Hundreds claim decades of abuse by 150 youth center staffers
CONCORD, N.H. >> Abuse allegations against New Hampshire’s state-run youth detention center now span six decades, with 150 staffers during that time accused of physically or sexually harming 230 children at a facility the victims’ attorney calls a “magnet for predators.”
Rus Rilee sued the state in January 2020 on behalf of three dozen adults who alleged they were abused as children at the Youth Development Center in Manchester between 1982 and 2014. He now represents 230 clients who say they were abused between 1963 and 2018, when they were ages 7 to 18.
As the number of years, accusers and alleged perpetrators has swelled, so, too, has the sickening nature of the allegations. While details beyond the updated number of accusers and time span aren’t included in latest court documents, Rilee plans to add his clients’ accounts to the complaint and described them to The Associated Press:
Of the 150 accused staffers, more than half are accused of sexual abuse, Rilee said. Children were gang-raped by counselors, beaten while being raped, and forced to sexually abuse each other, he said. Some ended up with sexually transmitted diseases; one ended up pregnant.
Staff members choked children, beat them unconscious, burned them with cigarettes and broke their bones, Rilee said. Counselors set up “fight clubs” and forced children to compete for food. Children were locked in solitary confinement for weeks or months, sometimes shackled or strapped naked to their beds. Kept away from
classrooms while their injuries healed, some can’t read or write today, he said.
‘Broken, shattered’
“These broken, shattered children were then unleashed into society with no education, no life skills and no ability to meaningfully function,” said Rilee.
The Manchester facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center after former Gov. John H. Sununu, serves children ordered by the juvenile-justice system to a secure institutional setting. The average population last year was just 17 residents, overseen by about 90 employees, though it once housed upward of 100 youths and employed a larger staff.
Joe Ribsam, director of the state Division for Children, Youth and Families,
said the agency continues to cooperate with the broad criminal investigation into the center launched by the attorney general’s office in 2019. He did not comment on the new allegations.
“The facility’s policies and systems that protect the youth receiving care include full compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act and security cameras throughout the facility to provide additional sets of eyes on staff and student interactions,” Ribsam said in a written statement.
It was unclear how far up the chain of command knowledge of the alleged abuse traveled over the years. But the lawsuit alleges that some supervisors were abusers, and that other staffers looked the other way.
“The systemic, governmental child abuse that occurred
was allowed to occur because there wasn’t sufficient oversight, and the state was institutionally negligent in their hiring, training, supervision and retention polices,” Rilee said. “It’s pretty clear to me that this facility was a magnet for predators.”
‘Worthlessness’
Rilee said most of his clients have spoken to state police as part of the criminal investigation, including one man who spent two years at the facility in the late 2000s. The man alleges that he was sexually assaulted by two staffers more than half a dozen times, was beaten by six staff members at once, and often locked in his room for a week at a time. Now 28, he said he has been in and out of the criminal-justice system most of his life, and has struggled with depression, strained relationships and a warped sense of socially acceptable behavior.
“The kids that don’t have it good in there, we don’t come out good,” he said. “It takes a part of you. The worthlessness you feel afterwards. ‘Am I good enough for people? Am I good enough for myself?’”
Another man, now 29, spent more than a year at the center starting in 2007. He alleges he was beaten several times and sexually assaulted by three different staff members dozens of times, including a sexual assault that he says was recorded on a perpetrator’s cellphone. After years of substance abuse, he has been clean for seven months, but nightmares and other PTSD symptoms continue.
“I relive it a lot. Every night, every other night, it never stops,” he said.
Neither of them have any records of their time at the center, though they said they have requested them and gave state police officers who interviewed them permission to do the same.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been victims of sexual assault, unless they go public.
The lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, David Meehan, 39, went to police in 2017 with allegations of abuse from the 1990s. In July 2019, two of his former counselors were charged with 82 counts of rape, and the attorney general’s office launched its broader criminal investigation into the center’s operations and employees from 1990 to 2000. Those charges were dropped last March, when the office announced it was devoting “an unprecedented allocation” of resources to an expanded investigation, including assigning 10 state police troopers to a task force.
