Months after separate juries returned guilty verdicts in two high-profile sexual assault cases in Merrimack County, both convicted men are asking the state’s highest court to hear their appeals.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court recently accepted direct appeals from Merton Mann and Nickolas Micucci, both of whom are serving decades in prison for their crimes. The men are asking the Supreme Court justices to review the lower court’s decisions for possible legal errors that may have affected the outcome of their cases and, in effect, overturn their convictions.
Mann, 76, of Dunbarton received a 20- to 40-year prison sentence this past summer after a jury convicted him of nine counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and seven counts of felonious sexual assault. In addition to those 16 charges, he was also sentenced on five counts of indecent exposure, which he pleaded guilty to at the start of his sentencing hearing on July 22 in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord.
Mann, a former Dunbarton selectman, molested two children when they were 5 years old and sent nude photos to a 15-year-old as recently as last year.
He faces an additional 10-to-20 years of incarceration if he violates the conditions of his sentence to include a no-contact order prohibiting communication with the victims. He must register as a sex offender for life.
Earlier this year, a separate jury convicted Micucci, 32, of Concord of three counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and one count each of felonious sexual assault and indecent exposure. He was sentenced in July to 16 to 32 years in state prison.
Concord police arrested Micucci on Dec. 30, 2017, after the girl confided in her grandmother about the sexual abuse that began months earlier. The state’s Division for Children, Youth and Families was also notified.
The girl, who was 7 years old at the time, testified at trial that Micucci repeatedly sexually assaulted her and told her to stay quiet about what had happened.
Following Micucci’s conviction for sexual assault, a judge imposed a previously suspended, two- to five-year sentence in a years-old domestic violence case. The ruling means Micucci could serve a total of 18 to 37 years in prison.
Micucci was convicted in 2015 of second-degree assault and simple assault on an intimate partner. Prosecutors said he punched the woman, head-butted her, choked her, bit her chest and slammed her head against a wall all while threatening her with a knife. Micucci appealed those convictions to the Supreme Court but lost.
The police investigation of Mann began more than a decade ago, in April 2007, when one of the boy’s mothers reported that Mann – who then held the elected position of selectman – had molested her child in town. The investigation continued on and off for nearly 11 years until 2018, when both boys disclosed for the first time the full extent of the abuse to a forensic interviewer at the Merrimack County Advocacy Center in Concord.
Jurors found that Mann began abusing one of the boys before that April, including on car rides between Dunbarton and Hooksett. Prosecutors said during the trial that Mann tried to normalize the sexual abuse, first by showing the boy a pornographic film and then “replicating” the acts in it.
During the sentencing hearing this past summer, Judge John Kissinger Jr. said Mann is the perfect example of an offender who needs to be permanently isolated from society because of the threat he poses to children.
“Mr. Mann could be 100 years old and could still represent a threat,” Kissinger said. “He is a dangerous, manipulative predator.”
Despite his conviction, Mann has maintained his innocence.
Attorneys for each defendant have yet to file written briefs outlining their arguments on appeal. The defendant’s brief in Mann is due Dec. 23.