Strafford County Sheriff Mark Brave announced plans Monday night to go on administrative leave, as he faces multiple felony charges.
"While I maintain that I am innocent, and none of my spending of out of state line items was due to deceive the county or the people of Strafford County, I do want to make sure that the wonderful team at [the sheriff's office] is able to function without added stressors to their already difficult positions," Brave wrote in a statement shared on social media.
At a meeting hours earlier, Strafford County commissioners gave Brave until noon Tuesday to accept their latest offer to go on paid administrative leave.
“We are asking him to do the right thing and step down, “ Commission Chairman George Maglaras said Monday.
If Brave declined, the commissioners said they would ask the county’s delegation of state representatives to vote to force him out. Last week, County Attorney Tom Velardi told NHPR that county officials lack the authority to put Brave on leave on their own.
Before Monday, Brave had twice been offered the option of taking administrative leave, which he refused.
Maglaras stressed that Brave deserves the presumption of innocence on the eight felony charges he faces, but staying the job while they remain unresolved isn’t tenable.
"It is impossible for the sheriff to exercise his constitutional right to run that office when he can't have contact with his staff," Maglaras said.
Brave's bail conditions bar him from contact with eight of his staff, several other county officials, and the chiefs of police in Portsmouth and Manchester.
Brave was charged last week with allegedly improperly seeking reimbursement on thousands of dollars he used for personal expenses, including travel, hotel stays and entertainment with romantic partners.
If convicted on all charges — which include theft, falsifying evidence and perjury — Brave could spend more than 30 years in prison, and fines of up to $32,000.
Brave, a Democrat who was elected as the state’s first Black sheriff in 2020, has denied wrongdoing and called the charges his faces “a racist and political attack.”
During Monday’s commission meeting, officials said they referred Brave’s case to state prosecutors in April, after discovering he bought first class tickets to Florida last year on a county credit card and misled them about who he'd traveled with.
“I had the feeling that something just wasn’t right in his response,” County Administrator Ray Bower said.
An affidavit filed by a state investigator who looked at Brave’s activities between May 2022 and May of 2023 found Brave misused $19,000 in county money and charged expenses of two county credit cards to their $5,000 limit.
Officials said Monday that Brave no longer has use of county credit cards but acknowledged they still don’t have a complete handle on his spending.
Maglaras noted a recent charge on Brave’s card has allegedly surfaced from a nightclub in Lawrence, Mass.
Maglaras said he’s also hoping Brave makes good on a bad personal check he wrote to participate in a charity golf tournament benefiting a Make-a-Wish program for residents of county nursing homes.
“We were appreciative of his support, Maglaras said. “He wrote us a check for $600. That check has bounced.”
