MANCHESTER, NH – Hillsborough County Attorney Michael Conlon announces the formation of specialized prosecution units at the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office. Each of these specialized prosecution units were implemented to increase operational performance and efficiency of resources applied to critically important public safety incidents that occur in Hillsborough County.
Case Intake & Assignment Units – Coordinating with the First Assistant County Attorney of Hills North & Hills South, the Case Intake & Assignment Unit of each office location reviews new cases coming to the office to make important decisions and communicate with involved parties both internally and externally.
There is a Case Intake Unit in both Hillsborough North & South:
Hills North is led by Assistant County Attorney Amy Manchester.
Hills South is led by Assistant County Attorney Brett Harpster.
Special Victims Unit – Receives assignment of cases relating to Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Child Abuse, Elder Abuse, Abuse of Persons with Disabilities, and similar cases where felonies are committed against our most vulnerable persons. The Special Victims Unit covers Hillsborough North and is supervised by Assistant County Attorney Andrew Ouellette.
Drug Unit – Receives assignment of cases relating to felony offenses arising from the Controlled Drug Act. The Drug Unit is also involved with investigations of Untimely Deaths involving drugs and managing performance of participants enrolled in Drug Court. The Drug Unit covers Hillsborough North and is supervised by Assistant County Attorney Brendon Thurston.
Major Crimes Unit – Receives assignment of cases relating to felony violent crimes such as robbery, burglary, assault, aggravated DWI, negligent homicide, gang-related violence and crimes involving firearms such as felon in possession and armed career criminal. The Major Crimes Unit covers Hillsborough North and is supervised by First Assistant County Attorney Nicole Schultz-Price.
Cybercrime Unit – The State’s first group dedicated to the detection, investigation, and prosecution of cybercrime will receive assignment of cases involving digital forensics and specific crimes related to network communications such as charges of possession or manufacturing of Child Sex Abuse Images. The Cybercrime Unit covers both Hillsborough North and South and continues to be supervised by Assistant County Attorney Nicole E. A. Thorspecken.
The Cybercrime unit is designed specifically to cover the full county with potential impact to every case. Digital forensics is growing to become one of the most important aspects of law enforcement. Crimes facilitated through communication networks using computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices are proliferating rapidly. Cybercrime data is used to investigate crimes traditionally associated with electronics, including abuse images and online solicitation. Due to the ubiquity of personal electronic devices such data is increasingly used in investigating more traditional crimes such as Negligent Homicide and other offenses where electronic data can be recovered from cell phones and computers.
- Cybercrime offenses include:
- Possession and distribution of Child Sexual Abuse Imagery;
- Online Solicitation of Children for Sexual Purposes;
- Dissemination of Private Sexual Images (“Revenge Porn”);
- Other crimes in which computers, cell phones, or other electronic devices are either used to facilitate the crime, or store data which can be used to solve the crime.
Highly specialized training is needed to prosecute these offenses. Many of the attorneys in the Cybercrime Unit have received training from the US Secret Service’s National Computer Forensic Institute and are highly experienced in the prosecution of cases involving cybercrime.
