Croydon clerk gets 90-day restraining order after town hall confrontation

A late-March confrontation at Croydon Town Hall has now become a court order that puts firm limits around the town’s clerk and tax collector, raising immediate questions about how one of Croydon’s most public-facing offices keeps handling taxes, voter registration and vital records without disruption.

Sullivan County Superior Court Judge James Kennedy granted a 90-day restraining order on April 9 against Croydon resident Paul Raymond Whipple. The order bars Whipple from harassing, threatening, intimidating or interfering with Paul Michael Freitas’ liberty, after the dispute escalated from a town hall encounter into allegations of harassment and threats. The underlying clash appears to have centered on an attempted citizen’s arrest at Town Hall, a sharp reminder that even routine municipal friction can quickly spill into the legal system in a town this small.

Freitas has served as Croydon’s town clerk and tax collector since March 2023, and the office he runs is central to daily town business. Croydon’s town clerk page lists public hours as Monday through Wednesday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. and describes the office as the hub for vital records and other core local-government functions. That makes the stakes unusually practical for residents: whether someone is paying taxes, seeking records or handling voter registration, the office has to remain open and accessible.

The timing adds to the concern. Croydon’s 2024 Census estimate was 856 residents spread across 36.8 square miles of land area, a scale that leaves little room for disputes to stay private for long. In a town that small, tensions involving a clerk or tax collector can affect public confidence just as much as they affect the individual official. The 2025 town and school report listed Freitas as the elected town clerk and tax collector, with a term ending in March 2026, underscoring how central the role is to the town’s day-to-day operations.

New Hampshire law defines stalking broadly as a course of conduct that would cause a reasonable person to fear for personal safety, and the state Judicial Branch says stalking protective orders are among the restraining orders available in the courts. Croydon’s town website showed Board of Selectmen meetings scheduled for April 14 and April 27, along with a Planning Board meeting on April 22, indicating that regular government business continued even as the court order took effect. For now, the judge’s ruling draws a clear line around Town Hall while Croydon’s residents watch to see whether the dispute leaves any lasting mark on access, safety and trust.