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After all his lies, his cheating, and his criminal convictions, former Strafford County Sheriff Mark Brave was still trying to game the system on Monday as he received his 3.5 to 7-year prison sentence.

Brave, who turns 40 later this month, was a rising star in the Democratic Party after becoming both New Hampshire’s youngest sheriff and first elected Black sheriff in 2020. His career crashed and burned after he was caught stealing close to $20,000 in taxpayer money to fund a series of extramarital affairs.

He compounded his crimes by lying to a grand jury about his actions, which led to his prison sentence from Strafford Superior Court Judge Daniel St. Hilaire.

Former Strafford County Sheriff Mark Brave enters court for his sentencing at Strafford County Superior Court in Dover, N.H., on May 19, 2025. POOL DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

Rather than accept his sentencing, however, Brave once again tried to delay the inevitable by telling the judge he needed an extra day to make arrangements for his teenage daughter.

And once again, it didn’t work.

“You should have planned for today,” St. Hilaire said, reminding Brave he had 90 days between his plea hearing in February and Monday’s sentencing to get his life in order.

Brave is now heading to prison to serve his time for one count of felony perjury, with the other perjury sentence of 3.5 to 7 years suspended.

St. Hilaire said the goal of the sentence is not primarily to punish Brave, or to get him rehabilitated, but to deter any other law enforcement officer or elected official from lying as Brave did. But as St. Hilaire said, Brave set a high bar for low behavior.

“Throughout this case, and even prior to you being charged, the court has reviewed a record that is unlike any that has come before it, mainly because of the continuation of crimes that were being committed while the case was proceeding,” St. Hilaire said. “You kept digging a hole for yourself rather than stopping.”

For example, Brave accused his fellow elected Strafford County Democrats of racism for pursuing an investigation into his actions — despite the overwhelming evidence of his wrongdoing.

One of those accused Democrats, County Commissioner George Maglaras, said he supports the prison time St. Hilaire imposed.

“It’s a sad day for Strafford County. I’m sorry we had to go through this. I’m happy to take the days of Mark Brave as sheriff of Strafford County and put them behind us,” Maglaras said.

Superior Court Justice Daniel St. Hilaire speaks at the sentencing hearing for former Strafford County Sheriff Mark Brave at Strafford County Superior Court in Dover, N.H., on May 19, 2025. POOL DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

During the sentencing hearing, Brave told St. Hilaire that being elected sheriff was a dream come true for the one-time reserve police officer in Lawrence, Mass. But soon after his election, his marriage started to fall apart. He began a series of “poor choices” and used his county credit card to pay for his extramarital escapades.

“I stand before you, embarrassed and ashamed of my own conduct,” Brave said.

But St. Hilaire told Brave that if the crimes before him on Monday were just about the money, it is likely he would not be going to prison. Brave lied to investigators who started looking at his suspicious purchases and out-of-state trips. He lied before a grand jury several times. And after he was charged in 2023 and placed on personal recognizance bail, Brave lied to St. Hilaire and prosecutors about his residence and finances in order to get a free, public defender appointed to his case.

“The first few crimes charged, they were wrong, but it’s often the coverup that’s worse than the original crime,” St. Hilaire said.

Before the sentence was imposed, Assistant Attorney General Joe Fincham told St. Hilaire that Brave’s position as a law enforcement officer required a serious sentence.

“The public must know that if a law enforcement officer lies repeatedly, especially under oath, in order to obtain or avoid an indictment, in order to obtain or avoid conviction, there must be punishment for these actions. Because otherwise, there is no line protecting citizens,” Fincham said.

Lief Becker, Brave’s private attorney, asked for a maximum sentence on the two perjury counts, but urged that the sentences be suspended to allow Brave his freedom. Becker agrees that it is a serious breach of trust when a police officer lies, but Brave’s case is nuanced. He wasn’t lying as a police officer for police business. He was lying to cover up his liaisons and thefts.

“The significance of perjury can’t be understated. But Mr. Brave in his falsehoods was acting in his own self-interest as a criminal defendant,” Becker said.

Prosecutor Joe Fincham speaks at the sentencing hearing for Former Strafford County Sheriff Mark Brave at Strafford County Superior Court in Dover, N.H., on May 19, 2025.  POOL DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER

During his run as sheriff, Brave maxed out his county credit card, and then maxed the card controlled by Emergency Communications Director Justin Bellin. He created an $80,000 a year job for a female friend, Freezenia Veras, and then he took her to Florida for a fictitious consulting session with another law enforcement agency.

Brave wined and dined another woman, identified in court as “Y.F.,” and he told county officials those trips were either for a law enforcement conference or a charity, depending on who was asking. In front of the grand jury, Brave lied about taking Y.F. on a dinner cruise until confronted with photos of the couple together. When asked her name, Brave was stumped.

“Her name, her name is … um … Let me see, I forget which one this is. I’ve been dating a lot of people,” Brave testified before the grand jury.

He met another woman online, Kenisha Epps-Schmidt, and he traveled to Maryland to see her. Brave made up more fictitious justifications to use his county credit card for those trips as well, even making up a Washington D.C., and meeting with U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas. Eventually, Brave ripped off Epps-Schmidt for more than $2,000 in a used car deal. 

