This story was originally produced by the Keene Sentinel. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
An area law enforcement veteran who served in overlapping years as Hancock’s police chief and officer-in-charge of the Richmond Police Department has been indicted on felony theft charges.
A grand jury indicted Andrew Wood, 53, of Fitzwilliam in Cheshire County Superior Court on Monday on a count of unauthorized taking and a count of theft by deception, according to court documents.
The indictments allege that between Jan. 5, 2017, and June 27, 2019, Wood deprived his employer — the town of Richmond — of more than $1,500 by submitting weekly worksheets noting hours he did not work.
Wood was officer-in-charge in Richmond between those dates, according to Michael Garrity, a spokesman for the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, which announced Wood’s indictment in a news release Tuesday. Garrity declined to comment on the total amount of money Wood is alleged to have stolen.
Both felony counts are punishable by a 7½ to 15-year State Prison sentence and a $4,000 fine, according to the Attorney General’s Office.
New Hampshire Police Standards and Training Council records indicate that between the dates in the indictments, Wood was also the Hancock police chief, a position he had held since 2009, according to Maj. David Parenteau, a bureau commander with the council.
Those records indicate Wood had first been hired in Hancock in 1993 and left the department in 1998, the same year he joined the Richmond department, where he would serve until the department closed in June 2019, Parenteau said in an email responding to questions. Wood returned to the Hancock department in 2008 and remained through the end of 2020, Parenteau said.
Since the Richmond Police Department's closing, the town has contracted with the Cheshire County Sheriff's Office for law enforcement coverage.
Wood could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
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