The man whose accusations of child abuse at New Hampshire’s former Youth Development Center (YDC) inspired more than 1,100 others to come forward began testifying in Rockingham Superior Court Wednesday.
David Meehan took the stand in a closely-watched civil trial where he accuses New Hampshire state government of allowing a culture of rampant sexual, physical, and psychological abuse at the juvenile detention facility now known as the Sununu Youth Services Center.
Asked by his attorney Rus Rilee how he was feeling as he took the stand in Rockingham Superior Court, Meehan, who first filed suit more than four years ago, said, “I’m more ready than anyone else in this room to do this right now.”
One of his attorneys, Rus Rilee, showed the jury Meehan's intake photo from when he entered YDC, and asked Meehan to describe the 14-year-old boy on the screen in the courtroom.
“Scared… That’s him,” Meehan said. “Toughest kid you’ll ever see.”
“But scared to death?” Rilee said.
“Yes.”
In halting, methodical speech, Meehan described a difficult childhood before entering state custody at 13. He said his mother burned him with cigarettes; he spent time homeless and living in abandoned buildings, and he stole food from a gas station to feed himself.
“I did what I had to do as a little kid to survive,” Meehan testified.
Before he even arrived at YDC, Meehan says he was warned about the facility by another child as they both sat in the back of a county sheriff’s car.
“He said they were making him suck their d***s,” said Meehan. “I was scared.”
Meehan also sought to recast an episode from his time in state custody that attorneys defending the state have highlighted, where Meehan and other children orchestrated an escape attempt from the Youth Detention Services Unit, or YDSU. YDSU was a state-run youth detention facility similar to YDC, where children whose juvenile cases had not yet been ruled on by a judge were held.
In previous questioning, attorneys for the state emphasized Meehan’s participation in the attempted escape.
On Wednesday afternoon, Meehan said he was remorseful for the incident, during which a YDSU staffer was held hostage, but said he did not hurt anyone and was attempting to escape because of the abuse he’d been warned of at YDC.
Meehan’s lawsuit claims the state was negligent in allowing the abuse to happen by failing to properly train and supervise staff and by ignoring years of warning signs about specific YDC employees.
In the days before Meehan took the stand, several former YDC staff members testified to a culture of secrecy and violence at the facility, a place where supervisors routinely ignored complaints about potential abuse and encouraged staff never to believe children over employees.
Several of the former YDC staffers Meehan accuses of abuse have been arrested and charged in separate criminal proceedings.
Attorneys defending the state against Meehan’s civil suit maintain the state is not responsible for the alleged acts of “rogue” employees who broke policy.
Earlier in the day, Meehan’s attorneys called to the stand a state trooper involved in an ongoing criminal probe into the facility. The trooper, Kelly Lapointe, testified her investigation revealed allegations of a culture of silence and fear at YDC, similar to what the previous witnesses have told the jury.
Meehan’s testimony is expected to continue on Thursday.
