then recanted, refusing to repeat his accusations to a grand jury. From his sworn statement:

’In 1994 before [MacRae] was to go on trial, I was contacted again by McLaughlin. I was aware at the time of the [MacRae] trial, knowing full well that it was all bogus and having heard all the talk of the lawsuits and money involved, and also the reputations of those making the accusations. ... During this meeting I just listened to the scenarios being presented to me. The lawsuits and money were of great discussion and I was left feeling that if I would just go along with the story I could reap the rewards as well.

’McLaughlin asked me three times if [MacRae] ever came on to me sexually or offered me money for sexual favors. [He] had me believing that all I had to do was make up a story about [MacRae] and I could reap a large sum of money as others already had. McLaughlin ... referenced that life could be easier with a large sum of money ... I was at the time using drugs and could have been influenced to say anything they wanted for money. A short time later after being subpoenaed to court, I had a different feeling about the situation.’ ”

— "Police Investigative Misconduct Railroaded an Innocent Catholic Priest," by Ryan MacDonald

Neither Steven Wollschlager nor Debbie Collett have ever been allowed to present their testimony in any appeal before the appeals were dismissed without hearings in State or Federal Courts.

In the photograph atop this post, Detective McLaughlin was honored by unknown entities for his 350th arrest while posing as a male teenager luring adults online to their arrest in Keene, New Hampshire. Less than one percent of these cases ever went to trial. The other 99 percent were resolved through lenient plea deal offers that defense attorneys urged their clients to take — even the ones whom they knew were not guilty.

I was never a part of McLaughlin’s Internet predator obsession, but his tactics and dishonesty leading up to that endeavor were very much a part of his case against me. Recently, journalist Ryan MacDonald was invited to submit an article on police and prosecutor misconduct for SaveServices.org. His February 20, 2021 article has since been republished at multiple other justice sites, including the National Center for Reason and Justice which continues to advocate for justice for me.

Ryan’s article is an eye-opener. Don’t miss “Police Investigative Misconduct Railroaded an Innocent Catholic Priest.”

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Editor's Note: Please share this important post, and if you have not done so already, please Subscribe to Beyond These Stone Walls.

You may also like the related articles referenced herein:

Untying the Knots of Sin in Prison

A Priest Unjustly Imprisoned

Don't Defund Police. Defund Unions that Cover Up Corruption

Police Investigative Misconduct Railroaded an Innocent Catholic Priest

A Grievous Error in Judge Joseph Laplante’s Court

Federal Judge Joseph Laplante dismissed without testimony Fr Gordon MacRae’s recent hope for justice. No U.S. court has allowed this defendant to utter a single word.

June 22, 2016 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald, author of “The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud.”

I am not here to cast Donald Trump-like aspersions upon a judge whose decision I simply do not like. I have no doubt that Father Gordon MacRae would bar me from publishing here if I did. I am simply here to describe a grievous error that occurred in United States District Court in Concord, New Hampshire, and other facts that continue to trouble me greatly a year after I published an important article on this site: “Judge Joseph Laplante Denies Priest’s Appeal.”

Many people have come to believe that the 1994 prosecution and trial of Father Gordon MacRae, and subsequent appeals, have left an innocent man in prison and a gaping wound on the integrity of the criminal justice system. One issue that I and others simply cannot comprehend is that no one in this system — absolutely no one — has allowed this accused priest to utter a single word in his own defense.

After the prosecution rested its case in 1994 — with lots of theatrics but no evidence — Judge Arthur Brennan addressed MacRae directly, outside the presence of the jury. He cautioned MacRae against testifying in his own defense. If he did so, the judge warned, the door would be opened to allow other claims from Thomas Grover, his brothers, and others to come before the jury and taint its view of this case.

The public defender who minimally handled MacRae’s direct appeal in 1996 said that he was surprised by Judge Brennan’s warning, but could find no legal precedent to cite it as an appeal issue. At one point in the trial, Judge Brennan instructed the jurors to “disregard inconsistencies in Thomas Grover’s testimony.” As Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “they had much to disregard” (WSJ, “A Priest’s Story,” April 28, 2005).

In a sentencing hearing weeks after the trial, Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced MacRae to a term of 67 years in prison — more than thirty times the two-year maximum sentence proposed to MacRae pre-trial, deals that the priest rejected citing his innocence of the charges. During the sentencing phase, he was not permitted to say a single word in his own defense while the Judge berated him for observing his Constitutional right to a jury trial.

When sentencing MacRae, Judge Arthur Brennan offered some evidence and testimony of his own: “This court has heard clear and convincing evidence that you created child pornography of your victims.” In the entire trial, not a single word about child pornography was ever raised. Eleven years later, the lead detective in the case admitted to Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal, “There was never any evidence of pornography.”

MacRae, in prison after the trial, was neither present nor represented by counsel as Thomas Grover and his brothers continued the fraud in civil court seeking lucrative settlements from the Catholic Diocese of Manchester. Everyone had a voice and a lawyer except Gordon MacRae.

And he was silenced yet again, not even permitted to be present, in his direct state appeal in 1996 when judges dismissed as “harmless error” the egregious testimony of a psychological expert that should not have been admitted at trial while MacRae’s defense was allowed no expert. As Innocence Project founders, Attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld described in their book, Actual Innocence  (Random House 2000):

“For an innocent person, the two most dangerous words in the language of the law are ‘harmless error.’ These are the magic words that appellate courts use to absolve police officers and prosecutors of misconduct.”

— Actual Innocence, p. 172

“Especially a Catholic Priest”

There was a lot to absolve. As The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz described (see “The Trials of Father MacRae,” May 13, 2013): “Those aware of the facts of this case find it hard to imagine that any court today would ignore the perversion of justice it represents.” I exposed some concrete examples of those perversions of justice in “The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud.”

It is an inescapable fact of injustice that from 2012 to 2015 three additional judges and courts heard motions to revisit this trial, but dismissed them without permitting a single word of testimony from defendant Gordon MacRae or any of the witnesses who have come forward, some quite courageously.

On March 17, 2015, Judge Joseph Laplante heard oral arguments from attorneys Robert Rosenthal and Cathy Green representing the imprisoned priest, and Assistant Attorney General Elizabeth Woodcock for the prosecution. Neither Father MacRae nor any of the newly presented witnesses in this case were present, nor was any of their testimony heard. The arguments took just under two hours, a flash in time compared to the twenty-two years MacRae has thus far spent in wrongful imprisonment. On March 25, 2015, Judge Laplante dismissed the habeas corpus petition from going forward. There was to be no further hearing on testimony, merits or evidence.

Additionally, Judge Laplante declined to grant a Certificate of Appealability to bring this matter to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. This had the effect of forcing MacRae to fund an added appeal of the denial of a Certificate of Appealability. One full year later, in April of 2016, the First Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reverse the decision not to allow a further appeal. I held my pen until that decision was rendered.

I do not want to use limited space here to rehash what I wrote in “Judge Joseph Laplante Denies Priest’s Appeal.” I hope that after reading this article, you will go back to read it for yourselves for it lays out all the reasons why I believe this outcome to be an abuse of judicial discretion. Denying the Certificate of Appeal had the effect of bankrupting the defense of a man who has spent twenty-two years in prison for crimes that most observers today conclude never took place.

The Grievous Error

However, none of that addresses the error that I am here today to address. I have spent considerable time reading a transcript of that hearing and Judge Laplante’s ruling. A significant part of both troubled me greatly, and I know that it troubled Father MacRae as well. It simply did not concur with MacRae’s memory of this case, and his memory, according to Dorothy Rabinowitz, is “encyclopedic.” The error involves a point that was heavily stressed by Judge Laplante in both the transcript and his dismissal order. I will begin with the transcript. The speaker is Judge Laplante:

“Now, leaving [Thomas] Grover’s credibility aside, nothing that [new witnesses] say undermines what seems to be a very important piece of evidence in the underlying criminal trial which is that when [James] McLaughlin, a detective from Keene, confronted MacRae with these accusations, he didn’t deny them. He had a very unusual response, basically quibbling with [Detective] McLaughlin over the proper terminology to apply to a person who is sexually attracted to children under 14 or 15. I don’t even remember the terms right now, but he basically corrected the detective for using the word pedophile. He came up with a more correct term — a more precise term. Whether that was even correct is debatable. But it was a very unusual response. It wasn’t a denial. It wasn’t the type of conduct that one would expect one to undertake when accused in that way. Especially a Catholic priest … MacRae did not react in a manner one would expect of an innocent person.”

— T: 51-52

Now, the excerpt above reflects just two paragraphs of a 70-page court transcript, but it was an extensive part of the reasoning behind Judge Laplante’s two-page decision dismissing the federal habeas petition. What Judge Laplante described above is a claim that Detective McLaughlin confronted Father MacRae about the charges involving Thomas Grover, referred to MacRae as a “pedophile,” and then instead of simply denying it, MacRae supposedly corrected McLaughlin by telling him that the correct term is “hebophile.”

