Former state Sen. Burt Cohen was found guilty following a Portsmouth, NH district court trial of resisting arrest, disobeying a police officer and running a stop sign stemming from an arrest last fall.
Cohen was fined and given a 30-day suspended sentence Tuesday.
After five witnesses and Cohen offered testimony, Judge Sawako Gardner ruled Cohen's testimony was "not credible."
Gardner did, however, believe police and civilian witnesses who testified that on Oct. 25, 2006, Cohen was stopped by police after running a stop sign, but sped off through Market Square after two officers had left their cruiser and were approaching his car.
The court found the officers then pursued Cohen with lights flashing, and a siren and air horn sounding, until he finally stopped in the middle of High Street.
The guilty findings affirm that Cohen then backed up his car and hit an occupied parked car before he refused to comply with officers instructions to pull over, get out of his car and put his hands behind his back.
"Don't you know who I am?" Cohen asked police five times, according to testimony by Officer Kuffer Kaltenborn. "You can't arrest me. I am a very important community member."
Cohen told the court he asked the questions so officers would know he is "a member of the community and not going to try and run away."
But Officer Nicole Mercer testified that Cohen told her, "He didn't have to listen to me because I should know who he is. He was very aggressive and not compliant and he stated again that I should know who he was and I was going to pay for arresting him."
Mercer also testified that while she was working a paid detail at the Frank Jones Center on May 15, Cohen approached her, brought up his pending trial and suggested she drop the charges.
No further charges will be brought, prosecutor Corey MacDonald said.
The court also found that Cohen resisted arrest by struggling with both officers after being told he was charged with disobeying an officer and because it took two of them to handcuff him.
Cohen said he was looking for a parking space, didn't know police were after him and did not want to be handcuffed in front of his daughter, a passenger in his car.
AP
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