ACLU sues for records of arrest, jailing, cavity search of woman after traffic stop

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire has filed suit against the New Hampshire State Police, alleging they withheld misconduct records about an ex-state trooper who landed on the state’s list of law enforcement officers who have credibility issues.

The ACLU-NH lawsuit filed Tuesday focuses on the actions of former state trooper Haden Wilber in a February 2017 traffic stop on Interstate 95 in Portsmouth.

The Maine woman who was stopped for allegedly having snow on her rear lights sued Wilber and multiple other New Hampshire State Police troopers, the departments of corrections for both Strafford and Rockingham counties, Wentworth-Douglass Hospital in Dover and a WDH doctor in October 2019. Through her attorney, the woman alleged she was unlawfully searched, detained for 13 days on excessive bail, and was billed for unwarranted internal body searches because she lived in the same town as another woman who hid oxycodone pills in her vagina.

2019 story: Woman’s suit alleges illegal cavity search by state police, jails

After 13 days in jail and multiple invasive cavity searches, no drugs were ever found on the woman, who had been pulled over because Trooper Wilber said she had "snow on her rear lights." In a settlement the woman has received $212,000 from the state and $25,000 from Strafford County's insurance provider.

The ACLU’s lawsuit states New Hampshire State Police are attempting to “keep secret” records involving Wilber, “thereby indicating that the former trooper has information in his personnel file that would negatively reflect on his trustworthiness or credibility.”

ACLU-NH is asking New Hampshire State Police for all records regarding Wilber, including ones pertaining to his termination and how he was added to the state’s Exculpatory Evidence Schedule. The EES, formerly known as the Laurie List, is the list of officers with credibility issues. Supplemented with a letter written to the department Nov. 10, 2021 outlining the reasons the documents should be released, the ACLU’s lawsuit states New Hampshire State Police have not produced the information.

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“In other words, the department is attempting to keep secret the apparent misconduct of a former trooper,” the lawsuit reads.

The ACLU-NH lawsuit states Wilber, a 13-year veteran of the state police force, was terminated from his position Aug. 10 and placed on the state’s Exculpatory Evidence Schedule the next month.

A New Hampshire State Police spokesperson said the state's Department of Safety cannot comment on pending litigation.

A portion of the names on that once-secret list of officers with credibility issues was released by the New Hampshire Department of Justice on Dec. 29, though it did not mention Wilber.

In its suit, ACLU-NH claims a release of records regarding Wilber would shed light on how the New Hampshire State Police “managed, investigated and supervised” him while he was on the force. The suit states Wilber took part in a pre-hearing conference before the agency’s Personnel Appeals Board last month, indicating he may be challenging his termination.

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“Here, the public interest in disclosure is both compelling and obvious, especially where the Department apparently terminated Mr. Wilber. Indeed, the Department has placed Mr. Wilber on the EES — a list maintained to identify officers who have sustained findings of misconduct concerning credibility and truthfulness in their personnel files that may need to be disclosed to defendants in criminal cases,” the ACLU wrote. “In other words, Mr. Wilber has potentially engaged in misconduct that pertains to his honesty — a trait that goes to the core of a trooper’s ability to do their job.”

Gilles Bissonnette, ACLU-NH’s legal director, called on New Hampshire State Police to be transparent, particularly amid a national and state conversation about police accountability.

“There is simply no legal justification for the State Police’s effort to keep this information secret in this case — it only undermines trust and confidence in law enforcement,” he said. “This secrecy also runs contrary to recent police reform efforts in New Hampshire and shows that we still have a long way to go.”

What was alleged in February 2017 traffic stop and what was result of lawsuit?

The Avon, Maine woman who was stopped by Wilber on I-95 in Portsmouth, has accepted a $212,500 settlement in her lawsuit, filed on her behalf by attorney Lawrence Vogelman. InDepthNH reported on Dec. 31, 2021 that the woman also settled with Strafford County for an additional $25,000.

The 2019 federal lawsuit alleged Wilber stopped the woman for "snow on her rear lights" as she headed northbound on I-95 in Portsmouth Feb. 10, 2017.

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The settled suit claimed that during the stop, Wilber searched the woman's purse without her consent or legal justification and alleged he found heroin residue. That led to a call placed by Wilber and state trooper Matthew Locke to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department in Maine after confirming her identity and learning she resided in that county.

The lawsuit stated that whoever answered the sheriff department’s number stated that Avon was a small town and that several months before, in an unrelated case, the sheriff had pulled over a woman with oxycodone pills hidden inside her vagina.

“On this information and this information alone,” Vogelman wrote on the woman's behalf in her lawsuit, “defendants Wilber and Locke ‘suspected’ the woman they had pulled over was either the same woman from Avon, Maine, who hid oxycodone pills in her vagina, or had done the same thing.”

After denying being in possession of drugs, the woman was transported to the Strafford County House of Corrections, where staff conducted full-body X-ray examinations in efforts to determine whether she had drugs, the suit alleged.

Here are the names: NH releases secret former 'Laurie List' of police officers with credibility issues.

While she did not pass any drugs and corrections staff noted no “foreign objects” were found on her the day of the traffic stop, Vogelman wrote, the woman's bail was increased from $250 to $5,000 after several corrections staffers had reported seeing abnormalities in her scan.

The suit also stated that the woman was brought to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital on Feb. 23, 2017 for a pelvic and rectal examination, performed by Dr. Thomas Lydon, who was named in the woman's suit, though ultimately no contraband was found. After 13 days spent in jail and the multiple examinations, Vogelman claimed the woman received a bill from WDH in September 2017 asking her to pay for “emergency services” provided in the exam.

Wentworth-Douglass Hospital spokesperson Adam Bagni said Tuesday that the hospital was dismissed from the case by the woman and was not asked to settle. Dr. Lydon is a contractor and not a staff member, Bagni said.

“Wentworth-Douglass was voluntarily dismissed from this case, at the plaintiff’s request, and no payment was made. This occurred very early in this case and we have not been associated with any related further actions,” he said.

Court records show Lydon was later dismissed from the lawsuit at the woman's request in October 2020.

The ACLU’s lawsuit spoke to the incident, saying Wilber’s actions led the woman to “needlessly spend 13 days in jail during which time she was subjected to body scans and an invasive cavity examination” and resulted in taxpayer money settling the 2019 suit after a federal court declined to dismiss it.

Bissonnette called Wilber’s alleged actions in the traffic stop almost five years ago “outrageous” adding they “reflect both a gross miscarriage of justice and a complete breakdown of the criminal justice system at every level.”

ACLU-NH’s lawsuit claims Wilber’s alleged actions in the 2017 traffic stop illuminates the “concerning” use of pretextual stops by the State Police’s Mobile Enforcement Team.

A pretextual stop occurs when a law enforcement officer states one reason for the stop but that the reason stated is a “pretext” to a different reason the officer made the stop, “meaning the officer actually made the stop for a different reason that would not provide a lawful basis for the stop,” the ACLU wrote.

"In sum," ACLU-NH states, "transparency is essential for the public to fully vet not only the potential misconduct at issue and its impact on the criminal justice system, but also the investigation and decision making of the Department concerning Mr. Wilber’s behavior."

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This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: NH police sued by ACLU-NH for keeping ex-trooper's records secret