For those of you who remain uninformed about my resignation from the Board of Selectmen a decade ago, you can click HERE to listen to the statement I recorded seven months ago in response to demands that I “explain myself” in the wake of unsuccessful efforts to disqualify my appointment to the Finance Committee.

One has to wonder what threat “Ending Local Poverty” poses to those who, ten years on, continue to fail to listen.

Updated on April 27, 2024 at 5:05 PM

Here is the transcript from which I read when I recorded the above audio clip for those who have a hearing impairment or would prefer to read:

If you’ve spent any time in local politics in Littleton, you probably know what happened—nine and a half years ago—when I went up against the police in my hometown.

If you’re not into local politics or are new in town, you’ve likely heard rumors.

Two years ago, I published my account of my experience on our town’s board of selectmen. I titled it GINNED UP.

Over the course of forty weeks, I went into excruciating detail about what happened during my short time on the board in serialized form. Some people paid to read it, many were provided with free subscriptions.  

Hours before the very first episode was published, I received a letter from an attorney representing our former police chief, John Kelly. I was informed that they would be keeping a close eye on what I would be writing and wouldn’t hesitate to sue me if they found something actionable.

As an attorney myself, I knew that in order to not get sued, all I had to do was tell the truth.

About a month into my weekly publication, I got another threatening letter from John Kelly’s lawyer. I kept publishing.

A month after that, I got a third letter, which, concluded with this zinger:

Absent the immediate removal of your writings from the Internet . . . a lawsuit will follow.

I removed nothing. I published one episode and then another and another. It took a full month for me to believe that they weren’t going to try to stop me.

But let’s be clear: when I announced that I was going to publish what happened over the course of a year of my life while on Littleton’s Board of Selectmen, John Kelly, through his lawyer, threatened to sue me. Three times.

And I was not sued. I was not sued because I told the truth.

In GINNED UP, I described how, in January of 2014, then-sergeant David Leslie brought me credible allegations that Littleton’s chief-to-be, Matt King, had digitally raped a woman.

Rape in the digital age refers to the forcible and unwanted penetration of a person’s fingers inside the body of another person. It has nothing to do with cybercrime.

David Leslie told me that Matt King, in addition to digitally raping a woman, also paid her $25,000.00 to not go forward with the allegation.

Within three days of bringing this information to Ted Doucette, Littleton’s then-Town Administrator Keith Bergman, and town counsel Tom Harrington, I was on the receiving end of a bogus sexual harassment investigation. This was the first method by which my tenure on the board was threatened. No sexual harassment was found, because no sexual harassment occurred.

When ousting me that way didn’t work, John Kelly put me in fear. I did not resign because I wanted to, I resigned because I was terrified that my life would be ruined—because that was what John Kelly predicted would happen.

Take a moment to understand that, between July 2021 and April 2022, I published a lot of very critical, deeply unflattering words about the behaviors and actions of many of our town employees and many of our then-town officials.

I’d brought credible allegations of a violent sex crime to the attention of town employees and elected town officials and was forced out of office.

I do not know if Ted Doucette, Alex McCurdy, Joe Knox, Jim Karr, Keith Bergman, Tom Harrington, and Bonnie Fleck looked into the allegation of digital rape or the allegation that the rape victim was paid to not go forward. What I do know is that Matt King became Littleton’s police chief—just as John Kelly had wanted.

This was what happened in Littleton: I brought forward credible allegations that Littleton’s next chief of police had committed a violent sex crime and paid the victim not to go forward and was forced out of office.

Anything else you’ve heard is a lie.