Former YDC employee, convicted for role in teen’s sex assault, was fired years earlier from similar job for making threats

MANCHESTER, NH – Four years before Bradley Asbury held down a 14-year-old boy with the help of a co-worker at the Youth Development Center while two other workers raped the teen, he was fired from a similar job at a Concord facility for threatening the safety of residents among other things, according to documents made public this week.

Asbury, 70, of Dunbarton, is to be sentenced Monday in Hillsborough County Superior Court North on two counts of being an accomplice to aggravated felonious sexual assault.  Each count carries a sentence of from 10 to 20 years in prison.

The state has asked that 10-to-20 year sentences be imposed but its sentencing memorandum does not indicate whether prosecutors want the sentences to be concurrent or consecutive.  A consecutive sentence would mean Asbury would be sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.

Asbury appealed his firing back in 1994 and, in a settlement agreement, was reinstated to his supervisory position but not at the NH Youth Detention Services Unit (TDSU) in Concord where he had worked, but at the Youth Development Center in Manchester where he became house leader of East Cottage.  It was where in 1998, Michael Gilpatrick, then 14, was allegedly raped.

On Wednesday, Gilpatrick, through his civil attorneys, filed a partial impact statement with the court in anticipation of Asbury’s sentencing.  It was the same day that another jury deadlocked in the aggravated felonious sexual assault case against one of Asbury’s co-defendants, Stephen Murphy, 55, of Danvers, Mass. Murphy is accused of anally raping the 14-year-old on a YDC stairwell in 1998, while Jeffrey Buskey, 55, of Dorchester, Mass. orally raped the youth.

James Woodlock, 60, of Manchester, is also facing an accomplice to aggravated felonious sexual assault charge accusing him of helping restrain Gilpatrick on that staircase landing.

In the court filing, Gilpatrick said he intends to make a full impact statement on Monday.  However, he said he had reviewed Asbury’s sentencing memorandum in which “he seeks to avoid full accountability for his crimes. He attached several letters and documents stating that he is no longer young, that he was a basketball coach and that some people like him, as reasons to mitigate his sentence for organizing and participating in the gang rape against me.”

Included with the court document is a letter outlining the reasons for Asbury’s termination from YDSU in 1994 and a redacted copy of the state investigation into what happened resulting in Asbury being fired.

Gilpatrick maintains he was raped for nearly four years “after the State knew he (Asbury) was a grave danger to children.”

Documents he included in the filing, he says, were “kept secret from the public (and from me) by the State for 30 years until my counsel forced their disclosure in late 2023 in discovery in the civil case brought by David Meehan, which went to trial last year and resulted in a jury finding that the State breached its fiduciary duty by wanton and malicious conduct. That jury believed David Meehan, just as the Asbury jury believed me. In both cases, Brad Asbury was the direct supervisor and ringleader of the rapists who brutalized vulnerable, traumatized, emotionally-disabled boys from dysfunctional homes who were placed in state custody for therapeutic and rehabilitative purposes. In my mind, there are few human acts more evil and blameworthy than what he did, or more deserving of a strong sentence to deter others who might be tempted to ever do likewise.”

In a letter dated July 18, 1994, from Lorrie L. Lutz, then the Director of the Division for Children, Youth and Families, Asbury was fired from his position as leader of the NH Youth Detention Services Unit (YDSU) in Concord “for willful misuse of your supervisory position” at the child residential center.   Lutz found that Asbury had “threaten[ed] the safety of the residents and staff” by demonstrating “a callous disregard for the rights of residents;” violating his obligation under the Code of Ethics “to protect the rights of the youth we serve;” willfully falsifying agency records; “creat[ing] an environment which is hostile and threatening to residents thereby threatening the safety of residents;’ “seriously jeopardiz[ing] the safety and well-being of residents.

Lutz concluded: “You have repeatedly engaged in behavior that willfully misuses your supervisory position and constitutes dereliction of duties and is largely responsible for the hostile environment and substantial divisions that exist at YDSU. In addition, you have failed in your responsibility as a supervisor to provide a safe, healthy, and therapeutic environment for the residents. The seriousness of your actions compel me to terminate you from your position effective immediately.”

