Justice in the Tribunals of a Banana Republic

A writer from a self-described Third World country has some challenges for justice in both Church and State and the road ahead for a falsely accused priest in prison.

“The justice of New Hampshire found the priest guilty through a process no less infamous than those seen in the tribunals of any banana republic.”

— Carlos Caso-Rosendi in “Behold the Man!”

By Fr. Gordon J. MacRae — November 16, 2022

Carlos Caso-Rosendi, an accomplished author and translator in Buenos Aires, Argentina, published the fine article linked above in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. It is a superb commentary on the state of justice behind the years I have spent in prison. It challenges both Church and State to live up to the reasons for their existence. Here is a compelling excerpt:

“Many of us in the so-called ‘Third World’ look up to the United States of America as a model for what the administration of justice should be. While it is true that the United States has managed better than other countries to balance the interplay of state powers, we also must admit that those virtues have been shadowed by grievous errors such as justification of slavery, segregation, and lately of murder by abortion.

“Today I present the case of an innocent man, Fr. Gordon MacRae, who has spent the last twenty[-nine] years in prison unjustly condemned in circumstances that would cause any Stalinist magistrate of the former Soviet Union to blush. Someone with a well-known criminal record accused Fr. MacRae, an American citizen with full rights. The justice of New Hampshire found the priest guilty through a process no less infamous than those seen in the tribunals of any banana republic.”

— “Behold the Man!”

Mr. Carlos Caso-Rosendi’s use of the term, “Third World” has an interesting origin. In politics and sociology, it’s the accepted designation for an economically depressed or developing nation. The term arose during the Cold War when two opposing blocs — one led by the United States and the other by the Soviet Union — dominated world power. The Third World consisted of nations with less developed economies affiliated with neither bloc.

The term, Third World originated with Marxist psychiatrist and political theorist, Frantz Fanon, but it was perceived as negative and not always accepted by the nations on which the designation was imposed. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union as a political bloc in the early 1990s, “Third World” remains in use to refer to economically developing nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

From the pillars of power in the United States, the justice systems of Third World countries are often chastised for being woefully unjust, but not a lot of self-reflection went into that perception. Even setting aside how I came to be where I have been for over 29 years, there is a Third World country existing just beneath my feet. It is the U.S. prison system.

I really don’t have another way to describe it. When it rains, the power goes out. When it snows, the power goes out, when it’s windy, the power goes out. The prisoner telephone system would not be the envy of any Third World country. Prisoners exist in an Internet vacuum, trapped behind an iron and concrete curtain of world ignorance. Citizens in the prison labor force earn the equivalent of about $2.00 per day. The people amassed at the U.S. Southern border are fleeing the political oppression and poverty of Third World nations, but none of them come here for our justice system.

I thank Carlos Caso-Rosendi for writing with candor and truth what he sees from beyond the borders of the United States. He is not alone in his assessment. The great theologian, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, also had a candid description of how I got here. In “A Kafkaesque Tale” he described it as the story of “a Church and a justice system that seem indifferent to justice.”

Voices Heard Round the World

I owe a debt of thanks to Pornchai Moontri for the moving post he sent us from Thailand. In 29 years in prison, I have barely ever shed a tear. I am stubborn. I just wouldn’t give the dark powers that sent me here the satisfaction of my grief. But when reading “Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand” during a phone call with our editor, I had to pause three times to hold back tears so I could proceed. Pornchai’s post was sad, hopeful, deeply moving, and brilliant. Please pray for the people of Uthai Sawan, Thailand. I can only imagine their sorrow. And please pray for all the rest of us that in our divisions we may be given the grace of perspective from stories like the one Pornchai told us.

And I extend my gratitude to Attorney Harvey Silverglate whose Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae” is also seen around the world. He was joined in October by David F. Pierre, Jr of The Media Report. They published a series of riveting articles in the past month at Beyond These Stone Walls and elsewhere while I just sat back and let them do all the work. I cannot thank them enough. Catholic League President, Dr. Bill Donohue also stood with me in October to publish a press release about these developments. The timing of these guest writers stepping forward was providential.

