Third Trial For Sununu YDC Criminal Suspect Begins

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH

MANCHESTER, NH — For the third time in less than a year, the state will try to convict Stephen Murphy for his alleged role as a sexual abuser inside the Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly known as YDC in Manchester.

Murphy’s trial on charges he acted as an accomplice to the sexual assault of a 16-year-old boy incarcerated in YDC started Monday in Hillsborough Superior Court — North in Manchester. Charles Keefe, Murphy’s defense attorney, told jurors there’s no proof outside the victim’s testimony that can convict his client.

"The evidence will not allow the state to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt,” Keefe said. “More to the point, the evidence will show you this assault never happened.”

Murphy’s first trial on eight charges ended with a hung jury, and his second trial ended with acquittals on three of the charges. The second jury could not reach a verdict on the remaining five charges, setting up this week’s third trip to court with a new jury.

The alleged victim claims he was assaulted after he got caught stealing from the YDC auto body shop. The victim denied stealing when confronted by YDC counselors Murphy, James Woodlock, and Jeff Buskey, Assistant Attorney General Rachel Harrington told jurors.

“They decided to teach him a lesson,” Harrington said.

Woodlock is serving a 20- to 40-year prison sentence after he was convicted last year in his YDC sexual assault case, and Buskey is facing trial on numerous charges of sexual assault.

All three men are named hundreds of times as abusers in the civil complaints filed by more than 1,000 former YDC residents. Buskey is alleged to have raped one child, David Meehan, hundreds of times. Meehan won $38 million in damages during his civil trial, an award that is being challenged by the state. A decision in that dispute is pending with the New Hampshire Supreme Court.

The potential conflict of interest for the state looms over every YDC-related criminal trial. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office is in charge of defending the state in the civil cases, while at the same time it is supposed to be prosecuting the alleged abusers.

There are hundreds of named abusers in the civil complaints who could still be charged under the statute of limitations, and yet the state has managed to indict only 11 men since the YDC Task Force was first created in 2019. The Task Force is no longer investigating alleged abusers, but is now focused on supporting the criminal prosecutions.

The state’s had a seemingly difficult time convicting the handful of alleged abusers indicted in the scandal. Earlier this year, former YDC staffer Victor Malavet got a hung jury mistrial for a second time on allegations he groomed and raped a teen girl inside YDC.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.