The Division of Children, Youth and Families investigation is dated July 8, 1994 and involved interviews of 39 staffers. The report concludes that staff could not report mistreatment of children at the facility to Asbury because “either he was involved or modeled the mistreatment in question” or the staff “feared retaliation” from Asbury.

Asbury appealed his termination to a personnel appeals board.  Later, he was rehired and made the leader of East Cottage at YDC “without supervision or remedial training, where he controlled all the staff and held the lives of the residents in his hands,” according to Gilpatrick, whose partial statement was filed by attorneys Cyrus Rilee and David Vicinanzo, the civil attorneys representing him in his lawsuit against the state.   “That included me when I arrived there in 1997, and also me, when he orchestrated and supervised the gang rape of me in May 1998, for which he has been convicted and now faces sentencing.”

Assistant New Hampshire Attorneys General Adam L. Woods and Audriana Mekula also filed a memorandum of sentencing with the court.

In addition to recommending a 10-to-20 year sentences on one charge to be served immediately with credit for pretrial confinement, he is to have no contact with Gilpatrick and his immediate family.  He also is not to be awarded earned time credit.

(Asbury has been detained in the New Hampshire State Prison since the jury returned the guilty verdicts on Nov. 26, 2024.)

The state wants a second 10-to-20 year sentence imposed, with two years of the minimum sentence suspended for 25 years upon successful completion of the sexual offender program while incarcerated.

In recommending that sentence, the prosecutors detailed Gilpatrick’s traumatic childhood, what happened at YDC and his troubled life afterwards.

Gilpatrick was committed to YDC when he was 14, after being abused and neglected by his biological parents beginning in infancy.

Both parents had a history of substance and/or alcohol use disorder. By the time he was two years old, his mother no longer had custody of him and he went to live with his father for three years. At age five, he returned to his mother’s care for eleven months, after which, he returned to his father’s home where he lived until he was committed to YDC.

Gilpatrick reported his mother physically abused him along with her then-partner, who was not his biological father. During a July 1994 party that his mother brought him to, he was sexually assaulted by a man and woman in a tent, along with other children who were at this party. Gilpatrick was eight years old when this occurred. The couple was prosecuted and convicted based on another victim’s report, so Gilpatrick did not have to testify.

Before his commitment to YDC, Gilpatrick was psychiatrically hospitalized seven times for suicidal and homicidal ideations based on his behaviors, specifically, multiple attempts to die by suicide, self-harming behavior such as cutting, arson, and theft. He had been diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder, dysthymia, attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, and posttraumatic stress disorder.

He  also regularly used substances and consumed alcohol before turning fourteen. In 1996, he was considered chemically dependent and his providers believed that he was using drugs and alcohol to “cope with his emotional pain.”   In the fall of 1997, 14-year-old Gilpatrick was court-ordered to the YDC for committing burglary, theft, criminal mischief, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. When he arrived on Oct. 20, 1997, he was placed at East Cottage, where all boys begin their commitment at YDC before they are classified and placed in a different cottage.

When he arrived there, Asbury was the house leader. Working alongside the defendant as youth counselors were his co-defendants: Woodlock,  Murphy, and Buskey. Based on interviews with other youth counselors who worked under Asbury while Gilpatrick resided at East Cottage, there were two competing mentalities at East Cottage. Bob Kukla, the defendant’s assistant house leader, described these mentalities as a corrections mentality versus a treatment mentality.

This mentality earned the Asbury and his co-defendants the nickname the “hit squad” among the residents.

About two months after his arrival, Gilpatrick’s program plan review noted that he had “excellent behavior at the cottage,” had been attending NA and AA meetings, and had no significant incidents to report.   He continued to do well and eventually, he earned furloughs home for an overnight or a weekend.

One furlough occurred in May 1998.  Gilpatrick was released to his stepmother for a weekend furlough on Friday, May 22. When he did not return on Monday, May 25, he was considered AWOL. On Wednesday, May 27, he was returned to YDC by Derry Police. YDC policy was that, upon return from AWOL, the resident would be confined to his room until his disciplinary hearing for going AWOL. If found true at that hearing, the resident would receive a ten-day room confinement as a punishment, which is what happened to Gilpatrick.