Now I need to be candid with you. I began the year 2022 with a new ray of hope, but as this year wound down I saw some looming clouds of possible defeat on the horizon. A revelation in Harvey Silverglate’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Justice Delayed for Father MacRae” revealed that a court hearing was held in secret in New Hampshire and a judge agreed in secret to allow Detective James McLaughlin to be removed from the public list of officers found to have engaged in misconduct. Secret proceedings are just not a good look for a justice system fending off suspicions of corruption. It is in fact the look of what Carlos Caso-Rosendi describes as “the justice of a Banana Republic.”

That designation refers to a small country economically dependent on a single crop or a single product, often governed by a cabal of like-minded conspirators operating for their own benefit. The misconduct for which former Detective James McLaughlin stands accused has been central in the case against me. As a result, a lot of attention is being paid to Mr.Silverglate’s WSJ op-ed. Among the many affronts to justice covered in that article, Mr. Silverglate wrote:

“In a May 1994 lawsuit, Father MacRae alleged that Detective McLaughlin accused the priest of having taken pornographic photographs of one of the alleged victims. No such photos were ever found.”

There is more to it. Not only were such photos never found, but they were also never looked for. There was no effort whatsoever on the part of the detective to confirm or refute this allegation which came only from McLaughlin himself. There was a reason for that. He already knew it was a lie, and it was his own lie. It floated out there among several news articles about me until 2005. It was even cited by Judge Arthur Brennan as his justification for imposing 67 years in prison. Eleven years after my trial, McLaughlin finally admitted to Dorothy Rabinowitz at The Wall Street Journal that “there was never any evidence of pornography.”

Even that did not stop Damien Fisher, a biased New Hampshire reporter with an agenda, from repeating the claim just months ago as though demonstrably true. Ryan MacDonald wrote a truthful rebuttal in, “A Reporter’s Bias Taints the Defense of Fr Gordon MacRae.” When police can invent evidence that never existed, when the news media can further propagate it long after it has been credibly debunked, what chance does a falsely accused man have in a New Hampshire court?

This is the sort of thing that had me feeling so defeated and had Carlos Caso-Rosendi comparing justice here to that of a banana republic. The justice system has become an ominous and oppressive trap for anyone wrongly convicted. When that trap covers up for the good ole’ boy secrecy behind which justice is being carried out here, how does one proceed?

Justice Unmoored from Truth

In light of all that has transpired and all that has been written, I have hard decisions to make. One of them is about hiring a New Hampshire attorney to challenge my convictions based on newly discovered evidence that the investigating police detective had a secret record of misconduct. The claims about him are taking shape and growing in number. One claim reported in local news media is that former Detective McLaughlin has erased tape recordings of statements from witnesses that do not support his bias. This is exactly what I have accused him of for the last 29 years .

I have recently been advised by a New Hampshire lawyer with expertise in this area. Her analysis was candid and I much appreciate it. The bottom line is that justice here will be yet another steep uphill and unpredictable climb. Detective McLaughlin has boasted of over 1,000 sexual assault arrests with a nearly 100 percent conviction rate due to his penchant for arranging lenient plea deals to boost his public persona. He has boasted of removing over 1,000 sexual offenders from the streets but the “removal” is only for a year or so. Guilty defendants gladly took his plea deals, but innocent defendants can only be conned or coerced into them.

Because of the extreme “success” of his actions and methods, Detective James McLaughlin has been widely hailed in some circles as a hero-cop. From the point of view of the justice department and judicial system, however, the growing evidence of his misconduct is a threat to the system itself. As a result — and it is a fact of the legal advice I have received — the entire system will be hell-bent on protecting the corrupt cop while sacrificing me. “They will flood you with motions and delays to bankrupt you,” I was told by a New Hampshire attorney, and that has indeed been my experience.

As a prisoner of 29 years (and counting) with no income beyond the $2.00 per day I earn in a Third World prison job, I do not have the resources for another legal challenge — and especially for another protracted and uncertain one. In 2012 when I raised funds for an appeal, New Hampshire judges simply declined to hear any new evidence or witnesses in the end. A past U.S. Supreme Court ruling left this to their discretion, but they did not seem to have any. The affidavit of the new investigator and the statements of the witnesses he uncovered are linked at the end of this post. You be the judge.

