By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
James Woodlock’s apparent double life finally caught up with him, as the respected husband, father and leader was sentenced to prison on Wednesday for his role in sexual assaults that took place inside the Sununu Youth Services Center, also known as YDC.
Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge William Delker imposed two consecutive 10- to 20-year sentences after hearing Woodlock’s family and friends insist on his goodness and innocence despite the guilty findings by a jury.
“The sad reality of crimes like this is that even the most revered and respected members of our society engage in this unthinkable conduct. And it’s, in fact, that very veneer of respectability that allows perpetrators to commit these crimes. The unfortunate reality of cases like this is that the named victims like Mr. [David] Meehan are not the only ones who suffer. Your friends and family are victims because they trusted you and your actions betrayed that trust,” Delker said.
The jury found Woodlock, 60, guilty on two counts of acting as an accomplice in the rapes of Meehan, who was in state custody inside the YDC system in the late 1990s. Meehan is one of the key YDC survivors who came forward to expose the rampant abuse inside the system. His testimony was central to the state’s case against Woodlock.
“David Meehan provided some of the most vivid and compelling testimony that I have heard in my 14 years of experience on this bench,” Delker said. “The acts of violence that you and your accomplices perpetrated on him were hard to listen to, much less to think about.”
Meehan told Delker Wednesday he wanted to make sure no other child was abused inside YDC. He asked the judge to impose the strongest sentence possible.
“That 16-year-old boy is still inside me. He has waited almost three decades for an adult in authority to say, ‘What happened to you was wrong, and no child will ever be hurt like that again on my watch today,'” Meehan said.
Amanda Grady Sexton, Director of Public Affairs, New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, said Wednesday’s hearing shows that victims of child sexual abuse like Meehan can use their voices for justice.
“David Meehan’s courage in coming forward has changed the trajectory of this case and exposed a history of horrific abuse that never should have happened. Today is the result of a survivor who refused to be silenced and a legal system finally beginning to reckon with its past. We stand with David and with every survivor whose childhood was stolen at YDC. Justice must continue, and we will not stop advocating until every survivor is heard, believed, and supported,” Grady Sexton said in a statement.
Delker told Woodlock that Wednesday’s sentence is about holding him accountable, providing some measure of justice to Meehan, and telling other victims of child sexual assault that the criminal justice system will listen to them and do the right thing.
“[Those victims] need to know they can come forward and the criminal justice system will take them seriously,” Delker said.
Delker’s concern about justice for the victims of the YDC abuse scandal does not seem to be shared by the state as a whole. Minutes after Meehan was awarded $38 million by the jury in his civil trial last year, New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella announced that he would fight that verdict.
Formella argues that Meehan should only get $475,000 in damages thanks to the state’s sovereign immunity laws. Meehan testified during that trial he was tortured, beaten, and raped hundred of times as a child by YDC staffers. The jury found the state was complicit in covering up that abuse.
The legal controversy over Meehan’s damages award is currently being pondered by the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
After Woodlock’s sentence was announced, Formella issued a statement that his office plans to continue to hold abusers accountable.
“This sentence reflects the seriousness of the defendant’s conduct and makes clear that this type of abuse has no place in New Hampshire,” the statement reads.
The Department of Justice task force dedicated to investigating and prosecuting YDC abusers managed to indict 11 men out of hundreds of named abusers. Those indictments came in 2021, and there have been no new arrests or indictments since.