There is just one major problem here. It never happened! Detective James McLaughlin never once “confronted MacRae with these accusations,” nor did any of what Judge Laplante refers to above have any connection with the case at hand. This is an egregious perversion of justice.

When I read this I was very troubled. Father MacRae has been confined in a 96-square-foot cell for twenty-two years with very limited access to documents in this case and no access to online research. As the above scenario surfaced, his lawyers sent him a statement to sign stating that he never made any such admission to Detective McLaughlin, but “told him that someone who might be attracted to someone Grover’s age would be an ‘phebophile,’ not a ‘pedophile.’ “

MacRae was troubled because he has no memory of McLaughlin ever discussing any aspect of the Thomas Grover case with him. He simply assumed that someone (his own lawyers? the prosecutors?) who have access to transcripts, must have found such a reference somewhere.

But they did not. No such reference exists. In the case for which Father MacRae was indicted and faced trial, McLaughlin and the prosecutors brought secret indictments. This priest first learned of the very existence of this case on the night of May 5, 1993, the night that police showed up at his door to arrest him on charges that were then over a decade old. He had no subsequent or even previous discussion about these charges with McLaughlin.

So what is going on here? When I got to the bottom of it, the truth was spine-chilling in its gross manipulation of this defendant, but it had no connection whatsoever with Thomas Grover’s charges or this trial or the appeal of this case. Bear with me, please, for this is indeed a complex account.

Whack-a-Mole Justice Holds Court

In 1988, a full five years before Thomas Grover and his brothers concocted their scheme to accuse Gordon MacRae, Keene, NH sex crimes Detective James McLaughlin targeted a number of Catholic priests who had lived and worked in the Keene area. One of them was Father MacRae who was assigned in Keene from 1983 to 1987. In 1987 and 1988, on a leave from parish ministry, MacRae was Executive Director of a regional chemical dependency treatment center near Keene, and in 1989 he became Director of Admissions for the Servants of the Paraclete facility for troubled priests in Albuquerque, NM.

No one had come to Detective McLaughlin with a complaint about MacRae. He launched an exhaustive investigation based on a letter from state social worker, Sylvia Gale, claiming that MacRae was once a priest in Florida where he “molested two boys, one of whom was murdered and his body mutilated.” Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote about that contrived and slanderous account in “A Priest’s Story” (WSJ, April 27, 2005). The Florida story had no basis in fact. MacRae had never been a priest in Florida nor had such a crime ever occurred there. The social worker’s claimed source was an official of the Diocese of Manchester who later denied it. For Detective McLaughlin, however, it became probable cause to launch a moral panic.

On September 19, 1989, Father MacRae received a telephone call from his sister in the Boston area. Upset and angry, she informed him that she received a call from Detective McLaughlin in Keene who told her that he was investigating MacRae for creating pornographic photographs of Keene youths. She gave her brother the number that McLaughlin left, and of course, knowing there was no truth to the claim, the priest called that number.

This was all set up in advance. That particular telephone line into the Keene Police Department was automatically recorded so McLaughlin was not required to obtain a warrant to call and record the priest. A warrant would require evidence, and there was none. This was a fishing expedition. In this telephone call, McLaughlin accused MacRae of taking pornographic photos of 15-year-old Jon Plankey who was later described by McLaughlin as an employee of his in “a family owned business.” It was also later discovered that McLaughlin and Plankey had made similar claims against three others, one of them Timothy Smith, a local Protestant church choir director who was charged and pled guilty.

MacRae vehemently denied the claim. He did not know he was being recorded, but at some point he invited McLaughlin to search his earthly possessions which were still stored in New Hampshire. McLaughlin declined to search anything, but stated that Plankey’s claims would become part of a lawsuit against the Diocese of Manchester. MacRae insisted that no such photographs were ever taken and do not exist. He asked McLaughlin why he isn’t even interested in searching for them. The detective reportedly replied, “Because I know there will be nothing there. You probably gave them to another priest.”

The detective wrote a report about this telephone conversation. It was report file number 89-12196 dated September 19, 1989. In that report, McLaughlin wrote that he recorded the conversation. His report claimed that he and Jon Plankey listened to the tape together, and that “a transcript will be made of this tape.” MacRae states (above) that McLaughlin said, “You probably gave [the photographs] to another priest.” If true, McLaughlin omitted this from his report, but it would have been present on the tape and transcript. So, where are they? And where are the condemning photographs?

Also in that report, McLaughlin wrote that he asked MacRae if he is a “pedophile.” His report claims that MacRae corrected him saying, “the correct term would be ‘hebophile.’” MacRae says he has never even heard of this word. I have found a reference to that word in only two places: McLaughlin’s 1989 report, and a transcript of a 1988 Geraldo Rivera Show faxed to McLaughlin (described below).

Among the many people McLaughlin approached in 1988-1989 looking for someone to accuse MacRae were members of the Grover family. Their mother, Patricia Grover, was then a social worker for the state agency that investigates child abuse cases, a position in which she interfaced often with Detective McLaughlin and with Sylvia Gale, author of the bogus Florida letter. His 1988 report indicated that Mrs. Grover would interview her three adopted sons, Thomas, David, and Jonathan Grover, all in their early twenties. None voiced a complaint about MacRae. Five years later, when the prospect of money loomed, all three changed their minds at the same time. Demonstrating the role that expectations of money played in this case, there is hard evidence that McLaughlin conducted some of his investigation from the office of Attorney Robert Upton, Thomas Grover’s contingency lawyer.

In 1993, as MacRae prepared for trial in the Thomas Grover case, state prosecutors were required to turn over all police reports related to the priest. MacRae was shocked to learn of a vast 72-page 1988 report and the 1989 report of the taped phone call with the “hebophile” claim.

When Thomas Grover accused MacRae five years later in 1993, prosecutors attempted to introduce into the trial the Plankey claim from 1989 as so-called “404-B” evidence of “other bad acts.” The defense filed a motion to obtain the recordings referred to in McLaughlin’s 1989 report. Judge Arthur Brennan ordered the state to turn over all recordings that McLaughlin claimed in reports to have made. McLaughlin wrote in a sworn statement that the tapes were lost due to having been “recycled.” Judge Brennan also ordered him to turn over the transcript of the 1989 recording. McLaughlin claimed that due to a clerical error the transcript was never made. The 1989 tape recorded conversation detailed herein is well documented (see USDC-NM 1504, §§ 28-32).

I can only conclude today that McLaughlin knew the recording contained his comment, “You probably gave [the lewd photos] to another priest,” a statement that would have unmasked a vile prejudice that would have weighed heavily in the trial. So the recordings disappeared. So did the so called “404-B” evidence.

Eleven years after this trial, after claiming repeatedly and under oath that all the tape recordings of MacRae that McLaughlin referenced in his reports were “recycled” and cannot be produced, the detective mailed one of them to Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal. It contained 45 minutes of Father MacRae sounding bewildered by the lurid accusations aimed at him, and his reference that he should talk to a lawyer, a request McLaughlin claims the priest never made.

This issue of tape recordings is very suspicious and has never been explained. McLaughlin claimed to have taped three phone conversations with MacRae, without his knowledge, and though there was no evidence obtained, McLaughlin attributed remarks to MacRae that the priest says he never made. Then all the tape recordings disappeared. The only witnesses to their existence or content are the detective and the priest. So why do the courts believe one over the other? Further, it seems that it was McLaughlin’s practice to tape record all conversations with accusers, but in this one case he produced not a single tape recording of any interview with the Grover brothers. In every other case of this sort he meticulously created recordings and preserved them as evidence. In some cases, including a claimant against another priest, McLaughlin arranged a polygraph for the accuser. None of this happened in the MacRae case. It should be noted here that MacRae himself underwent two voluntary polygraph examinations and passed them both.

There is more. It seems that the source of the “hebophile” term for which Judge Joseph Laplante dismissed MacRae’s petition may have been McLaughlin himself. Among the discovery obtained from the 1989 report about Jon Plankey’s claims of pornographic photos was a transcript faxed from the Geraldo Rivera Show to the Keene Police Department on November 14, 1988. The pages of the transcript were labeled by prosecutors in the discovery material as E-326 through E-331.

The topic of the “Geraldo” transcript that became part of Detective McLaughlin’s file was “The Church’s Sexual Watergate.” It contains this passage that someone at either Keene Police or the prosecutor’s office underlined and marked with a bold asterisk before sending it in pre-trial discovery in 1994. The transcript has nothing to do with the MacRae case, nor was he ever a part of it. It details a conversation between Geraldo Rivera and “Roland Lewis, Attorney for Church sex abuse victims”:

Geraldo: “Did there come a time, sir, when this priest was recognized to be a pedophile by the church and was taken to St. Luke’s Institute to be treated?”

