A jury in New Hampshire on Tuesday found a former house leader of a youth detention center guilty of aiding in a crime after he held down a teen while he was being raped by staffers in 1998.
The jury found Bradley Asbury, 70, guilty of two counts of abating and being an accomplice to aggravated sexual assault. The verdict was made after the jury deliberated over three days.
Asbury will now face a maximum of 20 years in prison on every count---which means he could be sentenced to a total of 40 years. His trial stretched out over four days, according to HuffPost.
What Was the Crime?
In the 90's, Asbury was the house leader at Manchester's Sununu Youth Services Center---formerly known as the Youth Detention Center (YDC).
During his work there, he and an unnamed colleague were accused of holding down then-14-year-old Michael Gilpatrick on a stairwell of what was the East Cottage at the former YDC. A second unidentified staffer raped Gilpatrick, while a third staff member had him perform sexual acts.
Gilpatrick, now 41, said he struggled after the attack. During his testimony in court, he said talking about the incident is part of his healing process.
Abuse Allegations in the YDC
The YDC was established to keep children, typically between the ages of 13 and 17, out of adult jails and prisons, much like juvenile detention facilities in the United States. The facility, however, is the subject of complaints from nearly 1,300 former residents. Allegations included hundreds of cases of sexual assault and rape over the center's 60-year history, per NPR.
Despite the large number of complaints, only one other lawsuit has gone to trial so far. David Meehan was incarcerated at the youth detention center in the 1990s when he was 15 years old. He claimed he was raped "on an almost daily basis" during the last year of his stay at the YDC. He also said he was beaten during the raping and had contracted gonorrhea from one of the assaults.
Moreover, Meehan said he was routinely kept in solitary confinement and was not permitted to receive education while he was staying in the facility. Meehan's allegations led authorities to launch a broader criminal investigation, which exposed decades of abuse at the facility.
A jury later awarded Meehan $38 million for the abuse, though the state said the amount would be reduced to $475,000 due to a law that caps damages, AP News reported.
Originally published on Parent Herald.
