Former YDC employee convicted of sexually abusing 2 teenage boys

MANCHESTER, NH – Stanley Watson was led out of courtroom in handcuffs Monday morning after being found guilty of sexually abusing two teen boys in his care in the late 1990s at the Youth Development Center.

The Hillsborough County Superior Court North jury of six men and six women deliberated 4 ½ hours over two days before finding Watson, 55, of 60 Clement Road, Allenstown, guilty of three counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault of two boys, A.C. and C.S., both then under the age of 16.  One of the charges alleges a pattern of sexual abuse involving A.C, who Watson later became a foster parent to after he was released from the state juvenile detention center.

Watson, who is gay, continued the sexual relationships with both teens after they left YDC, according to evidence presented at the trial which lasted about three days.

He showed no emotion as the jury foreperson said “guilty” three times when the court clerk asked for the verdicts, or when he was handcuffed by a deputy sheriff and led out of the courtroom.  While he will be sentenced at a later date, under state law once a guilty verdict is reached in such cases, a defendant is to be incarcerated.

New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Charles Bucca, after the verdict, said prosecutors were happy jurors listened to all the evidence, paid attention during the trial and that they “returned a just verdict and held the defendant accountable for his conduct.”

He said the victims’ testimony was most significant because “without their testimony from the victims who were brave enough to come into the courtroom and tell us what happened we would not have been able to have the verdict we have today.”

Bucca said documents corroborated their testimony and were “helpful but it would never take the place of the testimony of our victims.”

Defense attorney William Korman declined comment.

The allegations date back to 1997 and 1998 and involve two teens who were 14-years-old when they were first court-ordered to be detained at the YDC on River Road, now known as the Sununu Youth Services Center.  Watson engaged in fellatio with the teens in their bedrooms and in a laundry room.

Watson is not accused of forcibly raping the teens but of being in a position of authority and engaging in sex with the underage teens.  Prosecutors described him as a “sexual predator” who groomed them by giving them extra privileges, letting them out of their rooms after curfew, and rewarding them with food, before moving on to sexual acts.

Testimony revealed that investigators obtained nearly a million documents in investigating allegations of abuse at YDC.  Some of those documents corroborated what the victims, now in their 40s, said Watson did to them.

Documents submitted as evidence included logs that showed Watson on duty on two nights when A.C. was let out of his room at 2 a.m. and again at 5 a.m.

While Watson worked mainly at Stark House, where A.C. was housed, he occasionally filled in at Spaulding Cottage where C.S. resided.  Prosecutors also presented logs of days where Watson was there and C.S. was as well.

Jurors listened to testimony from both alleged victims, now in their 40s, and an interview of Watson, recorded surreptitiously by State Trooper Josh Quigley with permission from the Attorney General.

In the interview, Watson denied having sexual activity with either of the teens while they were at the YDC.  However, he admitted to a sexual relationship with A.C. when he was 18.  He said he never engaged in sexual activity with him when he was his foster dad and A.C. lived with him in Allenstown.  A.C. said otherwise.

A.C., he said, lived with him for months but the teen kept getting into trouble and was arrested for burglarizing his home with two others.  Ultimately he left but later lived with him again.

Watson portrayed himself as a good guy who was not aggressive with the kids at YDC.  He told Quigley he was shocked to learn about former colleagues being accused of sexually abusing the boys.  However, he said he had witnessed some colleagues physically abusing the teens, although he did not say he reported the abuse.

Assistant New Hampshire Attorney General Nicholas Chong Yen, in his opening statement, described the culture at YDC as one of a brotherhood where staff protected each other.

The jury also heard from Jessica Taylor of Chichester, who was A.C.’s foster mother prior to Watson.  She said she knew A.C. from the time he was 15 and was transferred from YDC to a youth center in Canterbury where she and her husband worked.  As he was nearing 17 years of age, she said they decided to become his foster parents.  She explained that A.C.’s family did not want him and she did not want him to end up on the streets.

At age 15, Taylor said, A.C. was skittish, untrusting and showed signs of having been abused.  “He didn’t like to be around men,” she said.

The family found a two-bedroom apartment in Pembroke so that A.C. could continue to go to the same school.

Three weeks after A.C. moved in, he went for a walk and came home with Watson who wanted to take him out to eat, fishing and camping.  Taylor was concerned and asked to see Watson’s ID.  It didn’t make sense, she said, that an adult who knew A.C. in a lockdown situation would want to take him out. “I didn’t think it was an appropriate situation.”

They informed foster care personnel of the situation.  They also tried to get to know Watson, going to his home and talking with him around a campfire.  Eventually, they allowed A.C. to spend time with Watson but she “still had reservations.”

By June 1999, before A.C. turned 17, he was staying overnight at Watson’s house on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  When the family moved to Franklin and A.C. had to change schools, he acted out, was disrespectful to teachers, got into fights and was suspended.

That, she said, was when Watson offered to be his foster parent.  Taylor said it took her and her husband six weeks to get certified; Watson’s application was fast-tracked and he received certification in two weeks.  A.C., she said, was 17 when he moved in with Watson, in September/October 1999 who was now his foster father.

The defense contended the alleged victims made up the accusations so they could profit financially from a settlement from their lawsuits against the state. More than 1,000 people are suing New Hampshire over the abuse they allege they sustained while in the state’s care at facilities operated by the state or at ones under contract with the state.

Korman, in his opening statement, also said there was nothing wrong with the relationships outside of YDC because the teens were at the age of consent once he left the juvenile detention facility.  He noted Watson is not facing criminal charges connected to that conduct.

Manchester Ink Link is identifying the alleged victims only by their initials because of the sexual nature of the charges.

Korman said both obtained loans in anticipation of a settlement payment from their lawsuits.

Yen contended Watson was a 27-year-old sexual predator at the juvenile detention center which operated like a prison.  When A.C. moved in with him, Watson was 30.

Yen said the two men who said Watson sexually assaulted them did not know each other.  Both came forward 25 years after the alleged assaults and told similar stories about Watson.  One was assigned to Stark House at YDC, while the other was a resident of Spaulding Cottage. Both alleged the sexual assaults happened inside their assigned houses at night.

Watson was in a position of authority over the children, according to the charges.  “They had no one they could turn to and if they did, who would believe them.  They were children,” Yen said.

They also feared if they did tell that they would be “retaliated against by the brotherhood,” the prosecutor said.

The sexual abuse didn’t end when the two teens left YDC, Yen said.  “Watson contacted them after they aged out,” Yen said.  “This defendant was [at that time] 30 years old.  He had sex with the boys outside of YDC.”

Watson, Yen said, denies having any sexual contact with the boys at YDC but admits post YDC sex with both.

“He admits the conduct he can afford to admit and he denies the conduct he can’t afford to admit,” Yen told the jurors.  “The post YDC sex was the continuation of sexual abuse.”

This is the third trial of former state employees accused of sexually abusing teenagers at state-operated facilities.

The first criminal trial against Victor Malavet, charged with a dozen counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault of children in 2001 at a Concord facility, ended in September with a hung jury. A new trial is scheduled for June.

In November, Bradley Asbury, 69, was found guilty of holding down a 14-year-old boy in a staircase with another employee as two other youth counselors raped him in the 1990s. He is to be sentenced Jan. 27 but is already being detained in the New Hampshire State Prison.