Topless photos of wife ends man's run for sheriff

Francis Lord has abandoned his run for Carroll County Sheriff three weeks after the Republican party chairman learned that Lord's wife, a retired state trooper, was selling racy pictures of herself on an amateur porn website.

The topless photos of 20-year veteran Kathy Lord, who now works as a Troop E dispatcher, were on the pay website Southern-charms and can be found in Internet searches for a fictitious name used by Lord.

More photos are on a separate site.

Party chair Luke Fruedenberg, a supporter of Republican incumbent sheriff Christopher Conley, Thursday said he has also found online writings and videos of Kathy Lord.

Francis Lord, an Ossipee Republican and retired trooper, Thursday said he made the decision to drop his primary bid after talking with supporters for several weeks. He said he suspected a “smear” campaign was being waged by Conley backers aimed at clouding a recent run of negative press on Conley.

“To have any one stoop so low as to pick on a woman who chose to be adventurous is unacceptable, malicious and in my opinion a means of drawing attention away from another’s performance and speaks volumes about the perpetrators' character,” Lord said in a written statement.

He said he believes information was stolen off his computer and that there may be evidence of illegal distribution and reproduction of protected content.

His wife is remorseful that the photos impacted the race, and that she ended her relationship with the site after he decided to run for office, he said.

She was initially approached about a racy photo shoot during a tropical vacation, he said. She used a false name and address with the money-making site to shield her identity. What started out as a “lark” took on “a life of its own,” he said.

“I love and support my wife, and, although a totally legal endeavor, when I decided to enter public life, we discussed the pictures and even though her name was not used agreed it wasn't what was best for us or Carroll County,” Lord said.

Word spread, spilling over into local town halls, police departments and even breakfast counters.

“I literally heard people talking about her,” said former sheriff's office second-in-command Jon Hebert, now retired.

Hebert, whose support was courted by both Lord and Conley, said he went on the Web expecting to dispel the notion that Kathy Lord, a friend and a decorated trooper, was selling photos.

"It is what it is,” he said. “I don't see any dirty politics.”

“I don't wish any ill on him, I don't have a stake in any of this,” he added. “I like Kathy Lord.”

Fruedenberg, who broke party neutrality rules last month by publicly backing Conley, called the situation “nasty.”

“I'm upset about it. I think it shows a lack of integrity. I don't think you can run for office,” he said.

Fruedenberg — who ran Conley's last campaign, a 17-vote win over Lord — said he started an investigation and purchased photos and videos of Kathy Lord from the Internet site after he was contacted about three weeks ago by a person who he said “was concerned for the party.”

He said the person, whom he declined to identify, was not a police officer or elected official. The person stumbled onto the photos in an Internet search using terms similar to the fictitious name used by Lord, Fruedenberg said.

“It's something you hope you never have to deal with. You hope these races are about the issues,” he said. “I wished it could have been resolved within the party.”

He said he's not sure how the news spread and insisted he did not tell Conley. He called the Lord videos “graphic,” while noting they did not involve a man.

“I felt compelled as Carroll County chair to look deeper into this,” said Fruedenberg, who is from Conley's hometown of Wolfeboro.

It left some in the law enforcement community scrambling this week to find a challenger for Conley, another retired trooper.

In his first term as sheriff, Conley has butted heads with a number of local police agencies, the county commission and the prosecutor's office, and is grappling with internal morale problems.

Madison police chief Jaime Mullen Thursday announced he would run on a platform of boosting morale and relations with police agencies.

Conley Thursday said he'd only heard about the photos, insisting he had “absolutely not” seen them and did not plan to log onto the site.

“I don't know where it came from,” he said. “This is an unfortunate situation. I plan on running on the issues and my record.”

Lord said he plans to pursue an investigation into the source of the leak. He believes information was taken from his computer after he left it at a local repair shop.

“I am confident it was removed from our computer within the last few months while being worked on for a serious computer virus,” he said.

“Since then for some unknown reason we have received e-mails with CC to names I recognize but do not deal with. I believe her information was stolen and forwarded to individuals to create this smear.

“I think the public deserves to know the people involved, and I will spend my time and monies otherwise spent trying to prove it,” vowed Lord, a former undercover state police drug agent.