MANCHESTER, N.H. — The first criminal trial of former youth counselor Jeffrey Buskey opened Monday in Hillsborough County, more than seven years after his arrest helped expose one of the largest youth detention abuse scandals in the United States. Buskey, 60, of Litchfield, has pleaded not guilty and must be presumed innocent. He has not been convicted of any crime connected to the case.
Prosecutors have charged him with 21 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault involving David Meehan, who was 14 when he arrived in 1995 at the Youth Development Center in Manchester, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center. The state alleges the assaults occurred while Buskey worked there as a youth counselor in the late 1990s. Investigators say Buskey also faces separate allegations involving three other boys held at the facility during that period. Those cases have not yet gone to trial.
Meehan has come forward publicly. In a 2024 civil trial against the state, he testified that Buskey first appeared as a trusted adult, offering soda, snacks and a chance to play basketball with a local high school team, then subjected him to near daily sexual assaults. “It went from being somebody I trusted, that I thought was not just there to help me, but somebody I thought cared for me, to hurt,” Meehan said from the witness stand.
That civil testimony is not a criminal verdict. The criminal jury in Manchester will decide whether the state can prove the charged assaults beyond a reasonable doubt. Buskey has denied the allegations. In a police interview transcript recently filed in court, he brought up Meehan’s name without prompting, said they had a “great relationship,” and rejected the claim that he abused him.
“I was always nice to the kid, I was always trying to help him,” he said. His public defender has appeared with him at pretrial hearings. The defense position, as reflected in that recorded denial and his not guilty status, is that the alleged crimes did not occur. Buskey’s former role is central to the state’s theory of the case.
He worked as a youth counselor inside a locked state facility for children. He also worked as a part time police officer in Raymond in the mid 1990s and later as an officer and detective in Sanbornton, where records show he was fired in 2004 after a bad check investigation. Prosecutors have long treated his authority over confined teenagers as a core element of the charges. The defense has not conceded that those facts prove sexual assault.
The criminal case sits inside a far larger accounting of alleged abuse at New Hampshire’s youth detention system. Meehan filed the first of more than 1,100 lawsuits claiming physical, sexual or emotional abuse spanning six decades. Those civil filings, together with his report to police, led to Buskey’s 2019 arrest, the arrest of another former worker, a statewide criminal investigation, and nine additional arrests of former staff. In all, 11 former workers have been charged in the scandal.
The criminal results so far have been mixed, and they do not decide Buskey’s fate. Juries have convicted Bradley Asbury and James Woodlock of being accomplices to aggravated sexual assault. Both received sentences of 20 to 40 years. A jury convicted Stanley Watson of sexually abusing two teenage boys in his care and a judge sentenced him to 30 to 60 years.
Jurors acquitted Jonathan Brand. A trial of Victor Malavet ended in a deadlock and mistrial. Prosecutors dropped charges against Trevor Middleton. Frank Davis was declared incompetent to stand trial.
Gordon Searles died while awaiting trial. Stephen Murphy still faces charges after one mistrial and a later trial that produced acquittals on three counts and a hung jury on five others. Lucien Poulette is awaiting trial. The civil and administrative systems have moved on a different track.
In May 2024, a Rockingham County jury awarded Meehan $38 million after finding the state liable for abuse he said he suffered in custody. That award remains in dispute. The state has sought to reduce it to $475,000 under New Hampshire’s damages cap, and the fight has continued in the courts. Lawmakers also created a claims fund as an alternative to lawsuits.
Official reports show more than 2,000 claims have entered that process. As of April 30, 2026, 425 claims had been resolved with settlement awards totaling about $239 million, an average of roughly $563,000 per awarded claim. About 1,700 claims remained pending. In June, lawmakers approved an additional $20 million for the fund, less than the $55 million the new administrator requested.
He has warned that resolving the remaining claims could ultimately cost the state close to $1 billion. The Manchester campus once held more than 100 children. It now typically houses fewer than a dozen youths accused or convicted of the most serious violent crimes. Lawmakers have approved closing the current building and replacing it with a smaller facility elsewhere.
None of that institutional history answers the question before the jury this week. Prosecutors must prove 21 felony counts. Buskey denies the accusations. The trial that began Monday is the first criminal test of the allegations that first brought his name into public view in 2019, and it will be decided on the evidence presented in court, not on the size of the scandal that followed.
