NORTH HAVERHILL — In objecting to a defense motion to dismiss the case, the state is alleging that Joseph A. Brown, who on April 29 shot a fellow driver in Grafton, may be a serial road-rager.
JOSEPH BROWN
Courtesy
Between July 2017 and April 27 of this year, Brown in seven instances tailgated other drivers; passed them at a high rate of speed, including over double-yellow lines; and then stopped short directly in front of them, said Marianna Pastore, an assistant Grafton County attorney in a June 13 filing in Grafton County Superior Court.
The state alleges Brown, 38, of Grafton performed those actions in April, tailgating Jason Marandos, 46, also of Grafton, on Route 4 in town.
After Marandos struck the rear of Brown’s Ford Flex SUV, both drivers pulled over and a verbal altercation began. During the altercation, the state alleges Marandos punched Brown and that in response, Brown pulled a handgun out of his waistband and fired once, hitting Marandos in the abdomen.
Brown, who was subsequently charged with two counts of first-degree assault with a firearm, told officers at the scene that he shot the physically larger Marandos in self-defense.
Brown has been held without bail since his arrest at the Grafton County House of Corrections.
Recently, attorney Penny Dean, who is representing Brown, informed the court that her client was the actual victim. She provided a sworn statement from a Route 4 resident in Grafton who said he saw Marandos tailgating and bumping Brown.
Citing what she said was a delay in the state providing discovery evidence to the defense, Dean then filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice the charges against Brown, but Pastore said the discovery had been made available and that Dean’s motion was moot.
Pastore nonetheless asked the court to deny both a probable-cause hearing on the matter and the motion to dismiss.
“To further enlighten the court,” Pastore said, the state’s investigation has found “SEVEN other instances of road rage and aggression by the defendant with chilling similarity to what he unleashed on the victim.”
According to the state’s objection to the motion to dismiss the case:
On July 16, 2017, a woman reported that a Volvo SUV, with the license plate NH 4116562 — which Pastore said Brown later transferred to the Ford Flex — “tried to ram her vehicle from behind” while she was in the area of the Danbury Country Store on Route 4. The Volvo pulled out across the double yellow lines and “brake checked” the woman.
On Oct. 13, 2018, a driver on Route 4 in Grafton reported that a vehicle was tailgating him and flashing its lights. That vehicle passed the driver on a straightaway, then cut in front of him and “slammed on the brakes.” That vehicle, Pastore wrote, “with NH 4116562 plates then turned left onto Prescott Hill Road.”
On April 10, 2019, three men were driving on Route 4 when Brown in his Ford Flex drove up behind their vehicle. From a distance of a few feet away, Brown allegedly passed the other vehicle and “slammed on his brakes and came to a complete stop in the roadway,” causing the other driver to do the same. A person in the vehicle took a picture of the license plate of the Ford Flex (NH 4116562) and it was determined that it was registered to Brown.
On April 13, a woman was driving on Route 4 in the area of Danbury/Andover where the speed limit was 35 miles per hour when she saw a Ford truck tailgating her and coming “close to hitting her.” When the speed limit increased to 50 mph, the Ford passed the woman on a double-yellow line, cut her off and slammed on its brakes. The woman, who later was able to discern that the vehicle was a Ford Flex, nearly hit it. She stopped to avoid a collision, while the Ford drove away. She said the driver was a “male with short black hair and a stockier build” and after seeing news reports about the Grafton shooting with a picture of the suspect vehicle, “she knew it was the vehicle that almost hit her on Route 4.”
On April 26, the same Ford Flex, said Pastore, was engaged in an incident on the Everett Turnpike with a Honda Accord. A witness said the Honda was trying to change lanes and go around the Ford Flex, “but every time the Honda tried to do this, the Ford Flex would cut off the Honda very closely. As one point, both cars were in the grass on the median and even into the breakdown lane. They were going back and forth across the highway.” Both vehicles exited the highway at Exit 11 in Merrimack, with the driver of the Ford Flex slamming on his brakes and coming to “a complete halt” in the exit lane, causing the Honda to nearly rear-end it.
On April 27, two couples were driving on Route 4 in a vehicle when a Ford Flex “flew past them and stopped so suddenly” that one of the rear-seat passengers “hit her head on the seat in front of her.” The Ford Flex “stopped short again, and, in fact, did so three times before the driver took off.” The people in the vehicle were able to recall the first few digits of the Ford Flex and later, one of them, while watching a TV news story about the April 29 road-rage shooting recognized it as the same model and color as the SUV she and the others had encountered two days earlier.
On June 4, a Grafton man said that a few months earlier he had gone to a gas station in Danbury to fill a 26-gallon tank in the back of his pickup. The man, who knew Brown, noticed Brown had also stopped there. Driving slowly so as not to spill the fuel, the man said he saw Brown driving behind him with flashing lights. The man let Brown pass and when Brown was in front of the pickup, Brown “slammed on the brakes.” When the two drivers got closer to their destinations, Brown came to a stop and waited for the man who likewise stopped but did not drive around Brown, saying that “he did not want anything to do with Brown.”
Brown is due back in court on June 28 for a bail hearing.
