Hudson and Litchfield voters will have three choices in a two-seat floterial House race in the September Republican primary: a longtime incumbent, a former legislator, and a man who moved into a Hudson rental about two months ago.
Mark Edgington, 53, is unique in other ways too.
In 1989, Edgington pleaded “no contest” to the second-degree murder of a Florida man he says he did not kill. A candidate running on fiscal responsibility, Edgington declared bankruptcy in 2004. He sued an FBI agent in 2021 after his Keene radio station was raided as part of a child pornography investigation. (He was never charged.)
Edgington, who arrived in New Hampshire in 2006, is a transplant from Florida via the Free State Project, and he distrusts the government. He is also the only candidate in the race with the backing of House Majority Leader Jason Osborne, an Auburn Republican who has called Edgington a close friend for 20 years.
“I’m going to do what I can to get him elected,” Osborne said. “I know there is one (candidate) I can count on for a vote every time. The other two, I’m not sure.”
The “other two” served alongside Osborne for years: Rep. Ralph Boehm, of Litchfield, who is seeking a ninth term, and former House member Kimberly Rice of Hudson. Rice did not return a message and Boehm believes Osborne recruited Edgington to oust him over a bill that sought to change the date of the state primary election. Osborne backed it. Boehm did not. It failed.
Osborne and Edgington, who moved from Walpole to run in Hudson, rejected that claim. Edgington said he would have moved and run elsewhere had he known two Republicans were running for the two seats.
“I can see why people would come to this conclusion,” Edgington said. “But I would ask people, ‘Would you seriously pick me to primary somebody?’”
In a pair of interviews this week, Edgington laid out a short list of undefined legislative priorities – parental rights, gun freedoms, and reining in government spending – and the reasons he believes he’s a good choice for voters despite his recent arrival to the district and his 1989 conviction for murder, something he referred to as a “mistake.”
“I would prefer that the whole world forget about it,” Edgington said. “That’s not going to happen. I don’t know why my biggest mistake at 17 is so very important when so rarely are someone’s mistakes at 17.”
Edgington was sentenced to 25 years in a Florida prison in 1989 for the murder of a motel manager in Manatee County, Florida. It was five years shorter than his co-defendant’s, Carmen Tungate.
Edgington was initially charged with being an accessory after the fact, not murder, in the beating and strangulation death of Ballapuram Umakanthan. Edgington said this week that charge was warranted because he hid in the bathroom while Tungate beat Umakanthan to death. Edgington then helped Tungate escape to Florida and later lied to the police, he said.
Authorities upgraded the charge to first-degree murder after someone reported to the authorities that Edgington had described having a bigger role in the murder, according to a police affidavit. In the affidavit, a police investigator recounted what the informant had reported.
“(Tungate) held (the victim) down while… (Edgington) strangled him until he was dead (defendant saw blood come out of Ballapuram ears),” it said. “(Edgington) then drove (Tungate) to the airport.”
Edgington said this week that the informant concocted that story out of spite because they were vying for the attention of the same woman. And, “he was someone who liked to be listened to,” Edgington said.
Edgington and Tungate negotiated their first-degree charges down by pleading no contest to second-degree, accepting their sentences without admitting guilt to the murder. Edgington maintained his innocence this week and said he accepted prison time because he believed Florida’s sentencing laws would let him leave in three years, about as long as it would take to go to trial.
He served eight.
“I’m not claiming to have been innocent. I’m not saying that,” Edgington said. “I am saying I was charged inaccurately. And had I not been there, the outcome would have been the same. This is something I cling to. I really really believe the outcome would have been the same had I not been there.”
Edgington left prison in 1998.
He found his way into radio, selling ads and then launching a radio show in Florida. On Labor Day 2006, he and a friend from the station, Ian Freeman, heard about the Free State Project and relocated to New Hampshire.
Freeman was sentenced to eight years in federal prison in 2003 for a bitcoin money laundering scheme and in February ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution to 29 victims.
In 2004, while still in Florida, Edgington declared bankruptcy, estimating his debts to be between $100,000 to $500,000. That included nearly $60,000 in credit card debt. Edgington said he eventually paid off individuals who had given him money but not the credit card companies.
“I made some investments that in retrospect were too risky,” he said. “I found the best way out was to get out of it. I do not claim to have been a completely whole person when I walked out of prison.”
Edgington was back in court in 2021, this time in New Hampshire, when he sued an FBI agent who had seized equipment from his Keene radio station during a child pornograpy investigation. Edgington said he believes someone set him up; no charges were filed.
In his federal lawsuit, Edgington demanded the items be returned and a “non-apology letter” from the FBI acknowledging the inconvenience the seizure of his equipment had caused.
Oborne told the Bulletin he was pleased but surprised when Edgington told him he was running. He knew the murder conviction would be hard to overcome. Edgington knew that too, he said.
He’d prefer voters consider his long career in radio, the absence of further criminal charges, and his work as a volunteer firefighter.
“The best thing I can do is live my life in the best way I can, to be the best person I can be,” he said. “And to do good things. I’ve been given a chance and I feel I haven’t squandered that chance. I don’t drink anymore. I don’t smoke anymore. I don’t do drugs anymore. I make good decisions and get good outcomes.”
