Man testifies to being held down by YDC supervisor as staffers raped him 26 years ago

MANCHESTER, NH – Michael Gilpatrick was a 14-year-old scrawny kid when in the late 1990s he was held down and gang raped on a staircase landing at the Youth Development Center by counselors who were supposed to protect him, according to testimony Tuesday in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District.

Bradley Asbury, 70, of Dunbarton, the house leader at the time, and James Woodlock, 60, of Manchester, allegedly held down the boy as his youth counselors, Jeffrey Buskey, 55, of Dorchester, Mass. and Stephen Murphy, 58, of Danvers, Mass., raped him, according to court documents and testimony.

Asbury is on trial in Superior Court on charges of two counts of being an accomplice to aggravated felonious sexual assault

The assaults allegedly took place in 1998 in East Cottage at YDC on River Road, now known as the Sununu Youth Services Center.  The cottages at the site were torn down years ago so the jury was not taken on a view of the facility.

Usually, the name of a sexual assault victim is not published by the media but Gilpatrick has gone public with his story.  He testified at the civil trial brought by David Meehan against the state of New Hampshire concerning the alleged decades-long sexual and physical abuse of youths at YDC.   Gilpatrick is among the more than 1,000 people who are suing the state over their treatment at state operated facilities.

The defense maintains Gilpatrick made up the story after speaking with Meehan.  The two were at YDC at the same time.  His motive, defense attorney David Rothstein said in his opening statement, is money.  Gilpatrick, he said, was the second person to sue the state.

He said Gilpatrick and his wife received about $140,000 from a company, pending the outcome of the civil trial.  He said they do not have to repay the money whether they win or lose.

Rothstein said the way East Cottage was set up – the first floor was an open concept—and operated, there would be no way that the assault could have happened without someone seeing it.

And, he said, while Gilpatrick recalls only being given one furlough, records indicate he was awarded 6 to 7 furloughs.  He had a family who loved him, Rothstein said, and who got him out of YDC early.  He said Gilpatrick will say many things about his childhood that just aren’t true.

Gilpatrick is now 41, the father of three children and living in Nashua.  He and his wife Kelly own M&K Waterproofing and Caulking Co.

Under direct examination by New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Audriana Mekula, Gilpatrick said Asbury was the person in charge of East Cottage when he was a resident.  “What did you refer to him as?” Mekula asked.  “Hitler,” he said to    . Rothstein’s objection.

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

Judge N. William Delker called a recess after a bench conference with attorneys.  When the judge returned, and with Gilpatrick on the stand but the jury still out of the courtroom, Delker told Gilpatrick, “I don’t want to have to start this trial all over.”

“I understand,” Gilpatrick said.  “That’s how I referred to him for a very long time.  I will keep it to myself.”

Assistant NH Attorney General Adam Woods introduced YDC logs as evidence through the testimony of the first witness, Gene Murray of Amherst, NY, who worked at the YDC during the time frame of the alleged assault. Those logs listed Gilpatrick as on a furlough on May 22, 1998, but then listed him as being AWOL on May 25, 1998 when he didn’t return.

On May 27, 1998, he was returned to the facility, after being picked up by police, and given an automatic 10-day confinement to his room.

The prosecution maintains Gilpatrick was sexually assaulted after his return from being AWOL.

Gilpatrick said he doesn’t know the date of the furlough he earned but knows that at the time the weather was nice.  He knew he would get an automatic 10-day room confinement by not returning on time.  He was picked up by police, he said.

The day of the assault, Gilpatrick said Buskey and Murphy took him from his room and brought him to Asbury’s office.  Woodlock was in the office as well.

Gilpatrick hesitated as he spoke.  “Unfortunately, I am fixated on the incident.  I relive it daily,” he said.

Within seconds of being brought to Asbury’s office, Gilpatrick said he and Asbury were “going back and forth” with each other.  Buskey and Murphy were standing on either side of him as he stood in the doorway.

Buskey and Murphy, he said, suddenly “swiped him” off his feet and he hit the floor face first. “They beat me up and dragged me to the stairwell,” Gilpatrick said.  All four men carried him up the stairwell and as they did, his head hit the wall.

He was wearing only a T-shirt and underwear because he thought when the counselors took him from his room, he was being taken to the showers.

The four men stopped at the landing. Gilpatrick said his head was facing up toward the second stairwell.  The YDC staff members had already roughed him up a little bit and he said he was in and out of consciousness.  “What happened at the landing?” Mekula asked.

Gilpatrick struggled to answer and the prosecutor requested a five-minute break so he could regain his composure.

When Gilpatrick retook the stand, he said, “Steve Murphy and Jeff Buskey raped me.”  Murphy was behind him and Buskey in front of him, he said..  Asbury and Woodlock were on either side of him, “holding me.”   He said he couldn’t move.

