How The NHCADSV Failed Marisol Fuentes

Live Free or Die” Meets “We’ll Get Back to You”: Inside NH’s Right-to-Know Playbook

New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law promises that government records belong to the public. This episode is what happens when you actually try to collect. Over two weeks, our research team filed records requests with the State of New Hampshire and the City of Concord — about the state forensic laboratory, a criminalist named Kevin McMahon, an internal affairs policy, and a grant check the city signed with its own hand. What came back wasn’t transparency. It was technique. In this episode, I break down four moves — by name, with the actual letters on screen — so you’ll recognize them the next time your government throws one at you: * The Hot Potato — your concern gets quietly forwarded to the very agency it’s about * The Empty Drawer — the wrong office truthfully says it has nothing, and doesn’t tell you where the right one is * The Slow Clock — nobody says no, the answer just arrives after it stops mattering (mark your calendar: September 25, 2026) * The Preemptive Maybe — the exemption gets floated before anyone’s even searched And underneath all four moves sits a real question with a paper trail: sworn 2014 testimony about DNA contamination and a 2011 suspension, a 2024 disciplinary ruling that never mentions either — and a decade of trials in between where a jury may never have heard the difference. Every request is filed. Every deadline is written down. This show will be here when they come due. Receipts over vibes — always. 🎙️ New episode of The Gracie Gato Podcast is live. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe [https://gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Skip the Butter: The Forensic Analyst New Hampshire Kept Putting on the Stand

Skip the Butter: The Forensic Analyst New Hampshire Kept Putting on the Stand For 43 years, a New Hampshire State Police forensic analyst kept getting walked up to the witness stand — sworn, trusted, in the most serious cases this state has ever tried. This is what his own employer's records say about him. And what the public was never shown.This week on The Gracie Gato Podcast we trace the documented record of Kevin G. McMahon, a longtime criminalist at the NH State Police Forensic Laboratory: a man his own employer formally warned, sent to harassment training at least five times, and ultimately suspended — and who admitted under oath that his own DNA kept turning up on the evidence he was testing. We follow what's in the public file, what's missing from it, and the Right-to-Know request now ticking on a five-business-day clock.No spin. No mob. A citizen, a statute, a deadline, and a paper trail. Receipts first — vibes never.In this episode:The Personnel Appeals Board decision the State signed off on (Docket #2024 [https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/2024]-D-010)The contamination history he admitted on cross-examination — that prosecutors never raisedState v. Owen Labrie: the case where the system's backstop held, and why that's the scariest partState v. Adam Montgomery: how the pattern completesColorado, Massachusetts, New York — the national crime-lab reckoning McMahon is part ofThe RSA 91-A request that asks the State for the whole file — and starts the clockChapters (adjust to final cut):00:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toqBSEbnjg] — Cold Open: Skip the Butter01:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toqBSEbnjg&t=60s] — Meet Kevin05:30 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toqBSEbnjg&t=330s] — The Contamination File10:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toqBSEbnjg&t=600s] — The Net Held (State v. Labrie)15:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toqBSEbnjg&t=900s] — The Pattern Completes (State v. Montgomery)20:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toqBSEbnjg&t=1200s] — Not Just Here: A National Pattern23:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0toqBSEbnjg&t=1380s] — The RequestSources & public records:NH Personnel Appeals Board, Appeal of Kevin McMahon, Docket #2024 [https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/2024]-D-010 (decided March 20, 2024)State of New Hampshire v. Owen Labrie — trial transcript (2015)Nashua Telegraph reporting, State v. Harvey Martel (June 2014)State of New Hampshire v. Adam Montgomery — trial coverage (February 2024)Colorado (Yvonne "Missy" Woods / CBI) and Massachusetts (Annie Dookhan, Sonja Farak) crime-lab casesNH RSA 91-A (Right-to-Know Law) For 43 years, a New Hampshire State Police forensic analyst kept getting walked up to the witness stand — sworn, trusted, in the most serious cases this state has ever tried. This is what his own employer’s records say about him. And what the public was never shown. This week on The Gracie Gato Podcast, we trace the documented record of Kevin G. McMahon, a longtime criminalist at the NH State Police Forensic Laboratory: a man his own employer formally warned, sent to harassment training at least five times, and ultimately suspended — and who admitted under oath that his own DNA kept turning up on the evidence he was testing. We follow what’s in the public file, what’s missing from it, and the Right-to-Know request now ticking on a five-business-day clock. No spin. No mob. A citizen, a statute, a deadline, and a paper trail. Receipts first — vibes never. In this episode: * The Personnel Appeals Board decision the State signed off on (Docket #2024-D-010) * The contamination history he admitted on cross-examination — that prosecutors never raised * State v. Owen Labrie: the case where the system’s backstop held, and why that’s the scariest part * State v. Adam Montgomery: how the pattern completes * Colorado, Massachusetts, New York — the national crime-lab reckoning McMahon is part of * The RSA 91-A request that asks the State for the whole file — and starts the clock Chapters (adjust to final cut):00:00 — Cold Open: Skip the Butter01:00 — Meet Kevin05:30 — The Contamination File10:00 — The Net Held (State v. Labrie)15:00 — The Pattern Completes (State v. Montgomery)20:00 — Not Just Here: A National Pattern23:00 — The Request Sources & public records: * NH Personnel Appeals Board, Appeal of Kevin McMahon, Docket #2024-D-010 (decided March 20, 2024) * State of New Hampshire v. Owen Labrie — trial transcript (2015) * Nashua Telegraph reporting, State v. Harvey Martel (June 2014) * State of New Hampshire v. Adam Montgomery — trial coverage (February 2024) * Colorado (Yvonne “Missy” Woods / CBI) and Massachusetts (Annie Dookhan, Sonja Farak) crime-lab cases * NH RSA 91-A (Right-to-Know Law) The Owen Labrie Transcripts. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe [https://gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Matthew Emerson for CD-01 New Hampshire Congressional District.

