Trial begins for New Hampshire youth center worker accused of…

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) – The trial began Tuesday for a man accused of holding down a teenage boy so friends could rape him at a New Hampshire youth center in the 1990s. Prosecutors say a brutal crime occurred, and the defense says it was this never happened and that the accuser’s motivation was money.

This is the second criminal trial arising from a wide-ranging investigation in 2019 into historic abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester. Bradley Asbury, now 70, is one of nine men who worked at the Manchester center or a related facility in Concord to face criminal charges.

Asbury and a colleague are accused of restraining the boy in a dormitory where Asbury served as housemaster in 1997, while a third employee raped him and a fourth forced him to perform a sex act. The boy was 14 years old then.

In opening statements, prosecutor Audriana Mekula said the teenager, who was already in trouble and in solitary confinement, made a malicious comment to Asbury before being dropped to the floor from behind, grabbed by his arms and legs and dragged into a stairwell, where he was raped.

Defense lawyer David Rothstein said the applicant only went to police in 2020, when he was already “busy” suing the state and changed key parts of his statement.

“There was no gang rape in the stairwell at East Cottage,” Rothstein said. “Brad Asbury is not guilty of these charges.”

Asbury was fired from the Concord facility three years earlier due to allegations of physical and mental abuse. However, he was later re-employed and transferred to Manchester, where he worked until 2001.

Asbury was charged with two counts of complicity to aggravated sexual assault. If found guilty, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison on each charge.

Previous case against Viktor Malavet ended with a mistrial in September after jurors deadlocked on whether he raped the girl at the Concord facility. A new trial in the case has not yet been scheduled.

The investigation also led to extensive civil proceedings. Over 1,100 former residents they filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual or emotional abuse over six decades. In the only civil case to go to court so far, a the jury awarded David Meehan $38 million in May for abuse he claims he suffered in the 1990s, although that conviction remains in dispute as the state seeks to lower it to $475,000.

The Meehan civil trial was a precursor to the current case. Among those testifying was, among others: Asbury’s accuser, Michael Gilpatrickwho testified that Asbury and three other employees were called the “hit squad” by teenagers in the dorm.

“The four of them would go together, go to different houses and beat the children,” he said. “They literally came and went door to door and beat every single one of us, eventually.”

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward publicly, as Meehan and Gilpatrick did.

Gilpatrick, who spent three years at a Manchester facility in the 1990s, testified that he was there after escaping from group homes, committing burglary and stealing food to survive on the streets.

He said the sexual assault involving Asbury occurred after he went away while on leave. He testified that he had already spent several days locked in an empty room, wearing only his underwear, when workers took him to the house manager’s office and then to the stairwell.

He said the assault led to an out-of-body experience.

“I felt like I was floating above it and watching it,” Gilpatrick said. “My body just went blank.”

Gilpatrick said Asbury was a bad man.

“Not only did he have authority over all the children, he also had authority over the staff.”

In 2000, during a state investigation into physical abuse and neglect at a youth facility, Asbury denied there was a problem.

“Things like this don’t happen. This is not tolerated,” Asbury told The Union Leader. “We don’t have time to use them.”

The trial highlights the strange dynamics of a state that is simultaneously defending itself against civil lawsuits involving a youth center while pursuing criminal cases.

In the first civil case to go to trial, the state portrayed Asbury as a dedicated employee who had won praise for organizing volunteer programs for teenagers. In the current case, the state intends to paint Asbury in a much darker light.