Elijah Blue Allman has been indicted in New Hampshire on a felony criminal mischief charge, escalating the case against him weeks after police say they found him inside a Windham home during a reported burglary in progress. The Rockingham County grand jury said the property loss appeared to be in excess of $1,500.
The indictment gives the case a sharper legal edge because it does more than repeat the March arrest. It says Allman purposely damaged the alleged victim’s property by breaking a glass window and had no right to do so, language that turns a break-in allegation into a felony case tied to damage above the state’s threshold. Allman has been held at a locked psychiatric hospital in New Hampshire since shortly after his March 1 arrest.
Police responded to the home in Windham, N.H., at 9:47 a.m. on March 1 after a report of a burglary in progress. An officer allegedly saw fresh footprints in the snow leading to the back door and a shattered glass pane, then entered and found Allman on the living room couch smoking a cigarette. The homeowner was found hiding in a closet.
The homeowner said she did not give Allman permission to enter the residence, which is where the case’s central dispute lies. Investigators later reported a fresh cigarette burn on the area rug in the living room near where he had been seated, a detail that matched the scene described in the complaint and helped support the charge now returned by the grand jury.
Allman initially faced burglary, criminal mischief and breach of bail charges in a criminal complaint dated March 2. He was out on bail after a separate arrest two days earlier at St. Paul’s School in nearby Concord, where he was booked and released on suspicion of trespassing, criminal threatening and simple assault. In that Feb. 27 incident, he allegedly gained access to the campus by saying he was a prospective parent, then became belligerent and poked a student with his cane.
The new felony criminal mischief count does not resolve the larger case. Under New Hampshire law, the indictment’s reference to property loss in excess of $1,500 is what pushes the allegation into felony territory, but the charging document does not state any plea from Allman. An arraignment on the new charge is reportedly set for next month, when he will be asked to answer it for the first time.
The case has also fed into a separate court fight involving Cher, who renewed her bid in April for a court-ordered conservatorship in California after Allman’s back-to-back arrests. In a revived petition filed April 15, she asked that a professional conservator take control of his finances rather than herself and said his life had been derailed again by ongoing substance abuse. Cher wrote that his mental health had severely deteriorated, his financial situation was terrible and his drug dependency was at its worst, calling him gravely disabled.
