Piermont man pleads not guilty in West Lebanon groping sex assault case

William Menard, of Piermont, left, listens and public defender Miles Stafford, right, looks on as public defender Jason Novak, middle, speaks to Judge Lawrence MacLeod, Jr. during his arraignment in Grafton Superior Court on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Menard is charged with sexually assaulting women in West Lebanon and Hanover last winter. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.

William Menard, of Piermont, left, listens and public defender Miles Stafford, right, looks on as public defender Jason Novak, middle, speaks to Judge Lawrence MacLeod, Jr. during his arraignment in Grafton Superior Court on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Menard is charged with sexually assaulting women in West Lebanon and Hanover last winter. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. Valley News — James M. Patterson

Public defender Miles Stafford, right, talks with William Menard, of Piermont, second from left, and family members before his arraignment in Grafton Superior Court in North Haverhill, N.H., on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Menard is charged with sexually assaulting women in West Lebanon and Hanover last winter. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com.

Public defender Miles Stafford, right, talks with William Menard, of Piermont, second from left, and family members before his arraignment in Grafton Superior Court in North Haverhill, N.H., on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. Menard is charged with sexually assaulting women in West Lebanon and Hanover last winter. (Valley News - James M. Patterson) Copyright Valley News. May not be reprinted or used online without permission. Send requests to permission@vnews.com. James M. Patterson

By JOHN LIPPMAN

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 06-20-2023 8:20 PM

NORTH HAVERHILL — A Piermont man pleaded not guilty to charges that he sexually assaulted a woman in West Lebanon this past winter and must submit to an evaluation by a licensed alcohol and drug addiction counselor in order not to have his bail revoked.

William Menard, 18, appeared briefly for arraignment in Grafton County Superior Court in North Haverhill on Tuesday morning on charges of aggravated felonious sexual assault. He remains under house arrest except to report to his job at McDonald’s, to which he must transported by a parent, according to court documents.

Menard must also wear an ankle GPS tracking device, the court ordered.

Menard’s arraignment on Tuesday came four months to the day after he allegedly sexually assaulted two women, one inside Walmart and the other outside Target, in West Lebanon by sneaking up behind them and aggressively grabbing them in a sexual manner, according to court documents and interviews by the Valley News with the reported victims.

The alleged West Lebanon assaults occurred just four weeks after Menard, then temporarily employed at Dartmouth College, was charged with a misdemeanor assault for allegedly grabbing the buttocks of a female student on Massachusetts Row in Hanover.

Menard is simultaneously facing charges, some of them overlapping and involving the same alleged incident and victim, in both Lebanon District Court and Grafton County Superior Court. Menard’s alleged sexual assault on one of the West Lebanon women was recently elevated to a felony-level charge because of the nature of the alleged physical violation, according to a Grafton County grand jury indictment handed up in May.

At the arraignment, Menard was represented by Grafton County public defenders Miles Stafford and Jason Novak, who declined comment on Tuesday. Menard was accompanied at the hearing by a man who said he was Menard’s father and a woman who declined to identify herself to a Valley News photographer.

A profile of Menard, then 13 years old, in 2018 in the Woodsville-based The Bridge Weekly Sho-Case newspaper, reported his accomplishment of having climbed all 48 mountains in New Hampshire that are at least 4,000 feet or higher by the time he was 12 years old.

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Menard’s next court date is a conference scheduled for July 17.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.