Former high school drama director faces 19 theft charges

LACONIA — A former city school district employee who served on the board of a community theater organization is facing more than a dozen felony charges which allege taking money for tickets which were never provided.

Jason M. Roy, 39, of Bristol, has been indicted on a total of 19 charges of theft by deception or theft by unauthorized taking, alleging he promised to provide tickets for either concerts or sporting events, but did not provide the tickets nor refund the money he accepted, often several hundred or, in some cases, thousands of dollars.

Roy was indicted in Merrimack, Hillsborough North, Grafton as well as Belknap county courts. The bulk of charges await him in Merrimack, where he has a plea and sentencing hearing on 13 charges scheduled for Thursday, June 12.

An indictment is not an indication of guilt. Rather, it is a finding by a Grand Jury that enough evidence of an alleged crime exists to warrant bringing a case to trial.

For the four charges in Belknap County, Roy faces two felony charges of theft by deception for allegedly taking more than $1,500 from two separate individuals for tickets, and two lesser felony counts for allegedly depriving two others of amounts between $1,000 and $1,500 each. The alleged thefts took place during the first half of 2024.

Roy has a dispositional conference related to his Belknap County charges scheduled for Tuesday, July 15.

The charge from Hillsborough North comes out of the Manchester Police Department. According to court documents, his alleged victim reported giving Roy $3,390 between Sept. 23, 2023 and May 2, 2024, using a combination of Venmo, PayPal and CashApp to make the transactions, and was promised a total of 14 tickets, including Boston Celtics, Bruins and Red Sox tickets, as well as tickets to see performances by Jennifer Lopez, Pink and Lindsey Stirling, but none of those tickets were actually provided.

The documents from the Manchester case refer to evidence in the form of text messages: “In the text messages [the alleged victim] repeatedly requested to get her money back a number of times. Jason claimed that there were limits on the amount he could be sent [sic] through Venmo, Payal [sic] and CashApp. At one point Jason claims he is going to take money out of his retirement account, but [the alleged victim] never receives her money back.”

Roy is currently scheduled to be tried in Hillsborough North Superior Court for his Manchester charges. Jury selection is slated for Feb. 23, 2026.

Some of his alleged victims were deprived of several thousand dollars. One charge accuses Roy of taking $9,174 from a single person.

Brad Davis, the attorney representing Roy, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Roy was well-known in the local theater community, and was associated with Franklin Footlight Theatre and One Light Theatre, both nonprofit community theater organizations.

A human resources officer with Laconia School District said Roy had been the Laconia High School drama director from September 2021 through most of the 2023-24 school year, and was attendance secretary for the school starting in August 2022, but was relieved of his duties in both capacities sometime prior to the end of the the 2023-24 school year.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the fact Jason Roy did not graduate from Franklin High School.