MANCHESTER, NH – A Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District jury deliberated for about six hours Monday without reaching a verdict in the case of Stephen Murphy, accused of repeatedly raping a teenage boy he was supposed to mentor at the Youth Development Center.
The jurors are to return Tuesday morning to resume deliberations.
About 20 family members and friends of Murphy waited outside in the courthouse lobby all day Monday for a verdict. Many of them had attended each day of the four-day trial last week.
Murphy, 56, of Danvers, Mass., is charged with eight counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault, four accusing him of forcing a 14-year-old boy to perform fellatio on him and the other four counts alleging he used his authority as a youth counselor to have the teen perform the sexual act on himThe charges date back to 1997-98.
On Friday, Murphy took the stand, denying all accusations against him.
When he first learned of the allegations he was “stunned. Shocked. I was even angry to be accused of false accusations. Baseless.”
Keefe, in his closing argument, maintained the state produced no witness and no evidence to support the allegations. He portrayed David Meehan, the alleged victim, as a deeply troubled man struggling with reality, who spent up to 20 hours a day on the internet researching conspiracies and the people at YDC. He either believes what he alleges or he is making up stories, Keefe said.
Meehan, 44, was the first person to go to police in 2017 with allegations that YDC staff repeatedly raped and beat him while he was detained at the juvenile detention center from 1995 to 1998. Since then, more than 2,000 people have come forward, filing claims against the state.
Manchester Ink Link normally doesn’t identify an alleged victim of sexual abuse but Meehan went public with his allegations.
Prosecutors maintain Murphy, a youth counselor, was supposed to mentor and guide David. Instead, he was the correctional officer who coerced David to perform fellatio by beating him into submission, prosecutor Charles Bucca said in his opening statement.
“This case is about dominance and sexual violence,” he told the jurors. “It was not just for sexual gratification. It was to show him who was boss.”
Defense attorney Charles Keefe, in his 30-minute opening, told the jurors that David’s story has shifted and changed over the years. David, he said, has testified in court several times so he is “well prepped.”
He said documents also will show that Murphy wasn’t working on Nov. 1, 1997 when David alleges he was raped. David said he was assaulted around Halloween.
Meehan testified Murphy punched him in the back when he was in the checkroom, which knocked the teen to the floor. Murphy, he said, forced his penis into his mouth and ejaculated. When he was done, Meehan said Murphy beat him.
Keefe said the checkroom was an area where the teens obtained towels and toiletries. It was located on the main floor in an area where people were around. He said the alleged assault was loud and violent “and nobody saw or heard anything.”
Keefe also pointed to the time of another alleged assault in May 1998. On May 8, 1998, David punched another resident in the face and was disciplined. David filed a complaint that day against Murphy and another youth counselor, Jeffrey Buskey, who restrained him because “he became aggressive,” Keefe told the jurors.
In that complaint, he said he was thrown on his back and hit with a knee but, Keefe said, he never claimed he was sexually assaulted.
Meehan testified, however, that it was Buskey who forced him to write that complaint. Senior Assistant New Hampshire Attorney General Audriana Mekula, in her closing argument, pointed out that it was Buskey, a part-time youth counselor involved in the incident, who was assigned to investigate the complaint and then cleared Murphy.
Meehan said in that incident Murphy didn’t sexually assault him because he fought him off, but that Murphy had beaten him.
Buskey also is facing felony charges accusing him of sexual abuse of teens committed to YDC, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center.
Keefe, in both opening and closing statements, maintained that Meehan continually changed his story.
“The evidence will show you Stephen didn’t do it,” he said.
A soft-spoken Meehan testified graphically about what happened to him. He said he ultimately gave in to Murphy so the beatings would end. He said the assaults continued for months and while he may have confused when the assaults took place, he lives with the memories every day.
Keefe, in his closing argument, said the state has not produced a witness to the alleged assaults or evidence to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and he asked the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.
Mekula, in her closing argument, said Meehan’s words alone are enough for a conviction. But she said there is much more evidence supporting what he said including timecards and operations and communication logs.
Meehan’s recollections of when the alleged assaults took place correspond with those documents, records he did not know existed when he went to police, she said.
She also said the defense wants to portray Meehan as a crazy person because he did research on the internet to try to understand what happened to him and why.
Mekula said Meehan came into the courtroom and told them about the most difficult, traumatic moments of his life “because they happened and because they are the truth. He told exactly how this defendant violently raped him.”
After the first assault, she reminded jurors, Meehan said Murphy called him a “little cocksucker” and left him crying in his room.
It is the third time Meehan has testified about what happened to him as a child at the YDC. Meehan made his allegations public in 2017 because his son was in trouble and he feared he would end up in YDC, later renamed the John H. Sununu Youth Services Center, and be raped.
When Meehan contacted law enforcement, the state launched an investigation into the YDC. Ultimately, 10 men were charged with abusing children detained there.
Meehan, three years later, filed a civil suit against the state. It was the first of about 1,500 cases brought by people sent to the YDC who alleged they were physically and/or sexually abused there.
Meehan’s civil case went to trial in 2024 in Rockingham County Superior Court. He testified he was sexually and physically assaulted hundreds of times by YDC staff while detained there for four years until he aged out at age 18.
The jury awarded Meehan $38 million. Within minutes of the verdict being announced, the state contended the jury’s verdict was legally limited to $475,000. That’s because the jury form was marked to indicate the state was liable for one incident that caused Meehan’s years of suffering and mental illness. Under state law, an incident is capped at $475,000.
Jurors were not told about the $475,000 limit per incident.
Jurors who contacted defense attorneys later said they meant he suffered from one case of PTSD resulting from hundreds of incidents of assaults.
Defense attorneys are appealing the judge’s ruling.
In Murphy’s trial, prosecutors introduced log books kept daily by the YDC staff. The communications log book contained notes staff would leave for employees on other shifts.
Bucca had Gene Murphy, a former YDC staffer, read some of those notes from 1998 which recorded discipline meted out to Meehan, which resulted in him being detained in his bedroom for weeks on end.