State of New Hampshire v. Matthew Rinaldi

THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

SUPREME COURT

In Case No. 2024-0320, State of New Hampshire v. Matthew
Rinaldi, the court on August 12, 2025, issued the following
order:

The court has reviewed the written arguments and the record submitted
on appeal, has considered the oral arguments of the parties, and has
determined to resolve the case by way of this order. See Sup. Ct. R. 20(3). The
defendant, Matthew Rinaldi, appeals his conviction, following a jury trial, of
aggravated felonious sexual assault (AFSA), see RSA 632-A:2, I (Supp. 2024),
arguing that the Trial Court (Delker, J.) erred by admitting evidence of a prior
alleged threat and assault. We affirm.

The following facts were found by the trial court in its pretrial order on
the admissibility of the challenged evidence or they relate the contents of
documents in the record before us. The defendant was charged by indictment
with a single count of aggravated felonious sexual assault alleged to have
occurred in Hillsborough County. The indictment alleged, in relevant part, that
the defendant:

knowingly [engaged] in sexual penetration . . . by placing his
fingers between [the victim’s] genital opening and threatened to
retaliate with physical violence against [the victim], that he would
break her fingers, if she reported the sexual penetration and [the
victim] had reason to believe [the defendant] would carry out the
threat of violence.

The factual allegations underlying that indictment involved a camping trip
during which the defendant entered the victim’s tent and assaulted her. The
defendant was also charged in Cheshire County with additional sexual assaults
of the victim.

The State filed a Rule 404(b) motion, see N.H. R. Ev. 404(b), seeking to
introduce evidence related to the alleged assaults in Cheshire County. At least
one of those charges related to an incident during which the defendant
allegedly threatened to break the victim’s fingers.

The trial court ruled on the State’s motion in an order issued the day
before the first day of trial. The order recites factual findings based “on offers
of proof made by the lawyers during a chambers conference [that day] and
based on transcripts of [police] interviews of the alleged victim . . . and the
defendant.” In particular, the court found:

In [the victim’s] interview, the only threat to break her fingers
occurred when the defendant demanded that [the victim]
masturbate his penis. [The victim] told police that she balled her
hand into a fist when the defendant tried to get her to touch his
penis. He then threatened to break her fingers if she did not give
him a “hand job.”

(Citation omitted.) The court also noted that “the State proffered that [the
victim] would testify that she succumbed to the digital penetration during the
camping trip based on this past threat of violence.”

The court generally denied the State’s motion, but ruled that the State
could introduce evidence of the above-described incident. The court
concluded: “it appears that the incident relating to the masturbation and threat
to break [the victim’s] fingers is intrinsic to the conduct charged in the pending
indictment.” Following this ruling, the victim testified at trial consistently with
the State’s proffer.

A jury convicted the defendant and he now appeals, arguing that the trial
court erred in ruling that evidence of the Cheshire County incident was
admissible as intrinsic to the charged conduct in this case. “We review
challenges to the trial court’s evidentiary rulings under our unsustainable
exercise of discretion standard.” State v. Tufano, 175 N.H. 662, 665 (2023).
“For the defendant to prevail under this standard, he must demonstrate that
the trial court’s decision was clearly untenable or unreasonable to the
prejudice of his case.” Id. (quotation omitted). “Because the trial court ruled
upon the admissibility of the challenged evidence before trial, we consider only
what was presented at the pretrial hearing. We so limit our review to avoid the
pitfall of justifying the court’s pretrial ruling upon the defendant’s response at
trial to the evidence.” State v. Nightingale, 160 N.H. 569, 573 (2010)
(quotations and citation omitted).

