Hartland official cleared of charges Animal control officer seeks job return

HARTLAND – The former animal control officer for Hartland has been cleared by a jury of all wrongdoing in an incident while he was on duty last April

John Mandarano has been on an unpaid town-mandated leave of absence from his position for the past eight months while awaiting his day in court.

Last week a Somerset County jury found Mandarano not guilty of charges of criminal trespassing and criminal threatening after just 15 minutes of deliberation.

“This whole thing has been horrible for me,” said Mandarano, who works full time at Edwards Systems Technology in Pittsfield. “I was forced on administrative leave and I did nothing wrong.”

The incident began when Mandarano went to the Charles Gould residence on Route 23 to give Gould summons for dogs roaming at large.

He said that Gould had three dogs at the time, a Labrador retriever, a Pomeranian and a beagle, and that he had received numerous complaints about them running at large.

“One neighbor was absolutely terrorized. He eventually moved away to escape the dog problem,” said Mandarano.

On March 29, Mandarano went to the Gould home to serve a written warning. “I had gone to the home 12 times before I found someone at home,” he said. The warning ordered the Goulds to keep the dogs tied.

The next day, said Mandarano, he had four more telephone complaints that the dogs were loose again so he returned to the Gould home.

Deputy Kent Stevens, who at the time was working as a constable for the town and not for the sheriff’s department, accompanied Mandarano on the call to serve a summons to the Goulds for dogs roaming at large.

Stevens was wearing a Somerset County deputy’s uniform and driving a county cruiser at the time, Mandarano said.

According to the sheriff’s department, the Goulds asked Mandarano to leave several times before he did so, resulting in the trespassing charge. During a heated exchange of words, Mandarano was said to have made a threat, the report said.

According to the report filed by Gould, Stevens told Mandarano to go back to his truck, but he kept going toward Gould, who said he was going to throw Mandarano off his property.

Mandarano said he proved in court that he was not on the Goulds’ property and that it was Charles Gould who “assaulted me and called me profane names. He chased me down the street and told his wife to go in the house and get a .347 magnum to shoot me.”

“He told me he was going to blow my brains out,” said Mandarano, who added that Stevens stood by and did not assist him during the incident.

Stevens was reportedly on medical leave from the sheriff’s department last week and did not testify in court.

Mandarano said he is glad the case has been settled and will ask the Hartland selectmen to reinstate him this week and provide him back pay. The position pays $2,000 annually.