NH Sheriff's Deputy Found Guilty of Sex Crime

MANCHESTER, NH - A sheriff’s deputy who was accused of having sex with a female prison inmate in Bedford nearly two years ago has been found guilty, according to the Laconia Citizen.

Ernest Justin Blanchette, 36, was found guilty of felonious sexual assault in Hillsborough County Superior Court on April 28, 2016.

According to court testimony, in July 2014, while transferring a female prisoner for the Belknap County Sheriff’s Department to the state’s women’s prison in Goffstown, Blanchette took the prisoner to an abandoned house in Bedford where they had sex.

Blanchette, according to testimony, gave the woman cigarettes and access to a cellphone in exchange for the sexual contact. The prisoner accused him of other encounters, too, according to press reports.

State law does not allow for consensual sexual activity between a person in custody of another person, which was the basis of the felonious sexual assault charge.

Blanchette’s defense team argued that the inmate was “a very street-smart individual who knew what she was doing,” according to WMUR-TV. However, Blanchette’s wife also testified that her husband changed his story several times and bragged that they wouldn’t believe the woman, according to testimony.

In February, at his arraignment, according to the Laconia Daily Sun, a number of other indictments against Blanchette had been issued, including coercing a second woman into having intercourse in a Laconia cemetery. He will also face those charges in Belknap County, according to reports. 

Read the full breaking news alert on Citizen.com.