West Alton Marina manager arrest for alleged sex crimes
 

Anyone know the full story here?

Here's the link from the daily Sun
https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...59aca1894.html

I had seen this two days ago but I was very hesitant to post due to the nature of the charges against the employee


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I hope this forum and the media in general will be very careful not to delve too deeply into this, and will be super sensitive to the privacy of the victims. Let the court deal with the perpetrator, quietly (and harshly if found guilty).

I agree, hence I did not start a thread. Time to end the discussion here.


Alan

Certainly there should be no identification of the young victims, but the alleged perpetrator should not "get a bye."

As details become available and are made public I see nothing wrong with reporting them here, as this story clearly is of public interest.

More Troubles
 

The owner, Brian A. Fortier, 50, was indicted by a Belknap County Grand Jury on April 21, on several felonies.

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...9dce2a182.html

Nothing to see here
 

We've been through this before when the courts told a business owner to divest and not associate with others in the business. Nothing to se here, folks. Move along.

That could happen here. There are already inquiries happening by at least one other marina owner should the property be sold.

At this point it might be nice to see a change of ownership. After front page stories, and whatever else comes out in public as the legal process continues, it will be difficult to move beyond this.

Where was the other owner or owners when all this was happening?

The owner was arrested on similar charges as the manager was last year. And if the allegations are proved to be true I think it would be a little slice of justice if the alleged victims end up owning the marina, or the cash that a sale would generate.

Hide your kids if you have a slip there

This is one of those funny things where it's a shock that there are two of them, and then on reflection it makes perfect sense that they live together. On the other side of the equation, we should not be surprised if there are more victims than we know of today.

On WMUR it said ONE of the owners, so I wonder where the other owner (s) were when all this was happening. And yes, apparently the manager and the one owner are a couple.

The other owner is Fortier's sister but she has a different last name.

Ok thanks. Well, sister and brother, no wonder.

This does not surprise me at all. I have dealt with him and his partner and felt the overtones of what has happened here. He was particularly rude last time I was at his business and will never go back there no matter what unless he's not involved. I will say his sister was very gracious but that does not make up for him. Should this all be proven true he will no longer be in the marina business I am quite sure.

I do remember the statement below from the owner. Now it appears this statement was issued while he was alleged to be asking victims to not report the crimes accurately, which itself is a crime.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ________

During the same time that Fortier was alleged to have been pressuring witnesses to withhold information from investigators, he provided the following statement to The Laconia Daily Sun:

​​“Our family is shocked and deeply saddened by the disturbing allegations against former employee John Murray," wrote Fortier. “Our hearts are broken and our thoughts and prayers are with everyone affected. We have hired outside counsel and consultants to undertake a thorough review of this matter. We will use this information to adapt policies and procedures that will ensure a safe environment for employees and the public. We will continue to carry on the vision of our parents and grandparents and dedicate our lives to making West Alton Marina a fun, loving, family destination.”

The lawyers are here
 

Well, you knew this was coming, it was just a matter of time.

"The suit also alleges that employees (including the plaintiff) that spurned Murray’s advances were punished by receiving harder responsibilities and being denied work hours. Those that capitulated were rewarded with “favorable performance reviews, assigning easier responsibilities, assigning more and better work hours, and in other ways.”

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...84ab0a2bd.html

Looks like this kid's family is smart... Not sure what the liability limits are, but I am sure this is just the first of many lawsuits.

I don't think this is the last of it... Should be interesting to see who else this tangled web might ensnare.



Woodsy

This one may be hard to recover from. I would imagine that their business certainly won't be affected much as slips are so scarce, but would think this will hurt their ability to hire seasonal employees which will trickle down to customer treatment. Probably some major conflict within the family/partners as well. Buyout or complete sale?

I know nothing of this family and their wealth but unless they're very well-heeled he'll probably need to sell his interest in the business to pay for top-notch attorneys to defend him.

The problems continue
 

A co-owner of the West Alton Marina, who was recently charged with sexual assault, has been jailed for allegedly having unsupervised contact with a minor in violation of the terms of his bail.

On Monday Superior Court Judge Jacki Smith ordered Fortier to be held at the county jail until he was outfitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and placed under the oversight of the Correction Department’s pretrial services office.

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...97e28bdd6.html

I'm good with innocent until proven guilty, but this bail is a joke. First, it's only $10K for a guy facing serious time and plenty of assets. Second, he violates bail in a way that's in direct relation to the case (as opposed to, say, drug possession or a bar fight), and they're going to let him right back out?

Not good!
 

Now you know what happened to the Gilford Police Chief and why he resigned.

One of the suits alleges that Murray told the plaintiff that it would be useless for him to go to police because he was having sex with the Gilford police chief and another officer and so was “untouchable.”

https://www.laconiadailysun.com/news...3d4720ec6.html

I figured the happenings were related...

Woodsy

Looks like Alton's got a regular Peyton Place on steroids happening.

I wonder how far the rot goes?

The sad thing is that there are children involved, as well. I can only imagine what the parents are going through.

