Co-founder of Hanover nonprofit for veterans to serve more prison time

By ANNA MERRIMAN

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 02-20-2020 9:53 PM

NORTH HAVERHILL — The co-founder of a Hanover nonprofit for military veterans who admitted to stealing nearly $100,000 from the organization will get additional prison time after prosecutors claim she violated the terms of her plea deal.

Danielle Goodwin, 48, has agreed to serve nine more months of a previously suspended jail sentence, according to a motion filed Jan. 31 by Grafton County Deputy Attorney John Bell. She will not face any further charges at the sentencing hearing, which is scheduled for Feb. 27, the motion said.

Goodwin currently is being held in the New Hampshire Correctional Facility for Women in Concord after she pleaded guilty to eight charges of theft by unauthorized taking in 2018. Prosecutors have said Goodwin stole $99,500 from the nonprofit Project VetCare, which she founded in 2012. The plea deal came with a sentence of 3½ to seven years in jail with 18 months suspended if she cooperated with law enforcement, meaning she was anticipating a release date as early as June of this year.

But Bell said in a November motion that Goodwin did not hold up her end of the plea deal when prosecutors asked her to testify at the trial of her son, Alexander Donahue and his wife, Sarah Healy, who face charges of receiving stolen money from Goodwin.

According to the motion, Goodwin told police in an August 2018 interview that she instructed Healy to write two checks to herself from Project Vetcare, totaling $12,000. Goodwin told police she knew the money was not hers to give away at the time, according to Bell.

Then, in an October 2018 phone call Goodwin made from prison, she was recorded saying “any mother worth half her weight would fall on her sword all day long.”

Despite the phone call, prosecutors still had Goodwin testify at the Donahues’ trial, during which she contradicted her 2018 interview with police, Bell’s motion said. Instead, she testified the money was hers to give away because Project Vetcare owed her money, according to the motion.

The jury ended hung on all but one count in the trial, finding Alexander Donahue not guilty of theft. The Donahues’ next court date is a final pretrial hearing scheduled for May.

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In last month’s motion, Bell said Goodwin’s testimony amounted to perjury and “false swearing,” but agreed not to pursue charges if Goodwin accepts the nine-month sentence, which gives her a release date of March 2021 at the earliest.

Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.

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