Mr. Lewis: “They sent him to St. Luke’s Institute. He was kept there 12 weeks. During that time it was determined, according to their medical records, that he was a homosexual. We finally were able to obtain copies of those medical records. We have had them evaluated. They establish without question that he is a pedophile and a hebophile.”

Geraldo: “What’s a hebophile?”

Mr. Lewis: “It’s an abuser of adolescent children.”

Geraldo: “I thought that’s what a pedophile was. Help me.”

Mr. Lewis: “The preadolescent is primarily a pedophile. The adolescent is a hebophile.”

I wrote of this same transcript, and the role it played in the MacRae case, in “Truth in Justice: Was the Wrong Catholic Priest Sent to Prison?” It seems that someone has lifted the supposed 1989 telephone conversation between Father MacRae and Detective McLaughlin — mired in suspicions of misconduct over missing tapes and transcripts — implanted it into the unrelated trial involving Thomas Grover, then used it twenty-two years later to deny access to justice in Father MacRae’s appeals. If this is the state of criminal justice, it is only half right. It is criminal. But it isn’t justice.

Saint Thomas More returning the Livery Collar of his office and fealty to King Henry VIII

What Would Saint Thomas More Do?

On September 13, 2012, a full year before MacRae’s habeas corpus petition came before Judge Laplante, the annual “Red Mass” for the legal and law enforcement community took place at Saint Joseph Cathedral up in the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire. It was officiated by The Most Reverend Peter A. Libasci, Bishop of Manchester. Following the Mass, Bishop Libasci was a guest of honor as the New Hampshire Catholic Lawyer’s Guild held its annual awards dinner at the Radisson Hotel to honor the 2012 recipient of the St. Thomas More Award.

According to the Catholic Lawyer’s Guild invitation, the award is bestowed upon a Catholic lawyer or judge “who embodies the spirit of St. Thomas More in courage, dedication, integrity, civility, and compassion toward others.”  On September 13, 2012 the St. Thomas More Award was presented by Bishop Libasci and the Catholic Lawyer’s Guild to The Honorable Joseph N. Laplante.

Saint Thomas More would have heard all sides. He would not, as so many have done, simply assume a priest’s guilt. He would not have made comments like “especially a Catholic priest.” He would not have presumed the existence of evidence he had never seen nor heard for himself. He would have gotten to the truth of the matter before tossing the case off his desk. He would not have allowed the continued judicial railroading of an innocent man.

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ADDENDUM JANUARY 26, 2022:

Police Misconduct: A Crusader Cop Destroys a Catholic Priest

Keene New Hampshire sex crimes detective James McLaughlin developed claims against a Catholic priest while suppressing exculpatory evidence and coercing witnesses.

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For more information on this story, please read these other articles by Ryan A. MacDonald:

The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr Gordon MacRae

The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud

The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence

The Post-Trial Extortion of Father Gordon MacRae

Justice and a Priest’s Right of Defense in the Diocese of Manchester

A Criminal Defense Expert Unfurls Father MacRae Case

Criminal Defense Attorney, Vincent James Sanzone, explains why the case of Father Gordon MacRae has been no measure of justice for either Church or State.

The unjust imprisonment and suffering of Catholic priests at the hands of communist, fascist and other evil despots has and will unfortunately never end. And let’s not forget that Jesus Christ himself told his apostles that the world will hate them as they hated him. Christ was falsely accused and condemned because one man, Pontius Pilate, like most of us, did not have the courage to stand up against the hysterical crowd which did not know, or want to know the truth. As our Lord taught, “The Son of Man came … not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20:28)

When such persecutions occur there is little if anything that the Church can do. Could even our Holy Father, Pope Francis do anything to stop the daily killing of Christians throughout the world today?

Such unjust punishments are not limited to these regimes, and one such travesty of injustice which has been occurring for the last 30 years right here in the United States is the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of Father Gordon MacRae. In 1994 this young and dedicated priest was sentenced by a New Hampshire state judge to the draconian sentence of 33 ½ to 67 years, effectively a life sentence. Because Father MacRae refused to admit to a crime which he did not commit so as to take a plea offer before trial, nor will he do so now, he will not be paroled from prison, and is likely to die in jail.

Any reasonable person examining the trial with any degree of fairness can come to no other conclusion: the prosecution and continuing imprisonment of Father Gordon is not only a tragedy for this good and holy priest, for all clergy and the faithful, but is also a blight on our criminal justice system. The machine of the criminal justice system of the State of New Hampshire is not attempting to re-examine this case and rectify it.

It is without dispute that our society in general is quick to condemn someone accused of committing a crime, especially when there is an allegation of a sexual crime, and more so when the accuser claims involvement of a Catholic priest. Even one with the most conservative law enforcement mindset would deny that for the last 25 years the deck has been stacked against any priest charged with a sexual offense, and that it is almost impossible for a Catholic priest to be processed fairly by jury and judge.

At the time of Father Gordon’s prosecution there was a climate of media-fueled national hysteria regarding any allegation of sexual offenses on anyone under 18 years of age, whether true or false, especially if a Catholic priest was purportedly involved. Such a climate almost entirely preempted juries from fairly applying the reasonable doubt standard, as they were and are prone to believe any allegation of sexual misconduct no matter how bizarre. Many legal scholars have examined the hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s, and equate this period to the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century. The prosecution of Father MacRae was also fueled by sensationalistic media hype with little concern for civil liberties and the presumption of innocence. As one court put it at that time:

“[A] series of highly questionable child sex abuse prosecutions … were fueled by a vast moral panic … a period in which allegations of outrageously bizarre and often ritualistic child abuse spread like wildfire across the country and garnered world-wide media attention.” “[T]remendous emotion [was] generated by the public” as a result of which “the criminal process often fail[ed]”

— ”Friedman v. Rehal”, 618 F.3d 142, 155, 158 (2 Cir. 2010).

The genesis of the criminal prosecution of Father Gordon MacRae is no different than what is to be found in most other wrongful convictions. The convergence of factors in this case was a perfect storm for this wrongful conviction. In the wake of these factors, Father Gordon had zero chance of receiving a fair trial and being acquitted of the false charges at trial. As a practicing criminal defense attorney involved in many such cases over the last 25 years, any defendant charged with such a crime must actually attempt to prove his or her innocence. The jury has a sacred duty when charged with deliberating a criminal case: they are to respect that the defendant is innocent and has no burden to prove that innocence, with the burden of proving guilt beyond any reasonable doubt belonging to the prosecution. All of this is often ignored by juries.

In Father Gordon’s case, the evidence is overwhelming that false criminal allegations were brought by a manipulative man with a financial motive to lie. The accuser was trained and coached during the entire process by his attorney, who was seeking a large payout from the diocese of Manchester. The accuser had a long history of alcohol and drug abuse and involvement in the criminal justice system as well as a long history of opportunistic and manipulative lying. Years after the verdict, it was discovered that he bragged to friends and family members how he manipulated the justice system and the diocese. The entire prosecution of Father MacRae hinged upon the inconsistent, contradictory, and incredulous testimony of this one accuser. Father Gordon’s only “crime” had been to try to help this young man who had no family support and was heading down the path to destruction.

In the early 1990s it was common knowledge in New Hampshire that the Diocese of Manchester, as other dioceses in the United States, was paying huge sums of money to anyone claiming to have been abused by a priest. The Diocese was making these payments while conducting little or no investigation to determine the validity of the claims. It was a windfall for predatory personal injury attorneys making money off the backs of faithful parishioners, and a dream come true for scammers and fraudsters looking to cash in. Such was Thomas Grover, a foster child of the Grover family, which sought the help of Father Gordon to counsel and help Thomas. His foster parents struggled with their son’s alcohol and drug abuse, as well as with his mental health problems and frequent run-ins with the law. Years later, when Thomas Grover became aware of the large amounts of money that the Diocese was paying out to accusers, saw his opportunity to make a large amount of money. This was the way he “thanked” Father Gordon for all that he had done for him, weaving a string of lies impossible to refute.

There was not a single witness except Grover himself, which makes his story absurd, since he claimed that he was assaulted by Father Gordon in very public areas. Yet, Manchester Diocese paid him nearly $200,000.00.

