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New Hampshire rehab center ex-CEO charged with harassment against journalist

The former CEO of a New Hampshire addiction rehab center has been federally charged with directing a harassment campaign against journalists and their families in response to negative coverage.

A Federal grand jury indicted Eric Spofford, 40, of Salem, N.H., and Miami, Fla., on several interstate stalking-related charges.

In March 2022, New Hampshire Public Radio published an article detailing allegations of sexual misconduct and abusive leadership against Spofford, who was a co-founder and former chief executive officer of the for-profit drug and alcohol treatment company Granite Recovery Centers.

Spofford himself isn’t accused of participating in the harassment campaign against the reporter and her editor — as well as their family members — in retaliation for the report, but instead tapping his close friend Eric Labarge to do the work for him.

In turn, Labarge enlisted Tucker Cockerline, Keenan Saniatan and Michael Waselchuck to carry out the campaign. Federal prosecutors say that Spofford paid Labarge $20,000 in cash as well as the victims’ addresses and specific ways he wanted them harassed.

The first reported instances happened in April of 2022, with Cockerline throwing a brick through the reporter’s former house in Hanover, N.H., on April 24, 2022. He also spraypainted a four-letter derogatory word beginning with “C” in large, red letters on the front door of the home.

That same day, Saniatan did the same to the editor’s home in Concord, N.H., and the reporter’s parent’s home in Hampstead, N.H.

The campaign continued the next month first when Cockerline spraypainted that same C-word in large red letters on one of the garage doors of the reporter’s parent’s home and then hours later when Waselchuck targeted the reporter’s new address in Melrose. There, he threw a brick through the window so that she would come out and see the message spray-painted in red on the side of her home: “This is just the beginning.”

The Middlesex District Attorney’s office issued a press release following that attack and released a SimpliSafe home surveillance recording of the frightening incident of the man throwing the brick. As authorities continued to investigate, they found this was an interstate campaign and federal authorities took the case over.

Labarge, Cockerline, Saniatan and Waselchuck already went through the legal system for their dirty work starting in 2023, when they were charged, and 2024, when they were sentenced, as the Herald has covered.

Cockerline was the first to be sentenced when he was slammed with two years and three months in federal prison for his role in August 2024. Waselchuck was sentenced next that September with a year and nine months in prison. Labarge was sentenced that November to three years and 10 months and the following month Saniatan was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

Courtesy / U.S. District Court

A man later identified as Keenan Saniatan is seen in surveillance video around the time he vandalized the Hampstead, New Hampshire, home of the parents of an NHPR journalist. (Courtesy / U.S. District Court)

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MS-13 gang leader in Massachusetts ‘Little Crazy’ admits to committing unsolved murder

A local MS-13 gang leader known as “Little Crazy” has admitted to committing a previously unsolved murder, according to the feds.

Jose Vasquez, also known as “Little Crazy” and “Cholo,” has pleaded guilty to his role in the 2010 murder of a man in Chelsea.

Vasquez, 31, the leader of the MS-13 “clique” in Somerville, is currently serving a 17-year federal prison sentence after he was convicted of conspiracy to conduct enterprise affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.

Now, the gang leader could be staring at decades more in prison following his guilty plea for killing a purported rival gang member in 2010.

MS-13 is a transnational criminal organization with tens of thousands of members located in the U.S., El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and elsewhere. MS-13 branches, or “cliques,” operate throughout the U.S., including in Massachusetts.

MS-13 gang members are required to commit acts of violence, specifically against rival gang members; kill informants; and support and defend fellow MS-13 members in attacks.

“MS-13 members maintain and enhance their status in the gang and the overall reputation of the gang by participating in such violent acts,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote.

Vasquez was the leader of the Trece Locos Salvatrucha, or TLS, clique of MS-13 operating in Somerville. In addition to being a leader of an MS-13 clique, Vasquez personally participated in racketeering activity and acts of violence on behalf of MS-13, the feds said.

Back on Dec. 18, 2010, police responded to a 911 call under the Fifth Street on-ramp to Route 1 in Chelsea. A 28-year-old man was found with about 10 stab wounds to his head, back and chest. He was transported to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A recent reexamination of evidence collected during the initial investigation identified members of MS-13, including Vasquez, as having committed the murder.

In the week leading up to the incident, Vasquez and other MS-13 members conspired to murder the victim because they believed he belonged to a rival gang.

On the day of the murder, Vasquez and other MS-13 members picked the victim up in front of a McDonald’s in Allston. The group then drove to Chelsea, where Vasquez and other MS-13 members led the victim to a secluded area under the highway — where an MS-13 member hit the victim in the head with a rock, and another MS-13 member stabbed the victim with a machete.

During the attack, Vasquez stabbed the victim with a knife. Vasquez’s palm print was identified on the handle of a kitchen knife recovered from the scene. The victim’s blood was also found on the knife.

An undercover recording obtained of an MS-13 meeting that took place six weeks after the murder captured one MS-13 member acknowledging his participation in the murder, and other gang members disciplining him for leaving Massachusetts after the murder without the gang’s permission. Vasquez was identified as being present for the meeting.

Federal sentencing in this case is scheduled for June 30.

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