The Sticker

There’s a version of this story that fits in a headline: state officials asked to alter evidence in an active investigation. That version is true, as far as it goes. But it’s not the interesting part, and it’s definitely not the part that should worry you.The interesting part is the order things happened in.On July 3rd, 2017, Jane Young — then Associate Attorney General and Chief of the Criminal Justice Bureau — emailed a coalition public affairs director about a St. Paul’s School yearbook. She’d spoken with the state forensic lab. They believed they could remove a sticker from a page. Could they try?The next morning, an answer: happy to drop the yearbook off wherever’s convenient.Four days later, Jane Young is quoted publicly confirming a criminal investigation into St. Paul’s School has begun — and the yearbook is part of the story.Nobody, at the time, mentioned that the state’s own lab had already altered it.That gap — between what happened privately on July 3rd and 4th, and what the public was told on July 8th — is the entire story. Not because altering a sticker is inherently sinister. Sometimes evidence needs handling. But because who asked for it, how it was authorized, and what wasn’t said afterward are the kinds of details a defense attorney, a jury, or frankly the public are supposed to get to weigh for themselves. They didn’t get the chance. Not in 2017, and not for years after — because these emails stayed out of public view until a Right-to-Know request pried them loose.That timing gap is now doing real legal work. A formal grievance filed with the Attorney General’s office argues the statute of limitations shouldn’t be read as having started back in 2017, precisely because none of this was discoverable until recently. The same grievance raises a Brady question — whether information that should have reached St. Paul’s School as the subject of a criminal probe, didn’t. Whether either argument holds is not something we’re going to pretend to adjudicate from a podcast studio. That’s the Attorney General’s job now, formally, on the record.What we can tell you is what’s provable: the email chain exists. The statute — RSA 641:6, Falsifying Physical Evidence — exists, and it’s a Class B felony. The grievance exists. And the tangle of conflicts around who is supposed to review any of it — a complaint against Jane Young that her own state’s attorney disciplinary body says it can’t hear because Young sits on the committee that would hear it — also exists, and it’s almost farcical in how neatly it closes the loop.Small state. Smaller room. Same names, different hats — over and over, for years.We laid out the full paper trail, statute language, and grievance details in this week’s episode. Watch/listen below, and if you’ve got documents relevant to this thread or others in our New Hampshire accountability series, you know where to find us. We protect sources, always.Receipts over vibes. Every time. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe