NEWPORT — A Plainfield man who was acquitted in a murder-for-hire case three years ago is suing Plainfield police, New Hampshire State Police and a police informant, saying they set up the case to entrap him and his elderly mother.
In a nine-count lawsuit, filed in Sullivan County Superior Court last week, Maurice Temple named the town of Plainfield, New Hampshire State Police Sgt. Matthew Koehler and New Hampshire Department of Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn, saying they violated his civil rights, conspired against him, and caused him emotional distress during the investigation and his arrest in 2017.
The lawsuit follows an earlier two-count complaint Temple filed against Plainfield Police Chief Paul Roberts and Plainfield resident Mark Horne in August 2019, detailing similar accusations and accusing them of malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.
Temple and his mother, Pauline Chase, were arrested in July 2017 after police said they conspired to pay Horne to kill Temple’s ex-wife, Jean Temple. Horne was an informant for the Plainfield Police Department and a key witness at Maurice Temple’s trial in late 2017.
Chase, who was 83 at the time and suffered from memory issues and showed signs of dementia, according to a forensic examiner, was found not competent to stand trial in 2018.
At the end of Maurice Temple’s trial, a jury acquitted him of all charges, with a foreman of the jury saying the supposed murder-for-hire plot never would have happened without Horne’s influence.
That’s a view Maurice Temple and his attorney, Keith Matthews, share.
“We filed these suits to get to the truth of the matter,” Matthews, who is based in Manchester, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “My client was entrapped.”
Temple asserts that the entrapment plot started with Horne, who had “numerous longstanding grievances” with Temple and his mother, according to last week’s lawsuit. In the August suit, Matthews wrote that Horne owed Chase a “substantial” amount of money following a real estate transaction, and would have benefited from her arrest.
Earlier in 2017, after Maurice Temple was arrested on contempt of court charges related to his divorce settlement, Horne called Chase to discuss her ex-daughter-in-law, Jean Temple. That call turned into multiple calls between Horne and Chase and — eventually, Maurice Temple — about Jean Temple, according to evidence in the trial.
But in his filing last week, Matthews wrote that those calls constituted entrapment. He said Horne worked with Roberts, a “close friend,” to entrap Chase and Maurice Temple in the murder-for-hire plot. He claimed the men tried to entice Chase to hire Horne to carry out the murder, according to the filing.
“(Chase’s) weakened mental state did not dissuade Horne and Roberts from trying to entrap her, in fact, it was a circumstance that they exploited and which made it easier for them to coerce her,” the lawsuit said.
The attorney wrote that Roberts enlisted the help of Koehler, and that the two law enforcement officers hand-wrote notes to Horne and guided him through phone calls, telling him what to say to ensure Chase and Maurice Temple agreed to the plot.
“Roberts and Koehler brought their law enforcement experience and knowledge into the scheme and coordinated Horne’s conversations with Chase and consequently Maurice (Temple) so as to best entice them into a scheme they had no predisposition to enter into,” the lawsuit read.
Maurice Temple claimed in the suit that his arrest and the arrest of his mother had negative physical and emotional repercussions, and that the high-profile nature of the case damaged his reputation. Temple spent 4½ months in jail on $1 million bail before he was tried and acquitted.
His mother was confined to Glencliff Home, an institution for people who are developmentally disabled or mentally ill, following her competency hearing in 2018, but has left, Matthews said. He did not respond to a question about where she is staying now.
Horne declined to comment on the accusations when reached by phone Wednesday, and two messages to Roberts requesting comment were not returned. A message to Koehler was also not returned Wednesday.
However, Roberts did file a response to the 2019 complaint, denying that he and Horne tried to entrap Maurice Temple and Chase, and saying that there was probable cause to arrest Temple.
“Defendants’ actions did not proximately cause any damages claimed by (Maurice Temple),” said Roberts’ response, filed by Nashua-based attorney Brian Cullen.
Plainfield Town Administrator Steve Halleran said Cullen and the town’s insurance company, Primex, are handling the case, and referred a reporter to them for comment. Messages left for Cullen on Wednesday afternoon were not returned.
Maurice Temple’s two lawsuits follow another civil case brought forward by his ex-wife, Jean Temple, in 2017.
Months before the trial, Jean Temple, the postmaster in Plainfield, sued her ex-husband and Chase for emotional distress, seeking $2 million in damages.
But just last week, Maurice Temple — through his attorney, Matthews — filed a counterclaim against his ex-wife alleging fraud, civil conspiracy and abuse of process. In the counterclaim, Matthews wrote that Horne had told Jean Temple about the plot before Maurice Temple’s arrest.
“The reality is that Jean Temple was fully aware of the murder-for-hire plot and allowed it to unfold, knowing that if it did, she would be able to bring a lawsuit against Pauline Chase and Maurice Temple,” the document asserted.
All three lawsuits are pending. A trial date was originally scheduled for Jean Temple’s 2017 lawsuit this year, but was postponed due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.