Editor’s note: All sexual assault charges against former Concord psychologist Foad Afshar, who was accused of molesting a patient, were dropped by the Merrimack County Attorney’s Office in October 2018.
The boy placed his hand on the bible last year and promised to tell the truth.
Dr. Foad Afshar did, too.
They gave their versions of what happened in Afshar’s office that day in January of 2015. It took the jury less than a day to decide the boy was telling the truth and the doctor was lying, but the verdict in the case is anything but settled.
It’s simply that type of case. Afshar’s supporters, and there are lots of them, say there’s no way this licensed mental health counselor, this man of honor and integrity, could have touched the boy’s genitals, the crime for which Afshar is serving three to six years in prison. They swear by it.
“I’d bet my life and the life of my children on Foad’s innocence,” Afshar’s wife, Terry, told me recently by phone. “You wonder what the hell the jury was listening to.”
They listened to the little boy and the prosecutor. Then the jury found Afshar guilty in June, prompting Assistant County Attorney Kristin Vartanian to say after the trial, “We’re very glad the right thing happened in this case.”
From there, this whole thing could have easily faded away, just as Afshar’s good reputation had, and just as his bank accounts had as well, used to pay for his legal defense.
And then Team Afshar received a tiny crumb, a sliver of hope, a narrow stream of light. We learned earlier this month that two of the jurors in the case had not disclosed that they themselves had been victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Afshar’s new lawyer, Ted Lothstein, is now seeking a new trial in Merrimack County Superior Court. He claims this showed
bias
on the part of the two jurors, and the
revelation has injected an optimistic energy into the community that supports Afshar, a community that is ubiquitous and vocal.
And they’re
thrilled I’ve chosen to re-examine the guilty verdict and sentencing of the man they claim to be beyond reproach. Maybe they’re
fooling themselves. Maybe Afshar has fooled them. Maybe the context provided recently by Amanda Grady Sexton, director of policy for the N.H. Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, tells you what you need to know.
“The savviest abusers are often the ones who are in positions of
authority or are well-known in their community, such as doctors, or priests, who will be seen as more credible than their accusers,” Grady Sexton told the Monitor’s Caitlin Andrews recently, in response to proposed legislation that would require corroboration in some sexual assault cases.
Then there’s the other side. You wouldn’t believe how many phone calls and emails and messages I’ve received since word spread that I was curious about this case.
Too many to count. Too many to quote. But here’s a sample, first from Dr. Mike Kandle, a Durham psychologist who created a website to raise
money to help defer the legal costs that have forced Afshar and his wife to sell their home.
“I wouldn’t have any reservations about referring my 13-year-old son to Foad if he needed professional help,” Kandle told me by phone.
Praise and support came from every nook
and cranny of Afshar’s life, from the counseling community to the educational spheres, of which he’s a part of as a former teacher at the New Hampshire
Institute of Art.
Emily Marsh of Brookfield took Afshar’s classes her sophomore and junior years. She told me Afshar had a huge impact on her life, perhaps more than any other teacher ever has. She says he prepared her for life, made learning fun, raised his kids well, and on and on.
“I do not think he’s guilty,” Marsh told me. “I have zero doubt in my mind, and that is why I have continued to write him letters and be involved in his life.”
Marsh and others cite Afshar’s age, 55, at the time of his arrest.
He had plenty of time to build a foundation of proof against himself.
Instead, supporters say, look at his squeaky-clean background, the lack of anything anywhere that might lead one to believe he could have committed such an awful crime. He’s got no police record. Investigators found nothing on his computer.
And, after 30-plus years of counseling troubled children, no one has come forward to point a finger his way since the case jumped into the headlines. No one.
“Dr. Afshar is one of the most ethical and professional people I have ever met,” wrote Robin LaCouture, a former student, once news spread that Afshar had been arrested. “I am appalled that anyone would accuse him of wrongdoing for ANYTHING.”
And then there was the sentencing hearing last August. More than 60 people packed the courthouse, some shoehorned into the jury box, according to Kathleen LaBonte, who was there that day, and whose husband teaches at the N.H.
Institute of Art. Judge Diane Nicolosi noted that she’d never seen such an outpouring of support in her 30 years on the bench.
“That is how much people love Foad, in all walks of life,” LaBonte told me.
She continued: “I don’t know if I can even express my reaction. We couldn’t believe it, one guilty after another guilty. Were they listening to the same things we were listening to?”
Undoubtedly.
I reached out to Vartanian, the prosecutor, asking what piece of evidence made her so sure that Afshar was guilty. She was “prohibited from making such an extrajudicial comment at this point in the proceedings,” she said
in an email.
So where does that leave us? Another trial? Perhaps. But even that will leave behind doubt, because only two people were there that day, in that office.
The two people who swore to tell whole truth and nothing but the truth.