Dilemma - To some Degree
 

We have launched our boat at West Alton Marina for six years now and have interacted with everyone involved with this case at one point or another. Our camp is on Sleeper, which is across from the marina and very convenient for us to use. We are not comfortable launching there now, knowing that our money is going to essentially pay for lawyers.

This is certainly an inconvenience for us to launch somewhere else, but worth it to not finance this enterprise anymore.

I agree with others regarding slip demand and how this will affect their business short term, but a change of ownership would be refreshing here.

Naivety is not a defense of the law. Owning the business, entails knowing what is going on with the business.

Granted they are not typically in my travels, but I will not give them a dime going forward. I will run out of gas and get a tow first.

But if they are looking to sell out, I would like to invest! Time to flush the scum out of there and make it a safe environment.

IIRC< two of the owners are sisters of the alleged perpetrator and they've not been charged with any crime; how are these two ladies "scum?"

The owners of West Alton Marine have allowed/encouraged an environment of lies and abuse that have caused life long damage to the victims.
It is hard to imagine anyone spending their money at the establishment knowing what has gone on there.... How do you sleep at night?
The civil lawsuits should ultimately result in a full overhaul of ownership as the damages could be in the tens of millions $$$.

Since there are very few available boat slips now it will be difficult for anyone using that marina to relocate. It would be nice, as a matter of principal, for someone to say I refuse to spend my money there but would someone miss a boating season for that? I doubt it.


It will be interesting to see how this all sorts out. There is a 2020 $5 million loan from Meredith Village Savings bank for the construction and expansion that the bank is worried about now. Any potential buyer will have to deal with that.

If this ends up at a foreclosure auction the bank will probably have their attorney there to bid it up to get the sale price to close to or over the amount that is owed. That is what usually happens.

This issue will be going on for a while. There are no quick solutions and any news coming out in the near future will probably not be good news.

I just started a new role with a new company a week ago and completed their sexual harassment training as part of my onboarding. The scenarios in the training videos are always a bit extreme and obvious to get the point across and they always state something to the effect of, "...harassment can have severe financial consequences on you and your employer".

As I've read the intertwined stories of the Gilford Police Chief and the Marina, it's like an extreme training video scenario. "You can't go to the cops, because I'm doing the Police Chief..."

If this all proves true at trial, hopefully these creeps are all locked up, the marina sold, and the money awarded to the victims.

And you think they had no information or knowledge about what was going on? Come on, having sex with the chief of police. It sounds like he was bragging about it.

We can all speculate until we're blue in the face, but I feel like some things are better left unsaid. I'm sure that whoever will be investigating this nonsense will do a good and thorough job, all the facts will come out, and justice will fall where it may.

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I didn't specifically call the two ladies "scum", I was referring to the brother and husband. But, it has already been alleged that the OWNERS were aware of what was going on and did nothing to stop it. From the Laconia Daily Sun article previously posted:


"ALTON — Four former employees have now filed suit against the West Alton Marina alleging that they were subject to sexual assault and harassment by the facility’s former manager, John Murray, and further alleging that marina’s owners failed to intervene to stop the behavior.

One of the suits alleges that Murray told the plaintiff that it would be useless for him to go to police because he was having sex with the Gilford police chief and another officer and so was “untouchable.”

In addition to Murray, the suits name marina owners Brian Fortier, and Fortier’s sisters, Deidre Tibbetts and Allyson Shea, as defendants."

It would be nice, as a matter of principal, for someone to say I refuse to spend my money there but would someone miss a boating season for that? I doubt it.

So what you are saying is Rich Boaters will put their FUN in front of their MORALS. Is this correct?

I haven't read anywhere that the co-owners, i.e. the sisters, actually knew about the alleged sex abuse until the story broke.

Do you really think the perpetrator(s) would keep the ladies briefed regularly as to what they did / were doing?

No, I suspect that it was "secret stuff."

Alas, the sisters will likely become unwitting victims as well and lose it all.

Oh god, could this be more sickening,,,

The only other word that comes to mind is tragic.

How does such madness happen in 2022 and in a place like Winnipesaukee.

Its almost unbelievable. This is the kind of thing you expect to here behind the curtain in some communist 3rd world country, but not here.

In a perfect world...
 

In a perfect world, boat owners could just say I'm out of here. Easier said than done.

I kept my 25 ft bowrider at WAM for a few years. If you wanted to dock the following year, you needed to store the boat during the off-season with WAM. There also was a downpayment on the docking charge in the fall and I believe a $1000 installment due Feb 1 with the balance before the boat is launched in the spring.

I looked for our old records from WAM , but after we sold the boat in 2019, we purged the records from our file cabinet. If memory serves me, we paid about $3800 to dock, and had a fall downpayment of about a third, so somewhere around $1300-1500. Add to that $1000 in Feb, and about 2/3 of the fee for the year has been paid. I personally could not walk away from that and start over even if I could find a dock. (You know that they would not just give you the money back)

IMHO, those who are there will have a choice in late summer about what they will do for the 2023 season. For this year, they are pretty much stuck.

One comment about the defendants in any lawsuit like these. The plaintiffs will name "everyone" who could possibly be involved initially, which later may be reduced as the lawsuit winds its through the court system. That we will all have to wait and see.

Dave