By Nicholas Brown
Staff Writer

An Allenstown man is charged with sexually assaulting 17- and 18-year-old girls, as well as offering one of the girls $750 worth of drugs in exchange for a sex act near the Allenstown dump.

On Saturday, April 29, police arrested 45-year-old Fred Chapman after complaints filed by two Allenstown teenage girls who live near Chapman’s 119 Granite St. apartment, police said.

Chapman is accused of sexually assaulting each of the girls, buying them vodka and preparing them drinks, and offering one of them marijuana and ecstasy in exchange for a sexual favor, court records show.

Chapman was arraigned in Hooksett District Court on Monday, May 1, and is being held in the Merrimack County jail on $25,000 cash bail.

Chapman was arrested in his apartment without incident, and wasn’t found in possession of drugs, despite his alleged offer to one of the girls, police said.

The arrest comes less than two years after Chapman served 15 years in a Sullivan County jail.

Last year, Chapman was convicted after Allenstown police arrested him for his failure to register as a sex offender, said Allenstown Police Capt. Shaun Mulholland.

“He was legally registered at the time of these new offenses,” said Mulholland.

Chapman is just one of several registered sex offenders living in the Granite Street apartment complex in front of the Holiday Acres mobile home park, and one of many throughout Allenstown.

“There are five or six of them in that building alone,” said Mulholland. The neighborhood has many young children, which Mulholland said is disconcerting since sex offenders tend to repeat crimes.

Allenstown has nine sex offenders listed in the state’s public database of “Sexual Offenders Against Children,” but Chapman isn’t one of them.

Registration for that list is only required of people convicted of committing sex offenses against people 13 years old or younger.

“The majority of sex offenders do not show up on the list,” said Mulholland. “I don’t think a lot of people know that.”

Chapman is scheduled to go to trial on July 11.