And then there is priesthood. I am likely the only imprisoned priest in the world who has not been simply discarded from the clerical state just for being deemed with the new designation of convenience for bishops, “unsuitable for ministry.” There is now in the U.S. a “Coalition for Canceled Priests” trying to assist priests who are thrown aside for far less cause than a prison sentence. I am innocent of the claims against me, but should I now be forced to trade priesthood for freedom? I cannot. Carlos Caso-Rosendi ended “Behold the Man!” with a burning question:

“Barabbas is gone,

Judas has received his thirty silver coins:

Behold the man, Gordon MacRae!

Bishops of the Church:

What do we do with him?”

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Editor’s Note: Read the affidavit of former FBI Special Agent Supervisor James Abbott and the statements of six witnesses from whom New Hampshire judges declined to hear.

Pornchai Moontri: Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand

Photo by Megan Coughlin (CC BY-ND 2.0)

When Fr Gordon MacRae wrote about a tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, he interviewed me for that post. I never imagined we would one day face the same tragedy in Thailand.

October 26, 2022 by Pornchai Maximilian Moontri

Sawasdee Kup, my friends. I greet you from the central Thailand city of Pak Chong. If you are wondering where Father G has been, nothing has changed. He is still right in the prison cell where we both lived for many years. As you know, there is a lot going on in his life at the moment. He has hard decisions to pray about and a lot of writing to do. I expect he will resume writing to you here next week.

I am most fortunate to be able to speak with Father Gordon daily. He calls me from his cell (it used to be our cell) at 0800 each morning which for me is 7:00 PM. I have been following very closely the posts by Ryan MacDonald, Harvey Silverglate, David F. Pierre, Jr., and Catholic League President Dr. Bill Donohue in the last few weeks. I laughed when I read Ryan’s comment about a local reporter refusing to see any of Ryan’s news about Father G saying, “My mind is made up.” I know Father Gordon better and longer than anyone. My mind is made up too.

In our daily call, Father G has told me about all that has been happening, but he has just never been at the center of his own focus on life. In recent weeks he has spoken with me every day about a tragedy that happened to some of the people of my home Province of Nong Bua Lamphu in Thailand. Like many people here, I have been shaken by this, but Father Gordon brings it up with a broken heart every time we speak now. He told me that the whole world was in mourning.

If you missed that news, it is an awful account. The small Thai village of Uthai Sawan in the north east of Thailand is near Phu Viang, the village where I was born. It is a part of Nong Bua Lamphu Province where Father John Le and his Order, the Society of the Divine Word, have their Thailand headquarters and a treatment center for Thai children with HIV. We are all deeply sad over what happened in Nong Bua Lamphu on October 6.

People in Thailand do not generally own guns. It is extremely rare that there is a murder here that involves a gun. The only people with guns are police officers. On October 6, 2022, a recently fired police officer named Panya Kamrab brought a 9mm handgun and a knife into a preschool daycare center in Uthai Sawan where he murdered 24 children ages two to five. Then he killed several adults and his own wife and child before turning his gun on himself. On that day, 36 people died at his hands.

Mr. Kamrab was 34 years old and a former police officer in that same community. He had lost his position due to his possession and use of methamphetamine drugs, but in the autopsy after his rampage there were no drugs found within him. The mayor of Uthai Sawan said that methamphetamine abuse is rampant. “The drugs are cheap and everywhere in society,” he said.

Uthai Sawan is a small rural farming community in the far Northeast of Thailand near and very similar to the place where I lived as a small child. Like my ancestral family, the people there are mostly farmers raising rice and sugar cane for market. The innocence of that community is now torn, and recovery will take a very long time.

It Takes a Village

In Thailand, the Monarch, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, is the Head of State while Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is the head of government. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and other senior members of the government all traveled to Uthai Sawan where the tragedy took place and promised compensation for the mourning families. The King told the families that their deceased children will receive Royal patronage and the King would pay for their funeral expenses. The Thai government has responded as well as possible, but there is no Ministry to Mend Broken Hearts.

