Allegations that longtime Democratic official Raymond Buckley possessed child pornography "are unsubstantiated and unfounded," Attorney General Kelly Ayotte said yesterday. After a two-month investigation that Ayotte said "revealed absolutely no evidence," she unequivocally cleared Buckley of any wrongdoing.

Although Buckley won't face criminal charges, the investigation left its mark on his political career.

The allegations - which were made by Republican Rep. Steve Vaillancourt, a former housemate of Buckley - derailed Buckley's bid to become Democratic Party chairman, a post he was all but certain to win.

"It's tragic that someone's scurrilous and defamatory allegations derailed what was a lifelong dream of Buckley's," Buckley's lawyer John Kacavas said yesterday.

"This transcends politics. This was a personally motivated political assassination," added Kacavas, who said that Buckley is deciding whether to sue Vaillancourt for defamation.

Ayotte unveiled a litany of findings to discredit Vaillancourt's allegations yesterday and said that she "seriously considered" bringing charges against Vaillancourt for making a false report. Vaillancourt never described seeing images that would meet the definition of child pornography and admitted to exaggerating his accusations, Ayotte said.

Although Vaillancourt accused Buckley of keeping "kiddie porn strewn on the floor" of his room, Vaillancourt told the police that "I'm not interested in that kind of stuff, so I didn't look," according to Ayotte's investigation report. "Some of my friends would say these are art pictures." State law defines child pornography as images of children engaged in sexual activity.

But Vaillancourt likely won't face charges from the state, since prosecutors have to prove that someone knowingly made a false report to law enforcement officials, Ayotte said. Vaillancourt made the allegations in a letter to Gov. John Lynch, rather than directly to the police. Lynch's office then sent the letter to the attorney general's office, which referred the matter to the Manchester police.

None of the 14 witnesses interviewed by the police corroborated Vaillancourt's allegations, despite the fact that the police interviewed several of the witnesses at the insistence of Vaillancourt, according to the report. Except for Vaillancourt, every witness denied the accusations, saying they had no knowledge of Buckley possessing child pornography or having interest in child pornography. No other witnesses came forward during the course of the investigation, Ayotte said.

Vaillancourt also admitted to the police that he exaggerated his allegations, Ayotte said. In a letter to Lynch in December, Vaillancourt accused Buckley of scouring the internet for child pornography, making lewd comments about a boy and hiding child pornography inside Newsweek and other magazines in order to smuggle it into the United States from Amsterdam and Denmark.

Several times during his interviews with the police, Vaillancourt backed away from his initial allegations. He never saw Buckley smuggling child pornography, according to Ayotte's report. And after alleging that he saw Buckley searching the internet for child pornography, he told the police that he couldn't "make those specific allegations."

"I suppose you could say that since I knew his interest was children, then you guess you could say I assumed it was," Vaillancourt said, according to the report. "I mean, did I see any 5-year-old boys that I particularly recall? Absolutely not."

Chapter closed

Ayotte's announcement provided an ending to a tale that has gripped state officials and political observers.

Buckley has three decades of experience in Democratic politics, including 16 years as a state representative. In addition to serving as Democratic Party vice chairman - a post he will lose later this month when the party holds elections - Buckley serves as chairman of the DNC Eastern Region Caucus and as vice president of the Association of State Democratic Chairs. In the recent election cycle, Buckley was the architect of the Senate Democrats' victories.

Prior to the investigation, Buckley's election as party chairman seemed inevitable. He secured endorsements from nearly every prominent Democrat, including Lynch, U.S. Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter, Senate President Sylvia Larsen, and House Speaker Terie Norelli.

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