Under New Hampshire Rule of Evidence 404(b), “[e]vidence of other
crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in
order to show that the person acted in conformity therewith” although it may
“be admissible for other purposes.” N.H. R. Ev. 404(b)(1). Rule 404(b), “by its
very terms, excludes only extrinsic evidence — evidence of other crimes,
wrongs, or acts — whose probative value exclusively depends upon a forbidden
inference of criminal propensity.” State v. Rouleau, 176 N.H. 400, 405 (2024);
2024 N.H. 2, ¶14. Intrinsic evidence, on the other hand, is not subject to Rule
404(b). Id. at 406; 2024 N.H. 2, ¶15. “Other act” evidence is intrinsic “when
the evidence of the other act and the evidence of the crime charged are
inextricably intertwined, both acts are part of a single criminal episode, or the

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other acts were necessary preliminaries to the crime charged.” Id. (quotations
omitted). “Intrinsic or inextricably intertwined evidence will have a causal,
temporal, or spatial connection with the charged crime.” Id. (quotations
omitted). “Typically, such evidence is a prelude to the charged offense, is
directly probative of the charged offense, arises from the same events as the
charged offense, forms an integral part of a witness’s testimony, or completes
the story of the charged offense.” Id.

The defendant argues that evidence of the Cheshire County incident is
not intrinsic to the charged act here because “[a]s charged, the indictment
plainly alleged a threat to retaliate that was made during the commission of the
charged offense, not at an earlier time.” We are not persuaded. The trial court
noted that “the indictment appears to allege a combination of the statutory
variants of RSA 632-A:2, I(c) and (d).” Each of those variants requires that the
actor coerce the victim to submit to sexual penetration “by threatening.” RSA
632-A:2, I(c), (d) (2016). Addressing the variant of AFSA that is now codified as
RSA 632-A:2, I(c), we recognized that “the present threat need not be explicit.
The threat may be implicit, arising from earlier incidents.” State v. Kulikowski, 132 N.H. 281, 285 (1989) (citation omitted). The State’s proffer as to the
victim’s testimony in this case — that she submitted to the campground
assault based on the past threat of violence — was consistent with present
coercion by an implicit threat based upon an earlier incident. See id.

Thus, as in Kulikowski, evidence of the Cheshire County incident, as the
State proffered that it would be used, “constituted evidence of the very threat
which coerced the victim during the assault[] in question.” Id. at 287.
Accordingly, it was not Rule 404(b) evidence:

Evidence of the prior explicit threat[] was thus not admitted to
support an inference of a fact relevant to the case, such as motive,
opportunity or intent. The explicit prior incident[] gave rise to the
threat, an element of the charged offense, at the time of the
assault[].

Id. (citation omitted).

The defendant nevertheless argues that Kulikowski is distinguishable
because, in that case, the “indictments specifically alleged the defendant
coerced the victim to submit to the assaults by threatening physical violence on
‘numerous previous occasions.’” (Quoting id. at 284.) Again, we are not
persuaded. Although there appears to be no record of the chambers
conference at which the State’s motion was discussed, the court’s order noted
the indictment’s imprecision and stated that the court had addressed “the lack
of attention to detail . . . in chambers with counsel today.” The court directed
the State to “clarify . . . which variant [of AFSA] is charged” and further noted
that the “defense has not moved to dismiss or sought a bill of particulars.”

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 In determining whether the challenged evidence was intrinsic to the
crime charged, we decline, on this record, to restrict our inquiry to the
language of the indictment. By the State’s proffer, defense counsel was made
aware of the State’s intent to use the challenged evidence to prove the present
threat element of the charged offense. There is no indication that the
defendant objected that such a use would impermissibly amend the
indictment, and we note that the defendant has not made such an argument
on appeal.

The defendant further argues that the threat alleged in the Cheshire
County incident “was not inextricably intertwined with or part of the same
criminal episode or a necessary preliminary to the conduct alleged in the
indictment.” We disagree. According to the State’s proffer, it was the alleged
prior threat that compelled the victim to submit to the charged assault. Thus,
the prior threat constituted “a material part of the entire course of conduct
surrounding the commission of the alleged crime[].” State v. Martin, 138 N.H.
508, 517 (1994). In this case, as in Martin, it would have been impossible for
the State to introduce evidence of why the victim submitted to the charged
assault “without also introducing some evidence of the basis for [the victim’s]
fear,” id. — namely, the prior incident during which the defendant threatened
to break her fingers. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the trial
court sustainably exercised its discretion in determining that the challenged
evidence was intrinsic to the charged offense.

Affirmed.

MACDONALD, C.J., and DONOVAN and COUNTWAY, JJ., concurred.

Timothy A. Gudas,
Clerk

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