By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

Ronald Miles got sick when he watched Rep. Ken Weyler, R-Kingston, accuse Sununu Youth Services Center sexual abuse victims of lying.

“It is such an ignorant, cruel, deplorable statement. He used malice against me and all the other victims when he said that,” Miles said. The Center was then called the Youth Development Center or YDC in Manchester.

Miles is one of more than a thousand YDC victims now suing the state for the decades of child abuse it allowed. Miles gave InDepthNH permission to use his name in public for the first time to counter Weyler’s comments made during last week’s House Finance-Division 1 Committee hearing, chaired by Rep. Dan McGuire, R-Epsom.

Rep. Weyler, a veteran lawmaker with a history for outlandish and offensive commentary, is the chairman of the House Finance Committee.

During the Finance Division-1 committee hearing, Weyler criticized the amount of money the YDC victims are seeking from the state, claimed the victims were people who “misspent” their opportunities, and said some are faking the abuse in order to get money out of the state.

“We can’t break the budget with this ridiculousness for people who haven’t obeyed the rules and oh you’re rewarded, rewarded for what, a misspent life? It just doesn’t make sense to me that someone who got abused, abused others and abused themselves should be rewarded and that’s the way it looks and someone on the streets says, ‘YDC, I’ll just say they abused me and I’ll become a millionaire.’ This is the example we’re setting,” Weyler said during the hearing.

Miles, who owns and operates a construction company in another state, could not believe what Weyler was saying.

“It made me feel worthless, like I don’t count,” Miles said. “In a nutshell, he’s basically saying ‘I don’t care what happened to you. We don’t want to take responsibility for it. They deserved the abuse.’”

Contacted Friday, Weyler did not back down from his comments, but said his main concern is the amount of money the victims are getting.

“It isn’t that I don’t believe them, it’s that the rewards they are receiving are out of line,” Weyler said.

Weyler said the YDC victims currently suing the state are looking to score an easy payday, which they will then squander on an unhealthy lifestyle.

“What are you going to do when you get a pile of money? You’re probably going to spend it on drugs and alcohol,” Weyler said. 

Weyler then told InDepthNH he heard one YDC victim say they planned to go to Las Vegas with money they got from the state. Asked for details on the Las Vegas comment, Weyler said it was made by someone calling in to a talk radio program.

Weyler, just like other officials in current state leadership, has never talked to a YDC victim, and has never offered an apology for the abuse they suffered at the hands of state workers while incarcerated as children. Instead, he said his past tours of YDC facilities as a lawmaker tasked with oversight helped inform his views.

“When I looked there, they were being given an education and housed and fed better than they had before. I never saw abuse,” Weyler said.

Miles didn’t just see the abuse. He lived it. 

Starting soon after he was placed in the now defunct Philbrook Center in Concord, a staffer started coming into his room to rape him, Miles said.

“A lot of times, during rapes, he would cover my mouth so I couldn’t scream in pain. I was a little boy at the time,” Miles said.

After years of bouncing in and out of state-run facilities, or state contracted facilities like Pine Haven in Allenstown where he suffered more abuse, Miles was left an emotionally broken young man with a fifth-grade education.

“I wasn’t broken until I went into [Philbrook.] They broke me. They took everything away and left me with a head full of trauma, a bunch of confusion, and any time I did something wrong in society they held me accountable,” Miles said. “When are they going to be held accountable?”

Miles said Weyler’s comments are part of a false narrative that he and the other YDC victims are liars, criminals and addicts who are looking for easy money. It’s offensive, and not true, Miles said.

“This wasn’t about money for me, I have money. Now it is about money, since this is the only thing that will get their attention,” Miles said.

Miles doesn’t need a large settlement from the state. He overcame his childhood and lack of education to turn himself into a successful business owner who reads construction blueprints and negotiates million dollar deals.

“I grossed almost $2 million last year,” Miles said.

Miles wants accountability and justice. That’s not what he’s seeing from Weyler, or anyone else in state government.

“The state, and their representatives, can’t even do something that wouldn’t cost them a single red cent, and that is to apologize to the victims,” Miles said. “Is the state of New Hampshire different, they don’t have to have consequences for their negative actions?”

This isn’t the first time Weyler brought negative attention to the House. In 2021, the Finance Committee Chairman distributed a discredited conspiracy theory manifesto to his fellow committee members that claimed the COVID-19 vaccine contains a microscopic tentacle creature and is part of an evil plot to control the world. The villains behind the world-domination plot are the Catholic Church and the nefarious “Black Pope,” and the possibly less evil but still bad “Grey Pope.” At the time, Weyler said he first heard about the plot while listening to talk radio.

“Why are people like Ken Weyler still in positions of power?” Miles asked. 

Amanda Grady Sexton, Director of Public Affairs for the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, said comments like Weyler’s do not represent the majority of the legislature.

“It’s important that we remind victims of sexual violence that a bipartisan majority of lawmakers in New Hampshire have been supportive of the YDC settlement fund and funding for programs that prevent and end abuse. Polling has consistently shown that Granite Staters care deeply about victims’ rights and want their elected officials to focus on public safety this coming session, not cuts to victim services or compensation,” Grady Sexton said.

But Miles is troubled by the way New Hampshire is responding to the abuse scandal, illustrated by the continued refusal to offer an apology or have anyone in leadership meet with the victims. It all looks to Miles that the state is continuing to ignore the victims and the abuse. That should trouble everyone.

“If you can’t even apologize for years and years of abuse, how can you say it won’t keep happening?” Miles said.