From The State House To The Courthouse, State Senator's Troubles Pile Up

By Damien Fisher, NH Journal

State Sen. Tim McGough may not be welcome around the State House, but he appears to be pretty popular around the courthouse.

The Merrimack Republican has been stripped of his committee assignments and removed from state commissions in response to complaints about his treatment of fellow senators and staff. Now it turns out he’s being sued for failure to pay his bills.

NHJournal has learned he’s battling a $15,158 collection action brought against him by Crown Asset Management LLC. The Georgia-based collections company is pursuing McGough over an account that originated with Cross River Bank, according to court records. That case is currently in mediation.

Also on McGough’s docket is a $4,827 collections lawsuit brought by Midland Credit Management Inc., based in San Diego. Midland claims McGough stopped paying on his consumer loan account. That case was filed last month, and McGough has yet to respond.

In both cases, McGough is representing himself.

McGough also settled a $1,000 collections case brought in 2024 and a $3,100 case brought in 2022, according to court records.

The debts are more than merely a legal problem for McGough, who loves to project an image of financial success, according to one source who has dealt with him.

“He loves to portray himself as someone who is wealthy and well-established in business. He’s a pretender,” the source said.

McGough also prides himself on speaking truth to power. On Monday’s WFEA “Jeff Chidester Show,” he blamed his State House troubles on the fact that “I try to be a senator who values the truth and speaking up. And I have the courage and dedication to do it when nobody else will.”

But when NHJournal contacted him about being sued for failure to pay his bills, McGough wasn’t interested in talking.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” McGough told NHJournal Monday evening when asked about the collections lawsuits.

When a reporter reminded him that he’s representing himself in the two cases, McGough reversed course, saying he could not discuss any pending litigation.

McGough also didn’t want to talk about his time working as an EMT in Massachusetts. That’s perhaps unsurprising given that his EMT license was revoked after he reportedly ditched a trauma patient so that he could clock out of his shift, according to Massachusetts state records.

“You have your facts wrong,” McGough said before declaring he needed to get his dinner out of the oven and hanging up.

Along with his financial success, his experience as an EMT is important to McGough’s self-image, the source said. He frequently corrects people on emergency medical terms and often speaks about his time teaching emergency medicine in poor countries.

But McGough doesn’t talk about the 2006 incident that led to his being disciplined by the state of Massachusetts. According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health report, McGough was required to respond to an accident in which a bicyclist was struck by a car. The problem was that McGough’s shift was set to end at 5 p.m., and the accident call came in at 4:52 p.m. that day.

The bicyclist suffered traumatic injuries that required a trip to the hospital, but McGough instead drove the ambulance back to the Action Ambulance station so he could punch out, and another employee could take over and drive the patient to the hospital.

McGough was ultimately fired by Action Ambulance, according to the state report. The state disciplinary action was to suspend his license for three days and require supervision through a corrective action plan. But the record shows that McGough never responded to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and did not file a proposed corrective action plan by the deadline. McGough’s license was revoked in January 2008 after months of silence from him. It’s not known if he entered into a corrective action plan after that revocation.

State House sources tell NHJournal, on background, that a search is underway for another Republican candidate in District 11 to either replace McGough or challenge him in a primary. Based on McGough’s behavior thus far, it’s likely to be the latter. He shows no signs of bowing out gracefully.

“I’m outspoken. I’m not perfect,” McGough said during his radio interview Monday. “I’m grateful every day for all of the kind words and support and encouragement that I’ve heard from constituents, and I take very seriously the trust they place in me to represent them with honesty and strength and integrity.”

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.