In many rural Thai families, it is common for children to be raised by grandparents and extended family while parents travel in search of better paying jobs to support them. That is what happened in my family as well. But the world is different now. There are other influences. The people of Uthai Sawan blame drugs as the cause of this madness. They say that cheap narcotics have overwhelmed many adolescents and young adults holding more of an influence over them than their families can.

Drug abuse is a scourge on the world. Though no drugs were found in Panya Kamrab after the killings, he was known to struggle with methamphetamine. He had been scheduled to appear in a local court on drug charges set for three days after his rampage.

This tragedy is almost a mirror image of the senseless killings in Uvalde, Texas that Father Gordon wrote about in June this year in “Tragedy at Uvalde: When God and Men were Missing.” When he asked me back then what might have driven 18-year-old Salvatore Ramos to his rampage in Uvalde, I told Father G:

“I did not care about anyone either; and then someone cared about me. If I did not find God, and you, and acceptance, and Divine Mercy, I might have stayed on a road to destruction. It was all I knew or expected. Hatred left me when something came along to replace it. Do you remember your Elephants post? It makes total sense. The one thing missing from my life and the lives of those two kids in America was a father. Without one, a decent one, a kid is at the mercy of dark forces and his mind just breaks.”

The “Elephants post” I mentioned was one Father G wrote for Fathers Day in 2012. It opened my eyes and the eyes of many others and it began a serious conversation about the crisis of manhood and fatherhood in our time. That now famous post was “In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men.”

Father G says it has been showing up a lot since the tragedy at Uvalde. It is not a surprise to me that some people in the U.S. are just now discovering that wonderful story. I was there when Father G wrote it in our cell on his typewriter for three hours on a Saturday afternoon. I was amazed at what came out of his mind on paper. He used to often give me his finished post to read, and I admit that sometimes I had to force my eyes to stay open, but not for that post. I thought it was fascinating.

Of Elephants and Men

I think we can learn some things about manhood from elephants. In Thailand, they are considered sacred. Their family units never succumb to outside pressures because elephant parents - and especially fathers — do not walk away from their instinct to protect, guide and teach their young. Elephants have long been revered and honored, and in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, they play a significant role in traditional religion.

I was taken away from Thailand as a Buddhist child and 36 years later I returned as a committed Catholic. I think you already know that a lot of suffering and loss were surrendered to Divine Mercy in that conversion. In Thailand, the small minority of Catholics and the large majority of Buddhists live and work side by side in harmony and mutual respect. Both have impacted our culture. All my ancestors were Buddhist as are 97 percent of the people of Thailand. In Buddhist traditional stories, the white elephants of Thailand were heralded as manifestations of God.

What does this have to do with the tragedies at Uvalde, Texas and Uthai Sawan, Thailand? Father G told me this wonderful true story in our phone call today:

“South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony was known as ‘The Elephant Whisperer.’ He spent his life working to save endangered species and became known for his ability to communicate with and rescue traumatized and injured elephants. He managed the 5,000 acre Thula Thula Reserve in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa.

“On March 2, 2012, [just three months before Father G wrote his post on Elephants and Men] Lawrence Anthony had a fatal heart attack. Then something extraordinary happened. The two elephant herds in Thula Thula walked from different directions for 12 hours to the house where Mr. Anthony died. They stood vigil at the compound for two days, apparently in ritual mourning. Then they disappeared again into the wild.

“No one can explain how the elephants knew of Mr. Anthony’s death. Then, for each of the two consecutive years following his death, elephants returned on that same date and time to mourn him.”

This is what has happened in recent weeks in Uthai Sawan in far Northeast Thailand. From the King of Thailand down to the youngest, smallest citizen, the Thai community has come to mourn from near and far the tragic loss of its beloved children.

In the years I lived in America, I thought that we gave up our dead too quickly, and returned too quickly to the day to day drama of our own lives. The Buddhists of Thailand believe that the souls of their dead linger for a time in the place where they lived. The time of mourning is a faith experience that is shared with them. As a Catholic, I too have been touched by death and those I loved in this life have lingered in my heart for the passing of many moons.

