Eric Spofford, the founder and former CEO of Granite Recovery Centers, a chain of for-profit drug and alcohol treatment facilities in New Hampshire, was arrested Friday on allegations that he orchestrated a conspiracy to stalk journalists who had covered sexual misconduct allegations against him.
The four-count federal indictment alleges Spofford hired a close friend, who subsequently enlisted the help of three other men, to harass New Hampshire Public Radio journalists and their families in retaliation for the outlet’s unfavorable coverage.
The four men who carried out Spofford’s alleged scheme — Eric Labarge, Tucker Cockerline, Keenan Saniatan, and Michael Waselchuck — have already been convicted on federal charges stemming from their involvement in acts of vandalism at the homes of the NHPR victims and their family members, who found menacing messages in red spray paint on their houses in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
One of the men threw a brick through the front window of an NHPR reporter’s home and painted the phrase “JUST THE BEGINNING” on the front of her house in Melrose, Mass., early one morning in May 2022, according to court records.
The indictment alleges Spofford paid $20,000 in cash to Labarge and provided specific instructions along with addresses for the victims, then Labarge had the other three men execute the plan.
Spofford, 40, who maintains residential addresses in Salem, N.H., and Miami, was arrested Friday in New Hampshire, according to court records. He was indicted in Massachusetts, where he is scheduled to make an initial court appearance on Monday afternoon.
Spofford has denied the allegations of sexual misconduct relayed in NHPR’s reporting, and he has said he wasn’t involved in the vandalism. He sold Granite Recovery Centers in 2021 and has since fashioned his public image as an entrepreneur and real estate investor.
An attorney who has represented Spofford in the past, Michael E. Strauss, said on Friday that he and co-counsel have no comment at this time.
Each of the four charges Spofford faces is punishable by up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $250,000, according to the US attorney’s office in Massachusetts.
NHPR President and CEO Jim Schachter said everyone at the radio station is grateful to the FBI and the US attorney’s office for their persistence in pursuing Spofford and his associates.
“His attempt to silence NHPR’s reporting on abuses of power in the addiction recovery industry failed, as should every attempt to snuff out press freedom,” Schachter said.
When authorities first opened investigations into the vandalism in 2022, Spofford said he was “completely uninvolved” in those incidents and would instead focus on a defamation case he had filed over NHPR’s reporting.
That defamation lawsuit — which Schachter said was itself part of Spofford’s “pattern of harassment” against NHPR journalists and sources alike — was dismissed. A judge who reviewed nearly 2,900 pages of non-public documents from NHPR concluded they undercut Spofford’s defamation claims and reflect the radio station’s “professional and diligent reporting.”
In addition to NHPR’s initial 2022 stories by reporter Lauren Chooljian, which detailed Spofford’s alleged sexual misconduct, abusive leadership, and retaliation while overseeing New Hampshire’s biggest provider of treatment for substance misuse, the station also produced a 2023 podcast, “The 13th Step,” about broader cultural problems in addiction treatment circles. The podcast was honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
This article has been updated to correct the spelling of the name of NHPR President and CEO Jim Schachter.
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