Jury deliberates on whether man who was raped at youth center in 90s was keeping teenagers

Crime

Bradley Asbury, now 70, was a group leader at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester.

By NICK PERRY, Associated Press

22 November 2024

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A jury began deliberating Friday on whether a New Hampshire man held a teenage boy who was raped at a youth detention center in 1998.

Bradley Asbury, now 70, was a group leader at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester. He is accused of restraining 14-year-old Michael Gilpatrick on a staircase with the help of a colleague, while a third staff member raped the teenager and a fourth forced him to perform a sex act.

This is the second criminal case stemming from a broad 2019 investigation into historic abuse at the center. Asbury is among 11 men arrested who worked there or at a related facility in Concord.

The case is based on testimony from Gilpatrick, now 41, who said he had been trying to cope with the attack for many years and that talking about it at the hearing was part of his healing process. He said he wanted to hold the perpetrators accountable and recalled that he had an out-of-body experience during the alleged attack.

“I can see it’s happening, but I can’t do anything,” he testified. “I wasn’t there. But it’s there.”

Gilpatrick got into heated arguments during cross-examination, at one point calling the defense attorney a “sick man” and forcing him to repeat the rape allegation over and over.

“I want to apologize to anyone I upset during this or any other conversation,” attorney David Rothstein said during closing arguments.

Rothstein said Gilpatrick lives in an imaginary world where he creates villains to explain things that are going wrong in his life.

“Mike Gilpatrick accused Brad Asbury of a crime he did not commit, a crime that was nearly impossible to commit in any shape or form,” Rothstein said.

He said there were no eyewitnesses or evidence corroborating this, and that Gilpatrick changed key details over time to fit the narrative. He said such an attack on an open staircase in the middle of the facility could be seen or heard by someone else.

He said Gilpatrick was motivated by money, noting that he had already received more than $146,000 in exchange for an expected settlement from a related civil case.

The prosecution said Gilpatrick did not fully remember all the events surrounding the alleged rape, but was always consistent in remembering the key incident. The prosecution said that he could not tell anyone at the time because Asbury was responsible for the incident.

“Instead of guiding Mike, counseling him, showing him a better way to go out and live his life, these four grown men, including the defendant, violated trust,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Adam Woods.

Asbury, who is charged with two counts of being an accessory to aggravated sexual assault, faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each count if convicted.

An earlier case against Victor Malavet ended in a mistrial in September after jurors deadlocked on whether he raped a girl at the Concord facility. A new hearing in this case has not yet been scheduled.

The investigation also led to extensive civil litigation. More than 1,100 former residents filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual or emotional abuse spanning six decades. In the only civil case heard so far, a jury in May awarded David Meehan $38 million in damages for harassment he said he suffered in the 1990s; however, this decision is still controversial as the state is trying to reduce this amount to $475,000.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, as Meehan and Gilpatrick did.