A Concord man faces a new charge of criminal threatening and a second count of robbery in connection with a reported kidnapping Sunday in Laconia.
James Lemmond, 32, of Holt Street waived his arraignment Wednesday afternoon in Belknap County Superior Court on four felony charges: two counts of robbery, and one count each of kidnapping and criminal threatening. He is being held on $50,000 cash bail.
Lemmond is accused of dragging a woman by her hair and shirt collar into a GMC Terrain and threatening to kill her with a handgun. Police say he stole her cell phone and cash.
Authorities are not naming the woman. She was interviewed Monday night after police located her at the Landmark Inn in Laconia, according to Laconia police Capt. Matt Canfield.
Details of that interview and others are not yet part of the public record. Assistant Belknap County Attorney Roni Karnis filed a motion Wednesday to seal for 90 days the affidavit detailing the state’s evidence against Lemmond. A judge later granted her request.
“Based on the number and nature of allegations against the defendant, the investigation is ongoing,” Karnis wrote. “Disclosure of the facts at this time may jeopardize the ongoing investigation and could affect the defendant’s right to a fair and impartial trial.”
The incident Sunday was reported about 11:30 p.m. and stemmed from a previous disturbance on Cottage Street. Canfield said Tuesday the two are related, and that drugs were involved.
Canfield said the kidnapping was not a random act.
At first, the woman voluntarily got into Lemmond’s vehicle, where she stayed for a short time before leaving, and that’s when he got out and pulled her back in, Canfield said. Lemmond is accused of holding a gun to the woman’s head, robbing her of some cash and a cell phone and then demanding at gunpoint that she get out of the vehicle, he said.
Once outside the vehicle, she managed to escape on foot. She ran several blocks before meeting up on Baldwin Street with her boyfriend.
If Lemmond posts bail, he is prohibited from traveling on Cottage Street and from leaving the state. He is not allowed to have any contact with the alleged victim.
Lemmond, who is from North Carolina, has a lengthy criminal record in that state, according to published reports. He has also had run-ins with the law in Concord.
City police were called to Tandy’s Top Shelf in Eagle Square in February 2015 for a report of a man threatening to stab another man with a knife.
The victim told police that Lemmond was giving another patron a hard time for wearing a New York Yankees hat, and that he had stepped in to break up the argument. Lemmond pulled a knife on the man and lunged at him with it, police said.
He was convicted in Merrimack County Superior Court that October on felony charges of criminal threatening and resisting arrest. As part of a plea deal, he was sentenced to work release and suspended prison time.
(Alyssa Dandrea can be reached at 369-3319, adandrea@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @_ADandrea.)