State moves to stop deposition of former YDC employee accused of sex abuse

CONCORD, NH – The state is asking a judge to quash a subpoena issued for a deposition next week of a former Youth Development Center employee saying the now 80-year-old Warner resident’s competency is in doubt, he is in a rehabilitative facility and possibly ill.

The attorneys, by Senior Assistant Attorney General Jennifer S. Ramsey and John W. VanLonkhuyzen of Verrill Dana LLP in Portland, Maine, say the court issued a stay on Feb. 18, 2022, which has not been lifted.  The parties, if they wish, may engage in discovery, but they are not required to do so, they said.

They said if the court is not inclined to quash the subpoena for the deposition, issued in the case of David Meehan v. State of New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, et. Al., they ask the court to issue a protective order temporarily staying the deposition pending the position of his criminal defense attorney.

Meehan’s said, in objecting to the state’s motion, that it is all about delaying proceedings to “wear down and discourage the many victims of child abuse who at long last – have a voice to protest the horror inflicted on them as children by the state.”

Attorneys Cyrus F. Rilee, III and David A Vicinanzo, in their response dated Sept. 8, 2022, said the harm to the plaintiffs in delays is not hypothetical.  “Several of the abuse victims have died this year, and, as the cohort ages, further attrition can be expected.  Of course, any attrition due to delay will only inure to the financial benefit of the state,” they wrote.

They want to depose Frank Davis, 80, formerly of Contoocook but who is now residing with his nephew in Warner, in one of his three homes there.

Davis was a guard at the Sununu Center/YDC and is under indictment on one count of aggravated felonious sexual assault and five misdemeanor counts of sexual assault. The charges involve allegations by two former residents of the YDC.  Between Dec. 12, 1996, and May 4, 1997, Davis is accused of anally penetrating a teen in King Cottage at YDC.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers contend the state’s strategy of delay is “on full display” in its motion to quash the deposition when “it leaps to the defense of Frank Davis, a long-time guard at the Sununu Center/YDC who is among the most prolific child abusers in state history.  The Court should not countenance such a cynical—and indeed, otherwise incomprehensible—delay tactic.”

They say the state does not represent Davis; he has his own attorney who can defend his rights.  Meehan’s lawyers say they have spoken several times with Davis’ nephew who assured them Davis fully intends to appear at the Sept. 14, 2022 deposition.

Davis, they said, is being prosecuted by the same Attorney General’s office that is now “leaping to his defense in this case. As of this morning (Sept, 8, 2022) the docket in that case reflects that the State has filed no motion raising concerns about Mr. Davis’ ‘competence’ or ‘ability to testify’ in that case, as it is constitutionally required to do if it really believes Mr. Davis is incompetent.”

They write that the state’s “legerdemain” (sleight of hand) does not end there.  It worries, as well, that Mr. Davis may assert his 5th Amendment rights at the deposition.”

The state, in its motion, said if Davis is competent and does appear for the deposition, he will likely invoke his 5th Amendment rights.

“That is possible, but irrelevant,” Meehan’s attorneys said.  “Mr. Davis may also want to clear his conscience, either by admitting the literal thousands of sexual assault, violent beatings, and sadistic acts of torture he inflicted on vulnerable children over his decades of employment “caring” for them as an employee of the State.  He may want to say that his colleagues and supervisors were well-aware of his depraved conduct and either looked the other way to preserve the ‘code of silence,’ approved of the conduct, or (as was often the case) joined in to make it a group assault.  He may want to say it was all justified because society allegedly sanctioned such brutality against children at the time.  He may just deny it all, realizing perjury is a relatively light sanction compared to prison for the rest of his life for child abuse.  Or he may assert his 5th Amendment rights, on the advice of his experienced criminal counsel.”

They said no matter what he does, one thing is certain:  the State does not represent him and has no standing to assert his own defenses.

They said delay as a strategy is allowed to a point.  “But that point has long since come and gone.  And rushing to the defense of a child predator, allegedly out of concern for his rights (while simultaneously ignoring those same rights in the criminal case), is beyond the pale,” they wrote.

Meehan filed the lawsuit about three years ago.

At the conclusion of their response, Meehan’s attorneys said the State wants the case to be Jarndyce v Jarndyce, which is a fictional probate case heard in the English Court of Chancery in Charles Dickens novel Bleak House from 1852-53.

The case has become a byword for seemingly interminable legal proceedings.

“But this is not the English Chancery of the mid-nineteenth century,” they wrote.  “The justice system has progressed significantly since then.”

Michael Garrity, spokesman for the NH Attorney General, said they had no comment “beyond what we have already filed with the court.”