The previous CEO of a New Hampshire habit rehab middle has been federally charged with directing a harassment marketing campaign towards journalists and their households in response to unfavorable protection.
A Federal grand jury indicted Eric Spofford, 40, of Salem, N.H., and Miami, Fla., on a number of interstate stalking-related costs.
In March 2022, New Hampshire Public Radio revealed an article detailing allegations of sexual misconduct and abusive management towards Spofford, who was a co-founder and former chief govt officer of the for-profit drug and alcohol remedy firm Granite Restoration Facilities.
Spofford himself isn’t accused of collaborating within the harassment marketing campaign towards the reporter and her editor — in addition to their relations — in retaliation for the report, however as an alternative tapping his shut pal Eric Labarge to do the work for him.
In flip, Labarge enlisted Tucker Cockerline, Keenan Saniatan and Michael Waselchuck to hold out the marketing campaign. Federal prosecutors say that Spofford paid Labarge $20,000 in money in addition to the victims’ addresses and particular methods he needed them harassed.
The primary reported situations occurred in April of 2022, with Cockerline throwing a brick by means of the reporter’s former home in Hanover, N.H., on April 24, 2022. He additionally spraypainted a four-letter derogatory phrase starting with “C” in massive, purple letters on the entrance door of the house.
That very same day, Saniatan did the identical to the editor’s dwelling in Harmony, N.H., and the reporter’s mum or dad’s dwelling in Hampstead, N.H.
The marketing campaign continued the following month first when Cockerline spraypainted that very same C-word in massive purple letters on one of many storage doorways of the reporter’s mum or dad’s dwelling after which hours later when Waselchuck focused the reporter’s new handle in Melrose. There, he threw a brick by means of the window in order that she would come out and see the message spray-painted in purple on the facet of her dwelling: “This is just the beginning.”
The Middlesex District Legal professional’s workplace issued a press launch following that assault and launched a SimpliSafe dwelling surveillance recording of the horrifying incident of the person throwing the brick. As authorities continued to research, they discovered this was an interstate marketing campaign and federal authorities took the case over.
Labarge, Cockerline, Saniatan and Waselchuck already went by means of the authorized system for his or her soiled work beginning in 2023, when they had been charged, and 2024, once they had been sentenced, because the Herald has lined.
Cockerline was the first to be sentenced when he was slammed with two years and three months in federal jail for his function in August 2024. Waselchuck was sentenced subsequent that September with a 12 months and 9 months in jail. Labarge was sentenced that November to a few years and 10 months and the next month Saniatan was sentenced to 2 and a half years in jail.
Courtesy / U.S. District Courtroom
A person later recognized as Keenan Saniatan is seen in surveillance video across the time he vandalized the Hampstead, New Hampshire, dwelling of the dad and mom of an NHPR journalist. (Courtesy / U.S. District Courtroom)
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