BY TED SIEFER
(Reuters) - A former New Hampshire police
officer released from prison in June after serving only 72 days of a year-long
sentence for a felony hit-and-run conviction was ordered back to jail on
Thursday.
The officer, Stephen Coco, was
accused of running down two teenagers while driving an unmarked police vehicle
in March 2013, when he was a Manchester police detective. He was accused of
leaving the pair in a snowbank and then misleading investigators about the
incident. The teenagers sustained non-life threatening injuries.
Coco was sentenced to a year in
jail earlier this year, after Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Gillian
Abramson rejected a plea deal that would have reduced the charges to
misdemeanors.
Earlier this week, local media
reported that the county jail superintendent had allowed Coco to return home a
month ago on work release. The superintendent argued he had the authority do so
under a 2013 state law.
That news prompted Governor
Maggie Hassan and other officials to call for a review of the law.
County prosecutors petitioned
Abramson to return Coco to jail, arguing that the jail superintendent had
violated the statute by not informing them or the victims of his intent to
release Coco.
Abramson agreed with the
prosecutors in her ruling Thursday.
"This is a defendant who
requires punishment and deterrence, goals not served or met by release after
just 72 days in jail," she wrote. "His conduct merits nothing less
than the original sentence imposed."
