Donahue, Tucker & Ciandella Attorney's Lie to and Mislead the Court!

DTC Attorneys John Ratigan and Briana Matuszko should each be disbarred from ever again practicing law. These unethical attorneys have knowingly, purposefully, and repeatedly lied to and misled Rockingham Superior Court Judge Andrew Schulman to hide violations of NH RSA 91-A and RSA 641:6 and 7 committed by their client, the Town of Newmarket. Ratigan and Matuszko are not the only ones who should be disbarred. Every Newmarket Town Councilor and Newmarket’s Town Manager should be disbarred from ever again serving in a position of public trust for their unethical and unlawful behavior.

On August 28, 2023, I submitted a Right-to-Know request to Newmarket seeking to inspect public documents of the Town Council discussions, deliberations, and votes taken to approve the Settlement Agreement entered into between the Town and myself. Newmarket Town Manager Stephen Fournier responded to my request stating, “As these were consultations with legal counsel, no such documents exist.”

Right-to-Know Law prohibits public bodies from discussing, deliberating, or voting in “non-meetings” with legal counsel. Moreover, Fournier’s claim the council’s actions took place during a consultation with legal counsel was a lie. The council took all of these actions secretly, just with Fournier. There was no “consultation” with legal counsel.
With Newmarket’s refusal to comply with my request, and their violations of Law, and lies, I filed grievances against Newmarket with the NH Right-to-Know Ombudsman seeking the production of the requested documents and accountability for their violations.

Newmarket’s legal counsel John Ratigan denied Newmarket violated Right-to-Know by engaging in multiple “non-meetings” with legal counsel, claiming such communications do not constitute a meeting and that the emails are not public records because they are exempt from disclosure under the Attorney-Client privilege. Both of these claims by Ratigan were untruthful.
Ratigan then implied to the Ombudsman that the Town Council held a non-public meeting where they discussed and took action regarding legal advice. This of course never happened.

Interestingly, in denying the agreement was made in bad faith, Ratigan informed the Ombudsman, “...it is not accurate that the Town Council did not approve the settlement agreement. Even if true, the discussions, deliberations, and decisions of the Council cannot take place in a "non-meeting" and are not covered by the attorney-client privilege. Ratigan was lying and misleading the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman determined he did not have the legal authority to grant my requested relief that he remove every member of the Newmarket Town Council for violating their oaths of office regarding their violations of Right-to-Know Laws. Consequently, the case was appealed to Rockingham Superior Court.

On December 29th, 2023, Attorney Ratigan filed an Answer to my complaint on behalf of Newmarket claiming members of the Town Council “had been forwarded” an email from him related to the proposed settlement agreement and that he had been informed it was acceptable to the Town Council. The story had now changed.

Interestingly, at the hearing, Ratigan informed the Court he did not exchange emails with any members of the Town Council. His email exchanges regarding his “inquiry,” were only with the Town Manager who then forwarded the email to members of the Town Council.
Individual members of public bodies (Selectmen, School Board members, Town Councilors, etc.) have no legal authority to conduct any public business outside of a quorum of the board in a properly noticed meeting. Emails from a public body's legal counsel to individual members of a public body outside of a meeting could only be for one purpose: to conduct public business secretly.

Ratigan and Briana Matuszko have denied the Newmarket Town Council violated RSA 91-A by engaging in multiple “non-meetings” with legal counsel, claiming “consultation with legal counsel” is not a meeting. These were lies. There was no “non-meeting” with legal counsel. The discussion, deliberation, and decisions of the Town Council between the Council and the Town Manager did violate RSA 91-A. Ratigans claims the email communications are not a “meeting” with the Town’s legal counsel, and such communications are not public, governmental records, as they are subject to attorney-client privilege are lies.

Ratigan further claimed that because the email communications that involved the Town Council and the Town’s Attorney were subject to the attorney-client privilege and thus none of such communications occurred at a Town Council public meeting, there are no Town Council meeting minutes that “illustrate discussions, deliberations and votes taken by the Town Council regarding the settlement agreement. More lies.

Based upon these outrageous unethical acts by Ratigan and Matusko, I can only assume DTC is hard up for attorney fees. What I know for certain is that no public body or agency in NH should ever allow DTC to represent them in any legal matters. No taxpayer funds should ever be allowed to be paid to cover up violations of NH laws committed by public officials or to any unethical and immoral attorneys or their law firms.

Jeffrey Thomas Clay