City Decides Not to Prosecute Wiretapping Charge

The Concord City Prosecutors Office has decided not to follow through on a felony wiretapping charge against a Pembroke man for allegedly recording a city employee.

Patch has learned that after looking at the case and the charge, prosecutors decided not to move forward with an arraignment against Joseph Hamel of Pembroke. The man had applied for a taxicab license through the Code Enforcement Department and allegedly recorded an employee during an interaction about a taxicab operator’s license.

Patch will update this story when more information becomes available. 

Editor's Note: The original story is featured below, with corrected text.

A man was in court this week facing a felony charge after he allegedly illegally recorded his interaction with a city employee.

The 30-year-old man from Pembroke was arrested at 4:05 p.m. on May 6, and charged with unlawful wiretapping, a felony charge.

Information about the charge is limited, due to it being a felony that may go to trial, according to Lt. Timothy O’Malley, the commander of the criminal investigations unit for the department.

The charge stems from an interaction between the man and Gene Blake from the Concord Code Enforcement Department on Feb. 26, according to a Concord Police arrest report. O’Malley said that the interaction involved a permit for a taxicab operator’s license, a process regulation by the city. Police allege that the man recorded Blake on a tablet during the interaction, without Blake’s knowledge or permission.

State law in New Hampshire requires what is known as a “two-person” consent for audio recordings, meaning that the person performing the recording must gain permission from the person being recording. Exceptions include police investigations and interviews, wiretapping requests that receive permission from a judge, and live events where permission is difficult to obtain, such as a hearing, news incident, fire, or accident. 

Police confiscated the Samsung tablet from Hamel on April 15, and he turned himself into police three weeks later, after police issued a warrant for his arrest. The man could face between three to seven years in prison, if found guilty of the charge.

O’Malley wouldn’t comment on how the investigators became aware of the recording.