Affidavit: Sheriff wined and dined paramours on county dime – 1st-class airfare, pricy dinners, waterfront hotels

CONCORD, NH – Over the course of a year, Strafford County Sheriff Mark Brave stayed overnight in a Boston hotel after Celtics games, traveled to Fort Lauderdale, and courted paramours with pricy dinners and hotel stays, all on the county’s dime, according to court documents.

Brave, 38, who has taken paid administrative leave, is charged with eight felonies including one count of theft by deception for stealing about $19,000 from the county; two counts of falsifying physical evidence, and five counts of perjury, for lying before the Strafford County Grand Jury during an investigation conducted by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

According to the affidavit for the arrest warrant filed in Strafford County Superior Court by investigator Allison P. Vachon, the investigation began when Strafford County Administrator Ray Bower filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office. He said Brave had used his county-issued credit card to pay for personal expenses including a trip to Fort Lauderdale dating from Aug. 26 to 29, 2022. A routine audit of the accounts also found two county-issued credit cards had been “maxed out” (credit limits of $5,000), charges had been made for Jet Blue first class airline tickets totaling $1,615.04, and for a stay at an oceanfront hotel in Fort Lauderdale totaling $768.71.

Bower said Brave’s card had been recently used and declined due to it being “maxed out.” Brave then asked Justin Bellen, director of communications and emergency management in the sheriff’s office, to use his card to make purchases. Bellen gave him his credit card information and within a few days he saw online that Brave had purchased airline tickets, an Airbnb and an Expedia charge, maxing out Bellen’s card. Bellen reported it to Major Steve Bourque and the county cancelled Bellen’s county credit card.

The complaint led to the Attorney General conducting a more thorough investigation resulting in Brave’s arrest on the felony charges.

Vachon’s 24-page affidavit [see below] details the expenditures, which Brave allegedly wrote off as related to professional conferences that didn’t happen or, in several instances, to events associated with the New England Sheriffs Association, which doesn’t exist.

Vachon examined Brave’s work emails and found that on Aug. 25, 2022, he sent an email to Sgt. Charles Luise, at Massport, Logan Airport, requesting parking for his cruiser there and provided his dates of travel saying he would be traveling with his “Chief of Staff” on a work-related matter.

Another email was sent on Sept. 7, 2022, from his personal email to his work email forwarding his JetBlue reservations for the trip. The itinerary indicated Brave and Freezenia Veras were the passengers. (Vachon noted that Veras previously used the last name Arias but she was unclear when the change occurred. When she traveled to Fort Lauderdale with Brave, however, her JetBlue tickets were in the name of “Freeezenia Arias.”)

Veras, Vachon wrote, was hired by the sheriff’s office in March 2022 as an Executive Assistant II in the prosecution unit working for Lt. Paul Callaghan. Her rate of pay was $27.60 per hour with an annual salary of about $57,400. Seven months later, Brave created a new position for her (without county approval) as Chief of Support Services/Public Information Officer (PIO) at a $38.38 hourly rate for an annual salary of about $79,830. According to Bower, Veras’ appointment to this new position caused the sheriff’s office to exceed its appropriation for salary.

Veras’ responsibilities included overseeing payroll and handling grant billing, invoices, month-to-month bills, incoming civil monies as well as the reconciliation of the county credit cards to ensure the appropriate supporting documentation is obtained as well as “coding” the individual purchases.

The receipt for the airline tickets submitted to Strafford County lists Brave as one passenger, but Veras’ name is missing. When Vachon Interviewed Veras in June 2023, Veras admitted she accompanied Brave to Ford Lauderdale but denied she stayed in the same hotel room as him, saying she stayed with family and friends in Florida. When asked to provide names of those individuals, she refused.

She said she and Brave researched her new position and they were to have meetings with local officials in Florida including the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. However, Veras said those meetings were canceled so instead she and Brave discussed her new position.

During her grand jury testimony in July 2022, Veras testified she stayed with Brave at the Atlantic Hotel, both in the same room. She said the room had one king-sized bed and a pullout couch. She slept on the bed and Brave slept on the pullout couch, she testified. Veras denied any sexual or romantic interaction with Brave during the trip.

Veras stated no work was done during the trip; she went shopping and to the pool.

Brave testified after Veras and said Veras had stayed with friends or family and not in his hotel room.

Brave told the grand jury that he was scheduled to meet with U.S. Representative Chris Pappas on a trip to Maryland, but that the Congressman had to cancel the meeting and gave Brave a flag that flew over the U.S. Capitol as an apology. Records from the Congressman’s office indicate that no such meeting was ever scheduled, and no such gift of a flag as an apology ever took place. Rather, based on investigation, Brave is alleged to have actually met a paramour who lived in the area.

