MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) – A New Hampshire prosecutor on Tuesday found a former director of a juvenile detention center guilty of holding a teenager during a 1998 rape.
Bradley Asbury, now 70, was found guilty of two counts of being an accessory to sexual abuse. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each charge. The jury deliberated for three days after a four-day trial.
Asbury worked as a house manager at Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester. He was accused of restraining 14-year-old Michael Gilpatrick on the stairs with help from a colleague, while a third employee sexually assaulted the teenager and a fourth forced him to have sex.
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It was the second criminal trial since a wide-ranging 2019 investigation into long-standing abuses at the center. Asbury is among 11 men who worked there or at a related location in Concord who were arrested.
The trial featured the testimony of Gilpatrick, who is now 41 years old. She said she struggled to cope with the attack for many years and that talking about it at trial was a way to heal.
He said he wanted the perpetrators to be held accountable and recalled having an out-of-body experience during the attack.
“I see it happening, but I can’t do anything,” he said. “I wasn’t there. But then.”
After the verdict was read Tuesday afternoon, Gilpatrick cried and hugged family members.
“God is good and truth prevailed. And I was believed,” he said while leaving the court.
Meanwhile, Asbury shook his head and thanked his family and supporters as they were taken away. His attorney, David Rothstein, left the courtroom without comment. Asbury will be held without bail pending sentencing in January.
“We hope this brings some relief,” Deputy Attorney General Adam Woods said of the sentence.
Last week, Gilpatrick got into a heated exchange during cross-examination, and at one point called Rothstein a “sick man” as the defense attorney urged him to repeat his rape claim several times.
During closing arguments, Rothstein said, “I want to apologize to anyone I may have offended during that exchange, or any other communication.”
Rothstein said Gilpatrick lived in a fantasy world where he created villains to explain the things that were wrong in his life.
“Mike Gilpatrick falsely accused Brad Asbury of a crime that he not only did not commit, but which, in both shape and form, was impossible to do,” Rothstein said.
He said that there were no eyewitnesses or pieces of evidence, and that Gilpatrick had changed important facts over time to fit the narrative. He said that such an attack on an open staircase in the center of the area could have been seen or heard by someone.
He said Gilpatrick was motivated by money, pointing out that he had already received more than $146,000 against the expected payout from the courts.
The prosecutor said Gilpatrick did not fully remember all the events surrounding the rape but was consistent in his recollection of the key incident. He couldn’t tell anyone at the time, the prosecutor said, because Asbury was in charge.
“Instead of guiding Mike, instructing him, showing him a better way to get out and live his life, these four older men, including the defendant, destroyed that trust,” Woods said.
The case against Victor Malavet ended in September after the jury found that he raped the Concord girl. A new trial in the case has not been scheduled.
This investigation has also resulted in many lawsuits. More than 1,100 former residents have filed lawsuits alleging physical, sexual or emotional abuse over six decades. In a single federal court case, a jury awarded David Meehan $38 million in May for abuse he claims he suffered in the 1990s, though the verdict is still in dispute as the state wants to reduce it to $475 million.
The Associated Press typically does not profile rape victims unless they come forward, as Meehan and Gilpatrick did.