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list was used in determining petitioner's divorce settlement
obligation. We simply do not believe that petitioner would have
included these automobiles on the list if he did not, in fact,
own them. See Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 U.S. 496,
512 (1991) ("we assume 'that persons do not make statements which
are damaging to themselves unless satisfied for good reason that
they are true.'") (citations omitted); cf. Fed. R. Evid.
804(b)(3) (allowing the admission of statements against a
declarant's interest as an exception to the rule against
hearsay).
The testimony of former New Hampshire State Police Officer
Donald Gates further confirms our conclusion that petitioner
owned the automobiles in question. Mr. Gates had been assigned
to investigate a robbery at petitioner's house on or around April
3, 1990, and a fire approximately 2 weeks later at a location
where petitioner stored automobiles.12 Through the course of his
investigation, Mr. Gates learned that petitioner needed to sell
several of his antique automobiles in order to finance his
divorce settlement with Linda Bennett. Given the prior robbery
and the fire, Mr. Gates inquired about these automobiles and the
status of the sale in order to determine whether petitioner might
be the potential target of future crimes. When asked about his
12Neither occurrence is relevant to this case.
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