Legal Information: News from all over NH

Austin M. Mikolaities Joins Shaheen & Gordon

The law firm of Shaheen & Gordon, PA has welcomed Dover-based attorney Austin M. Mikolaities to its commercial and real estate practice.

Mikolaities’ practice focuses on complex corporate transactions, including purchases and sales, mergers and acquisitions, 1031 exchanges, transfers of member interests, and stock/asset sales. He is knowledgeable in commercial transactions, commercial leasing, and business entity formations and strives to build lasting relationships with his clients by providing ongoing corporate legal advice.

In addition to his private practice, Mikolaities gained experience working directly for a large renewable energy corporation, where he focused on contract analysis, risk assessment and data protection compliance, including CCPA and GDPR.

“We are excited to continue our growth and bring Austin on board,” says Sean O’Connell, chair of the Business Law Group at Shaheen & Gordon. “He has already built an impressive reputation on the Coast for the quality of his legal work and personal approach, which is a perfect fit for our firm.”

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YDC Abuse Settlement Fund Payouts Now Surpass $95 Million

A settlement fund created by New Hampshire lawmakers continues to pay out millions of dollars to resolve numerous credible claims of abuse against staff at the state-run juvenile detention center, formerly known as the Youth Development Center (YDC).

According to data from April, one hundred and thirty-four new applications were submitted through the end of June, for a total of 552 applications. newly published report by the settlement fund administrator, former Chief Justice John Broderick. The rate of new claims was lower than in the previous quarter, when 159 new claims were filed.

The Settlement Fund also approved the award of monetary damages to an additional 52 individuals because Broderick’s latest quarterly reportfor a total of $95.6 million in settlements for 186 claimants; 349 claims remain pending.

Most complainants allege both physical and sexual violence.

The report was published after some settlement fund operations were temporarily suspended to give administrators time to adjust to last changes intended to make the settlement fund more attractive to the nearly 1,300 alleged victims who have filed civil lawsuits against the state.

Those changes, passed by the state Legislature last month, include an increase in the payout limit to $2.5 million and new categories of compensable abuse. The new rules also raise the total pool to $160 million, up from $100 million when the fund was first created.

Attorneys representing most of the alleged YDC victims say they support the changes and will recommend compensation to most of their clients.

“Once the revised claims materials are available, I expect our caseload to increase significantly by June of next year,” Broderick wrote.

According to Broderick, about half of all claims filed against the YDC Settlement Fund were originally filed as lawsuits in the Supreme Court.

Only one civil plaintiff who alleged abuse at YDC has reached trial, despite a years-long trial. In May, a jury found David Meehan guilty historic $38 million for abuses he suffered while in state custody at YDC in the 1990s. The actual amount Meehan will receive is still in progress after the state filed a motion arguing that the damages he was owed should be capped at $475,000 because the jury found only one count of malpractice.

Deadline for submitting claims YDC Settlement Fund is June 30, 2025 — Jason Moon, NH Public Radio

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Hanover prosecutor charges 20 more protesters with violations; 4 others acquitted

The Hanover Police Department prosecutor filed an indictment in Lebanon District Court on Thursday against the latest group of 89 people arrested during a May 1 pro-Palestinian protest on Dartmouth Green.

Prosecutor Mariana Pastore charged 20 more protesters with trespassing and decided not to charge four people, including Dartmouth University history professor Annelise Orleck, with trespassing.

“Of course, I am personally relieved that I no longer have to face criminal charges,” Orleck said in an email Friday. “But that does not erase the trauma of what happened to students, faculty, and community members on May 1.”

New Hampshire State Police officers detained Orleck, who is in her 60s, at the scene when they arrested her and dozens of others within two hours of several tents being set up on the Dartmouth Green on May 1. Dartmouth authorities had called on police to clear out the protesters, who had gathered in response to the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. They had failed to heed repeated warnings to disperse.