Vachon provided details of the various expenditures the sheriff made including what Brave and others ordered for dinner on various occasions. For instance, on Sept. 17, 2022, Brave charged $83.44 for a meal for two at the 110 Grill in Manchester ($64 for two dinner steak tips at $32 each and a $14 tip). His written justification for reimbursement on the receipt was for meeting with the NAACP Executive Director and Manchester Police Chief Allen Aldenberg. When contacted, Aldenberg said he never met with Brave on that date and, after reviewing his calendar, said he was out of town on that date.

In May 2023, Brave charged $1,610.27 in a series of purchases in Boston. Those charges included $1,195.24 for a two-night stay at the Marriott Long Wharf; $367.64 for two tickets on a premier dinner cruise on Odyssey in Boston through Hornblower Experiences, and $47.34 for an Uber trip from the Long Wharf to LaFabrica Central restaurant in Cambridge.

In justifying reimbursement, Brave said the hotel stay and inner cruise were for “NH Accreditation Commission Celebration Dinner” and the Uber trip was for the “ride from retreat back to hotel.”

Vachon wrote that the New Hampshire Accreditation Commission did not host a celebration dinner retreat or any other event in Boston on that date. When interviewed, she said Brave said he did not know why he wrote that, that he thought the dinner cruise was actually a charity fundraiser for the New Hampshire Special Olympics. In his grand jury testimony, she said Brave said the dinner cruise was a charity fundraiser for the NH Special Olympics, Big Brothers Big Sisters of New Hampshire or the Boys and Girls Club of America. She said no records for any of these organizations hosting such a charity event can be found.

He also testified that no one stayed with him at the Long Wharf Marriot during this trip. After being confronted with surveillance images showing Brave and a woman, identified in the court record only by the initials “Y.F.”, entering the Long Wharf Marriott together on May 5, 2023, Brave testified he did not remember if Y.F. stayed the night with him at the Long Wharf Marriott.
(Vachon wrote that “Brave initially had trouble identifying Y.F. stating ‘ Her name, her name is …um… Let me see, I forgot which one this is. I’ve been dating a lot of people.”)

He later admitted in his testimony that Y.F. spent the night in Brave’s hotel room and the two had a romantic/sexual interaction.

Surveillance footage from the Long Wharf Marriott shows Brave and Y.F. departed the hotel around the time of the dinner cruise. Investigators located a boarding photo of Brave and Y.F. and hotel surveillance shows Brave and Y.F. arriving back around the time the dinner cruise would be over, entering the hotel together, and leaving the hotel the next morning where Brave Kissed Y.F. before she entered her car and left the hotel. Records indicate Brave stayed another night and took an Uber to LaFabrica restaurant.

Investigators also learned that the day of the cruise, May 5, 2023, was Y.F.’s birthday.

The last charges Brave made were for $1,263.72 from May 16 to 23, 2023 for a series of purchases on his county credit card relating to a trip to West Palm Beach, Fla.

Those included roundtrip airfare from Boston to Palm Beach; a $176.81 dinner for four at Meating Street in Port Saint Lucie, Fla. ($43 for one prime NY strip; $8.95 for one side of Brussel sprouts; $6.95 for one side of roasted carrots; $7.95 for one side of asparagus; $6.95 for one side of sauteed mushrooms; $3.95 for one side of shoestring potatoes; $16.95 for one fried calamari; $20.95 for one Caesar salad with chicken; $16.95 for one beet and goat cheese; $14.21 in taxes and fees; and a $30 tip; $262.89 for a rental car. There was another $166.22 bill for a dinner for two at Kyle G’s Prime in Jensen Beach, Fla, where the order included a Thai noodles salad, 14-oz strip steak, baked potato, vegetable du jour and French fries.

Brave justified the charges saying the airfare was for a flight to West Palm Beach to visit the West Palm Beach Police Department Lieutenant; the Meating Street dinner was for the NH Accreditation Commission Celebration Dinner; the rental was for the visit to West Palm Beach police; and dinner at Kyle G’s was for Dinner with Dr. (name illegible).

Brave was unable to read his handwriting or remember the name of the doctor. During his grand jury testimony, he admitted he did not have any scheduled meeting with anyone from the West Palm Beach Police Department. Rather, he testified he went there without any appointments, walked up to a police officer on a pier and had a conversation. He had no explanation for the NH Accreditation Commission Celebration Dinner justification.

The charges against Sheriff Brave are only allegations, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.