AG: Complaint About Nashua Police Chief 'Unfounded'

Attorney General Joseph A. Foster said in a press release on Thursday that his office has determined that a complaint about Nashua Police Chief John Seusing was "unfounded."

In a press release issued this afternoon, the attorney general's office said it received a telephone call on March 26 and a letter dated April 7 from Anthony Pivero, a former Nashua police officer, alleging that Seusing fabricated a police report when he was a patrol officer. 

Specifically, Pivero alleged that in 1984 or 1985, Seusing was involved in arresting individuals at a bar in Nashua, and that during the booking process, a supervisor told Seusing to write an arrest report for a person who had been arrested. Although Seusing was not the arresting officer, Pivero said Seusing wrote the report and at a court hearing he testified to facts in the arrest report. Pivero said it was later determined that Seusing had fabricated the arrest report and that Seusing admitted to the false report and was disciplined by the department. 

The attorney general's office said its review found that Pivero's allegations were "largely incorrect" and that Seusing did not author a false report and did not provide false testimony. The review instead established that while Seusing failed to tell the truth to his superiors when a complaint arose from his arrest, he later corrected his mistake of his own volition.

In his complaint, Pivero also questioned whether the incident was disclosed in the murder trial of Michael Monroe, in which Seusing testified. Police departments are required to inform prosecutors if a police officer has information in his or her personnel file that could materially impact a jury’s assessment of the officer’s credibility as a witness. Prosecutors, in turn, have a constitutional obligation to disclose such information to a criminal defendant.

In response to Pivero's complaint, the attorney general's office conducted a review of the Monroe trial, interviewing a number of people who were involved in the case. Based on that review, the attorney general's office determined that the police and prosecutors satisfied their obligation to inform counsel for Monroe that Seusing lied to a superior and was disciplined for this lie.

"I want to thank the present and past members of the Nashua Police Department, including Chief Seusing, for their utmost cooperation with my office’s review of Mr. Pivero’s assertions," Foster said in a statement. "The investigation established that Chief Seusing was untruthful to a superior more than 25 years ago and, he, of his own volition, corrected his error and received his punishment. In order to satisfy our legal and ethical obligations, this office will continue to apprise defendants of this incident involving Chief Seusing, and we will continue to vigorously argue, as this office successfully did in 1995, that this incident is not proper impeachment evidence."