Journalists

May 31 (UPI) — The former leader of two rehab centers faces federal charges in the alleged harassment of New Hampshire Public Radio journalists in retaliation for an unfavorable news story about alleged sexual misconduct.

Eric Spofford, 40, was arrested Friday after being indicted by a federal grand jury in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts on one count of conspiracy to commit stalking through interstate travel and using a facility of interstate commerce; one count of stalking using a facility of interstate commerce; and two counts of stalking through interstate travel, the Departmentof Justice announced.

Each count is punishable by up to five years imprisonment, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.

Spofford is the founder and former chief executive officer of the for-profit Granite Recovery Centers in Salem, N.H., and Miami.

He has an arraignment hearing scheduled at 3:30 p.m. EDT Monday at the federal courthouse in Boston.

GRC is one of the largest drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers in New England, and Spofford sold it in 2021 for $115 million, The New York Times reported.

Many abuses detailed

NHPR on March 22, 2022, published an online article that discussed allegations of sexual misconduct, abusive leadership and retaliation by Spofford.

He allegedly harassed former patients and staff, and was accused of sexually assaulting at least two staff members.

One former patient said he sent her unwanted text messages and at least one photo of an obscene nature, which she said caused her to suffer a relapse.

Several staffers and a former chief operating officer left GRC due to the alleged behavior by Spofford, according to the article.

He denied the allegations, but the article gained a lot of attention locally and nationally, according to the DOJ.

He sued the public radio station for defamation, but a judge dismissed the case in 2023.

A scheme to ‘harass and terrorize’

From March 2022 through at least May 2022, Spofford allegedly “devised a scheme to harass and terrorize the journalist who authored the article, the journalist’s immediate family members [and] a senior editor at NHPR,” the DOJ said.

Federal prosecutors say he paid a close friend, Eric Labarge, $20,000 to undertake the scheme and provided him with names, addresses and instructions on how to stalk and harass the intended victims.

Labarge enlisted the help of three others to stalk and harass the victims, all of whom were charged and convicted of crimes related to the scheme, DOJ said.

Labarge, Tucker Cockerline, Keenan Saniatan and Michael Waselchuk last year were sentenced to between 21 months and 46 months in prison.

May 17 (UPI) — Three Iranian men were charged with National Security Act violations for targeting U.K.-based journalists with “serious violence” during a Saturday court appearance.

Mostafa Sepahvand, 39, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 44, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 55, of London were charged in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the BBC reported.

Sepahvand also is charged with “surveillance, reconnaissance and open-source research” while planning to commit “serious violence against a person in the U.K.”

The trio are London residents who have sought asylum and were arrested on May 3 for “engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service” from Aug. 14 to Feb. 16, CNN reported.

Iran’s foreign intelligence service is the one they are accused of assisting by allegedly surveilling and targeting journalists for Iran International, which is an independent media outlet based in London.

The three are Iranian citizens and entered the United Kingdom between 2016 and 2022.

Sepahvand hid inside a lorry when he arrived in 2016, while the other two arrived in small boats.

Each was granted temporary asylum shortly after arriving in the United Kingdom.

None of the three entered pleas during Saturday’s court hearing, and the three men have another court hearing scheduled on June 6 at the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court in London.

Reporters Without Borders and Truth Hounds found that Russia’s attacks on hotels intended to ‘discourage’ war coverage.

Russian attacks have increasingly hit hotels hosting journalists in Ukraine, in what could constitute “war crimes”, according to a new report.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Truth Hounds – a Ukrainian organisation founded to document war crimes – released the report on Friday. It found that Russian attacks on hotels housing journalists moved from being “isolated events” early in the conflict in 2022 to a “sustained threat” by 2025.

At least 31 strikes on 25 hotels being used by journalists have been recorded since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022, the report states.

“These attacks appear to be part of a broader Russian strategy aimed at intimidating journalists and suppressing independent media coverage of Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” the report said.

The hotels hit are mainly close to the front line. Only one was being used for military purposes at the time of the attack, the NGOs said.

“In total, 25 journalists and media professionals have found themselves under these hotel bombings, and at least seven have been injured,” it stated.

According to the RSF, at least 13 journalists have been killed while covering Russia’s war on Ukraine, with 12 of the deaths on Ukrainian territory.

Types of attacks

The report highlighted that the attacks followed a clear pattern, occurring at night, using ballistic missiles launched at civilian hotels that were not “legitimate military targets”.

“Our analysis therefore suggests that these attacks are neither random nor incidental but are instead part of a broader strategy aimed at discouraging independent reporting from the front line,” the authors concluded.

Due to the safety obstacles to reporting from a war zone, 13 percent of respondents to a survey said there had been a “reduction” in assignments to high-risk areas, affecting how the war is covered.

The report called for legal measures to prosecute crimes against journalists at “national and international jurisdictions”, specifically the International Criminal Court.