Lebanon man pleads guilty to drug, habitual offender charges

Richard Jacques (Rochester Police photo)

DOVER, N.H. - A Lebanon man pleaded guilty to four felonies on Tuesday in Strafford County Superior Court, but if he follows all conditions will spend just 12 days in jail and then be eligible for home confinement or any other program approved by House of Correction administrators.

Richard Jacques, 28, of 899 Carl Broggi Hwy, had been charged with two habitual offender counts as well as fentanyl possession and felony willful concealment.

His guilty pleas on the two habitual offender charges drew a one-year sentence in the Strafford County Jail, with all but 12 days of incarceration suspended. However, he will still be administratively confined with either an electronic bracelet or under whatever other supervision deemed appropriate. He could be fully released from any type of confinement in as early as eight months if he stays on good behavior, said Assistant County Attorney Katelyn Elizabeth Henmueller on Tuesday.

Jacques also received two 2 ½- to three-year prison sentences on the willful concealment and drug possession charges with both suspended. Those suspended sentences will run consecutively, Henmueller added.

Jacques had the synthetic opioid fentanyl in his possession while in Somersworth on Oct. 11, the same day he was charged as a habitual offender for driving in New Hampshire after earlier having been declared a habitual offender.

Jacques was stopped again six days later on Oct. 17 for driving again in the Granite State, this time on Route 16.

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 30 times more powerful than heroin and is blamed in a flood of overdose deaths in the past year where the drug was either injected by itself or when mixed with heroin.

Jacques was indicted in April.