Based on legal papers submitted in federal court, credible witnesses have now been located and have come forward, willing to testify that Grover admitted committing perjury at trial, and bragged about how he scammed the diocese and the justice system. Grover’s former wife, Trina Ghedoni, and stepson, Charles Glenn, have admitted that he was a “compulsive liar”, “manipulator”, “drama queen” and “hustler” who had a long history of lying to get what he wanted. When confronted with his lies, he “would lose his temper”, and would then admit himself into the psychiatric unit at Elliot Hospital. While seeking “help”, he would accuse others of molesting him. He accused another unnamed clergyman as well as his foster father and baby sitters when he was a child. In addition to his psychological state and alcohol and drug addition, he had an extensive criminal history prior to making his false allegations against Father Gordon. Grover was arrested and convicted for two burglaries, two forgeries, two thefts, theft by deception, assault on a police officer, and aggravated assault on his former wife when he broke her nose during one of many such beatings. His former wife considered him to be a sexual predator, and never left her two daughters from another relationship alone with him while they were living together, as he would eye and grope them.

In April of 2005, the lead detective James F. McLaughlin was confronted with these sobering facts about Grover in The Wall Street Journal articles by Dorothy Rabinowitz about the unjust conviction of Father Gordon. In response to his botched and incompetent investigation, McLaughlin made himself a self-appointed psychologist and responded remarkably by saying: “So we had all these elevated activities with our male victims, so in a sense, when you have a victim present that has this baggage, it’s corroborative of their victimization” (“Story of Jailed Priest Retold”, The Union Leader: Manchester NH, April 28, 2005).

At trial, Grover lied and told the jury that he needed money from his lawsuit with the Diocese for therapy because of the “abuse.” However, after his $200,000.00 payout, and after the trial was over, Grover did not attend one therapy session but took his former wife to Arizona, where he blew it all on alcohol, drugs, cars, pornography and gambling. In fact on that trip he lost about $70,000.00 on a Las Vegas gambling spree. In addition, he stiffed the casino another $50.000.00 on a credit line which he fraudulently applied for by providing false information about his job and income. A collection action initiated by the casino was unsuccessful. His wife finally left him in 1998 when the money was gone, and Grover was caught in bed with his biological sister.

Grover’s testimony at trial did not border on the absurd; it was absurd. His shifty testimony was fantastic, nonsensical and contradictory. When he was spoon-fed by the direct questioning of prosecutor Bruce Elliot Reynolds, he was able to recite his rehearsed testimony. However, on cross-examination it was far different. Every time he was trapped in a lie or inconsistent statement he fell back on his rehearsed line, saying that question “overloads my mind and… leaves me more or less in shock for days after…”

When Grover was confronted as to why he did not report the abuse for 10 years he claimed that he repressed the memory of the abuse, and it was “difficult to talk [about it] in front of people” until he spoke to his attorneys.

The fundamental question must be asked about our justice system; how could any reasonable jury, having the sworn duty to acquit Father Gordon unless the prosecution proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, find him guilty under this type of incredulous testimony? The State had the burden of proof. How could they have gotten it so wrong? Before a jury could find him guilty they would have to have found Grover’s testimony completely credible. Under our criminal justice system no competent and reasonable jury should have found this type of testimony sufficient to convict a Catholic priest who, previous to these series of false allegations, had never been convicted of anything.

Not unlike other unjust convictions, the law enforcement investigation of Father Gordon was both overzealous and intentionally unfair. The lead detective, James F. McLaughlin, was not interested in a fair and impartial investigation, but only in creating and spinning the facts to support his — and eventually the prosecution’s — theory of the case. McLaughlin also suppressed any facts which clearly pointed out that Father Gordon was innocent of the false allegations made by the accuser. McLaughlin engaged in investigating this matter in a way that was patently unfair and used his power as a law enforcement officer to suppress witnesses who were willing to testify for Father Gordon MacRae.

To make matters worse, Father Gordon’s bishop at the time of his trial did not support him, but in fact allowed his office to issue a press release prior to trial which literally condemned the accused priest. This misstatement by the bishop helped fuel media hysteria, and it unquestionably tainted the potential jury pool, insuring the prosecution of a conviction. The bishop did not stand up for one of his priests with courage, but rather retreated to bureaucratic-clericalism, more worried about pleasing his lawyers, insurance carrier and insulating the diocese from potential civil liability. This abandonment by the diocese has continued for 30 years. The bishop’s technique accomplished nothing because the diocese paid out monetary awards to any and all accusers. The greater cost, of course, was the loss of any trust of the priests of the diocese for the bishop and chancery. Not only was Father Gordon not able to count on his bishop for support, but the bishop negligently or intentionally acted in such a way as to let the public be given the message that Father Gordon was guilty. The bishop needs to answer questions about sacrificing priests on the altar of insurance considerations. To date it is conservatively estimated that the Church in the United States has paid over $4 billion in claims because of the sexual abuse scandal. How many of these claims were outright false can only be guessed. In any case, the bishop distanced himself from Father MacRae and left him on his own.

If the cards were not already stacked against Father Gordon, his defense attorney at trial was no help. Father Gordon was represented by Ron Koch, an attorney from New Mexico, who died in the year 2000 at the age of 49. Although this attorney did his best to defend Father Gordon, he nevertheless made critical trial errors which hurt the defense and opened the door for the prosecutor to introduce prejudicial evidence which the trial judge had already ruled was inadmissible and not relevant. Mr. Koch was forced to split his time between his active criminal practice in New Mexico and preparing for Father’s Gordon’s trial, which Mr. Koch was unable to do. Mr. Koch failed to conduct important pretrial discovery and inadequately prepared the case for trial. Father Gordon trial counsel was unprepared and out matched, and therefore constitutionally ineffective. Father Gordon’s constitutional rights to procedural due process and a fair trial were eviscerated. Mr. Koch failed to interview and subpoena critical witnesses for the defense, failed to go to the scene in which Grover alleged that he had been touched, and lastly, failed to preserve attorney-client privileged documents which Koch turned over to the prosecution.

Many people unfamiliar with the criminal justice system in the United States believe that the criminal justice system eventually corrects an unjust conviction. This sadly is the exception and not the rule. Under our judicial system the jury verdict is final, and most appeals, regardless as to the justice of the verdict are denied. Father Gordon is going on 30 years of imprisonment. Every appeal has been rejected without hearing. No judge in New Hampshire would agree to hear new evidence or new witnesses in this matter. On March 17, 2015, federal district court Judge Joseph Laplante, who many had high hopes would grant Father MacRae’s writ of habeas corpus, instead, granted the State of New Hampshire’s motion to dismiss on the pleadings. The judge did not even grant Father Gordon an evidentiary hearing.

The Catholic Church cannot proclaim the fullness of the truth without its priests. Every priest has been called by God for this mission. The Church has no alternative but to pursue and fight for authentic justice, and it must start with Father Gordon MacRae. No pope, cardinal, bishop, priest, or anyone among the laity can sit by and permit this injustice to continue. Diabolic advocacy and persecution of the Church has prevailed and will continue. Satan knows his enemy, and his enemy is the Holy Roman Catholic Church, in particular its clergy. Satan’s relentless pursuit is against the only institutional defender of natural law and of life in the world, from the moment of conception to natural death, the Catholic Church.

St. John Vianney, the patron of parish priests, understood this all too well. He was also subjected to outrageous lies about his character when he made this profound statement over 150 years ago:

“When people wish to destroy religion, they begin by attacking the priest, because where there is no longer any priest, there is no sacrifice, and where there is no longer any sacrifice, there is no religion.”

At the end of our brief temporal life all of us will be judged for what we “did and failed to do”; did we all do what is right and just?

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Vincent James Sanzone, Jr., Esq., loves his Catholic faith, and has been a practicing criminal defense attorney in New Jersey for the last 35 years. Attorney Sanzone is a member of the New Jersey Bar Association, of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, and of the Legal Center for Defense of Life. He is admitted to the bar in the State of New Jersey and the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey as well as Federal Appeals Courts for the Third and Fourth Circuits. In addition, he has been admitted to practice pro hac vice in the Southern District of New York, and in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Attorney Sanzone has argued successfully before the New Jersey Supreme Court, and has tried hundreds of criminal trials. Many of his clients were minority young men and women who were acquitted of all charges at trial and went on to live exemplary lives.

The Prison of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Silence

The Diocese of Manchester demonstrates the difference between the stated rights of accused Catholic priests in Church law and actual observance of those rights.

February 26, 2014 by Ryan A. MacDonald (updated June 14, 2025)

Editor’s Note: This is Part Two of a guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald. Part One was “The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud.”

“I don’t share your belief in Father MacRae’s innocence. I just don’t believe a judge and jury would sentence a priest to life in prison with anything less than clear and compelling evidence.”

The above quote was the reply of a prominent American Catholic writer when I challenged him to take a closer look at the trial and imprisonment of Father Gordon MacRae. There is nothing to be gained by publishing the writer’s name. I still hope he might accept my challenge to study this matter with more depth than the New Hampshire news media and priests of the Diocese of Manchester have given it. I have asked the writer to show me the evidence he feels so certain must exist. He is wrong about this. There is simply no factual evidence to support this conviction.

