When I saw that a pretrial conference in Traudt v. Lebanon Police Department scheduled for U.S. District Court in Concord this week had been canceled with little more than 24 hours notice, my hopes were raised.
Could an out-of-court settlement be in the works?
No such luck.
The criminal justice saga, which stems from a late-night traffic stop that Lebanon cops made more than 18 years ago, continues to drag on, wasting precious court time and taxpayers’ money.
“The only people who gain from this is Lebanon’s lawyers,” Scott Traudt said when we talked last week.
Traudt, who turns 60 later this month, is a commercial fisherman, making frequent trips from his home in Strafford to work in southern New England. That’s when he’s not filing umpteen public records requests and pursuing legal actions against his nemesis. Otherwise known as the City of Lebanon.
His obsession (I don’t know what else to call it) is hard for most people to wrap their heads around. Then again, most people haven’t spent a year in a New Hampshire state prison for supposedly committing a crime that’s never passed a smell test.
In his federal civil lawsuit, Traudt alleges Lebanon police violated his constitutional rights by withholding evidence “before, during and after his trial” in which a Grafton County jury found him guilty of simple assault against a police officer and disorderly conduct in 2008. Traudt was sentenced to one to three years in state prison, a harsh punishment for someone with no previous criminal record.
In January 2023, Judge Peter Bornstein, who had put Traudt behind bars 15 years earlier, saw the need to right a wrong. He vacated the conviction.
New court filings showed it was “undisputed” that either Lebanon police or the Grafton County Attorney’s Office “knowingly withheld evidence” about two officers’ disciplinary records that would have aided the defense in 2008, Bornstein wrote in erasing Traudt’s criminal record.
The judge’s decision opened the door for Traudt to file his federal lawsuit in November 2023.
I assumed Lebanon’s insurance carrier was covering the legal fees being racked up by the three attorneys representing current and former members of the city’s police department named in the suit. But after a brief email exchange with Lebanon City Manager Andrew Hosmer, I’m not so sure.
On Wednesday, I asked Hosmer who was picking up the tab: Lebanon’s insurer or city taxpayers? It was a straightforward question that the public deserves an answer to.
Here’s Hosmer’s response that I received via email Wednesday afternoon:
“I have no information on the case you’ve referenced,” he wrote. “I also have no comment on counsel or legal fees.”
So much for following the spirit of the New Hampshire Right-to-Know law. Granted, Hosmer has only been on the job for about six weeks. Still it makes me wonder what the city is getting for the $170,000 that it’s paying him in his first year.
Hosmer should be familiar with the state law regarding public transparency. Before coming to Lebanon, he was Laconia’s mayor for five years and before that a Democratic state legislator.
He also has a law degree and started his career as a county prosecutor in Massachusetts. With his legal background, I’d think Hosmer would have asked his subordinates or bosses on the City Council by now about any lawsuits pending against the city. This suit, in particular, has the potential to run up hefty legal fees and damages, if it goes to trial.
Even if the city’s insurer is covering legal expenses, Lebanon’s premiums could increase to the detriment of taxpayers. Insurance companies aren’t in the business of losing money.
Traudt told me that his attorney, Michael Iacopino, of Manchester, is handling the case on a contingency basis, which is common in civil suits where there’s a potential for a big payoff. The plaintiff’s lawyers only get paid if their client wins at trial or an out-of-court settlement is reached.
After being in court for nearly two years, the failure to reach a settlement is “on them,” said Traudt, referring to Lebanon officials and their attorneys.
Lebanon officials — past and present — have no one to blame but themselves for the legal predicament. The city was behind the times in January 2007 by failing to equip its police cruisers with dashboard cameras. As then-Chief Jim Alexander, a defendant in the federal lawsuit, told me in a 2009 interview, “If we had (had) cameras in this case, a lot of time, money and heartburn here would have been saved.”
On Jan. 14, 2007, Traudt and his then-wife were pulled over after leaving a the now defunct Electra Nightclub in West Lebanon. Police claimed that Traudt’s wife, who was driving, had run a red light.
It led to a physical altercation between Traudt and several officers. Without any video evidence, it became the officers’ word against that of Traudt and his wife. (The couple has since divorced.) At trial, the jury found Traudt guilty of assaulting officer Phil Roberts, who is now Lebanon’s police chief, but acquitted him of “body slamming” officer Richard Smolenski.
The 2008 trial’s cast of characters are now lined up for a reunion, of sorts, at the federal courthouse in Concord.
Civil lawsuits against police are difficult to win. Cops enjoy qualified immunity, a legal doctrine dating back to a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision that shields public employees from liability for misconduct. Prosecutors also can’t be sued for on-the-job misdeeds, no matter how egregious, which explains the Grafton County State’s Attorney’s Office not being party to Traudt’s suit.
A court document filed on Monday lists Alexander, Roberts and Smolenski as defendants. I reached out to Smolenski’s attorney, Brian Cullen, of Nashua, this week, but didn’t hear back. Matthew Burrows, one of the two Concord attorneys representing Alexander and Roberts, also didn’t respond to an email request for comment.
From what I gather, this week’s pretrial conference was deemed no longer necessary. The two sides had reached agreement on a timeline for sharing evidence ahead of trial, which is scheduled for next October.
Hopefully, a year is enough time for Lebanon’s new city manager to get up to speed on the case and figure out that the public has a right to know who’s paying the bills.