Former NH Youth Center Resident Describes Difficult Aftermath of Abuse

BRENTWOOD, N.H. (AP) — A man who says he was beaten and raped as a teenager in a New Hampshire youth detention center testified Friday that he both attempted suicide and plotted to kill his attackers years later before speaking out.

David Meehan, who spent three years at the Youth Development Center in the late 1990s, went to police in 2017 and sued the state three years later. Testifying for the third day of his civil trial, he described the downward spiral of his life after leaving the facility, including a burglary committed to feed a heroin addiction and multiple suicide attempts. He said he stopped using drugs after a stint in prison in 2012, but was barely functional when he woke up from hernia surgery in 2017, overwhelmed by memories of his abuse.

“I go home, heal a little, and as soon as I know I’m stronger, I leave my wife and children,” he said. “Because this time, I really think I’m capable of taking Jeff Buskey’s life.”

Buskey and 10 other former officials have pleaded not guilty to charges of sexually assaulting or complicity in the assault of Meehan and other former residents. Meehan, who alleges in his lawsuit that he suffered almost daily assaults, said he tracked down his alleged attackers more than a decade later and even purchased a gun with the intention of killing Buskey, but that he had thrown her into a river and confided in his wife instead.

“That’s not who I am,” he said. “I’m not going to be what they thought I could be. I’m not going to take another life because of what they did.

Meehan’s wife took him to the hospital, where he was referred to police. That sparked an unprecedented criminal investigation into the Manchester facility, now called Sununu Youth Services Center. But at the same time as it is suing former workers, the state is also defending itself against more than 1,100 lawsuits filed by former residents alleging its negligence enabled abuse.

A group of state lawyers will rely on former residents’ testimony in criminal trials while others seek to discredit them in civil cases, an unusual dynamic that played out during cross-examination from Meehan on Friday.

“You were an angry and violent young man, weren’t you?” asked attorney Martha Gaythwaite, who showed jurors a report concluding that Meehan falsely accused her parents of physical abuse when they tried to enforce the rules. Meehan disagreed. Earlier, he said his mother attacked him and burned him with cigarettes.

Gaythwaite also pressed Meehan’s disciplinary record at the youth center, including a time when a boy he had hit fell and split his head open. According to the center’s internal reports, Meehan later planned to take the boy hostage with a stolen screwdriver as part of an escape attempt.

“It’s fair to say that someone who has already been the victim of one of your vicious attacks may not be too keen on the prospect of being held hostage by you in a escape attempt, right?” she asked.

Meehan said the escape plan took place at a time when Buskey was raping him every day, while another staff member assaulted him about twice a week. The abuse became more violent when he started fighting back, Meehan said. And even though he later appeared submissive, “it was never that easy,” he said.

“Each of these films takes a little piece of me to the point that when they’re finished, there’s not much left of David,” he said.

Meehan also testified that he spent weeks locked in his room for 23 hours a day, hidden from view while his injuries healed. Questioned by Gaythwaite, Meehan reviewed a report in which a mediator said he saw no signs of injuries, however.

Meehan, who suggested the investigator lied, said his few attempts to get help were rebuffed. When he told a House leader that he had been raped, the staffer, who now faces criminal charges, told him: “That doesn’t happen here, little guy.” » When asked if he had ever made a written complaint, he referred to instructions on the complaint forms that residents should refer all issues to their councilors.

“What am I going to do, write ‘Jeff Buskey is forcing me to sleep with him’ and hand it to Jeff Buskey?” he said.

The trial resumes Monday.