Ex-youth detention center counselor faces sex assault trial in New
Hampshire
[September 15, 2026]
By HOLLY RAMER
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A sexual assault trial started Monday for a New
Hampshire man whose arrest more than seven years ago kicked off one of
the biggest youth detention scandals in U.S. history.
Former youth counselor Jeffrey Buskey, 60, of Litchfield, faces
allegations involving four boys held at the Youth Development Center in
Manchester in the late 1990s. In the first of his cases to go to trial,
he is charged with 21 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault
involving David Meehan, who was 14 when he arrived at the facility now
called the Sununu Youth Services Center in 1995.
Meehan filed the first of more than 1,100 lawsuits alleging physical,
sexual or emotional abuse spanning six decades. His allegations led to
the arrest of Buskey and another former worker in 2019, an unprecedented
criminal investigation, nine additional arrests, and the establishment
of a settlement fund to compensate victims.
As testimony got underway Monday, prosecutor Audriana Mekula asked
Meehan, “What is YDC to you?”
“Hell,” he answered.
During his civil trial, Meehan described Buskey's transformation from
trusted father figure to horrific abuser, testifying that he gave him
soda and snacks and let him play basketball with a local high school
team before subjecting him to near-daily rapes.
“It went from being somebody I trusted, that I thought was not just
there to help me, but somebody I thought cared for me, to hurt,” he
said.
The Associated Press generally does not identify those who say they were
victims of sexual assault unless they have come forward publicly, as
Meehan has done. A jury awarded him $38 million in May 2024, though that
verdict remains in dispute as the state seeks to reduce the amount to
$475,000.
In his opening statement Monday, Associate Attorney General Thomas
Velardi told jurors that Meehan had intended to take his experiences to
the grave but finally told his wife in 2017 when he feared one of their
sons might get sent to the facility.
“What you’re going to hear is a true horror story of what a 16-year-old
boy was put through,” he told jurors. “The very thought of his own flesh
and blood being sent to this same place where he was terrorized finally
broke the seal for him on keeping this secret.”
He said Buskey used violence and the threat of it to overpower or coerce
Meehan, who he said eventually stopped fighting back.
“It just became a way of life, whether he was fighting or he was just
trying to survive,” he said.
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This photo taken with a smartphone shows defense attorney Delia
McCarthy, left, and Jeffrey Buskey, center, charged with multiple
counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault, leaving a courtroom
during a break in Buskey's trial in Manchester, N.H., Monday, Sept.
14, 2026. (AP Photo/Holly Ramer)
In a police interview transcript recently filed in court, Buskey
couldn’t remember his home address from the 1990s and struggled to
spell his then-fiancée’s last name, but brought up Meehan’s name
unprompted. He denied abusing him, saying they had a “great
relationship.”
“I was always nice to the kid; I was always trying to help him," he
said.
In her opening statement, defense attorney Delia McCarthy told
jurors there is no evidence to corroborate Meehan’s allegations.
Meehan’s room was in a central hallway in a building that was “like
an echo chamber,” she said, making it impossible that he could have
been violently assaulted without anyone else noticing.
McCarthy also said the trial will highlight inconsistencies in
Meehan’s claims. He has suffered from mental illness since childhood
and as an adult, experienced delusions and hallucinations, she said.
“This is an unbelievable story, contradicted by the records and the
people who were there and told by an unreliable, deeply troubled
storyteller,” she said.
Meehan was the first witness called to testify after the jury was
selected Monday morning.
The youth center, which once housed upward of 100 children but now
typically serves fewer than a dozen, is named for former Gov. John
H. Sununu. Lawmakers have approved closing the facility, which now
only houses those accused or convicted of the most serious violent
crimes, and replacing it with a much smaller building in a new
location.
In the other criminal cases, three men have been convicted: Bradley
Asbury, Stanley Watson and James Woodlock. Jurors acquitted Jonathan
Brand and deadlocked in the case of Victor Malavet, leading to a
mistrial. Charges were dropped against Trevor Middleton; Frank Davis
was declared incompetent to stand trial, and Gordon Searles died
while awaiting trial. Stephen Murphy, who has pending charges, had
one trial end in a mistrial and another end with an acquittal on
three charges and a hung jury on five others. Lucien Poulette is
awaiting trial.
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