City surprised by Angel's raid

City officials said yesterday that they were taken by surprise when state and local law enforcement and environmental agencies last week descended on property off White Oaks Road which houses the offices of an excavating firm owned by Eddie Shaughnessy of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. Both City Manager Eileen Cabanel and Planning Director Shanna Saunders said that they were unaware that the property was the target of a search and investigation.

On Friday officers from the Belknap County Sheriff's Department and the Laconia police Department, accompanied by officials from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (DES) and New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development — under the supervision of New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte and Belknap County Attorney Lauren Noether — searched the property for evidence of environmental violations, including altering wetlands, cutting timber and disposing waste without the required permits. Jennifer Patterson, chief of the Environmental Protection Bureau of the New Hampshire Department of Justice, issued a brief formal statement explaining that the search of the property was part of an "ongoing investigation."

Saunders said her department had been working with Shaughnessy and Joni Coffey, the registered agent for Black Oaks, LLC, which owns the 11.1 acre parcel that is the target of the investigation. Shaughnessy has been seeking to improve a roadway, which provides access to the parcel over a deeded right-of-way across an abutting property. Saunders said that the roadway did pass through wetlands and that she had advised Shaughnessy that he required permits from DES. "We have tried to work with Mr. Shaughnessy just as we would work with anyone else with similar issues," she said.

The Black Oaks LLC property is bordered on the north by the 23-acre tract at the head of Fillmore Avenue where the Hells Angels clubhouse is located and on the east by the Gilford town line. The parcel is enveloped on the south and west by 108 acres of woodland owned by Ron Ori of White Oaks realty, LLC of Swampscott, Massachusetts.

Saunders said that officers from the Belknap County Sheriff's Department reviewed the files on the property and questioned her about the work underway there. Last week, based on information by provided by Sergeant Christopher Cost of the Belknap County Sheriff's Department and Saunders, along with officials of DES and DRED, Justice Larry Smukler of the Belknap County Superior Court granted a search warrant. The affidavit submitted by the sheriff's department in support the search warrant, which contains "specific information on the property," was sealed for seven days.

Saunders said that she had not advised the Department of Justice of possible violations or requested the intervention by state agencies. She added that she did not learn about the investigation until after the search of the property was complete.

Shaughnessy has insisted that the allegations are groundless. Instead, he questioned the conduct of the Belknap County Sheriff's Department in general and of Cost in particular. Last month, attorney Scott Bratton, representing Dana Keefe, a Hells Angel who is challenging a denial of a permit to carry a concealed firearm, asked Ayotte to prosecute Cost, charging that he sought to improperly influence the court hearing Keefe's appeal.

After a hearing on Keefe's appeal in July, Judge David Huot took the case under advisement . The next morning he received two e-mails from Cost, one informing him that Keefe was twice convicted for passing bad checks and another containing a news report that a Canadian court ruled that the Hells Angels were "a criminal organization." Huot recused himself from the case and ordered that it be heard afresh before a different judge.