This story was originally produced by the Concord Monitor. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
The University of New Hampshire’s police chief pleaded guilty last month to driving under the influence.
Steven Lee, 50, was arrested in the early morning hours of Jan. 22 after an officer spotted his SUV swerving and nearly colliding with an 18-wheeler on Market Street in Portsmouth, according to a police report the Monitor obtained through a right-to-know request.
Lee admitted to drinking “downtown” and said he was heading home, according to the report. The officer said Lee smelled of alcohol and noticed he had red, glossy eyes. He partially failed a series of field sobriety tests and declined to take a breathalyzer test.
As a condition of his plea, Lee’s driver’s license is suspended for nine months, with the possibility of earlier reinstatement. He must pay a $620 fine and participate in an impaired driver care management program, according to court records.
“Chief Lee has dedicated his career to public safety,” his lawyer, Corey MacDonald, wrote in a statement. “He took full responsibility for the DUI charge, and he pleaded guilty. He did not negotiate the charge down. Many, if not most, first-time DUI offenders have their cases reduced to a reckless driving charge, but Steve wanted to publicly acknowledge that he had made an error in judgment.”
Lee, who was named UNH’s police chief last year, remains on paid administrative leave from the university pending an ongoing internal investigation, according to spokesperson Tania deLuzuriaga.
Lee was driving a university-owned Ford Explorer when he was arrested. He had his firearms in the car, according to police records. A university police detective recovered his 9mm Glock, taser and other equipment hours after his boss’s arrest.
Lee was “very respectful and complied with all steps” through the arrest process, according to the police report.
“One of the realities for first responders is that they see things on a regular basis that others may come across once or twice in a lifetime, if at all,” MacDonald wrote. “Steve has been an exemplary law enforcement officer, and he has served his community honorably. Law enforcement officers are not infallible and are not impervious to the impact of cleaning up the darker parts of our society.”
MacDonald said Lee placed himself on administrative leave and “proactively entered treatment catering to first responders” following his arrest.
“His hope is that his mistake will be a cautionary tale for other police officers who may not be actively maintaining their own wellness through appropriate means of addressing service-related trauma,” he said.
Lee has worked full-time for the university police department since 2007, according to a news report from that year. He was named police chief last year after his predecessor, Paul Dean, resigned to take a position in Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s administration. Lee previously served as the department’s deputy chief.
In 2007, the year he got the full-time job at the university, Lee and another officer from a different department were the subject of an after-hours drinking investigation after being found at a Dover bar at 2 a.m., according to reporting from the Foster’s Daily Democrat. Lee’s conduct did not break any laws, though the bar was not allowed to serve alcohol past 1 a.m., according to the reporting.
“The agreement was it wasn’t against the law, but it was poor judgment,” a university spokesperson said at the time.
The same year, Lee was also involved in a police chase that ended in a fatal crash in Kittery, Maine. He was working as a liquor enforcement officer at the time and was cleared of wrongdoing, according to the Portsmouth Herald.
Lee has never been convicted of driving under the influence before, according to police records.
Prior to going on leave, he led a department that has historically had one of the highest alcohol- and drug-related on-campus arrest rates in the country. From 2013 to 2022, its arrest rate was in the top 10 among public university campuses with more than 5,000 students, according to a Monitor analysis from 2024. In five of those years, UNH ranked first or second.
Captain Mark Collopy has served as the department’s interim chief since Lee was placed on leave.
Collopy “has the confidence of university leadership to ensure continued operations of the department and the safety of the UNH community,” deLuzuriaga said in a statement earlier this year.
Ben Crosby contributed reporting to this Concord Monitor article.