But for some, the absence of evidence is evidence of evidence. That Catholic writer’s presumption about evenhanded justice and due process reflects the naiveté of the innocent and just. I once shared such naiveté, but I have since learned that ignorance is not bliss. I know too much about this case to cling to any delusions that everyone in prison must be guilty, or that a Catholic priest, while actually innocent, could not be railroaded into prison based on false witness.

So does The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz, one of the most just and courageous journalists I know. She has a talent for enabling readers to place themselves in the shoes of the falsely accused, and it’s a terrifying place to be. A recent article, “On Woody Allen and Echoes of the Past” (WSJ.com, February 9, 2014), had that same effect. It isn’t long, but it’s compelling and powerful.

Despite its title, the article’s great power is in its depiction of falsely accused men and women — such as Violet, Cheryl, and Gerald Amirault of Massachusetts and Kelly Michaels of New Jersey — who were ripped from ordinary lives to be tried and sent to prison because of trumped up charges, lots of media hype, and the ambitions of prosecutors.

These same people were profiled in No Crueler Tyrannies (WSJ Books, 2005), a book by Dorothy Rabinowitz that has opened many eyes, including mine. She found a common denominator among those falsely accused and betrayed by the justice system during the “child terror” prosecutions of the 1980s and 1990s, the same era, and the same terror, that convicted Father MacRae. Rabinowitz wrote,

“Those who are falsely accused often naively believe that their innocence is obvious, that the allegations will be dropped.”

In “Judge Arthur Brennan Sentenced Fr Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison,” I wrote that plea deals work well for the guilty but not for the innocent. The guilty come before the justice system prepared to limit punishment by accepting any reasonable plea deal offered. The innocent cannot fathom such twisted justice, and therefore often spend far more time in prison than the guilty.

For preserving his right to a presumption of innocence and a fair trial — though he got neither, as you will see, from either Church or State — Father Gordon MacRae was sentenced by Judge Arthur Brennan to more than 30 times the sentence offered by prosecutors in the plea deal he refused. As I wrote in part one of this article last week, it is a perversion of justice that, had he been actually guilty, this priest would have been released from prison 17 years ago.

The Lie Detector Disaster

In the above article, Dorothy Rabinowitz cited that some of the innocent accused were anxious to take lie detector tests (aka polygraphs). Those who passed them, however, did so to no avail as prosecutors refused to consider, or even hear, the results. Father MacRae also voluntarily submitted to two lie detector tests conducted by an expert who reviewed the claims of Thomas Grover and his brothers, Jonathan and David Grover, who also accused the priest for settlement money from his diocese. I have repeatedly called upon MacRae’s accusers to agree to lie detector tests, a challenge met only with silence.

Had Father MacRae failed the polygraphs administered before his trial, you can be certain that fact would have found its way into court, or at least into the newspapers. He passed them conclusively, but the results were ignored, and not only by state prosecutors. The most difficult act of suppression to comprehend came from his bishop and diocese.

Defense attorney Ron Koch (pronounced “Coke”) often appeared to be as naive and trusting as his client. He seemed to believe that the Diocese of Manchester might be more inclined to defend its priest if clarity about his innocence could be established. However passing pre-trial lie detector tests, and making that fact known, actually proved disastrous for the defense of Father MacRae.

Within weeks of the defense lawyer’s effort to have polygraph results reviewed by Church lawyers, the Diocese of Manchester issued a press release that inflicted a mortal wound to MacRae’s civil and canonical rights. Plastered in the news media throughout New England before jury selection in his trial, this press release destroyed his defense in the court of public opinion, and influenced jurors in the court of law:

“The Bishop and the Church are saddened by and grieve with the victims of Gordon MacRae…and he was ultimately removed from his status as one who could ever function as a priest again…The Church is a victim of the actions of Gordon MacRae as well as the individuals… [The Diocese] will defend its officials who have been falsely accused [and] it will continue to cooperate in bringing those who have harmed others to light.”

— Bishop of Manchester Press Release, Sept. 11, 1993

Canonical Advocate, Father David Deibel, J.C.L., J.D., protested this gross violation of Church law and civil liberties. He was reportedly told that the press release “was a carefully crafted statement meant to respond to media concerns” about the MacRae case. When defense attorney Ron Koch called to protest, he was told that Father MacRae was the sole priest to have been so accused in the Diocese of Manchester.

Nine years later, officials for the Manchester Diocese worked out a plea deal of their own to avoid a misdemeanor charge based on a theory of law the state’s Attorney General admitted was “novel.” The published files as a result of that deal revealed that 62 New Hampshire priests had been accused, and some $23 million changed hands in mediated settlements. 

 For his first six years in prison, 17 miles from the Chancery Office of the Diocese of Manchester, Father MacRae was summarily abandoned. The company line was that it was MacRae himself who refused to be visited in prison by any priest. The bitter refusal was reportedly issued through unnamed third parties who have never been identified. However, the prison’s Catholic chaplain during Father MacRae’s first years in prison saw this differently:

“I have been told by priests that Diocesan officials claimed that Father MacRae refused, through unnamed third parties, to be visited by a priest … During my tenure as chaplain, no one representing the diocese ever asked me to arrange a visit with Father MacRae [who] indicated to me he would welcome such contacts … . It remains my belief that Father MacRae is for some reason viewed differently from other priests that are, or have been, incarcerated.”

— Prison Chaplain John R. Sweeney, Sept. 20, 2004

Bishop’s Delegate Monsignor Edward Arsenault

Two years ago, I wrote an article entitled “To Azazel: Father Gordon MacRae and the Gospel of Mercy.” It was about some shockingly uncharitable conduct toward this imprisoned priest, but the offenders were not other prisoners trying to make names for themselves in the brutal prison culture. They were priests of the Diocese of Manchester.

In the year 2000, however, Diocesan interest in Father MacRae was radically altered when it became known that two media giants, Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal, and PBS Frontline, expressed interest in the facts of this case. You may read for yourselves the manipulation aimed at this imprisoned priest, and the devastation of his rights in an article by Father George David Byers entitled, “Omertà in a Catholic Chancery — Affidavits Expanded.”

Throughout this period, the official Delegate (2000 until 2009) for the Bishop of Manchester was Monsignor Edward Arsenault. His published resume reveals that he personally negotiated mediated settlements in 250 claims against Diocese of Manchester priests. At the same time, Monsignor Arsenault was wearing another hat — some might say a highly conflicting one.

While negotiating settlements in the MacRae case and hundreds of others on behalf of the Diocese of Manchester, Arsenault was also Chairman of the Board of the National Catholic Risk Retention Group, an organization underwriting insurers of Catholic institutions and dioceses across the U.S. It is unclear which of these hats Monsignor Arsenault was wearing when he negotiated this typical round of mediated settlements described in David F. Pierre’s 2012 book, Catholic Priests Falsely Accused:

“In 2002, the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, faced accusations of abuse from 62 individuals. Rather than spending the time and resources looking into the merits of the accusations, ‘Diocesan officials did not even ask for specifics such as the dates and specific allegations for the claims,’ New Hampshire’s Union Leader Reported. ‘Some victims made claims in just the past month and because of the timing of negotiations, gained closure in just a matter of days,’ reported the Nashua Telegraph. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ a pleased and much richer plaintiff attorney admitted.”

— Catholic Priests Falsely Accused, p. 80

In 2001, Monsignor Edward Arsenault developed a policy statement for the Diocese of Manchester. As Bishop John McCormack’s Delegate, Monsignor Arsenault published the “Diocese of Manchester Statement of Rights and Obligations of Persons Accused of Sexual Misconduct.” The document was straightforward, and listed, in accord with Canon law and Diocesan policy, the rights of the accused and the obligations of the Diocese:

• The Delegate (Monsignor Edward Arsenault) will:

  • Inform the person being interviewed of the process to be used;

  • Inform the person being interviewed what information will be shared with whom;

  • Inform the person being interviewed that he [the Delegate] is acting in the external forum on
 behalf of the Bishop of Manchester;

  • Inform the person being interviewed that any and all information disclosed will be treated with discretion, but not subject to confidentiality…

• Rights of the Person Accused: The accused cleric or religious has:

  • The right not to implicate oneself;

  • The right to counsel, civil and canonical;

  • The right to review the results of one’s own psychological evaluations;

  • The right to know what has been alleged and to offer a defense against the allegations;

  • The right to know and understand the review process;

  • The right to discretion in the conduct of the investigation and to have his/her good name protected.

Over the next three years as the Diocese of Manchester submitted individual cases to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, every tenet of the above statement of rights was silently ignored or outright violated by Monsignor Arsenault and officials of the Diocese of Manchester in regard to the case of Father MacRae.

No investigations took place. No interviews took place. The imprisoned priest’s repeated requests for details of what has been represented in Rome in regard to this case have been ignored, and no right of defense has been honored. The promised assistance of legal counsel was never acted upon. Repeated and documented requests from Father MacRae that Bishop John McCormack and Monsignor Arsenault agree to confer with his Canonical Advocate to assure his rights under Church law were refused.

