The man who watched his friend kill an Epsom police officer in 1997 violated his parole for a third time by absconding to Texas this past February and will now spend the next 17 years in state prison.
Kevin Paul, 41, a former city resident, was last freed from the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord on Oct. 14. This was his second chance to prove that he could be successful while on parole and follow the rules – something he was unable to do in 2015, when his participation in an illegal drug and gun trafficking operation quickly landed him back behind bars.
But the New Hampshire Parole Board said Tuesday that Paul failed to follow through on his promise to them last fall, and that they would not grant his release a third time. Speaking on behalf of the board, Chairwoman Jennifer Sargent described Paul’s behavior as “impulsive,” and said board members are at a loss about what to offer him this time around.
“We want to be very clear that, frankly, our decision is not based on dangerousness,” Sargent said. “Mr. Paul has had so many opportunities to obtain many tools to control his impulses; to think differently; to have support, both in the community by parole and in the community by his fellowship, by his treatment providers and by his family, mainly his sister.
“His overall performance on parole prior to the violation, frankly, has been terrible,” she continued.
She told Paul that the board has given him many opportunities to prove himself and to turn his life around, but that he made calculated decisions that show a complete disregard for the rules and state laws.
“It is not one misstep. It is not one miscalculation. it is not one relapse,” she said. “It is a failure to use every tool in the tool belt that Mr. Paul not only knows about but counsels others to use.”
After earning his certification as a recovery coach while imprisoned, Paul landed a full-time job in the field after his release on parole in fall 2019. He was counseling recovering addicts while residing at a sober living home in Manchester.
He told the board Tuesday that he was achieving his goals and inspiring others along the way. However, at the same time, he was working to confront the demons of his past, including mental illness and his own history of drug use, and that a relapse on Superbowl Sunday sent him spiraling.
Rather than own up to the relapse and ask for help from his support network, he ran. It took him five days to get to Texas; he was driving his girlfriend’s car, then registered in Tennessee, and he made several pit stops along the way, including at a casino in Atlantic City, according to Tuesday’s testimony.
“I was told if I messed up one time that i was going back to prison for a long time,” Paul said.
Paul was initially granted parole in summer 2015 after serving 17 years in prison for his role in the murder of Epsom police Officer Jeremy Charron. But his first release from prison was brief after a violation of his parole sent him back behind prison walls for 30 days.
The setback was one in a series for Paul. That September he was back on the street and soon joined a burglary ring, trading guns for methamphetamine and cash as part of an operation that extended into Massachusetts. Authorities ultimately took Paul into custody in Boston on new charges, and he remained incarcerated until late 2019.
Appearing before the New Hampshire Parole Board almost one year ago, he said the additional time behind bars had given him a new perspective on life and that he was a changed man. If granted release again, he said, “I will make the Parole Board proud of me.”
Parole Board member Donna Sytek, who served as chairwoman at that time, recalled Paul’s promise Tuesday.
“At our last hearing, I said that I completely believed that you had changed from the person that I had seen previously because you had made a lot of progress, and you were released and you continued to make progress,” Sytek said. “You had told me at the time that you would make us proud, that you wouldn’t disappoint us. So, I was really … disappointed just does not begin to describe what I felt when I saw that you had fouled up.”
She continued, “What happened?”
Paul said he started feeling like he was losing everything and anticipated the relapse.
“I wasn’t putting the work in that I had been putting in,” he said. “I felt like I was in a position where I had no one that I could talk to – to let know what was going on inside of me.”
Defense attorney Maya Dominguez detailed Tuesday for the board Paul’s complex history of childhood trauma and abuse, including his years at the state-run youth detention center during a period of turmoils in the 1990s and his father’s stretch in state prison. She said the 18-year-old Paul, who was convicted of armed robbery and reckless conduct stemming from Charron’s murder, went on to endure further abuse as an inmate of the state prison system. He was simultaneously labeled a “cop killer” and a “rat” because he testified as part of a plea deal against Gordon Perry, his friend who shot and killed Charron.
Dominguez said Paul did not lie to the board in fall 2019 when he said he had changed. Rather, she said, Paul showed in the first few months of his parole that he had purpose, that he could be successful and that he could be rehabilitated.
But like every other addict before him, he relapsed, she said.
Paul did not want to go back to prison, and so “he snowballed, he panicked and he fled.”
Members of law enforcement familiar with Paul since the 1990s told the board Tuesday they viewed Paul’s absconsion in a different light, and said the board made a mistake in fall 2019 when it gave Paul a second chance.
Assistant Manchester Police Chief Ryan Grant said he never dreamed in 1998 that he would have to “deal with Paul again” in his career. He said he was dismayed to learn the board had granted Paul’s release and, further, approved him to live at a sober house in Manchester.
“Let’s move forward to 2019, when we find out that as a police department and as a city, Mr. Paul is being paroled to a sober home in the city of Manchester,” Grant said. “Why you might ask? Because Manchester has become the dumping ground for parolees, the homeless, mentally ill, the drug-addicted, emergency shelter and every other one of New Hampshire’s problems.”
He said when he asked for intensive supervision with electronic monitoring, he was told electronic monitoring was a financial hardship for Paul. But within days, he said, Paul misstepped and the tracking device was ordered.
“Mr. Paul’s next screw up was a missed appointment with his parole officer on Feb. 4 and then again on Feb. 11, and his GPS monitoring device had not been charged. That’s seven days. There was no electronic monitoring; his battery was dead,” Grant said. “This was supposed to be strict supervision. Now, I don’t understand what the Parole Board’s definition of strict supervision is but, for me, waiting 10 days to take action after a missed appointment and having no idea where a parolee is, is absolutely not strict supervision.”
Grant said Paul is a criminal who knows how to play the board, parole officers and the system, and that he should remain incarcerated until his sentence is completed in 2037.
“He has shown time and again that no measures will ensure the safety of our citizens,” he said. “If this board cannot recognize that now, I don’t know that you ever will.”