Father G taught me that no one can pass through life alone. The human village is essential, and faith is essential to the human village. No one should be lost. No child should be left behind. No one should go it alone now in this world of madness and distraction. We must all hear and heed the Word of God to Cain in the Book of Genesis: “Listen to the sound of your brother’s blood crying out to me from the Earth.” (Genesis 4:10)

Please pray for the parents of Uthai Sawan and for Thailand.

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Note from Pornchai Moontri: Thank you for reading and sharing this post, for supporting my best friend, Father G, and for making me part of our family of believers. You may also like these related posts:

In the Absence of Fathers: A Story of Elephants and Men

No Child Left Behind — Except in Afghanistan

The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: I thank Pornchai Moontri for stepping in for me with this moving post. While Pornchai was writing this, I was invited to write an article for the project, False Allegations Watch. My article, which was just published is “Did police misconduct turn a false allegation into a wrongful conviction? — Fr Gordon J. MacRae.” Visiting and sharing this article with others lets the project Editor know that this is an important story.

Please also visit our SPECIAL EVENTS PAGE to consider a new Corporal Work of Mercy from Beyond These Stone Walls for a cause that is dear to my heart. I will be back here next week!

“Stay sober and alert for your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him steadfast in your faith for you know that your brethren throughout the world are undergoing the same trials.”

— 1 Peter 5:8-9

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Weaponized Psychology: The Psych Evals of Father MacRae

Writer Damien Fisher cited psychological reports to bolster the condemnation of a priest in the court of public opinion, but some omitted facts expose a cover-up.

October 12, 2022 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Editor’s Note: The following is Part Two of a series of posts by multiple writers presenting facts in the case of a wrongly imprisoned priest that some in the media have ignored or distorted. Part One, posted here one week ago, was: “A Reporter’s Bias Taints the Defense of Fr Gordon MacRae.”

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Part One in this series, linked above, explores a tendency of some in modern day news media to simply mimic material gleaned from prosecutorial officials. In news coverage, this practice has increasingly come to replace the hard work of investigative journalism and the natural skepticism every journalist should have.

One of the factors that irked me and other writers in Damien Fisher’s recent coverage of the MacRae story was his blind acceptance of an old and inadequate psychological evaluation of the accused priest that was debunked a decade ago. In 2012, a Catholic magazine published a letter to the editor from a reader of Father MacRae’s blog who defended him. In response, a member of SNAP, the activist Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, wrote a rebuttal which was also published citing psychological evaluations of MacRae as evidence of his presumed guilt.

I wrote a more up-to-date and factual response, but it was a testament to the one-sided jaundice of even Catholic media on this topic that the lurid claims against the priest were published while my factual response was not. Given that Damien Fisher’s recent article cited here a week ago referenced the same biased and one-sided reports, I now present anew what I first uncovered in 2012.

Like all accused Catholic priests, Fr. Gordon MacRae was required by Church officials to undergo a psychological evaluation. It was one of the many travesties of justice in this case that elements of two of those reports inexplicably ended up in public view while a far more extensive and professional report did not.

Mr. Fisher gleaned his information from a 2003 Grand Jury Report on the Diocese of Manchester that referenced an inadequate and one-sided evaluation from an M.A. level clinician with a state contract to evaluate those accused of sexual offenses. The Grand Jury Report omitted a much broader and more professional assessment from a team of licensed psychologists and psychiatric experts that negates the validity of the evaluation cited in the Grand Jury Report and repeated by Damien Fisher.

It is indeed correct that MacRae was labeled a “fixated sexual offender” in a 1989 report by a masters-level clinician at the Strafford Guidance Center, a New Hampshire outpatient center with a state contract to evaluate those accused of sexual offenses. This evaluation was the result of a misdemeanor solicitation charge that was debunked extensively in my article, “A Reporter’s Bias Taints the Defense of Fr Gordon MacRae.”

