HOOKSETT — A Merrimack County Superior Court judge has overturned the 2011 suspension of former Police Chief Stephen Agrafiotis.

The court order, which was issued on Aug. 2, demanded that the suspension be stricken from Agrafiotis’ personnel record and that all wages and benefits lost as a result of the town police commission’s action be paid in full to the former chief.

Agrafiotis was suspended for three days on March 21, 2011, for authorizing the payment of three $10,000 retainers for future legal services to Sheehan, Phinney, Bass and Green, the commission’s legal counsel at that time, an act the police commission determined to be a violation of the state’s municipal budget law.

The previous police commission, chaired by David Gagnon, which had been in place in 2008 when the payments were authorized, approved the expenditures.

The current commission, chaired by Joanne McHugh, argued that the payments remained improper and that alternative methods existed, more in line with the budget laws.

Superior Court Judge Richard McNamara, however, found that the commission’s failure to inform Agrafiotis of the payments’ impropriety or of the alternative methods, meant that the commission’s subsequent sanctioning of the chief was improper, given that he had acted with the approval of the previous commission.

In 2008 the Hooksett town council voted down a recommended budget issued by the town budget committee, forcing the town to operate on a default budget for three legal cases involving the police department during the 2008 fiscal year. Agrafiotis, “concerned that there would not be enough money in that budget for legal services during the fiscal year,” contacted then-police commission chairman David Gagnon about the issue.

The chief had the authority to approve expenditures up to $7,500. For expenditures between $7,501 and $10,000, approval of the police commission chairman was necessary. Expenditures over $10,000 had to be approved by a formal vote of the commission.

Gagnon approved the three $10,000 payments. In his testimony for the case, he also claimed that he received the approval of the other two commissioners. No formal vote was held, but McNamara notes in his court order that “under settled New Hampshire law, ratification by a municipality is equivalent to approval by municipality.”

Agrafiotis’ legal counsel argued that the expenditures were not “payments for future services,” but prepayments for ongoing work that began in fiscal year 2008 and would carry into fiscal year 2009, noting in their post-trial memorandum that the police commission also “authorized the use of prepayments for services that straddle more than one fiscal year at a time after they disciplined Chief Agrafiotis. … The use of prepayments is a regular and ordinary means of expending municipal funds.”

The defense memorandum went on to describe Agrafiotis’ suspension as “illegal, unreasonable (and) motivated by politics,” noting that McHugh discovered the expenditures in 2009 and “sat on them” for more than 18 months until, according to their analysis, “she had a second supportive vote” on the commission.

McNamara notes in the court order that the three-payment “scheme,” as he described it, was “very likely” an attempt to circumvent the budget laws, but that this did not provide sufficient grounds for the suspension.

“That conduct is hardly commendable,” he wrote. “But (Agrafiotis) cannot be disciplined for engaging in precisely the same conduct the commission approved, at a time when the conduct cannot be corrected, merely because the composition of the commission changed.”

Agrafiotis was put on paid administrative leave in September 2011. He resigned as police chief in February of this year.

Hooksett is still without a permanent police chief.

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Brendan Clogston may be reached at <\/script>'); })();