Littlefield to be released on parole Monday

Daniel Littlefield, convicted in June 2003 of negligent homicide in the death of John Hartman in a boating collision on Meredith Bay in August 2002, will be paroled on Monday after serving his minimum sentence of two-and-a-half years in New Hampshire State Prison.

Describing Littlefield's parole hearing in October as "routine," John Eckert, executive assistant to the Parole Board, said yesterday "he has not been a problem and has done what he was told. We probably won't hear from him again." He explained that Littlefield will remain on probation for another four-and-a-half years, responsible to a probation officer in Laconia as he has chosen to return to Meredith to live and work.

On the night of August 11, 2002 Littlefield, then 41, was at the helm of his father's 36-foot Baja powerboat "Outlaw" when it rode up and over a 20-foot pleasure craft in the waters of Meredith Bay. Hartman, who was seated in the stern of the smaller boat, died from injuries to his chest. After interviewing almost 80 witnesses and reconstructing the collision, the Marine Patrol charged Littlefield with two counts of negligent homicide, one for operating while impaired by alcohol and the other for failing to keep a proper lookout.

After a trial stretching over four weeks in June 2003, a jury in Belknap County Superior Court found Littlefield of Meredith guilty of causing Hartman's death by failing to keep a proper lookout, a class B felony, but acquitted him of the more serious charge of causing the death while impaired by alcohol, a class A felony.

In prosecuting the case Deputy County Attorney Wayne Coull called 35 witnesses, many who said they saw Littlefield drinking at the Town Docks Restaurant not long before the collision. However, in Littlefield's defense attorneys Paul Twomey and Mark Sisti shook the credibility of several prosecution witnesses who claimed Littlefield was impaired by revealing that witnesses failed to pick him out of a police lineup shortly after the crash.

Littlefield denied both charges, insisting he was not impaired and only hit the Hartmans' boat because it was running without lights on a dark night. The defense called a dozen witnesses, some testifying that Littlefield appeared sober before taking to the water and another claiming to have seen a boat like the Hartmans' drifting in Meredith Bay with its running lights out on a moonless night.

An experienced helmsman whose father, William Littlefield, Sr. of Gilford owned Channel Marine at The Weirs, Littlefield steadfastly insisted throughout the trial that the collision was an accident and, on instructions from his attorneys — did not express regret or remorse to Hartman's family until he was sentenced. Then, choking back tears, wiping his eyes and drawing deep breaths, he said "there are only so many ways to say I'm sorry" and confessed "something like this simply does not have a place to settle in a good person's heart."

Justice Larry Smukler passed sentence in September 2003, sending Littlefield to prison for two-and-a-half to seven years and forbidding him to operate a boat for the duration of his sentence. Littlefield appealed his conviction and remained free on bail until June 2005, when the New Hampshire Supreme Court, in a lengthy opinion, unanimously denied his appeal and he began serving his sentence.