A second evaluation was conducted over a four-day period at the now-closed House of Affirmation, a treatment center for clergy in Whitinsville, Massachusetts. It was entirely prosecutorial in nature, and in many ways it violated the priest’s basic civil rights. It weaponized the psychological process, reporting, for example, a finding that “Father MacRae exhibits extremely high abstract intellectual ability.” That result, from a single evaluation tool called the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, was later used to unjustly label the accused priest as a potential sociopathic manipulator. The report and its conclusions were criminally unprofessional.

EEG recorded during scanning session.

A Forensic Search for Truth

Another, far more extensive evaluation was conducted by a team of three doctoral-level forensic clinical psychologists and two staff psychiatrists with decades of experience in the assessment of offenders. This in-depth assessment was conducted over a period of months at an inpatient facility, the Villa Louis Martin Center in New Mexico. What follows are excerpts of that report introduced by licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Peter Lechner, Ph.D.:

“Of the reports mentioned earlier, one from House of Affirmation where Fr. MacRae spent four days and the other from the Strafford Guidance Clinic where he was evaluated, according to their report, for a two-hour period, they arrived at far-reaching, all embracing and definitive conclusions in regard to Fr. MacRae. The staff at VLM believes that such time periods would be inadequate to properly understand complex problems.

“The conclusions we arrived at came after many months.... It became clear that [Fr. MacRae] did not fit the description of the Strafford Guidance Clinic. He had a depth of conscientiousness and sensitivity to others, and a very high degree of ethical concern that did not fit with what their report said of him. Fr. MacRae does NOT fit the description of a fixated sexual offender. The reports are inaccurate.”

— 1990 Evaluation Report of the staff at Villa Louis Martin

Dr. Lechner went on to describe that the Strafford Guidance Center evaluation was conducted by an unlicensed masters-level clinician. It consisted of a single psychological test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) which was dismissed by the evaluator as “unrevealing and within normal range.” The sweeping negative conclusions of the rest of the report, according to the file, were arrived at based on three 45-minute interviews over the course of six weeks.

The clinician began his assessment with clear bias. The mere fact that MacRae is a Catholic priest with a commitment to practice celibacy, like all priests, was itself treated as sexually aberrant by the evaluator. His process and conclusions were dismissed as invalid and unjust by staff at the Villa Louis Martin Center. They concluded that “Two hours of interviews by a masters-level clinician is simply not professionally adequate to brand a man in the court of public opinion for the remainder of his life.” The director of the VLM Center added another comment to his report:

“In my report to the NH Department of Probation, I mentioned the accusations that had been made in the above reports by way of background information regarding what had been said about [Fr. MacRae]. I indicated that he did not present as someone obsessed by sexual fantasies or driven to act out. I then went on to write about our assessment and the medical issues [MacRae] faced. I was later dismayed to find out that my reports were misquoted, and positive statements that were essential to the reports were left out. This I feel was a serious injustice.”

The far more comprehensive VLM report by Dr. Lechner and his staff directly refuted the impressions of the Stafford Guidance Center assessment arrived at after three 45-minute interviews. However, the prosecutorial files released by the Diocese of Manchester after its bishop signed over the rights of the priests involved, and published online by the Attorney General in 2003 omitted the more professional report opting to publish only the impressions of the negatively biased one.

In the far more extensive report, the director of the VLM facility explained that MacRae remained at the Center for one year in 1989, an unusual length of time for inpatient treatment, but it was not because he was diagnosed as a sexual offender. That was discounted earlier. MacRae remained at the center for a year because a neurological evaluation that included an EEG and MRI revealed a diagnosis of epilepsy.

It has been professionally suggested that a diagnosis of untreated epilepsy and complex partial seizure disorder that was difficult to manage raised further questions about the legitimacy of the priest’s 1988 misdemeanor plea entered into without legal counsel after hours of intense badgering by a police detective with an agenda other than truth. This was disclosed in my article one week ago.

The VLM report of the evaluation of Fr. MacRae indicated that MacRae succumbed to coercion under duress in 1988 while talked into waiving his Constitutional right to legal counsel because Detective McLaughlin conned him into believing that he would be sparing the Church from adverse publicity if he took the plea. If MacRae is to be faulted for anything in this picture, the report concluded, “it is for placing his own well-being second.”