After being charged, Brave lied to St. Hilaire and violated his bail conditions by paying $52,000 on a year’s lease for an apartment in Massachusetts. His bail required that he remain living in New Hampshire, so Brave told the court he was still living in Dover with his ex-wife and that he was broke. He did not mention the apartment in Massachusetts, or the 1968 Porsche he bought. Brave did post photos and a video of the classic car, though. Fincham told the court that Brave also took trips to Florida and Puerto Rico while awaiting trial, again violating court order.

State Rep. Timothy Horrigan (D-Durham) was in court Monday and said afterward he is saddened by the whole saga. Brave was a candidate Horrigan and many others supported and believed in.

“I even had one of his campaign signs on my property,” Horrigan said.

When Sen. Maggie Hassan attacked Gen. Don Bolduc for supporting the “FAIR Tax” during the NHPR U.S. Senate debate, nobody else in the room appeared to know what she was talking about — including Bolduc.

Days later, it was still not clear if Bolduc had ever embraced the obscure plan to eliminate the IRS, or is even familiar with its details. What is clear is that Team Hassan has worked hard to make it an issue in the waning days of the campaign — a fact that raises questions about the Democrats’ strategy.

Before last week, virtually nobody following the Hassan v. Bolduc campaign had heard the phrase “FAIR Tax.” When Hassan repeatedly declared, seemingly at random, that Bolduc backs a 23 percent national sales tax, he said he did not know what she was talking about. She pointed to his answer to a question on a Facebook Live event hosted by WMUR’s Adam Sexton a few days earlier.

The FAIR Tax slogan is “Abolish the IRS!” It would entirely replace all income and payroll taxes with a national consumption (or sales) tax. The premise is that wealthy taxpayers wouldn’t be able to use loopholes to evade paying their fair share and it would catch the revenue lost to the under-the-table economy.

Good idea? Bad? Whatever it is, it is not a topic that has been debated or discussed by either candidate — until Hassan brought it up during the debate.

No reference appears anywhere on the Bolduc campaign website. There was not a single media report of Bolduc ever talking about it at any of the more than 60 town halls he has held. A Google search for any previous mentions of “Don Bolduc” and “Fair Tax” came up empty.

So, where did it come from?

During the WMUR/Facebook Live event, Sexton read a question from an “Ann Heffernon.”

“Can you please ask Don Bolduc to speak more about his FAIR Tax plan?” Heffernon wrote.

In his answer, Bolduc did not endorse, or even mention, the FAIR Tax proposal or a sales tax of any kind. Instead, he said, “I want a fair tax so that everybody pays their fair share based on the income they make.”

Obviously referencing a tax “based off income” doesn’t sound like the FAIR Tax, and it is not part of his campaign. So, why was a viewer asking about “his Fair Tax plan?”

Perhaps because Ann Heffernon is a long-time leader in the Cheshire County Democratic Party. In fact, she was named the county’s Democrat of the Year in 2017.

NHDP Chair Ray Buckley and “Democrat of the Year” Ann Heffernon.

According to the Keene Sentinel, “She’s been active for decades and has served as [county Democratic Party] chair, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer of the organization. She’s coordinated events (including a women’s rally at Keene State College last fall), canvassed, conducted trainings, ran offices, gave rides, made food — anything that needs to be done.”

It is not difficult to deduce how this extremely specific question on an obscure topic made its way to Facebook.

Campaigns planting questions is nothing new. It’s standard operating politics for everything from talk radio interviews to town halls to make sure your candidates’ fans are the ones asking the questions. But planting a Facebook Live question to set up a radio debate attack on an issue literally nobody in New Hampshire is talking about?

Why?

To many longtime political pros, it was just another sign the Hassan campaign is still struggling. Running against an underfunded, inexperienced candidate who gives them a gaffe-a-day to work with, Hassan’s polls continue to fall. She took a double-digit lead and $50 million and turned it into a neck-and-neck race.

“Don Bolduc can’t win this race, but Maggie Hassan can lose it,” veteran GOP operative Karl Rove told The Wall Street Journal on Monday.

The Hassan campaign denies it invented this controversy, and it uses a 20-second clip of Bolduc at an October 14 Salem town hall in which he said, “We need either a fair tax or a flat tax,” and complains about the complexity of the tax code. Hardly a pillar of his campaign.

So once again — why? The tax issue is hardly a winner for Hassan.

In 2017, she voted to kill the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) which gave the average household earning between $50,000 – $75,000 a 19.4 percent tax cut, according to Americans for Tax Reform.  These Granite State households saw their average federal income tax liability drop from $6,030.80 in 2017 to $5,050.35 in 2019. Hassan voted against it.

The TCJA also increased the Child Tax Credit nationwide by $573.4 billion over a decade. She voted against that, too.

The New Hampshire GOP calls the Hassan campaign’s FAIR tax stunt both desperate and dirty.

“This is what desperation looks like,” said state party executive director Elliot Gault. “Gen. Bolduc is winning, all our candidates are rising in the polls, and we’re in the final days. Democrats have to turn to dirty tricks because they can’t beat our candidates on the issues.”

“Dirty trick” may be a bit over the top. But with Democrats bouncing from attack to attack — their new ad targets Bolduc’s comments on a “microchip” conspiracy theory — and Hassan’s lead fading in poll after poll, “desperate” sounds right on target.