In the ultimate insult, when Monsignor Arsenault finally did agree to consult Father Deibel, the canonical advocate, he reportedly told the priest that, should Father MacRae be involuntarily laicized, “I’m sure Bishop McCormack will still send him $100 a month” to survive in prison. The suggestion that this was MacRae’s sole concern for the future of his priesthood left him feeling humiliated and violated.

A promise by Bishop McCormack to set aside $40,000 for Father MacRae’s appellate defense — on the condition that he set aside contacts with Dorothy Rabinowitz and The Wall Street Journal — was instead used to hire counsel to bypass MacRae’s lawyers and investigators, and to conduct a secret review of his trial and any chance of overturning the convictions. To this day, Monsignor Arsenault and the Bishop of Manchester have ignored requests to share that review with the wrongly imprisoned priest’s defense team struggling to afford his day in court.

Remember Those in Prison as Though in Prison with Them (Heb. 13:3)

In 2009, Monsignor Edward Arsenault was appointed Executive Director of Saint Luke Institute, a nationally known facility in Maryland for the psychological treatment of priests. Bishop John McCormack was the sole U.S. bishop on the Saint Luke Institute Board of Directors at the time. Monsignor Arsenault took leave from the diocese to assume the post with an annual salary of $170,000.

Earlier this month, on February 4, 2014, the news media announced that Monsignor Edward Arsenault has accepted a plea deal to plead guilty to three felony charges. He was indicted on multiple counts, and has agreed to plead guilty to the theft of thousands of dollars from the Diocese of Manchester while serving as Chancellor and Bishop’s Delegate, from Catholic Medical Center Hospital where he served on its Board of Directors, and from the estate of a deceased priest of the Manchester Diocese for which he served as Executor. According to news reports, the theft of funds from the Diocese of Manchester continued until 2013, four years after Monsignor Arsenault began his $170,000 a year post at Saint Luke Institute.

The plea deal Monsignor Arsenault has entered into forgoes trial and any testimony under oath. The exact number of felony charges and the exact amounts of stolen funds involved have not been made public, and possibly never will be. The New Hampshire Attorney General stated that the plea deal, and the minimum four year prison sentence Monsignor Arsenault has agreed to, are in “recognition of the extensive cooperation of the defendant,” and in anticipation of his continued cooperation in the ongoing investigation of “improper financial transactions.”

The investigation into financial wrongdoing was launched, according to news sources, when the Diocese began investigating a “potentially inappropriate adult relationship.”

For at least the next four years, Monsignor Edward Arsenault will share the same prison as Father Gordon MacRae, a priest who — armed only with the truth and his faith — refused plea bargains to face the cruelest of tyrannies, wrongful imprisonment. This is the priest against whom Monsignor Edward Arsenault and his prosecutorial friends have worked so arduously, and in secret, to undo and discard.

UPDATE:

Monsignor Arsenault served only a few weeks of his sentence in the New Hampshire State Prison. He was moved early one morning to serve out his sentence in the Cheshire County House of Corrections. This, we are told, was highly unusual. A State Senator who asked not to be named said that Monsignor Arsenault received “very special treatment” in the judicial and corrections systems. Special treatment did not end here. After serving only two years of the four-to-twenty year sentence, Arsenault’s sentence was commuted to house arrest. While serving that sentence his $300,000 restitution was paid by unnamed third parties. His entire twenty year sentence was then commuted by Judge Diane Nicolosi. Subsequently, Arsenault was dismissed from the clerical state by Pope Francis. In April of 2021 he legally changed his name to Edward J. Bolognini.

Under this new name, with his $300,000 restitution paid by unnamed third parties and his sentence for multiple financial felonies suddenly commuted Edward J. Bolognini was awarded with management of a multimillion dollar contract with the City of New York.

In 2018, sixteen years after Fr. MacRae and his advocates were told that MacRae was the only of the Manchester Diocese ever to be accused, current Bishop Peter A. Libasci proactively published a list of 73 priests of the Diocese of Manchester accused of sexual abuse. He cited “transparency” as his motive for publishing the list. Subsequently, Bishop Peter A. Libasci was himself accused of sexual abuse dating from his years as a priest in the Diocese of Rockville Center, New York. The charges were alleged to have occurred in 1983, the same year as the charges against Fr. MacRae.

Bishop Libasci maintains his innocence and remains Bishop of Manchester, and all transparency ceased.

In October 2022, The Wall Street Journal published its fourth article on this matter entitled, “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae.”

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The Trial of Father MacRae: A Conspiracy of Fraud

Former Judge Arthur Brennan

Arrested at a Washington, DC protest in 2011

For Catholic priests, merely being accused is now evidence of guilt. A closer look at the prosecution of Fr. Gordon MacRae opens a window onto a grave injustice.

Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald.

“Those aware of the facts of this case find it hard to imagine that any court today would ignore the perversion of justice it represents.”

— Dorothy Rabinowitz, The Wall Street Journal, May 11, 2013

The above quote says it all. I wrote for These Stone Walls two weeks ago to announce a new federal appeal filed in the Father Gordon MacRae case. I mentioned my hope to write in more detail about the perversion of justice cited by Dorothy Rabinowitz in “The Trials of Father MacRae,” her third major article on the MacRae case in The Wall Street Journal.

The details of how such injustice is perpetrated are especially important in cases like Father MacRae’s because there was no evidence of guilt — not one scintilla of evidence — presented to the jury in his 1994 trial. I recently wrote “Justice and a Priest’s Right of Defense in the Diocese of Manchester,” an article with photographs of the exact location where the charges against this priest were claimed to have occurred. If you read it, you can judge for yourself whether those charges were even plausible.

The sexual assaults for which Father Gordon MacRae has served two decades in prison were to have taken place five times in as many weeks, all in the light of day in one of the busiest places in downtown Keene, New Hampshire. Yet no one saw anything. No one heard anything. Accuser Thomas Grover — almost age 16 when he says it happened, and age 26 when he first accused the priest — testified that he returned from week to week after each assault because he repressed the memory of it all while having a weekly “out-of-body experience.”

The complete absence of evidence in the case might have posed a challenge for the prosecution if not for a pervasive climate of accusation, suspicion, and greed. It was the climate alone that convicted this priest, that and a press release from the Diocese of Manchester that declared him guilty before his trial commenced. As Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote,

“Diocesan officials had evidently found it inconvenient to dally while due process took its course.”

It was 1994, the onset of fear and loathing when many New England priests were accused, when the news media focused its sights on Catholic scandal, when lawyers and insurance companies for bishops and dioceses urged as much distance as possible from the accused while quiet settlements mediated from behind closed doors doled out millions to accusers and their lawyers. Accusation alone became all the evidence needed to convict a priest, and in Keene, New Hampshire — according to some who were in their teens and twenties then — word got out that accusing a priest was like winning the lottery.

The fact that little Keene, NH — a town of about 22,000 in 1994 — had a full time sex crimes detective on its police force of 30 brought an eager ace crusader into the deck stacking against Gordon MacRae. By the time of the 1994 trial, Detective James F. McLaughlin boasted of having found more than 1,000 victims of sexual abuse in 750 cases in Keene. The concept that someone might be falsely accused escaped him completely. He reportedly once told Father MacRae, “I have to believe my victims.” This priest WAS one of his victims.

The only “hard evidence” placed before the MacRae jury was a document proving that he is in fact an ordained Catholic priest. The prosecution was aided much by an outrageous statement from Judge Arthur Brennan instructing jurors to disregard inconsistencies in Thomas Grover’s testimony. This is no exaggeration. As Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote, those jurors “had much to disregard.”

It is important to unravel the facts of this prosecution, not all of which could appear in the current appeal briefs. I have done some of this unraveling in an article entitled, “In the Fr Gordon MacRae Case, Whack-A-Mole Justice Holds Court.” I consider it an important article because it addresses head-on many of the distortions put forth by those committed to keeping the momentum against priests and the Church going. This is a lucrative business, after all. Most importantly, that article exposes the “serial victims” behind MacRae’s prosecution.

Seduced and Betrayed

Had I been a member of the jury that convicted Father MacRae, I would no doubt feel betrayed today to learn that Thomas Grover, a sole accuser at trial, accused so many men of sexual abuse “that he appeared to be going for some sort of sexual abuse victim world record” according to Grover’s counselor, Ms. Debbie Collett. That fact was kept from the jury, and if any one was seduced in this case, it was the jurors themselves.

