Former YDC employee found guilty as accomplice to rape of teen 26 years ago

MANCHESTER, NH — Bradley Asbury was found guilty Tuesday of holding down a 14-year-old boy in a Youth Development Center stairwell as two co-workers raped him 26 years ago.

Victim Michael Gilpatrick, now 41, of Nashua, cried as the Hillsborough County Superior Court North jury foreman announced that the jury of seven women and five men found Asbury, 70, of Dunbarton, guilty of two counts of being an accomplice to aggravated felonious sexual assault.

“God is good,” Gilpatrick said as he was leaving the courthouse with his wife Kelly.  “The truth prevailed and I was believed.”

Judge N. William Delker cited state law in ordering Asbury’s bail revoked once the jury issued the guilty verdicts.

Asbury, standing next to his attorney David Rothstein, leaned forward, his head down and hands pressed against the defense table when the jury foreman, asked by the court clerk for the verdict, answered “Guilty” for the second time.

The jury deliberated for about 17 hours over three days after listening to testimony last week.  The trial lasted 3 ½ days.

Rothstein left the courthouse without commenting to the media.  New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Adam Woods, who along with Audriana Mekula prosecuted the case, said he was grateful to the jury. He said he hoped the verdict provided some comfort to Gilpatrick.

Asbury, together with James Woodlock, 60, of Manchester, was accused of holding down a scrawny Gilpatrick on a staircase at YDC while two other staffers, Jeffrey Buskey, 55, of Dorchester, Mass. and Stephen Murphy, 58, of Danvers, Mass., allegedly raped him.

Murphy is the next one to be tried; the trial is scheduled for January.

The alleged attack took place days after Gilpatrick went AWOL from a furlough home to see his family.  He was picked up by police and returned to YDC on May 27, 1998.

Asbury denied the allegations and Rothstien maintained Gilpatrick made up the story.  Money, he said, was the motivating factor behind the false accusations.

Gilpatrick, the father of three, was the second person, after David Meehan, to come forward about staffers at YDC, located on River River but now known as the Sununu Youth Services Center, abusing children in their care.

Meehan was the lead plaintiff in what was initially filed as a class action lawsuit against the state.  When a court denied the class action, more than 1,000 people, including Gilpatrick, filed their own individual lawsuits.  Allegations of abuse span six decades.

Meehan’s civil case went to trial in April, resulting in a jury awarding him $38 million.   However, Judge Andrew Schulman issued a preliminary order saying the payout should only be $475,000, citing state law limiting the amount of damages to that amount for a single incident.

Schulman said he “reluctantly granted” the state’s motion in which it cited the state cap of $475,000.

During Meehan’s civil trial, Gilpatrick testified about four employees he and other teens called “the hit squad.”  According to the Associated Press, Gilpatrick referred to Asbury, an alleged member of the squad, as a “very bad man.  Not only did he have power over all the kids, he had power over the staff as well.”

In testifying last week in the criminal trial, under direct examination by New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Audriana Mekula, Gilpatrick said he referred to Asbury as “Hitler.” Rothstein objected.

“I’m just being honest,” Gilpatrick said.  “That’s what we referred to him as.”

Woods, in his closing argument, told the jury Asbury was the man in charge of East Cottage and the muscle that allowed two of his “cohorts” in 1998 to rape Gilpatrick in a stairwell.  He said that was when Gilpatrick’s life shattered. While his memory of events isn’t crystal clear, Woods said the rape is “seared in his memory.”

Rothstein, in his closing argument, said his client is falsely accused of a crime he didn’t commit and “that was virtually impossible to occur.”  East Cottage, where the attack occurred, had an open concept design on the first floor and an open stairwell.  Sound carried and echoed throughout the cottage, he said.  Yet, no one heard or saw the alleged attack or reported it, including Gilpatrick, until he reported it to state investigators in 2020.

The defense attorney maintained, as he did in his opening, that money is the motivator behind Gilpatrick’s accusations.  Gilpatrick received $146,000 from Universal Funds, in anticipation of a payout from his civil suit against the State of New Hampshire.   He does not have to repay the money, although Gilpatrick said he told Universal Funds he intends to pay it back.

Rothstein also told the jurors the attack couldn’t have happened because Buskey wasn’t working the same shift as the other three staffers, including Asbury.

Woods, in his closing, rebutted that.  He told jurors YDC’s daily logs and staffers’ timecards showed that all four men worked shifts that overlapped in early June 1998.

A log, he said, also indicated that the boys went to bed at 7 p.m. on June 3, 1998.  Normally, the logs would indicate three different times when groups of boys, ranked at levels based on their behavior, would be locked in their rooms with the latest about 9 p.m.  But that night, the log listed only the 7 p.m. bed time for all the youths.

“With Brady Asbury in charge, Mike had no chance.  He had no chance with James Woodlock, Stephen Murphy or Jeffrey Buskey,” Woods said.

Manchester Ink Link normally does not identify individuals named in sexual assault cases but Gilpatrick went public with his allegations.

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