At the end of his room confinement, on June 5, 1998, he was transferred to King Cottage, considered the highest risk/security cottage at YDC.

Gilpatrick does not remember when, but, at some point after his return from AWOL to East Cottage but before he was transferred to King, Murphy and Buskey brought him from his room on the second floor of East Cottage downstairs to Asbury’s office.     Asbury and Gilpatrick spoke. Gilpatrick said something the youth counselors, including Woodlock, perceived as disrespectful to  Asbury.   Murphy and Buskey dropped Gilpatrick face-first onto the floor and began beating him, along with Woodlock and Asbury repeatedly “bouncing” Gilpatrick’s head off the floor. Then, all four men picked him up by his arms and legs and carried him over to and halfway up the staircase in East Cottage, hitting his head off of the floor or the staircase along the way.

At the landing, Asbury and Woodlock held him down while Murphy anally penetrated him and Buskey orally penetrated him. Gilpatrick does not remember if the men said anything during this assault, but he was in and out of consciousness while it happened.

Gilpatrick was not sure what made the men stop sexually assaulting him, but remembered that his mouth would not do what Buskey wanted it to do for Buskey’s sexual gratification, the prosecutors wrote. After the men stopped assaulting him, they carried the teen the rest of the way up the stairs and put him in his room, where he stayed, for the most part, until he left for King Cottage.

The prosecutors also outlined Asbury’s work history at YDC, including his termination.

In April 1995, Asbury entered into a settlement agreement with DCYF that reinstated him to house leader. All the disciplinary actions in his file relative to his termination were “null and void” and expunged from his records.  The reports, written allegations and other charges against him that comprised DCYF’s 1994 investigation were not part of his personnel file, and would remain “strictly confidential.”

The agreement also provided that, in part, he “shall apply for and receive a house leader position of equal labor grade at YDC,” but that he would not return to YDSU, and that he would be offered the first permanent YDC house leader vacancy upon his return.   The first position that opened up was the house leader position at East Cottage.

According to Gene Murray, a youth counselor who worked at YDC between March 1993 and July 1999, said that, while he was working at King Cottage, he saw that the defendant was “building a team” that the defendant took with him when he received the house leader position at East Cottage. Once at East Cottage, the defendant organized the cottage schedule so that certain youth counselors worked during the defendant’s shifts and other youth counselors worked during the assistant house leader’s shift. Murray said that he generally worked during the assistant house leader’s shifts. Based on the operations log books for East Cottage, Buskey, Murphy, and Woodlock typically worked the same shifts as the defendant. In April 2001, Asbury resigned from YDC.

“The horrendous nature of these crimes demands a sentence focused on punishment,” the prosecutors said in court papers. “As the jury found at trial, the defendant assisted Woodlock in holding M.G. down while two men forcefully penetrated his anus and his mouth simultaneously. This conduct alone, committed against a child who was committed to YDC, or kid jail, as M.G. described it at trial, cannot be tolerated, deserves no mercy, and warrants a lengthy prison sentence.”

Another aggravating factor the court should consider, they said, is in his role as the house leader at YDC, Asbury would likely have been familiar with the residents under his care.  He likely knew some of Gilpatrick’s history, including that he was previously sexually assaulted, had a substance use disorder at fourteen, had numerous psychiatric hospitalizations, and had parents who had either abused or neglected him, and had a mother who had abandoned him. “As M.G. said at trial, he ‘didn’t have the love,’ and the defendant knew that. Thus, the defendant not only knew that that it was unlikely M.G. would tell his parents about the sexual assault, but it was even more unlikely that M.G. would be believed if he did tell an adult, whether his parents or another YDC employee, given his mental health history and diagnoses,” the prosecutors said.

They said if Gilpatrick’s behaviors changed after the sexual assault “as a child’s behavior often does following a sexual assault,” prosecutors said it was very likely YDC staff would believe the cause of this changed behavior was his mental health and not the result of a sexual assault at the hands of four youth counselors.