Ms. Collett reports today that Grover accused many — including his adoptive father — during therapy sessions with her in the late 1980s, but never accused MacRae. Ms. Collett also reports today that she was herself “badgered, coerced, and threatened” by Detective McLaughlin and another Keene police officer into altering her testimony and withholding the truth about Thomas Grover’s other past abuse claims from the jury. If the justice system does not take seriously her statement about pre-trial coercion, it undermines the very foundations of due process.

I subscribe to The Wall Street Journal’s weekly “Law Blog” entries in its online edition. A recent posting was by a high-profile corporate lawyer who occasionally undertakes appeals for wrongfully convicted criminal defendants. After winning the freedom of one unjustly imprisoned man who served 15 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, the lawyer wrote that justice has a greater hope of prevailing in such a case when a layman with no training in the law can read the legal briefs in an appeal and conclude beyond a doubt that an injustice has indeed taken place.

This was exactly my reaction after reading Attorney Robert Rosenthal’s federal appeal brief filed on behalf of Father MacRae. I have heard of similar reactions from others. One reader recently wrote, “I just read the appeal brief and I’m stunned! How was this man ever convicted in a US court of law?” Another reader wrote, “Taken as a whole, the MacRae trial was a serious breach of American justice and decency. Had I been a juror, I would today feel betrayed and angry by what I have just learned.”

A few weeks ago in his post on These Stone Walls, Father MacRae wrote of how justice itself was a victim in the prosecution of Monsignor William Lynn in a Philadelphia courtroom. That conviction was recently reversed by an appeals court in a ruling that described that trial and conviction as “fundamentally flawed.” In his appeal of Father MacRae’s trial, Attorney Robert Rosenthal has masterfully demonstrated the fundamental flaws that brought about the prosecution of MacRae and the verdict that sent him to prison. Taken as a whole, no competent person could conclude from those pleadings that the conviction against this priest should stand.

Psychotherapist for the Prosecution

I would like to seize upon a few of the details, and magnify them to demonstrate just how very flawed this trial was. I’ll begin with some excerpts from a document I recently obtained in this case. It is a letter written by an observer at Father MacRae’s 1994 trial.

The letter, dated October 30, 2013, was addressed to retired judge Arthur Brennan who presided over the trial of Father MacRae and who sentenced him to a prison term of 67 years. The letter was written by a man whose career was in the news media, a fact that very much influenced his attention to detail throughout the trial of Father MacRae. The letter writer expressed to the retired judge that he held his pen for so many years, but now that state courts are no longer involved in this appeal, he felt more free to write. Here is a portion of that letter:

“We saw something in your courtroom during the MacRae trial that I don’t think you ever saw. My wife nudged me and pointed to a woman, Ms. Pauline Goupil, who was engaged in what appeared to be clear witness tampering. During questioning by the defense attorney, Thomas Grover seemed to feel trapped a few times. On some of those occasions, we witnessed Pauline Goupil make a distinct sad expression with a downturned mouth and gesturing her finger from the corner of her eye down her cheek at which point Mr. Grover would begin to cry and sob.”

— Letter to retired judge Arthur Brennan, October 30, 2013

Pauline Goupil was called under oath to the witness stand in the 1994 trial where she produced a bare bones treatment file of Thomas Grover that contained little, if any, information about claims against Father MacRae. She stated under oath that this was her entire file.

Two years later, Ms. Goupil testified in an evidentiary hearing about the lawsuits brought by Thomas Grover and three of his brothers against Father MacRae and the Diocese of Manchester. Under oath in that hearing, Pauline Goupil referenced an extensive file with many notations about claims against Father MacRae and about how she helped Thomas Grover to “remember” the details of his claims. In one of these two testimonies under oath — or perhaps in both — Pauline Goupil appears to have committed perjury.

In a brief, defensive hand-written reply to the above letter from the unnamed trial observer, retired Judge Brennan referred to the testimony of “young Thomas Grover” at the MacRae trial. This spoke volumes about that judge’s view of this case. The “young Thomas Grover” on the witness stand in Judge Brennan’s court was a 5’ 11” 220-lb., 27-year-old man with a criminal record of assault, forgery, drug, burglary, and theft charges. Prior to the trial, he was charged with beating his ex-wife. “He broke my nose,” she says today. The charge was dropped after MacRae’s trial. Once again, from the observer’s letter to the retired judge:

“Secondly, I was struck by the difference in Thomas Grover’s demeanor on the witness stand in your court and his demeanor just moments before and after outside the courtroom. On the stand he wept and appeared to be a vulnerable victim. Moments later, during court recess, in the parking lot he was loud, boisterous and aggressive. One time he even confronted me in a threatening attempt to alter my own testimony during sentencing.”

— Letter to retired Judge Brennan, October 30, 2013

And lest we forget, the sentence of 67 years was imposed by Judge Arthur Brennan after Father MacRae three times refused a prosecution plea deal to serve only one to three years in exchange for an admission of guilt. It is one of the ironic challenges to justice in this case that had Father MacRae been actually guilty, he would have been released from prison 17 years ago.

Like others involved in this trial, Ms. Pauline Goupil was contacted by retired FBI Special Agent James Abbott who conducted an investigation of the case over the last few years. Ms. Goupil refused to be interviewed or to answer any questions.

Thomas Grover, today taking refuge on a Native American reservation in Arizona, also refused to answer questions when found by Investigator James Abbott. He reportedly did not present as someone victimized by a parish priest, but rather as someone caught in a monumental lie. “I want a lawyer!” was all he would say. We all watch TV’s “Law and Order.” We all know what “I want a lawyer” means.

The Story Buried Under the Fr. Gordon MacRae Case

A troubling back story in the trial and lawsuits against Father Gordon MacRae has been in open view for two decades, but suppressed by both Church and State.

Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Ryan A. MacDonald who writes at A Ram in the Thicket and is a contributing writer for Beyond These Stone Walls.

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In an article I wrote last September entitled “Judge Arthur Brennan sentenced Father Gordon MacRae to Die in Prison,” I aimed a spotlight at the glaring injustice of the 1994 prosecution of Father Gordon MacRae. Also in these pages, Fr. George David Byers wrote “A Code of Silence in the U.S. Catholic Church: Affidavits.” It aimed another spotlight at a Church hierarchy morally paralyzed by litigation. A full and transparent view of justice now requires unveiling a related story in the background of the troubling case against Father Gordon MacRae. It’s a story, as the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus once described in the pages of First Things magazine (June/July 2009), “of a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

This account begins in tragedy. Shortly after noon on Friday, May 11, 1979, Peter Linsley, 35, and Jane Linsley, 28, both of Concord, New Hampshire, walked unannounced through the open door of the rectory at Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Littleton, NH, a town of (then) about 5,400 in the north of that state. A year earlier, in May, 1978, Peter Linsley was discharged from the state psychiatric hospital on the grounds of the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord. He had been declared no longer a danger to himself or others. He previously entered a plea of innocent by reason of insanity to a charge of aggravated assault on a police officer in July, 1977.

As the Linsleys barged into the Littleton church rectory in May, 1979, two parishioners, Mrs. Patricia Lyons and her son, Michael, had been working inside. The home invaders brandished a pair of .357-caliber Magnum revolvers and declared themselves to be “King and Queen of the Church” sent there by God to “cleanse the temple.” They demanded to see the parish priest.

The priest assigned at Saint Rose of Lima Parish at the time was the Rev. Stephen Scruton. As the drama unfolded in his parish rectory that day, Fr. Scruton was aboard a plane somewhere over the Atlantic headed for a vacation in Ireland. With her son held at gunpoint, Mrs. Lyons telephoned Rev. Joseph Sands in the nearby town of Lancaster, about 15 miles away. At gunpoint, she asked the priest to come immediately. A half hour later, Father Sands became the Linsleys’ third hostage.

After the arrival of Father Sands, the couple ordered Mrs. Lyons to retrieve a dog left in their car, but once outside she ran for help. Meanwhile, the priest convinced her son, Mike, to escape by jumping from a second floor window, reportedly telling him, “If you want to get out alive, get out quickly.” Father Joe Sands thus made himself the sole hostage.

Mrs. Lyons went right to the police. Within a half hour, a State Police SWAT team surrounded the parish house, and established a telephone link with the Linsleys. The tape-recorded negotiations went on for the next five hours, ending at 5:22 PM when four shots were fired inside the rectory. Peter Linsley murdered Father Joe Sands, then shot and killed Jane Linsley, and then, finally, turned his gun on himself.

At the time in 1979, sitting New Hampshire Governor, the late Honorable Hugh Gallen was a native of Littleton and a friend of Father Stephen Scruton whose vacation was cut short as he was quickly returned to a parish mired in tragedy. According to a priest who had once lived in that rectory with Father Scruton, Governor Gallen took command of the scene and ordered the five hours of taped negotiations between the Linsleys and police negotiators to be sealed. The tapes never became public.

