NASHUA – On Wednesday, the second day of his most recent trial on sexual assault related offenses, Bruce Hanson took the witness stand and firmly denied ever having sex “in any form” with his accuser, said he never physically forced her to do anything, and “absolutely” never threatened to fire her from her job at his restaurant if she didn’t perform a sex act upon him.

Roughly four hours later, and for the second time in two months, Hanson, 62, walked out of Hillsborough County Superior Court-South a free man, after a jury of seven women and five men found him not guilty of one count each of aggravated felonious sexual assault, as well as an offense of prostitution and related offenses.

A third charge – trafficking in persons – was dismissed during the trial.

For Hanson, a construction contractor, restaurant owner and property manager who for years has been active in the local recovery community, Wednesday’s verdicts bring to a close a multi-pronged Superior Court case that began when a grand jury handed up 11 felony indictments against him in August 2018.

During the course of the case, Hanson and Nashua attorney Eric Wilson were granted motions asking the court to separate the 11 charges into three groups – one for each of the three alleged victims.

That set the stage for three separate trials, the first of which took place in October and ended in not-guilty verdicts on two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault.

The charges accused Hanson of engaging in sex with the alleged victim without her consent from March 2013 to July 2013.

The second trial, which involved the most charges – two counts each of aggravated felonious sexual assault; prostitution by force or intimidation; and trafficking – involuntary servitude – never took place: Several days before it was to get underway, prosecutors abruptly dismissed all six indictments.

Central to this week’s trial, which ran two days beginning Tuesday, was the testimony of the alleged victim, a woman in her 20s who worked at Hanson’s restaurant, the Pine Street Eatery, and also rented an apartment from him that she shared with her mother.

Under questioning by Assistant County Attorney Brian Greklek-McKeon, who prosecuted the case with first Assistant County Attorney Kent Smith, the woman said she was speaking with Hanson in the restaurant’s office on the day before Thanksgiving 2016 regarding her job performance, and at some point, she asked him if she could be off on Thanksgiving Day.

She said Hanson told her that if she wants him to do her a favor, she’d have to do him a favor, which believed involved oral sex. She testified that when she told Hanson she didn’t want to perform the act, he allegedly told her that if she didn’t “me and my mom would be out on the streets, and I’d be out of a job.”

But Wilson, in cross examination, scrutinized the timeline of events, such as whether the woman and her mother reported the allegations to police before, or after, Hanson allegedly began eviction proceedings against them.

Wilson, in his closing argument Wednesday, pointed out to the jury the alleged victim’s suggestion that police altered the recording of her interviews with detectives. “She wants you to believe that police … somehow removed (some of) her statement,” Wilson told jurors.

“She was not only changing her story, she was adding to it,” he said.

Wilson also referred to text messages involving Hanson and the woman, as well as some involving himself and the woman’s mother, which appeared to indicate they were communicating “normally,” in the days and weeks after the sexual assault the woman said took place.

Those texts, Wilson said, stood in stark contrast to the woman’s account of that time period, when, according to her testimony, she avoided Hanson and refused to make eye contact with him.

In one exchange, Wilson pointed out, when Hanson assured the woman in a text message, “I never said I was going to kick you out,” she responded by thanking Hanson and telling him, “I’m truly appreciative of all you do.”

“If it did happen,” Wilson said, referring to the sexual assault, “I don’t think you could get your fingers to type that.”

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256, or at dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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