NH Therapist Sex Abuse Case Reveals Dark Past, Ethical Concerns

Two years after accusing her former therapist of sexual abuse, she idly plugged his tackle into an internet listing and got here throughout an unfamiliar alias. A search of that title turned up decades-old newspaper articles in regards to the demise of a 10-year-old woman.

“What’s that bought to do with Peter?” she puzzled.

A pair of obituaries she discovered subsequent pointed nearer to a connection. However she was nonetheless circling the perimeter of the reality when she sat down at a public library laptop in January 2020. On a newspaper archive web site, she scrolled previous a number of small, blurry pictures till a bigger one popped up.

“Bingo,” she thought. “That is him.”

Her subsequent thought?

“You bastard.”

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New Hampshire is one among 10 states that permit individuals to vary their names whereas incarcerated, although their felony information stay accessible to police and employers conducting felony background checks. However the public has no manner of figuring out somebody’s earlier identification except they go to the county courthouse the place the change was authorized, or do some critical sleuthing.

That allowed Peter Dushame to change into Peter Stone, who faces new fees greater than 30 years after he was despatched to jail underneath his previous title. What occurred in between raises sophisticated questions on the suitable to forge a brand new life after incarceration and what sufferers can or ought to learn about a psychological well being supplier’s previous.

There’s one other query with no easy reply: Who’s Peter Stone?

He was 33 years previous, drunk and named Peter Dushame when he plowed his Pontiac into a bike parked alongside the F.E. Everett Turnpike in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Oct. 1, 1989. Lacey Packer, a fourth grader on her manner house to Massachusetts from a Toys for Tots profit together with her father, died two days later.

It was his third deadly crash — although the primary to contain alcohol. At age 17, he pleaded responsible to leaving the scene of a pedestrian crash after killing a former fellow pupil at his highschool. At age 22, he was acquitted of vehicular murder after a crash that killed a 61-year-old lady.

As a result of he held a legitimate driver’s license regardless of 5 earlier drunken driving convictions, the 1989 crash grew to become a flash level. Each Massachusetts and New Hampshire enacted new legal guidelines in response, and Dushame grew to become the primary individual in New Hampshire to be convicted of manslaughter for a drunken driving fatality. The Boston Globe referred to as him “essentially the most infamous drunk driver in New England historical past.”

However over time, he devoted himself to serving to individuals in dependancy restoration, incomes a grasp’s diploma in counseling psychology from behind bars, and main therapy packages for different inmates.

“I’ve a present,” he advised The Boston Globe Journal in 1996. “I can have a look at an individual and really feel his ache.”

Two years later, he legally modified his title from Peter Dushame to Peter Stone. He was launched from jail in 2002 and ultimately arrange store as a licensed drug and alcohol counselor in North Conway.

“I stand as proof that individuals can change,” Stone wrote to state regulators in 2013, telling them that opposite to their considerations, his previous had helped shoppers acquire perspective on the risks of drunken driving.

“They respect my sincerity and honesty,” he stated.

Then, final July, he was charged with sexually assaulting a consumer who says he was something however sincere.

In a current interview with The Related Press, the 61-year-old lady stated she developed romantic emotions for Stone about six months after he started treating her for anxiousness, melancholy and alcohol abuse in June 2013. Although he instantly advised her a relationship could be unethical, he ultimately initiated sexual contact in February 2016, she stated.

“‘That crossed the road,’” the girl remembers him saying after he pulled up his pants. “‘When am I seeing you once more?’”

“It was virtually comical,” she advised the AP, which typically doesn’t title individuals who allege sexual assault. “Besides that it was horrible.”

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Legal guidelines associated to call modifications differ throughout the nation. Whereas 26 states don’t have any restrictions on title modifications after felony convictions, 15 have bans or non permanent ready durations for these convicted of sure crimes, in line with the ACLU in Illinois, which has some of the restrictive legal guidelines.

New Hampshire doesn’t prohibit felons from turning into therapists, and Stone appropriately disclosed his felony document on licensing functions and different paperwork, in line with a assessment of information obtained by the AP.

And so, regardless of “a misguided sense of it being fallacious one way or the other,” it is a nonissue legally, stated Albert “Buzz” Scherr, a professor on the College of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce Faculty of Regulation.

