Nashua Whistleblower Retired Cop Removed From 'Laurie List'

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH

Retired Nashua cop Anthony Pivero’s name is no longer on the state’s Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, also known as the Laurie List, ending a long legal battle that started when he testified against a police detective in a double-murder case.

Merrimack Superior Court Judge Daniel St. Hilaire issued a ruling on Nov. 5 removing Pivero from the EES, citing the New Hampshire Supreme Court’s recent order. Judge Brian Tucker initially upheld Pivero’s EES status, but the Supreme Court overturned that decision and sent the case back to the Superior Court allowing Pivero to try again in front of St. Hilaire.

Even though prosecutors argued that Pivero should remain on the list of police officers with tarnished credibility, St. Hilaire agreed with the Supreme Court that the alleged lie about speaking Spanish does not rise to the level of an EES offense. St. Hilaire also ruled that Pivero is unlikely to testify in any criminal case again, even though prosecutors disagreed.

“The nature of the underlying conduct and Petitioner’s behavior during the investigation suggests nothing that would be relevant in future criminal cases either as exculpatory evidence or as evidence offered to impeach Petitioner’s credibility. Further, the Court finds there is no reasonably foreseeable case where this information would be admissible as exculpatory evidence. From the record, Petitioner’s last deposition as a witness was in 2017, after which the AGO added Petitioner to the EES,” St. Hilaire wrote.

Pivero had been retired from law enforcement for almost 15 years when the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office put him on the list in 2017. The Attorney General’s Office essentially accused Pivero of lying in a 2001 Nashua incident about whether or not he could speak Spanish. However, the move to put Pivero on the EES came months after he testified that a Nashua police detective acted illegally in getting a confession out of murder suspect Anthony Barnaby.

By 2017, Barnaby had been tried three times in the 1988 murders of same-sex couple Charlene Ranstrom and Brenda Warner. After three juries failed to convict him, Barnaby returned to Canada to live on the Mi'kmaq reservation. Barnaby is a member of the Mi’kmaq tribe. New witnesses and DNA evidence developed in 2011, and Barnaby was extradited to face charges again in 2015. Before the trial, Pivero testified in February of 2017 that Nashua Detective Paul Goupil threatened a confession out of Barnaby in 1988 during a 30-hour interrogation.

“[Goupil] said he knows how to get things done," Pivero testified in 2017. “He said he went in to talk to Barnaby in the interview room, and he said he had his (testicles) in his hands and he would cut them off.”

In 2017, Goupil was already retired after working his way up to captain in the Nashua Police Department. Barnaby eventually took an Alford plea in 2018 and was sentenced to 12 to 40 years in prison. Alford pleas allow defendants to maintain their innocence while accepting conviction and sentencing.

Barnaby and his co-defendant, David Caplin, allegedly stormed into Warner and Ranstrom’s Nashua apartment, repeatedly stabbed them before tying them up and fleeing. Caplin pleaded guilty in early 2018 and was set to testify against Barnaby before the Alford plea deal. Caplin was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.

Pivero, who served as union president for Nashua police, frequently clashed with his bosses before the 2001 incident that was later used to justify the EES placement.

According to court records, Pivero got in trouble with his Nashua superiors in 2001 when he refused to translate for a suspect another officer had detained. The suspect was a native Spanish speaker and Pivero did speak some Spanish.

The Nashua Police Department decided to discipline Pivero for refusing to translate, claiming he lied about having done translation for other officers in the past. Pivero has said he never lied, and refused to do the translation because he was not fluent enough in Spanish to keep up with the suspect.

Pivero ended up suspended for 16 days and demoted in 2002, a punishment he was fighting through the New Hampshire Public Employee Labor Relations Board. Before his case could be heard by the board, Pivero was involved in a September, 2002 fatal shooting of a murder suspect and retired on an accidental disability claim in 2003. The shooting was deemed legally justified by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

Pivero was a young Nashua patrolman in 1994 when he arrested Alan Rudman, the son of former U.S. Sen. Warren Rudman, for aggravated drunk driving. Alan Rudman had a history of drunk driving and prior involvement in a fatal accident.

But Alan Rudman’s charges were reduced to speeding at the last minute. Pivero spoke out publicly about the Rudman case and alerted the press. Soon, newspapers ran stories that revealed Nashua police reduced charges on a disproportionate number of drunk driving arrests. The New Hampshire Union Leader eventually won a state Supreme Court case forcing Nashua police to release the video of Alan Rudman being booked at police headquarters.

Pivero also filed a complaint after he left the department in 2013 against former Nashua Police Chief John Seusing that led to Seusing’s name being placed on the Laurie List before he retired.

“This all goes back to the Seusing complaint,” Pivero told InDepthNH.org of his placement on the list.

In 2013, Pivero accused Seusing of fabricating an arrest report in the mid-1980s related to a bar fight that resulted in a lawsuit.

After investigating, the attorney general said Pivero’s complaint was unfounded. But the same news release said the attorney general found Seusing had lied about the case to his supervisor, adding he was disciplined and had admitted to the lie.

The lie was disclosed in one homicide case in 1993, but the judge rule it inadmissible saying it wouldn’t have made a difference and likely would have confused jurors.

Then it wasn’t disclosed again until after the attorney general’s investigation when three men convicted of homicide were alerted to the opportunity to seek a new trial because the information hadn’t been shared with the defense as required after the U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland. Criminal defendants must be told of any evidence that is favorable to them, including when testifying police officers have been disciplined for dishonesty, criminal behavior or excessive force.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.