Imperial Valley Press

7th man arrested in sex abuse case at youth detention center

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A former youth detention center worker accused of responding to a bruised and crying teenager’s rape allegation­s by saying, “Look little fella, that just doesn’t happen,” was arrested Thursday in the latest developmen­t in a broad investigat­ion into the New Hampshire facility.

Gordon Thomas Searles, 65, of Brooksvill­e, Florida, was charged with one count of rape a day after the arrest of six other former workers at the Sununu Youth Services Center. He was being held without bail in Florida, and it was unclear whether he has an attorney to speak on his behalf.

The Manchester facility, formerly known as the Youth Developmen­t Center, has been under investigat­ion since July 2019, when two former counselors were charged with raping a teenage boy 82 times in the 1990s.

Those charges were dropped last year in order to strengthen the expanded investigat­ion, but both men were arrested again Wednesday, along with four others based on allegation­s from 11 victims from 1994 to 2005.

Searles was one of several defendants named in a lawsuit filed last year in which more than 200 men and women allege they were physically or sexually abused as children by 150 staffers at the Manchester center from 1963 to 2018.

According to their attorney, children were gang raped by counselors, beaten while raped, forced to compete for food in “fight clubs” set up by counselors, and locked in solitary confinemen­t for weeks or months.

The lead plaintiff, David Meehan, alleges that in 1998, Searles came into his room and saw that Meehan’s face was severely bruised, with a black eye and split lip.

“Searles asked, in a jocular tone, what had happened, at which point David began to cry and told Searles that he had been beaten and raped,” the lawsuit reads. “Searles cut him off, responding ‘Look little fella, that just doesn’t happen.’ Then Searles left.”

The criminal charges did not indicate whom Searles is accused of raping.

The other six men made initial court appearance­s Thursday. Bail hearings were delayed until Friday for four of them, while a judge set bail at $100,000 for Lucien Poulette and $50,000 for Bradley Asbury.

Asbury, 66, of Dunbarton, New Hampshire, is charged with being an accomplice to the rape of a former resident between 1997 and 1998. His attorney unsuccessf­ully argued for personal recognizan­ce bail, saying his client was not a flight risk or a danger.

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