“The deeper query is, to what extent will we wish to tar any person for the remainder of their life?” stated Scherr. “Ought to each therapist be pressured to disclose to any incoming affected person that they have been convicted of against the law? Of sure crimes?”

Gary Goodnough is a Plymouth State College professor who teaches ethics to aspiring psychological well being counselors. It is commonplace, he stated, for individuals in restoration to change into counselors and to make use of their experiences to construct larger empathy and help for shoppers.

Disclosure is not necessary, however he believes shoppers have a proper to know in some eventualities.

“One of many rules that underlies the counseling career is the notion of veracity,” he stated. “We should always inform the reality. Significantly with one thing as profound as a homicide or vehicular murder. For my part, that may be one thing that must be disclosed.”

Stone’s former consumer stated uncovering his previous made her offended, at each Stone and the state, which she believes mustn’t have licensed him as a therapist underneath his new title.

“I feel in his capability to change into a therapist, it was fallacious, as a result of that is such a trusting place,” she stated. “If he was going to be a automotive mechanic, that may be completely different. As a result of after I go to my mechanic, he would not get into my head and pull strings.”

The lady described Stone as an unorthodox counselor, blunt and boastful, with a bent to swear. She stated he advised her he used to drink vodka and beer beginning very first thing within the morning, had as soon as been homeless and did not drive as a result of he had PTSD from his time within the army. Actually, as she later realized, his driver’s license had been completely revoked after his conviction.

After their first sexual encounter, she stated, she bought as much as go away and located the door to his workplace locked when it by no means had been earlier than.

“I felt duped, as a result of in my thoughts, I assumed it was spontaneous,” she stated. “However then I knew it was deliberate.”

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Stone, who declined to be interviewed by the AP, faces 5 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault underneath a regulation that criminalizes any sexual contact between sufferers and their therapists or well being care suppliers. Such conduct is also prohibited by the American Psychological Affiliation’s moral code of conduct.

In accordance with courtroom paperwork, he advised investigators that the girl fondled him on one event, however that he did not know the way his DNA ended up on her shirt. The state issued an emergency order suspending his counseling license in December 2017, and he voluntarily surrendered it 4 months later whereas denying the allegations.

A listening to to find out Stone’s competency to face trial is scheduled for September. His legal professional didn’t reply to requests for remark, and the prosecutor declined to touch upon any facet of the case.

However Scherr, the regulation professor, stated that if the case goes to trial, Stone’s previous convictions or title change are unlikely for use in opposition to him.

Prior convictions, Scherr stated, typically cannot be used to show a defendant’s guilt, although they often can be utilized to question a defendant’s credibility if he testifies. And though it makes him seem sneaky or artful, Stone had a authentic cause for altering his title, Scherr stated.

“You do not wish to carry that round in public for the remainder of your life,” he stated. “I am inclined to say it would not inform you something about whether or not he dedicated the crimes he is charged with.”

Although Stone modified his title in 1998, information accounts of his 2001 parole listening to consult with him as Dushame, suggesting that authorities used solely his unique title in public and, maybe unintentionally, eased his effort to start out recent. A number of members of the parole board from that 12 months have since died; two others advised the AP lately that they remembered neither the particular case, nor how the board dealt with title modifications.

However Gordon and Donna Packer have not forgotten the person who killed their daughter. In a current interview, Donna Packer stated they might have opposed his title change however had been notified by the state solely after the very fact.

She and her husband, who grew to become distinguished activists for harder drunken driving legal guidelines, additionally had been conscious that Stone was working as a counselor however did not know of his arrest till contacted by the AP.

“The minute I heard about it, I used to be disillusioned,” she stated. “I do know that sounds unusual, however Gordon and I, we’re Christians, and we consider in forgiveness.”

Gordon Packer supplied forgiveness to Stone years in the past in a letter. Donna Packer stated he responded by asking for assist getting out of jail forward of schedule, which struck the couple as manipulative.

Nonetheless, she hoped that after every part he had achieved, after inflicting a lot ache for therefore many individuals, he had modified.

“I hate that he is nonetheless victimizing individuals,” she stated. “It did not must be this manner.”