The former head of human resources at New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services told a jury that in 1994, a group of staff at the former Youth Detention Services Unit (YDSU) met off-site to raise concerns with department leaders about abusive treatment at the state-run youth detention facility.
Sandra Brien, who served as the head of HR for DHHS from 1992 to 2000, said the meeting prompted an investigation into YDSU that resulted in the firing of Brad Asbury.
Asbury is now among the 11 former state employees facing criminal charges for alleged abuse at the former Youth Development Center (YDC), a similar but separate facility to YDSU, where children were held pending a ruling in their case. The state accuses Asbury of being an accomplice to sexually assaulting of children at YDC. Asbury has pled not guilty.
“I recall that the people that were present at the meeting told us that they were concerned that some employees were treating the children in ways that were outside of the scope of the policies for how one would discipline children,” testified Brien.
Lorrie Lutz, who was then the head of the state Division for Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), was also present at the meeting, which took place on a weekend at an employee’s home.
Brien took the stand Friday in the ongoing civil trial brought by David Meehan, who alleges he was beaten and raped hundreds of times by state employees when he was detained at YDC as a teenager, and that the state itself enabled the abuse through its negligence.
According to documents introduced in court, 16 current and former YDSU employees gathered in 1994 to share concerns with DHHS management about “incidents of abuse by staff of residents and by supervisors of staff.” According to the document, staff also expressed concerns about “retaliatory behavior.”
In a termination letter to Asbury, Lutz wrote his conduct “demonstrates a callous disregard for the rights of residents.”
Asbury challenged his 1994 firing and was later reinstated at YDC, serving as house leader in the building where Meehan claims the majority of the abuse he suffered occurred. Meehan was ordered by a judge to YDC in 1995, when he was 14 years old.
Asbury sued Lutz for defamation in 1996.
In 2001, as YDC was under a separate state investigation for allegations of abuse, Asbury told a reporter at the time, “That stuff does not take place. It’s not tolerated. We don’t have time to abuse them.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the criminal charges against Brad Asbury.
