By Paul Montgomery
The Union Leader
BRENTWOOD, N.H. — A jury found a former emergency medical technician not guilty on all charges that he inappropriately touched an 18-year-old patient while she was being driven to Hampstead Hospital.
The verdict in the trial of William Donovan, 50, of Tuftonboro happened Wednesday after six days of testimony in Rockingham County Superior Court.
Donovan was found not guilty on three misdemeanor counts of sexual assault and two counts of simple assault Wednesday afternoon around 3:30 p.m. The jury deliberated for just under two hours.
“The jury did their job as they were requested to do,” defense lawyer Donald Perrault said immediately after the verdict.
Perrault said the verdict brought an end “this long and telling nightmare for Mr. Donovan.”
Donovan, who worked for the now-defunct Rockingham Ambulance, hugged Perrault and defense lawyer Joe Mattson after jurors were escorted out of Courtroom 1.
Prosecutors had argued that Donovan quizzed the woman about her history of “cutting” before telling her to pull down her pants to check her pulse along both of her upper thighs. During the June 10, 2010 ambulance ride, Donovan then allegedly searched up the woman’s top with his hands for weapons or contraband, prosecutors said.
“These are obviously tough cases for juries,” Deputy County Attorney Tom Reid said following the verdict. “It’s a matter of one person’s word against another. We believe her, obviously.”
Perrault argued to jurors on Wednesday that the victim fabricated the story about being assaulted by Donovan, suggesting it was a ploy to get attention from her mother.
Perrault told jurors that if the patient had been an 18-year-old male and the medic was, “a 40-something-year old woman,” then the case would not have led to criminal charges.
He said if any juror believed otherwise, “I would suggest I have some oceanfront property in Kansas I’d like to sell you. This is gender bias for lack of a better term.”
Reid argued that the woman’s testimony about what happened remained consistent and supported by the ambulance driver with Donovan that night.
The driver described Donovan’s hands “moving up and down and around the patient’s body,” Reid said during closing arguments.
Donovan became angry when he was asked later by the driver about what he was checking, Reid told jurors.
The woman had first told her mother over the phone that something happened to her during an ambulance ride to Hampstead Hospital, but the case was ultimately referred to state police when a hospital employee overheard the woman talking about the alleged assault to another patient.
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