His underwear were removed and Murphy put his penis “in my butt” and Buskey was trying to put his penis in his mouth, which he succeeded in doing.

“I probably wasn’t doing anything. This is so crazy,” he said with a deep sigh.  “It’s hard to describe.”  He said it was like an out of body experience. “ I could see it happen but I couldn’t do anything.”

Asked what Buskey was doing, Gilpatrick said, “he was trying to get me to suck his penis.” After the assault, he said he was carried to his room where they “took all my stuff” – mattress, sheets, blankets– and left the naked teen locked in his room.  Later, someone gave him a new pair of underwear.  Staffers on the third shift later returned all the other items.

When his 10-day confinement was complete, he was transferred to King Cottage.

For years, Gilpatrick never told anyone about what happened.  “How do you tell somebody?  He was in charge.  These are the people who are in charge. They are the people you were supposed to feel safe around,” he said.

The first person he told, he said, was his wife although he did not go into details.  He also told his step-brother, who has since died.

He said five to six years ago, an investigator with Attorney Rus Rilee’s office contacted him.  Rilee is one of the attorneys representing more than 1,000 people in lawsuits against the state concerning abuse they allegedly suffered at YDC and other state-run or contracted facilities.

That was when he talked to his wife about what happened, but not as detailed as his testimony on Tuesday.  Asked why by the prosecutor, he said, “It’s hard to talk about it.”

He said he did not tell the investigator anything at that time. After talking with his wife, about a month later they decided to talk with Rilee.  Still, he didn’t divulge what happened to him. He and his wife met with the attorney two more times, he said, before Rilee referred him to two state police investigators. He decided to talk with them because, he said, “I would never want this to happen to my kids.  That’s what it comes down to.”  That and, he later said, accountability.

Mekula also questioned Gilpatrick about the money he and his wife obtained from Universal Funds.  He said during Covid, his wife worked for a plastic surgery office which was one of the first places to shut down.  He was laid off from his construction job.  His wife mentioned it to Attorney Rilee who put them in contact with Universal Funds.

His wife handles the household and business finances and Gilpatrick said he didn’t know how much they actually received.

“I can’t tell you anything about the business but I can build you a house,” he said to the laughter of those in the courtroom.

Mekula showed him documents indicating the couple had received $146,000.  The money, he said, helped them start their business and earned them about $350,000.    He said they have to repay the loan.

He also said the criminal case has no connection to Universal Funds.

Rothstein briefly questioned Gilpatrick before the case ended for the day.  Gilpatrick, he said, left YDC just before his 17^th birthday.  Rothstein said between 2000 and 2015 Gilpatrick had a hard time holding onto a job.

“I did pretty good,” Gilpatrick said.

But as Rothstein began to press him about that time period, Gilpatrick said, “I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about that.”  Rothstein asked to approach the bench and Gilpatrick blurted out, “Yes, please.”

Under direct examination, Gilpatrick admitted he was convicted of a felony willful concealment charge .  According to court records, he has other convictions on his record but they are from 2002 to 2008, 16 to 22 years ago.

Nearing 4 p.m., the judge then said the trial will resume on Wednesday.

On Monday, a Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District jury was being selected to determine Asbury’s guilt or innocence of the felony offenses. The trial is expected to last two to three days.

It’s been more than three years since the state charged 10 former employees at the YDC and one at the Youth Detention Services Unit (YDSU) in Concord with sexually and/or physically abusing teens.

The first to be criminally tried was Victor Malavat, 62, of Gilford, accused of repeatedly raping teenager Natasha Maunsell at the YDSU, where children were held while waiting for a court decision.

His case, tried in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord, ended in a mistrial in September.

Another defendant Gordon Thomas Searles, 68, of Manchester, died in July.  Charges against Frank Davis, 82, of Contoocook were dismissed after a judge found he was incompetent to stand trial.

It leaves nine defendants to face trial, including Asbury.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s investigation resulted in more than 1,000 allegations and as many people filing civil suits against the state alleging they were abused at state-run facilities over decades.

In April, the first civil trial brought by David Meehan resulted in a jury awarding him $38 million.   However, last week 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.  The jurors awarded Meehan $38 million but marked only one incident of abuse on the jury verdict form.

During Meehan’s civil trial, former YDC resident Michael Gilpatrick (M.G.)  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.”

AP also previously reported that Asbury had been fired in 1994, three years before he allegedly held down M.G. while two colleagues raped the teen, for allegations of physical and psychological abuse.

However, Asbury appealed to a state board and was reinstated in 1995.  He worked at YDC in Manchester until 2001 and then went to work for the State Employees Association, the union that help him regain his job.

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