Dismissal sought
The state has been granted several extensions in responding to the lawsuit, and as recently as January, said in court documents that the parties were “in discussions aimed at narrowing or resolving the matters in issue in this case.” But earlier this month, the state filed a motion to dismiss the case, in part because it said the case didn’t meet the criteria for a class-action suit.
The attorney general’s office declined to comment on the new allegations or the lawsuit.
“There are dedicated prosecutors in the Attorney General’s Office as well as investigators from New Hampshire State Police who are working daily on this investigation,” acting Attorney General Jane Young said in a written statement. “The investigation will follow the evidence wherever it leads.”
In a recent interview, Meehan said he has been frustrated by the pace of the legal process but understands it will take time. He said he has grown stronger every day, in part because he has inspired others to come forward, including the two who spoke to the AP.
“It’s heartwarming in a way to know that I helped these other people find the strength to be able to speak the truth about their experience,” he said. “But at the same time, it hurts in a way that I can’t explain, knowing that so many other people were exposed to the same types of things that I was.”
Meehan said he has no regrets about speaking out.
“I can’t allow the abuse that I endured to be what destroys my life anymore,” he said.
One of the women who said she was sexually harassed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is rejecting his attempt to apologize for his behavior and excuse it as an attempt to be “playful.”
Charlotte Bennett said in a statement released Monday that the Democrat had “refused to acknowledge or take responsibility for his predatory behavior.”
“As we know, abusers — particularly those with tremendous amounts of power — are often repeat offenders who engage in manipulative tactics to diminish allegations, blame victims, deny wrongdoing and escape consequences,” she wrote.
“It took the Governor 24 hours and significant backlash to allow for a truly independent investigation. These are not the actions of someone who simply feels misunderstood; they are the actions of an individual who wields his power to avoid justice.”
New York’s attorney general said she was moving forward with an investigation into the harassment allegations after receiving a letter from Cuomo’s office Monday authorizing her to take charge of the probe.
The referral letter allows Attorney General Letitia James to deputize an outside law firm to conduct the inquiry with full subpoena power. When the investigation is finished, the findings will be disclosed in a public report, the letter said.
James, in a statement announcing she received the letter, said, “This is not a responsibility we take lightly as allegations of sexual harassment should always be taken seriously.”
Two women who have worked for Cuomo have come forward to accuse him of sexual harassment.
Bennett, 25, told The New York Times in a story published Saturday that the governor had questioned her about her sex life, told her he was lonely and looking for a girlfriend, and asked whether she would be open to a relationship with an older man.
A second former aide, Lindsey Boylan, has also accused Cuomo of harassment. She said Cuomo made inappropriate comments about her appearance and once kissed her without her consent at the end of a meeting.
In a statement Sunday, Cuomo maintained he had never inappropriately touched or propositioned anyone. But he said he had teased people about their personal lives, in attempts to be “playful.” He said he had wanted to act like a mentor to Bennett.
“I now understand that
my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended. I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that,” he said.
His statement drew immediate backlash from critics who said he was throwing responsibility onto the women for perceiving his statements wrongly.
The letter authorizing James’ investigation said that all state employees have been directed to cooperate with the review. Cuomo senior adviser Beth Garvey said she would facilitate interviews with witnesses and requests for documents from Cuomo’s office.
Bennett’s lawyer, Debra Katz, said her client will cooperate with the attorney general’s investigation.
“We are confident that no disinterested investigator who reviews this evidence would adopt the Governor’s self-serving characterization of his behavior as mentorship or, at worst, unwanted flirtation,” Katz said. “He was not acting as a mentor and his remarks were not misunderstood by Ms.
Bennett. He was abusing his power over her for sex. This is textbook sexual harassment.”
Katz said the attorney general must investigate whether Cuomo subjected other women to a sexually hostile work environment, and whether anyone in the Cuomo administration enabled his behavior.
The referral came after the weekend of wrangling over who should investigate his workplace behavior. First, Cuomo’s office said it would ask a former federal judge to conduct the probe. Then, it suggested James and the state’s top judge work together to appoint outside counsel to look into the matter.
On Sunday, Cuomo acquiesced to James’ demands to take control the inquiry.