Pollard hit-run case ends with no charges filed

Leslie Pollard booking photo

DOVER, N.H. - The Strafford County Attorneys Office has decided not to go forward with any charges against the husband of Rochester Economic Development Director Karen Pollard in connection with a hit and run accident last December.

Leslie Pollard, 51, of 17 Hemlock St., Rochester, was allegedly driving his car, with his wife in the passenger seat, along Lowell Street in Rochester when he struck a 28-year-old city woman on Dec. 29.

He was charged with felony conduct after an accident and misdemeanor drunken driving in the case. His wife was never charged.

The DWI was nol prossed this spring and prosecutors decided recently to conclude the case with no felony conduct charges filed either.

Strafford County Attorney Tom Velardi told The Lebanon Voice today that prosecutors were unable to "prove adequately" that Leslie Pollard was behind the wheel that night and not his wife, Karen.

On the night of the accident, the victim was struck as she walked along Lowell Street after the car she was riding in with two friends broke down and she left them saying she wanted to walk home, according to police affidavits.

Leslie and Karen Pollard at his probable cause hearing in February. (Lebanon Voice file photo)

The Pollards, along with the victim and the same two friends, had all been drinking at a downtown social club earlier in the evening, police affidavits state.

Leslie Pollard, who left Club Victoire with his wife a short time after the other three, told police he thought he may have hit "an animal or ice" in the vicinity of where the woman was hit, but didn't want to stop because he was so close to home. He is said to have told a family member to go check the area and his wife to call police soon after they arrived home.

Police conducted an investigation and interviews at the Pollard home that night while Leslie Pollard, who was reported as highly intoxicated, continued to guzzle wine, an affidavit states.

Pollard was arrested in the early hours of Dec. 30 and was alleged by the arresting officer to have confessed to the crime at the booking table.

Karen Pollard ultimately gave up her Deputy City Manager position, but is still the city's Economic Development Director.

From the start veteran defense lawyers like Stu Dedopoulos of Durham had indicated the state's case was not easy.

Dedopoulos, of Bamford, Dedopoulos & Regan, said earlier this year that if the case had gone to trial Strafford County prosecutors would have had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was Leslie Pollard driving the car, not his wife, Karen Pollard, a highly paid official for the City of Rochester.

"The argument may be that he admitted he was driving, because he was taking the rap for his wife, who has a well-paying job and who had also been drinking (that night)," Dedopoulos said at the time.

The case was bound over to Strafford County Superior Court in February, but Leslie Pollard was never indicted.

The victim ended up suffering an injured shoulder and is recovering.

Now that the case has been concluded it remains to be seen if Club Victoire will face scrutiny and possibly a fine or temporary closure from the state's Liquor Commission for possible overserving.