CONCORD, NH (AP) – Six former officials at the New Hampshire State Juvenile Detention Center were arrested Wednesday in connection with the abuse of 11 children over a decade, including one who continued to work with children for nearly 20 years after he is accused of holding a boy while his classmates raped him.
The Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly known as the Youth Development Center, has been under investigation since July 2019, when two former counselors were accused of raping a teenager 82 times in the 1990s.
These charges were dropped last year in order to bolster the extended investigation, but both men were arrested again Wednesday and charged with rape, the attorney general’s office said. Two others were also charged with rape, while two others were charged with being accomplices to rape. Complaints range from 1994 to 2005.
The attorney general’s office did not rule on the possibility of further arrests, but said the latest developments were “just a step forward” and that the investigation will continue.
“Today’s arrests clearly indicate that this administration is committed to holding these perpetrators accountable for their detestable actions,” Governor Chris Sununu said. “This is not over and we will continue to investigate these horrific allegations.”
The center is named after former Governor John H. Sununu, the current governor’s father.
Several of those arrested Wednesday were previously named in a civil lawsuit filed last year in which more than 200 men and women alleged that they were physically or sexually abused as minors by 150 employees at Manchester facilities from 1963 to 2018. According to their lawyer, children they were raped in groups by councilors, beaten while raped, forced to compete for food in “fight clubs” created by councilors and locked in solitary confinement for weeks or months.
“My clients are delighted that the state has taken the next important step in making these men criminally responsible for the unspeakable crimes they have committed,” Russian lawyer Rilee said. “We believe this is just the beginning of the arrests and accusations not only of all the perpetrators, but also of all those who allowed it.”
New detainees include Lucien Poulette, 65, of Auburn, charged with 33 felonies (including rape and sexual assault) involving seven victims between 1994 and 2005. Bradley Asbury, 66, of Dunbarton, is charged. of being complicit in the rape of a former resident between 1997 and 1998. And Frank Davis, 79, of Hopkinton, is charged with one felony count of rape and five counts of sexual assault with two victims between 1996 and 1997.
Instead of the dozens of charges they previously faced, Jeffrey Buskey, 54, of Quincy, Massachusetts, is now charged with five counts of rape involving four children between 1996 and 1999, while Stephen Murphy , 51, of Danvers, Massachusetts, is charged with five counts of raping three children between 1997 and 1999.
James Woodlock, 56, of Manchester, was charged with three counts of complicity in rape between 1997 and 1998. David Meehan, the main plaintiff in the civil lawsuit, alleges that Woodlock repeatedly beat him, detained him while Buskey raped him and told him he had “simply misinterpreted the facts” when he spoke during a group counseling session.
Woodlock later left the job of the Youth Development Center and became a parole and parole officer, a position he held out until he left on leave in 2017. He declined to comment on Meehan’s allegations when a journalist visited his home in early 2020 and his job ended Wednesday, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. Humans.
“The alleged actions that took place several decades ago at the former Youth Development Center are horrific,” said Jake Leon, a spokesman for the department. “The Department continues to cooperate with the ongoing investigation and processing of these charges.”
New Hampshire men are expected to appear in court Thursday, while authorities are requesting the extradition of Massachusetts for Buskey and Murphy. Messages were left for his lawyers on Wednesday; it was unclear whether the others are represented by lawyers.
In 2000 and 2001, the State Division of Children, Youth and Families spent seven months investigating 25 allegations of physical abuse and neglect at the center, including a boy who said he lost his fingertip when staff members they nailed a door to him and others accused the staff members of wrapping the boys ’heads in towels and hitting them against pool tables. It was concluded that the adolescents had been abused in five of the cases.
A newspaper article published during this investigation quoted Brad Asbury, then head of the state workers’ union chapter at the youth center, as saying the allegations were offensive.
“We take them personally,” Asbury said. “It simply came to our notice then. It is not tolerated. We don’t have time to abuse it. “
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This story has been corrected to show that four of the men are accused of rape, not five, and that two are accused of being complicit in rape, not one.