BY DARRELL HALEN

A Pelham man who engaged in a five-and-a-half hour standoff with police when he refused to leave his home is scheduled to go on trial in December.

George W. Labonte Sr., 68, of 4 Jones Road, faces misdemeanor charges of domestic simple assault and resisting arrest.

His lawyer, Benjamin Faulkner, has asked Salem District Court to schedule the trial on Dec. 18. Labonte will also have a probable cause hearing on a felony charge of reckless conduct that day.

Pelham police officers were called to Labonte’s house around 11 a.m. on Oct. 1 and were met by his wife, Phyllipa, who claimed she was assaulted by him during an argument.

Labonte refused to come out of his house to speak with the officers and retreated further into his home, according to police.

Eventually, the Southern New Hampshire Regional Special Operations Unit, a police SWAT team, was called in. After several hours of negotiations, Labonte surrendered peacefully around 4:30 p.m.
The day before the standoff, Labonte was arrested by Pelham police on a reckless conduct charge.

He allegedly fired a rifle toward a house less than 300 feet away on Sept. 14.

According to an affidavit, Phyllipa Labonte told police that her husband fired a gun at a raccoon and showed an officer the direction he fired the gun. A family on Sherburne Road told police that Labonte previously had tried to intimidate them by brandishing firearms and threatened to shoot their dog, according to the affidavit.

The next day, before the standoff, Labonte was upset about his arrest and blamed his wife, according to another affidavit. He told her to leave, and as she was packing her belongings, he continued to argue with her and threw a roll of toilet paper at her, striking her in the chest, according to police.

Labonte was originally scheduled to go on trial and have his probable cause hearing on Tuesday, Oct. 23. But Faulkner asked that both be postponed because he had only been hired within the past week and had not had time to prepare.

Faulkner is also asking prosecutors to turn over evidence to him.