Huard gets suspended sentence for threatening police; daughter says she'll look after him

LACONIA — The former Gilford man who had threatened to kill a city police detective and the city prosecutor plead guilty yesterday in Belknap County Superior Court to three misdemeanors.

Bernard O. Huard, 54, now of Franklin was given three separate suspended sentences for two counts of criminal threatening — one enhanced because it was made against a police officer — and one count of resisting arrest.

He was sentenced to 2 to 5 years in the N.H. State Prison — all suspended — plus two concurrent 12 month terms in the Belknap County House of Corrections — with all but 129 days suspended. Huard was credited with 129 days of time served.

On August 7, Huard called his Gilford doctor's office and asked for a refill of some medication. When the request was refused, he told the employee he was going to shoot a Laconia Police detective. The employee notified the Gilford Police.

Gilford and Laconia Police located Huard at 23 Lisbomb Circle where he was trying to get a friend to get him an AK-47 assault rifle. Police said he had a magazine or "clip" with 40 bullets in his possession.

Once at Lakes Region Genreal Hospital in Laconia, he told Laconia Police Capt. Bill Clary, who was with three other police officers in the observation room, he was going to shoot the detective in the head. He was initially facing one charge of criminal threatening and resisting arrest in Gilford and three charges of criminal threatening stemming from the statements he made at LRGH. They were all misdemeanors.

Two of the misdemeanor charges were dropped.

With Clary watching the proceedings, Judge James O'Neill accepted the negotiated plea offer after hearing from both County Prosecutor Melissa Guldbrandsen and Public Defender John Bresau.

Guldbrandsen said Huard has a minimal criminal record with a 2004 conviction for theft and a 1979 convicting for resisting arrest. She said both of the victims were "in full agreement" with the negotiated plea as long as the court ordered ongoing supervision — both medical and probationary, no contact with the victims or their families, and no weapons.

She said Huard raised two suppression issues — one regarding the threats he made against both men to Clary while he was at the hospital and one claiming his medical privacy rights had been violated — and, while she was convinced the state would prevail on each one, she said they were factors in her plea offer.

Bresau had also filed a motion to dismiss the case on a speedy trial issue because Huard's first trial was canceled because of court scheduling and he remained incarcerated, unable to post the $50,000 cash bail.

Guldbrandsen told O'Neill that Huard has diabetes and on the day he made the threats, he was suffering from low blood sugar and had been drinking. His blood alcohol level was .08 when he was tested at the hospital.

Guldbrandsen said the combination of the two could be mitigating factors in her ability to prosecute Huard.

Bresau said with five years in prison hanging over his head, Huard was accepting the maximum penalty prescribed by law and that would be a significant deterrent to re-offending.

With O'Neill's permission, Huard's daughter, Laura Morin, told O'Neill that she would take in her father and help him schedule his two years of probation with his probation officer and help him manage his diabetes.

"I want to reassure you my home is a family home," she said softly, adding she has two children and there are "no weapons, no drugs and no alcohol" in her home.

"I will help Pop get to his probation and treatment," she said.

Huard apologized to the court and to his victims. "I'm sorry, but it was out of my control," he said.

After the sentencing, Clary said the Laconia Police Department was satisfied with the outcome.