HANOVER — A Hanover police detective has resigned amid an internal investigation after nearly five months of paid leave following his January arrest for domestic violence.
Timothy Meenagh, a 42-year-old Cornish resident, submitted a resignation letter last month, and it was effective June, which Police Chief James Martin said was the last day of a pay period.
A Hanover corporal gets paid an annual salary of up to $89,600, or $43 per hour, according to figures Martin provided.
That means during a five-month leave, Meenagh would have been paid over $37,000 on the high end of the salary range or around $24,000 on the low end.
Meenagh is alleged to have hit a woman’s leg with a table and thrown her to the ground on Jan. 17, court filings indicate. He is then alleged to have taken her phone to prevent her from reporting the assault to authorities.
The Claremont Circuit Court released Meenagh on personal recognizance after Cornish Police arrested him.
Meenagh initially pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor domestic violence charges: simple assault and obstructing report of a crime or injury.
A March 30 disposition placed the two charges on a file without finding, meaning Meenagh acknowledged the evidence against him to end active prosecution without a formal guilty or not guilty verdict.
The sentence for both charges called for anger management classes, no unauthorized contact with the victim and two years of good behavior.
Reached by phone this week, Meenagh declined to comment on the sentence.
At the conclusion of Meenagh’s case in March, Hanover Police launched an internal affairs investigation.
“It’s not related to his job performance. It’s related to the off-duty incident, so it was specific to that,” Martin said Friday by phone. “We didn’t have any issues with Tim at work.”
Meenagh stepped down in the middle of the investigation, he said.
Meenagh worked as a detective at the Hanover department where he had been employed for eight years before his arrest. Lt. Dan Fowler took on Meenagh’s duties upon his leave.
The Hanover Police Department currently has three vacancies, with one person headed for the academy for training in August. Martin is working to recruit more officers, ideally those who already certified.
Meenagh’s full-time police officer certification — first issued in 2018 — is currently suspended with no expiration date, New Hampshire Police Standards & Training Council records show.
Meenagh declined to share details of current employment on Thursday: “I’m not working for any police department.”
