A trial about justice for the rape of a child, or a trial about money the alleged victim is seeking in a separate civil lawsuit.
Those were the two perspectives offered to jurors in opening statements in the sexual assault trial of Brad Asbury, 70, a former youth counselor and house leader at the state’s juvenile jail once known as the Youth Development Center (YDC).
Asbury is accused of holding down a then-14-year-old Michael Gilpatrick on the landing of a staircase at YDC, as other staff raped him in the late 1990s.
“This trial is about how Mike was raped,” Assistant Attorney General Audriana Mekula told jurors. “It is not about revenge and it is not about money.”
But Asbury’s attorney, David Rothstein, pointed to Gilpatrick’s ongoing civil lawsuit against the state over the same allegations as an ulterior motive.
“He has a lot riding on your verdict. He has a lot to gain from your verdict,” Rothstein told the jury. He added that Gilpatrick shared his allegations with his civil attorneys long before speaking to state police.
Gilpatrick was one of the first of what is now more than 1,000 plaintiffs to sue the state over allegations of abuse at YDC and other state-run or contracted youth facilities. Click here to explore an interactive timeline of all the lawsuits.
Rothstein also said the physical layout of the cottage at YDC where Gilpatrick, now 41, says the rape occurred makes his story unbelievable.
“There was no time of day, no time of night where an act like the one Michael Gilpatrick is going to describe to you could’ve occurred without anyone seeing or hearing it,” said Rothstein.
However, Gilpatrick and prosecutors contend others did see the rape – as they actively participated in it. Former YDC staffers Jeffrey Buskey, Stephen Murphy, and James Woodlock are also accused of taking part in the assault and face their own upcoming criminal trials.
Asbury is the second former youth counselor to stand trial in the YDC child abuse scandal, which began more than five years ago and has led to over 1,000 civil lawsuits and a sprawling criminal investigation by the N.H. Attorney General’s office.
Despite years of investigation and 11 criminal indictments against former state employees, the state has yet to hold anyone accountable for abuse at YDC – raising pressure on prosecutors in the Asbury trial.
Earlier this year, the first case tied to the YDC scandal ended in a mistrial, after attorneys for Victor Malavet mounted a similar defense that his accuser had financial motives based in her ongoing civil lawsuit against the state.
Meanwhile, the state dropped three other YDC cases over the past year – one because the defendant was found not competent to stand trial, another because the defendant died, and a third over a lack of evidence.
Gilpatrick earlier testified to abuse by Asbury, Buskey, Murphy, and Woodlock – a group he called “the hit squad” – as part of a landmark civil lawsuit brought against the state by David Meehan.
During that same civil trial, a former state official testified about an investigation into a similar but separate youth detention facility that resulted in Asbury’s firing in 1994. In a termination letter to Asbury, the then-head of the state Division for Children, Youth, and Families wrote that his conduct demonstrated a “callous disregard for the rights of residents.” Asbury challenged his firing, and was eventually rehired at YDC.
The state has charged only a tiny fraction of the more than 300 former staff who are named as abusers in the civil lawsuits. Some alleged YDC victims don’t trust the state to investigate itself and have called for a federal investigation instead.
The Asbury trial is scheduled to run through the end of the week.
