NASHUA – A district court judge has cleared Nashua resident Marc Bernier of the misdemeanor criminal threatening charge that stemmed from his confrontation last year with a transgender person regarding locker room use at a local fitness club.

Judge Patricia Quigley on Thursday notified Bernier and his lawyer, Nashua attorney Mark Osborne, that she found Bernier not guilty of the single Class A misdemeanor offense after the roughly one-hour bench trial earlier this week.

The verdict pleased Bernier, Osborne said Thursday, as he is glad the nearly year-long case is closed and behind him.

“He’s just looking forward to moving on,” Osborne added of Bernier.

While Bernier prevailed in this criminal case, the civil rights action state Attorney General Gordon MacDonald brought against him several months ago had a less favorable outcome.

A Superior Court judge ruled that Bernier violated the state’s Civil Rights Act by allegedly threatening “to kill another patron” at the Nashua fitness center “after Bernier learned that the other patron was transgender and had used the women’s locker room to change,” according to the ruling issued in November.

As part of the ruling, the judge ordered an injunction against Bernier, which prohibits him from having any contact with the person for one year. The order also states Bernier must stay off the property of the fitness center, which is on Northwest Boulevard.

Bernier was also ordered to pay a $3,000 civil penalty, with all but $500 suspended for one year on the condition Bernier comply with the terms of the injunction.

The confrontation, which reportedly occurred around 2 p.m. March 17, stemmed from an encounter Bernier’s wife, who accompanied him to the center that day, had while she was in the women’s locker room.

She said she was in the process of changing clothes when a person she said she believed was “a large, middle-aged adult male” entered the changing room, prompting her to “quickly get dressed and hurry out,” according to documents filed in the case.

The documents identify the person as Caandice Torres, 54, but they don’t include an address or a city or town of residence.

A short time later, according to documents Osborne filed, Marc Bernier was using an exercise machine when he noticed a person he also believed to be “a large, middle-aged adult male” using a machine several feet away.

According to Osborne, Bernier described the person as wearing a “short, purple skirt” while exercising, and “wearing several colorful ribbons about the head and hair area.”

When the person “stood up and bent over,” according to the documents, Bernier said the person’s purple skirt “had ridden high enough that Mr. Bernier couldn’t help but see the brightly striped underwear” the person identified as Torres was wearing.

Bernier next noticed “a large bulge in (the person’s) underwear … which he believed to be a pair of testicles belonging to” the person.

After learning from his wife that the person was the same one she earlier saw in the changing room, Bernier asked Torres whether Torres is “a man or a woman.”

Torres reportedly told Bernier “it was none of his business,” prompting Bernier to allegedly respond, “it is my business because my wife changes in that locker room, and if I see you going in there again, I will (expletive) kill you.”

The two argued, soon taking it to the front counter where an employee tried to get between them. The security video “clearly shows (Torres) not acting afraid, fearful, intimidated or terrorized” by Bernier, according to documents filed by Osborne.

Instead, Torres can be seen “making a ‘bring it’ gesture with arms spread wide … very much acting like she is in charge and exhibiting no fear.”

Osborne alleges Torres “invited” Bernier “to a fist fight,” which Bernier declined, he wrote.

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