“As the house leader, Asbury also guaranteed that this sexual assault would go undiscovered,” according to the prosecutors.  “As M.G. explained at trial, there was no one he could safely report this assault to when one of the men involved in the assault was the house leader. And if M.G. had reported the assault while at East Cottage, based on the hierarchy at YDC, the defendant, as the house leader, would have certainly known about the report. Moreover, M.G. was afraid to report the assault – if four men sexually assaulted him for talking back to the defendant, the retribution for reporting the sexual assault would be even greater. Thus, the defendant’s position within YDC guaranteed him the silence of his victim.”

Prosecutors said another aggravating factor in the case is the toll the sexual assault took on Gilpatrick’s life. By the time he was fourteen, almost all the adults in his life had shown him that they were not to be trusted to love him, protect him, or care for him. “This assault proved to him that he could not trust any adult to protect him or care for him. It proved to him that he could not trust the ‘system,’ or the State to protect him or care for him, which led to him in his adult life distrusting doctors and therapists. It proved to M.G. that he was on his own in life and that the only person he could rely on was himself. This sexual assault contributed to M.G.’s substance use as an adult, which led him to commit a myriad of crimes as an adult because of his substance use. Indeed, M.G. has said in numerous interviews that, after he tried heroin for the first time, he kept using because it was the only drug that made him forget the abuse. “

Prosecutors argue their proposed sentence also serves as a deterrent to others in the community.

“The defendant’s crimes are among the worst that can be committed. The violation of a child’s trust and innocence, the abuse of his position of authority, and the enabling of others to commit the underlying crimes which, without the defendant’s aid and accomplice, would not have been possible, are only a few of the ways the defendant’s crimes reach a level of immorality that is rarely seen. That these crimes were not only committed at a state-run facility for juveniles, but by an individual who, rather than guide and provide a stable environment for young boys to develop into positive members of the community, abused that trust and authority makes clear how imperative it is for a sentence that sends a clear message to those in similar positions that such betrayal and abuse of authority will be met with meaningful and severe punishment,” Woods and Mekula wrote.

They said  the damage inflicted on Gilpatrick immediately after the assaults, as well as throughout his life following his release from YDC was clear throughout Gilpatrick’s testimony at trial.

“ That M.G. has built a life denied to him for so long by the abuse of his childhood is a testament to M.G.’s strength and resilience in the face of abuse enabled and condoned by the defendant. The egregiousness of these acts, the damage they inflicted on M.G., and the goals of sentencing as recounted above demand a severe and just sentence,” prosecutors said.

Asbury filed his own sentencing memorandum.  In it, he acknowledges the judge will impose a stand-committed state prison sentence and that the court will hear arguments for a lengthy sentence from both prosecutors and Gilpatrick.

Defense attorney David Rothstein, in Asbury’s sentencing memorandum, provided additional information about Asbury’s life.

Asbury was a four-sport athlete in high school and attended Keene State College, leaving just prior to receiving his degree. He then worked for the U.S. Postal Service for three years and coached high school basketball and soccer for five years.  He worked for YDC for 15 years.  “During a hiatus from his YDC employment, in 1994-95, he worked for the Salvation Army.  Mr. Asbury’s connection to the Salvation Army continued after he left its employ, as a volunteer at the Kid’s Café, and as a bell ringer during the holiday season.”

While at YDC, on 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. shifts, he also worked overnights at the Moore Center, which serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  “Working two jobs demonstrated his work ethic,” Rothstein wrote.

The 1994-95 hiatus from YDC was when he was appealing his termination and prior to his reinstatement.  He was represented by SEIU/SEA, the state employees’ union.

In 2001, after he left YDC, he began a second career with SEIU/SEA as a field representative going to work sites and trying to engage membership and develop leaders.  He became a union organizer, focused on increasing membership in bargaining units and creating new units.  He retired as an organizer manager in 2016.

Included with Asbury’s filing are 16 letters from family members, friends and co-workers attesting to his character and asking for leniency.

Among them is one from State Sen. Richard Ferdinando who wrote Asbury is a friend he has known for more than 40 years.  They first met in the early 1980s when he was his sons’ basketball coach at Manchester Central High School.

“Brad was always an excellent role model for all the young me he mentored over the years as a coach and House Director at the Youth Development Center,” Ferdinando wrote.   He said he is aware of the seriousness of the charges against Asbury and doesn’t “wish to downplay the severity of the situation.  However, I firmly believe that this incident is not reflective of his true character.”

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