That priest, the late Rev. Maurice Rochefort, was a friend of both Father Joe Sands and Father Gordon MacRae, who , in 1979, was still three years away from priesthood ordination. Father Rochefort reportedly once told MacRae that the Littleton rectory and its parish priest were not random targets. He said that the gunman sought revenge against Father Stephen Scruton specifically for some unknown previous encounter at the church. That has long been rumored among priests of the Diocese of Manchester who knew Scruton, but none would respond to inquiries about Father Scruton or this incident.

A few years ago, Father MacRae wrote a haunting and deeply sad article entitled “Dark Night of a Priestly Soul.” It was about a priest he knew in his Diocese who in 2002 tragically took his own life after an accusation surfaced against him from 1972. That accusation was also alleged to have occurred at St. Rose of Lima Parish in Littleton. The accuser in that case also accused another priest, Fr. Stephen Scruton.

During the five years before the tragedy that took the life of Father Joe Sands, Gordon MacRae had been a seminary student with the New York Province of the Capuchin Order. After completing the one-year Capuchin novitiate in 1974, MacRae was assigned to Saint Anthony Friary in Hudson, NH from where he attended nearby Saint Anselm College. He graduated with degrees in philosophy and psychology, with honors, in 1978. During the summer of 1978, the young seminarian sought the counsel of fellow Capuchin and mentor, Father Benedict Groeschel, as he discerned leaving the Capuchins to pursue graduate studies in theology toward diocesan priesthood.

It was an amiable transition. For the next four years (1978 to 1982) seminarian Gordon MacRae studied at St. Mary Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland where he earned simultaneous graduate degrees in divinity and pastoral counseling, and a Pontifical degree in theology. For the next four summers MacRae worked in a three-year internship as a counselor with the Baltimore County Police Crisis Intervention Unit.

A year after the tragic murder of Father Sands, in June of 1980, Father Stephen Scruton was transferred from Littleton to Saint John Parish in Hudson, NH on the state’s southern border. Because seminarian Gordon MacRae had lived in that community as a Capuchin, he requested to be ordained at Saint John Church on June 5, 1982. He was the only candidate for priesthood ordination for the Diocese of Manchester that year. It was there, in late May and early June of 1982 that he first met Father Stephen Scruton.

During his first year of priesthood, Father MacRae was assigned to a deeply troubled parish where four nuns teaching in the parish school had an open and bitterly fought lawsuit against MacRae’s bishop and diocese. It was a situation that Father MacRae inherited, but had no connection to. His first assignment was in a parish deeply divided by this lawsuit and its state-wide publicity.

For an occasional day off, he would drive to Hudson where he had developed many friendships during his years as a Capuchin. On a few occasions, he also visited the three priests at Saint John Parish in Hudson where he was ordained.

During one of those visits in 1983, a Hudson parish secretary pulled Father MacRae aside and told him of a troubling incident in the rectory. She said that she suspected that Father Scruton’s assistant, Father Mark Fleming, had been sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in this rectory. She told Father MacRae that she saw nothing specific, but that her instinct on this was very strong. She said she tried to discuss this with Father Scruton, the pastor, but he brushed it aside and told her not to mention it to anyone else. Father MacRae reportedly told her that if she saw anything at all that caused her to make such a conclusion, she was obligated to report it to police. Other than that conversation, Father MacRae had no connection whatsoever to that case.

Soon after in 1983, Father Stephen Scruton reported to officials in the Diocese of Manchester that he walked in on and witnessed his associate, Father Mark Fleming, in a sexual incident with a minor boy from the parish. A report was made by the Diocese to state officials as required by New Hampshire law, and the state launched an investigation.

Nothing of this became public until two decades later when the Diocese of Manchester released its priests’ personnel files in an unprecedented agreement with the State Attorney General’s Office. It was revealed only twenty years after the 1983 investigation by the state, that Father Mark Fleming had abused three boys, all brothers. No criminal charges were filed, but Fleming was removed from ministry and placed at a psychiatric treatment center in St. Louis. In a 2003 article, the Nashua (NH) Telegraph reported on this story (Albert McKeon, “Priest Turned in another, then was also caught,” March 6, 2003).

In 1984, a year after the Hudson case involving Fathers Scruton and Fleming, Father Stephen Scruton was arrested for lewd conduct and indecent exposure at a highway rest area near Londonderry, NH. According to news accounts, those charges were dropped when he agreed to a plea deal for a misdemeanor charge of criminal trespass. Scruton was placed on leave of absence for six months, then assigned to a small parish in Bennington, NH to replace a priest on sick leave. Upon that priest’s return, he complained to Diocesan officials that Father Scruton embezzled parish funds. The priest threatened civil litigation, and Scruton was placed on leave again. During this period he was arrested a second time for lewd conduct and indecent exposure at a highway rest area in Massachusetts. Those charges were never fully processed.

In June of 1985, Father Stephen Scruton was assigned as pastor of Saint Bernard Parish in Keene, NH where Father Gordon MacRae had already served as associate pastor for the preceding two years. I have updated this story in an article at this site entitled, “Truth in Justice: Was the Wrong Catholic Priest Sent to Prison?” This document is well worth the time to understand the nightmarish conditions faced by MacRae in these years of priesthood.

Father Stephen Scruton was arrested once again for lewd conduct and indecent exposure at a highway rest area near Keene. His arrest occurred on the afternoon of Easter Sunday in 1987. In police reports, Father Scruton cited the stresses of Holy Week as the cause for his behavior. He pled guilty to the charge in Keene District Court.

To Father MacRae’s shock, Scruton was not immediately removed from the parish by Diocese of Manchester officials. In fact, MacRae heard nothing from anyone connected to his Diocese throughout Scruton’s arrest and the subsequent news accounts. Father Scruton granted an interview with a Keene Sentinel reporter to tell of how his arrest was an “opportunity” to educate the public about sexual addiction. It was then that Father MacRae picked up the phone and called Church officials to demand Scruton’s removal from the parish. Scruton was sent to a treatment facility in Golden Valley, MN, but not before a local bank official called Father MacRae to report Scruton’s embezzlement of $20,000 in parish funds.

Six years later, in 1994, Father Gordon MacRae faced criminal charges and simultaneous civil lawsuits brought by three brothers, Thomas, Jonathan, and David Grover alleging abuses from sometime between 1978 and 1983. Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote masterfully of the details of MacRae’s trial and the charges brought by these brothers and other related claims in “The Wall Street Journal on the Case of Fr. Gordon MacRae.”

Jonathan and David Grover, the first of the Grover brothers to make accusations, claimed to have been repeatedly assaulted in Saint Bernard Rectory in Keene, and in other places, by both Father Gordon MacRae and Father Stephen Scruton acting both separately and simultaneously. Both brothers had claimed that these assaults first occurred when they were twelve years old.

An immediate and never explained problem was that Father MacRae was never inside the Keene rectory until June of 1983 when Jonathan Grover was 14 years old and David Grover was just two weeks shy of turning 18. Father Scruton was never inside that rectory until June of 1985 when these brothers were ages 16 and 20 respectively. However, Father Scruton refused to answer any questions put by Father MacRae’s defense before trial, and fled the state when an attempt was made to subpoena him.

As these facts emerged pre-trial, the investigating police detective James F. McLaughlin did nothing. He recorded no interviews, left no evidence to determine who said what to whom and when. At one point, he gave the Grover brothers a copy of Father MacRae’s resume so they could get their dates straight. Then he simply eliminated Father Stephen Scruton from all future reports in the case as though his name had never come up.

The progression of this story from this point on is utterly shocking. It was documented by me in “Truth in Justice,” linked above.

After the onslaught of mediated settlements, many deceased priests of the Diocese of Manchester were accused, and could do nothing, of course, to defend themselves or their names. Nearly 30 years after his tragic murder in the Littleton rectory, Father Joseph Sands was posthumously accused.

In 2008 former FBI Special Agent, investigator James Abbott began a three-year investigation of this story. He located former priest Stephen Scruton living in Massachusetts. Agent Abbott placed a telephone call to the number at that address. When he asked for Stephen Scruton, a male voice was heard in the background: “Steve, this is your chance to help Gordon.” When Scruton took the phone he was highly agitated and nervous. He agreed to be interviewed by the former FBI agent, and they set a date for the interview one week later. When investigator Abbott showed up for the interview, Scruton refused to open the door, saying only that he has consulted with someone in the diocese and now declines to answer any questions. Two weeks later, Stephen Scruton suffered a catastrophic fall on the stairs of a Boston lawyer’s office. He never regained consciousness, and died just days later. He took the truth with him.

Former FBI agent James Abbott concluded his report on this investigation: “In my three-year investigation of this matter I found no evidence that Gordon J. MacRae committed these crimes, or any crimes.”

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Editor’s Note: The above was sadly not the only tragedy to occur with connections to Littleton, New Hampshire. Please read The Dark Night of a Priestly Soul.