Prosecutor: Men plied teens with alcohol, video recorded sexual activity
When two teens returned to Granite Pathways after walking away Tuesday night, a prosecutor said one was nude, the other was partially clothed, both were covered in vomit, highly intoxicated and distraught after being sexually assaulted by two men.
MANCHESTER, NH — When two teens returned to Granite Pathways after walking away Tuesday night, a prosecutor said one was nude, the other was partially clothed, both were covered in vomit, highly intoxicated and distraught after being sexually assaulted by two men.
Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Katelyn Brown said one of the girls was inconsolable. A third girl who went with them left with one of the men, the girls told the staff. And, they said, the men had videotaped them with their cell phones while having sex.
At one point in the night, the two girls said they woke up in a field to see their friend being sexually assaulted. Both girls were taken to the Elliot Hospital for treatment.
“The defendant (Matthew Hugle, 25, of 56 Ledgewood Drive) took advantage of these girls and was proud of this disgusting behavior,” Brown told Judge Diane Nicolosi Thursday during Hugle’s arraignment in Hillsborough County Superior Court North.
He is charged with three counts of felonious sexual assault, one count of aggravated felonious sexual assault and three counts of being an accomplice to delinquency.
His co-defendant, Chasrick Heredia, 24, of Manchester, is charged with one count of aggravated felonious sexual assault during which the girl was physically helpless; felonious sexual assault of a girl between the ages of 13 and 15, and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Heredia agreed to be preventatively detained until an evidentiary hearing is held.
The third girl was located Wednesday morning at Hugle’s Ledgewood Drive home. Juvenile detectives and Manchester Police SWAT made the arrest. Hugle allegedly admitted that he had sex again with the teen at his home.
The incident began when the three teens walked away from the treatment facility, near the John H. Sununu Youth Services Center, to a 7-Eleven where they wanted someone to buy them alcohol. Soon after, Hugle arrived and the girls got into his car.
He picked up Heredia and drove to several locations, plying the teens with alcohol, according to the prosecutor.
At one point that night, Brown said a shirtless Hugle stopped at a store he frequents and the clerk asked him why he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“The defendant told him he had just hooked up with three girls and one of the girls still had his shirt,” the prosecutor said.
He was proud of it, she said.
Brown asked Judge Diane Nicolosi to order Hugle be preventatively detained with no bail, saying he was a danger to the public.
She said he did not have a long criminal record: disorderly conduct in 2015; possession of a controlled drug in 2014; willful concealment in 2013, and criminal trespass in 2011.
Defense attorney Carl Olson asked the judge to set bail. He said Hugle will agree to all the conditions the prosecutor wanted including staying away from the girls and Granite Pathways; a curfew; possess no firearms; sign a waiver of extradition; no excessive alcohol.
He said Hugle is originally from New Orleans but after Hurricane Katrina, he and his mother moved to Virginia. They relocated to New Hampshire when Hugle was 14. He is a 2013 graduate of Manchester Central High School and attended a semester at Manchester Community College.
He lives with his mother and is the sole caretaker of his 8-month-old daughter. He is getting a divorce from his wife on the grounds of abandonment. She has returned to New Orleans, Olson said.
Hugle has been taking care of his daughter full-time. His mother works full-time at Goodwill.
“There’s a real concern about who is going to take care of his daughter,” he said.
In September, Hugle is to begin a training program in micro-electronics which would position him to find full-time employment. Presently, he is self-employed making food deliveries for local restaurants that is, until police impounded his car, the attorney said.
Olson said he has read the affidavit in the case and there is no allegation of force and there was a request for alcohol.
“It is our intent to contest the charges,” he said.
Nicolosi told the prosecutor that at this stage, the charges are only allegations. She set bail at $10,000 personal recognizance with the conditions the prosecutor proposed but said Hugle is not to have any alcohol and is to live with his mother.
