NORTH HAVERHILL — The convicted co-founder of Project Vetcare is invoking the right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying in the trial of her son and daughter-in-law, who are also accused of taking money from the defunct nonprofit that served veterans in the Hanover area, according to court motions.
Instead of in-person testimony from Danielle Goodwin, co-founder of the Project Vetcare, Grafton County prosecutors may present pieces of a transcript from the testimony she gave at a previous trial last year, according to an order granted by Grafton Superior Court Judge Peter Bornstein last week.
But defense attorney Olivier Sakellarios is arguing that ruling is unfair to his client, Sarah Healy Donahue, Goodwin’s daughter-in-law. In documents filed this week, he argued that the judge should either bar all testimony from Goodwin at the upcoming trial or compel her to take the stand in person.
He also accused Grafton County Deputy Attorney John Bell of prosecutorial misconduct, arguing that Bell is intentionally withholding the possibility of immunity to prevent Goodwin from taking the stand.
Donahue, along with her husband, Alexander Donahue, is scheduled to stand trial in February on counts of receiving stolen property and theft for allegedly taking $12,000 from Project VetCare with Goodwin’s help. This will be the second time they stand trial after the first trial resulted in a hung jury in May 2019.
Goodwin, who is Alexander Donahue’s mother, pleaded guilty to stealing $99,500 from the organization over a period of years, and was sentenced to up to seven years in prison in 2018.
Much of the disagreement between prosecutors and defense attorneys over Goodwin’s testimony stems from contradictory statements Goodwin made, first in a 2018 police interview, and later on the stand at the Donahues’ first trial in 2019.
In the 2018 interview with police, in which Goodwin had immunity, she told investigators that she directed Healy Donahue to write two checks to herself from Project VetCare, totaling $12,000, according to the defense attorney’s motion. Goodwin told police at the time that the $12,000 belonged to the organization and was not her money to give away, the motion said.
But at the Donahues’ trial in May, Sakellarios showed Goodwin her financial records, prompting her to contradict her earlier statement to police. Instead, she testified, the company owed her money, meaning the $12,000 was rightfully hers to give away.
Because of the discrepancy in her statements, Bell argued in a November 2019 motion that Goodwin has “self-incrimination” issues and that she might be at risk of committing perjury with her testimony. According to the judge’s order last week, Goodwin has invoked her “privilege against self-incrimination” and declined to testify.
Prosecutors instead asked to admit parts of Goodwin’s previous testimony and the interviews with police to “demonstrate the contradictions and inconsistencies in Goodwin’s testimony that bear directly on her credibility.” Those inconsistencies show the lengths Goodwin would go to protect the Donahues, Bell wrote.
But Sakellarios challenged the perjury threat, saying it’s just a “strategic decision to make (Goodwin) unavailable” to testify at next month’s trial, according to his motion. A change of opinion does not constitute perjury, he wrote.
He also wrote that prosecutors “selectively and tactically” offered Goodwin immunity in 2018 to get evidence during the police interview, and now they’re refusing to extend the same offer because her testimony might hurt their case.
“The state simply wants to focus the jury on bits of transcript and cut away at the circus which she presented as a witness,” Sakellarios wrote in a Jan. 28 motion. He said the way Goodwin acted when she took the stand during the 2019 trial — crying uncontrollably and “staring into space” — would benefit the defendants in an upcoming trial.
“Her insane demeanor on the stand helped the jury understand and believe that a mother could entangle her son in a felonious plot without his knowledge,” Sakellarios wrote.
In an objection to Sakellarios’ motion Wednesday, Bell said the defense attorney “profoundly misunderstands” the self-incrimination issue and prosecutors’ reasons for using Goodwin’s 2019 testimony as evidence.
“The state has not deprived either defendant of anything by refusing to grant immunity to Goodwin for her conflicting statements,” Bell wrote, adding that if they grant her immunity now, “that would be prosecutorial misconduct.”
Bell also filed a motion Wednesday to push back the trial, saying that Sarah Donahue is considering waiving a jury trial, and that there are motions that need to be resolved before the case goes in front of a jury. A judge had not ruled on his filing by Thursday afternoon.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.