Former Democrat Congressional Candidate Sent To Prison For Defrauding Disabled Woman

By NH Journal

Seacoast former lawyer and one-time Democratic congressional candidate Justin P. Nadeau is getting a pretty good volume discount on his prison sentence, with just six months to a year per conviction on average.

Unfortunately for Nadeau, a jury found him guilty on 15 criminal counts earlier this year.

Nadeau, 53, was sentenced Monday in Rockingham County Superior Court to 7 1/2 to 15 years in New Hampshire State Prison following his April 1 conviction on one count of theft by deception, two counts of financial exploitation of a disabled adult, 11 counts of falsifying physical evidence, and one count of forgery.

The sentence breaks down to two concurrent 5-to-10-year prison terms on the financial exploitation charges, followed by a consecutive 2 1/2-to-5-year term on five counts of falsifying physical evidence. That brings Nadeau’s total stand-committed sentence to 7 1/2 to 15 years.

For the remaining charges, Nadeau received suspended 2 1/2- to 5-year sentences on each of the six falsifying physical evidence counts, and a suspended 3- to 6-year sentence on the forgery count.

Not bad for a guy convicted of taking close to $300,000 from a woman with a brain injury who had come to him for help, and then launching a bone-headed cover-up when the New Hampshire Attorney Discipline Office started investigating his “ethics.”

“It’s difficult for me to imagine something worse for a lawyer to do,” one investigating member of the Professional Conduct Committee said, according to court records.

The charges stem from Nadeau’s relationship with Exeter woman Shawn Fahey, who hired him after she suffered a traumatic brain injury. During their business relationship, Nadeau convinced Fahey to give him nearly $300,000 in loans secured by a condo he did not own, as well as the anticipated proceeds from a pending defamation lawsuit he had filed against the Portsmouth Police Department. Nadeau reportedly told Fahey he was “strapped for cash” until the defamation lawsuit was resolved.

The lawsuit against Portsmouth police arose from the arrest of Portsmouth man Christian Jennings. Jennings was allegedly found with quantities of marijuana, Ecstasy, amphetamines, a loaded gun and $42,000 in cash. According to police, Nadeau was handling an $85,000 marina investment for Jennings before the arrest, though the marina deal never closed. Nadeau brought the lawsuit after police opened an investigation into whether he was laundering drug money. The defamation case was settled in 2019.

Nadeau also allegedly hid the $165,000 he collected after he sent Fahey to a Massachusetts attorney to handle her injury case, according to the PCC investigation. Nadeau reportedly collected referral fees from the Massachusetts attorney, as well as other money related to Fahey’s case.

Nadeau slow-walked the production of documents related to the PCC ethics case, according to court records. After months of stalling, Nadeau destroyed his computer before a hearing, according to court records. Nadeau claimed he made all the appropriate conflict-of-interest disclosures and eventually produced printed copies of the letter he claimed he sent Fahey.

However, James Berriman, the computer expert hired by the PCC, reviewed Nadeau’s office server and found the dates on the documents Nadeau gave to the committee were fake, and that the documents were created well after he took the money from Fahey.

“As a member of the PCC observed at oral argument before the PCC, ‘the Berriman Report and the spoliation of evidence, in my mind . . . is one of the most significant violations I have seen in decades of practice before the ADO before joining this committee,’” a New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling states.

The Attorney General’s Office said the evidence at trial showed Nadeau fabricated documentation, produced false electronic file metadata, destroyed or concealed his computer, and forged his then-wife’s signature on a backdated promissory note.

Nadeau appealed his disbarment, but the Supreme Court ruled he crossed too many lines to be allowed to continue as a lawyer. The court found that Nadeau engaged in a “deliberate, multi-year effort to deceive the disciplinary authority.”

Before his criminal and professional downfall, Nadeau tried to make a go of it in politics. He was the 2004 Democratic nominee in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, losing to Republican Jeb Bradley.

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.