Shaughnessy sentenced for environmental crimes

Ed Shaunghnessy, 51, a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, has been fined, sentenced to jail and ordered to set aside $50,000 to restore wetlands following his conviction in May for filling wetlands and altering terrain without required permits.

Shaughnessy was convicted of illegally altering terrain and filling wetlands, both misdemeanors carrying a maximum sentence of a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. Moreover, Black Oaks Laconia LLC, a trust with Shaunghnessy as a beneficiary, was also convicted of the same charges, which for a corporation are class B felonies. Shaughnessy was found not guilty of timber trespass, also a class B felony.

Judge Bruce Mohl of the Belknap County Superior Court told Shaughnessy that the severity of the violations warranted the stiff sentence. "They are not insignificant or technical violations, but deliberate and extensive," he said, "and done in large part secretly."

For illegally filling wetlands, Shaughnessy was sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to serve 45 days with the balance suspended for five years, fined $2,000 and given two years probation. On the same charge, Black Oaks Laconia, LLC was fined $100,000, with $50,000 suspended for ten years. Both Shaughnessy and Black Oaks Laconia, LLC were ordered to place $50,000 in escrow to defray the cost of restoring the damaged wetlands.

For illegally altering terrain Shaughnessy was sentenced to a year in jail and fined $2,000, both of which were suspended for five years, and two years probation. Back Oaks Laconia, LLC was fined $10,000, which was also suspended for five years.

Shaughnessy denounced the verdict, insisting as he did throughout his four-day trial that he was prosecuted because of his membership in the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

The charges arose in 2005 when Shaughnessy was observed constructing an access road to a landlocked 11.1-acre parcel, owned by Black Oaks, LLC, which is bordered on the north by the 23 acre lot at the foot of Fillmore Ave. 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 Ori Ron of Swampscott, Mass., as White Oaks Realty, LLC. Shaughnessy built the graveled road on a deeded right-of-way crossing Ron's property.

In a trial lasting four days, Lauren Noether, former Belknap County Attorney, and Esther Piszczek, who together prosecuted the case for the N.H. Attorney General's Office, marshaled some 30 witnesses and filed four dozen exhibits to convince the jury that Shaughnessy stripped about 6-acres of the 11.1-acres owned by Black Oaks, LLC of vegetation and filled wetlands on Ron's property while building the road to the back lot without obtaining the necessary permits from the N.H. Department of Environmental Services. P. Scott Bratton, who represented Shaughnessy, claimed that although others have committed similar violations, his client was charged and prosecuted because he is a Hells Angel.

(Associated Press contributed to this story.)