“I have never received an apology from Dartmouth or the state police for their brutal attack on me or for the brutality they unleashed on an otherwise peaceful protest,” Orleck said in her Friday email. “I believe I am owed one, as are all of us.”

Reached by phone Friday, Pastore declined to comment on ongoing cases, so it’s unclear how she determined which protesters to charge and which to pardon.

Including the charges Pastore filed earlier in June, of the 89 protesters arrested in Hanover in May, 55 were charged with violations and 32 were not. Violations do not carry jail time or result in a criminal record, but fines and court fees can be imposed.

Orleck said she was relieved the students arrested May 1 did not have any criminal records, but called the charges “completely unfair.”

“They shouldn’t face any legal consequences,” Orleck said. “They didn’t do anything wrong. The aggressors on May 1 were the police.”

In May, shortly after the arrests, charges against two reporters for The Dartmouth student newspaper were dropped altogether.

Meanwhile, Andrew Tefft, a 1997 Hanover High School graduate from Watertown, Mass., is the only person arrested that night who faces a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest. If convicted, he faces up to a year in prison.

Criminal charges are still pending against Kevin Engel and Roan Wade, who were arrested last October for trespassing when they pitched a tent outside the office of Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock in Hanover.

“All they did was sit in a tent,” Orleck said of Engel and Wade. “The right to peaceful protest is the foundation of democracy. It’s time for this trauma to end.”

Orleck maintains that the only “just solution” would be for the university to “publicly demand that the prosecutor drop all charges, apologize to those of us who were brutalized that night, and promise to never call the police to campus again.”

Earlier this week, the ACLU of New Hampshire called on Dartmouth and the University of New Hampshire to drop trespassing and disorderly conduct charges against pro-Palestinian protesters arrested on May 1.

The 20 protesters charged with violations this week are scheduled to be arraigned on Aug. 5, though they can file a motion to have the charges dropped, as many in the previous group did before their arraignment date earlier this week. — Nora Doyle-Burr, Valley News

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Jaffrey Zoning Board rejects appeal of 16-unit project

The Jaffrey Zoning Board unanimously rejected a request to reconsider the proposed 16-building complex, which the board rejected last month.

The application, submitted by Fougere Homes, proposed 16 condominium units at 79 Town Farm Road, a 24.7-acre parcel that currently has one house and several outbuildings. The applicant proposed that instead of building the six houses allowed by the city’s density calculator, the buildings be grouped together at the front of the property and 16 built.

The board denied a variance that would have allowed for higher density, finding that the application did not meet the criteria that denying the variance would create “undue hardship.” The board ultimately determined there was nothing to prevent the property from being developed in the usual manner, which is one of the standards for determining whether hardship exists.

Fougere Homes appealed the decision, arguing that the board misapplied the law regarding the “undue hardship” criteria. The applicant argued that the board must first determine whether a hardship exists when the specific conditions of the property make the proposed use “reasonable.”

The applicant argued that the board failed to establish this primary standard and based its decision on a secondary standard – that because of the specific conditions of the property, it could not reasonably be used in strict compliance with the city ordinance.

Fougere Homes argued that the second standard should only come into play if the city finds that the first is not met, arguing that the board “failed to conduct a proper review under the primary standard in this case.” The applicant argued that the property’s particular shape—a narrow “flagpole” access point and about a quarter of the property covered in wetlands—created unique circumstances that should be taken into account.

The board disagreed with the arguments presented in the appeal and dismissed it. The board members stated that they did not consider the conditions of the property to be entirely exceptional compared to others in the city.

“There were a lot of different shaped properties in that area and most of them, if not all of them, had wetland issues,” said Walter Batchelder, a member of the ZBA.

“I don’t think we’re wrong to say there weren’t difficulties. That’s my position on it,” ZBA member David Jeffries said.

The Board unanimously rejected the appeal. The applicant has 30 days to further appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. — Ashley Saari, Monadnock Ledger-Transcript