That 1988 misdemeanor charge was brought forward and propagated by the same detective who would five years later charge MacRae with more serious, but just as dubious offenses that now date back forty years. This is the same detective who now appears on a previously secret list accused of falsifying records, and has now also been accused of lying, erasing tapes, and tampering with evidence.

Four years after writing the Strafford Guidance Center report on MacRae, its author applied for employment at the Villa Louis Martin Center citing its thorough assessment of the priest as the reason for his desire to work there.

When Detective James McLaughlin’s new allegations emerged with new demands for settlement money in 1993, Fr. MacRae voluntarily submitted to two polygraph examinations with an expert. He passed both conclusively. No one who accused MacRae would agree to take a polygraph.

The Most Expert Evaluation

Perhaps the most important assessment, however, is one uncovered by Fr. George David Byers revealed in his article “Omertà in a Catholic Chancery: Affidavits Expanded.” Over 28 years in the New Hampshire State Prison, Fr. MacRae has never been even suspected of any form of predation. The prison system’s own evaluation labeled him at the lowest level of risk for any form of aberrant sexual interest or behavior. For 15 of those years MacRae was housed in a 60-square-foot cell with Pornchai Moontri, an adult survivor of sexual abuse. There is perhaps no better expert on the character of Fr. MacRae.

In Fr. Byers’ article linked above, he conveys a true story revealed to him by Pornchai:

“Pornchai has helped me to understand a truth that is nearly universal among those who have in fact been victims of sexual assault. The only thing that is as obnoxious to them as having been raped is to see their own sufferings capitalized upon by false accusers for money, and by clericalists who make themselves into heroes by paying out settlements with no evidence or due process of law. Priests are too often considered guilty just for being accused.

“Prison, by nature, is often a violent place. As a child of 12 brought to the State of Maine from a foreign country, Pornchai became a victim of violent sexual abuse. When Pornchai went to prison at age 18, he dealt with prison violence in the only way he could. He vowed that he would never again be someone’s victim. So he understandably met violence with violence of his own. It landed him in repeated long years in solitary confinement.

“After 14 years, Pornchai was transferred to the New Hampshire prison. He ended up in a cell with a man accused and convicted of the very thing that destroyed his life. It did not take him long — with his innate alertness to victimization — to discover that Father G had been falsely accused. Pornchai once told me this story that I held off writing until he was out of the prison system:

‘One day, I got a notice from the prison mental health department that a new 2O-week program was beginning called ‘Interpersonal Violence.’ My friend Father G thought it might be an opportunity for me so I said I would go if he goes with me. So we both signed up for it. Prison is filled with needy young men who have really broken lives. Some of them look for safe, comfortable older prisoners who might buy them things and take care of them. The result is a sort of mutual exploitation and prisons are filled with this. One young kid, about 19, who was attending the program quickly tried to latch on to Father G without knowing anything about him. I was going to speak with the kid, but decided to wait.

‘Over the next few sessions as I sat next to Father G, I was aware of how this kid was skillfully trying to gain his interest and maneuver his way into his life, but Father G was oblivious to it. Later that night I told him what I observed, but he had no idea what I was talking about. At the next session, Father G and I simply agreed to switch seats. In all his years in prison, Father G has been surrounded by people like this, many of them young drug addicts who would sell their soul for a few bucks for drugs. In all those years, Father G was never observed or even suspected of having any interest in them at all except to show those receptive to it a way out of their prison within a prison.’ ”

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IMPORTANT EDITOR’S NOTE:

During the 15 years that Fr. MacRae and Pornchai Moontri lived in the same prison cell, MacRae investigated Pornchai’s life and wrote about it in an explosive account that brought his abuser to justice. Richard Alan Bailey was convicted in 2018 on 40 felony counts of child sexual abuse. This most important story is told in

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

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BREAKING NEWS — NEW IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

Nationally prominent criminal-defense and civil-rights Attorney Harvey Silverglate has just published an op-ed on developments in the Fr. MacRae case in the WSJ. This is the fourth major article in the WSJ on this story. We have reprinted the op-ed so it may be viewed by our readers:

Justice Delayed for Father MacRae by Harvey A. Silverglate

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.