Convicted ex-candidate arrested again in N.H.

Gary Dodds was accused of assaulting his wife.

DOVER, N.H. - A former congressional candidate convicted of faking his disappearance after a car crash two years ago was arrested yesterday after his wife reported that he threw her to the floor.

The candidate's lawyer said that the authorities are just blowing some marital stress out of proportion and that his client was home, as required by his previous sentence, when authorities were looking for him.

Gary Dodds was convicted in February of falsifying evidence, creating a false public alarm, and leaving the scene of an April 2006 crash that prosecutors said he staged to boost his campaign.

He was sentenced to 20 days in jail and a year of home confinement but was out on bail pending an appeal when he was arrested yesterday morning outside the Cutts Mansion, the apartment building he owns in Portsmouth.

A judge had revoked Dodds's bail Monday based on reports from Dodds's wife that he assaulted her and had been acting irrationally. Strafford County Attorney Thomas Velardi said Dodds also had not been living consistently at his home in Rye and recently was in Florida when he told the court he would be in New Orleans.

Cindy Dodds called police in Rye around 1 a.m. Monday to report she and Dodds had argued while on vacation in Florida and that her husband had thrown her to the ground, taken his bags, and left. She told police she wasn't hurt and didn't think her husband was a danger to himself or others, but she wanted officers to check whether Dodds had flown home.

According to Dodds's lawyer, the couple flew home to New Hampshire together Monday afternoon and that Dodds spent the night at home in Rye.

"We'll see about that," Velardi said, noting that Dodds was spotted Monday night running near the Cutts Mansion. "Everything with this man needs to be checked and double-checked."