“Welcome back to the Gracie Gato Podcast. Pour something, settle in. Here’s a riddle for you. What do you call a man running for Congress who won’t take money from corporations, won’t take money from PACs, won’t take a dime from the wealthy — and won’t even take five bucks from you*, the voter who likes him? You call him Matthew Emerson. And you call him my guest tonight.* Nine Democrats are clawing each other for Chris Pappas’s old seat. The Shaheens are circling, the consultants are billing, the lawn signs are breeding like rabbits. And way up in Conway, there’s a guy running the whole thing on less than the cost of a used Subaru, calling the entire field ‘insulated and tone deaf’ to their faces. Now — is that prophecy, or is that a man making a virtue out of an empty wallet? That’s what we’re here to find out. Because around here, we don’t do press releases. We do questions. So Matthew — welcome. Don’t get comfortable. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe [https://gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Meet Carleigh Beriont For New Hampshire Congress

She filed for Congress yesterday. Today she’s in the Speakeasy. Carleigh Beriont is a Harvard-educated union organizer, mom, Marshall Islands teacher, and Hampton Select Board Chair who looked at New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District — packed with establishment money and dynasty names — and said: not today. No AIPAC. No social media. No apologies. Just Medicare for All, a ban on Congressional stock trading, and the audacity to show up anyway. This is what a people-first campaign sounds like before the consultants get to it. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe [https://gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

FORE! Who's Paying For This?

Starting today, Gracie Gato’s Speakeasy has a new recurring segment. Every week, Concord City Councilor Stacey Brown sits down with me to give you a direct, unfiltered report on what is happening inside Concord City Hall — the votes, the budget decisions, the things that get approved quietly and the things that get cut loudly. No spin. No press releases. Just a city councilor with a stack of documents and nowhere to be except honest. We’re calling it The Concord Report. And we are starting with a story that made me put down my coffee. Beaver Meadow Golf Course is a city-owned municipal course off Sewall’s Falls Road. It has been part of Concord’s civic landscape since 1897, when Scottish golf architect Willie Campbell designed its original nine holes. For decades, the city operated it as a self-sustaining enterprise. In fact, the official mission statement — adopted in 1994 — explicitly committed that the course would operate “without the need to supplement revenues with tax dollars.” That language was removed in 2008. Quietly. Without public fanfare. Nine months into Jim Bouley’s first term as mayor. What followed was thirteen years of General Fund transfers — your property taxes flowing into golf operations, year after year, sometimes tens of thousands more than the city publicly budgeted. The golf fund accumulated debt the city approved in increments: $138,000 in FY2018, $310,000 in FY2019, $310,000 in FY2020. When you add interest and obligations through the present day, the total debt exposure tied to Beaver Meadow exceeds $11 million. Now here is where it gets personal. In the most recent budget cycle, the Concord City Council needed to cut spending to reduce the tax rate. Here is some of what got cut: • Hoopla — the public library’s digital audiobook service — $38,000 • Bagged leaf pickup service (spring and fall curbside collection) — $99,225 • A UNH graduate student contracted to do a city tree inventory — $4,000 • The city’s ICLEI sustainability membership — $1,200 Here is what did not get cut at the golf course: • $92,000 for grounds and horticulture — including $55,600 in chemicals and $3,000 for flowers and shrubs • $8,630 in professional development — including $3,200 in tournament entry fees for the course’s two golf pros and $3,000 for “continuing education” And here is what was added to the golf course budget: • $5,000 for a new ball picker • $20,000 in temporary labor increases • $10,000 in additional overtime wages • $46,140 in total new golf course requests The library lost its audiobooks. Your leaves will sit at the curb. The golf pros are entering tournaments on the city’s dime. — Stacey Brown has been documenting all of this — budget document by budget document, fiscal year by fiscal year, going back to 2013. She attended the Golf Course Advisory Committee meeting in February 2025 and presented evidence — from a published reference book, The Architects of Golf by Geoffrey S. Cornish and Ronald E. Whitten — that Beaver Meadow has been falsely marketed as the oldest golf course in New Hampshire. (It isn’t. Waumbek Golf Course opened in 1896. Beaver Meadow opened in 1897.) The room’s response was to call her an attacker and suggest the golf course hire a public relations person. She kept going anyway. That is the kind of city councilor Stacey Brown is. And that is why The Concord Report exists. — This episode is the first installment of what will be a weekly conversation. Every week, Stacey brings me what she is watching — the votes coming up, the budget lines worth questioning, the decisions being made in your name with your money. If you live in Concord, this is your city. You deserve to know what is happening in it. All source documents referenced in this episode are linked below. I encourage you to read them. 📄 SOURCE DOCUMENTS • Beaver Meadow Golf Course Mission Statements, 1994 and 2008 • Golf Fund Budget Documents, FY2013–FY2021 (City of Concord Operating Budgets) • Council-approved debt: FY2018 ($138,000), FY2019 ($310,000), FY2020 ($310,000) • Irrigation and Clubhouse Debt Service documents, FY2018–FY2026 • Golf Course Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes, February 20, 2025 • Concord Finance Committee Budget Adjustment Document, June 4, 2026 • The Architects of Golf — Geoffrey S. Cornish & Ronald E. Whitten (HarperCollins) Listen to the full episode above. Tips and documents: gracie.gato81@gmail.com www.graciegato.com Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe [https://gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]