By Maddie Hanna
The Concord Monitor
CONCORD, N.H. — Shawn Mitchell, the former Concord and Webster fire official who was charged in 2006 with about 40 theft-related offenses, has resolved the last of the charges against him, pleading guilty yesterday to one count of obstructing government administration.
As part of the plea deal, Mitchell — who received a six-month sentence earlier this year after pleading guilty to taking equipment from the Concord fire department — won’t have to spend any more time in jail. He received a 12-month sentence for the misdemeanor charge, but all of it is suspended for two years under condition of good behavior.
He will, however, have to pay the town of Webster $394 to compensate for purchases made on pornography websites with a town-issued credit card while he was the fire chief.
Mitchell, 38, had been charged with making those purchases, but in exchange for his plea, Sullivan County Attorney Marc Hathaway did not prosecute the charges yesterday during a plea and sentencing hearing in Merrimack County Superior Court.
Nor did he prosecute theft-related charges against Mitchell, who was placed on administrative leave in Webster in 2006 after he came under investigation for his conduct in Concord, where he had also been serving as the deputy fire chief.
As part of Mitchell’s leave, he was ordered by the Webster selectmen to turn over any property owned by the town. But while he turned over some property, town officials believed there was more, Hathaway said, and two weeks after the selectmen issued the order, the Webster police showed up at his home with a warrant.
Mitchell, Hathaway said, stood in front of the police and refused to let them look at his desk — the basis of the charge he pleaded guilty to yesterday.
But the other charges against Mitchell would have been difficult to prove, said Hathaway, who prosecuted the case for Merrimack County.
Credit card statements show that a town-owned card was used 17 times to buy pornography online, Hathaway said.
But “you don’t know who’s on the other end,” Hathaway said. The credit card statements don’t prove that Mitchell made the charges, Hathaway said, and other people had access to Mitchell’s computer.
As for the receiving stolen property charges, which accused Mitchell of failing to return town property, Hathaway said the town’s then-deputy fire chief, Adam Pouliot, told the police Mitchell contacted him after getting the order from the town and asked him to come by for some of the property.
The police searched Mitchell’s home before that happened. But Mitchell has pointed to that to say he wasn’t trying to steal the town’s property, Hathaway said.
And the fact that the police found town property in Mitchell’s home 14 days after he was ordered to turn it in, Hathaway said, doesn’t prove that he intended to keep the property permanently — the standard required by the state to show someone committed theft.
Hathaway dropped 23 theft-related charges against Mitchell in exchange for his guilty pleas on two charges: one felony count of theft by unauthorized taking for taking Concord’s fire equipment and giving it to Webster and one count of misusing a Concord credit card to make $830 in purchases.
But while he pleaded guilty to those charges, Mitchell didn’t commit the crimes he was accused of in Webster, said his attorney, Mark Sisti.
“Our position all along has been that he was absolutely, totally innocent of the charges with regard to the pornography, that he was absolutely, totally innocent with any attempt to maintain control over the town property,” Sisti said yesterday afternoon. “We certainly were willing to go to trial rather than take a plea on any of those charges.”
Although Mitchell agreed to pay the town $394, Sisti likened that to a civil settlement and said it didn’t mean Mitchell was guilty of buying the pornography.
“He’s certainly not taking responsibility for that, but in order to settle that case he’s more than willing” to pay the money, Sisti said.
Mitchell’s six-month jail sentence began in March, but he was placed on administrative home confinement this summer after he flipped his truck in a work-release program and broke his back.
Sisti said yesterday that Mitchell is doing better but wouldn’t comment on whether he was working again or where he was living, apart from saying Mitchell no longer lives in Merrimack County. As part of the conditions of his first sentence, Mitchell is not allowed to work in firefighting, emergency medical care or law enforcement.
Copyright 2010 Concord Monitor/Sunday Monitor