By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
The state says a man who alleges that he was abused while held at Mount Prospect Academy lost his right to seek justice because of the statute of limitations, but the New Hampshire Supreme Court is being asked to allow the lawsuit to go forward.
The case of John Doe 533, who claims he was subjected to physical abuse, illegal and painful restraints, and solitary confinement as a 13-year-old, was dismissed when the Superior Court ruled the statute of limitations for his complaint expired by the time he filed his lawsuit.
But his attorney, David Vicinanzo, argued before the court on Tuesday that John Doe is essentially being punished for not knowing the law when he was an abused 13-year-old. John Doe, as a child, did not know that the abusive practices at Mount Prospect were illegal, Vicinanzo said.
“It’s different when it’s a kid. It’s different when you’re 13 years old, and you have no advantages in life, and if you’ve already been abused, you’ve already been traumatized, and you have parents that are incompetent and that’s why you end up at a place like MPA, or YDC,” Vicinanzo said.
The law has long recognized that children do not have fully formed brains at 13, and are not able to reason the same way as adults, Vicinanzo said. In this case, John Doe 533 didn’t like his treatment at Mount Prospect, but came to believe it was normal.
“And he is told by the Mount Prospect staff that what’s happening to you is normal, it’s discipline, it’s what you deserve, ’cause you’re a bad kid. And he internalized that, and he came to believe that,” Vicinanzo said.
John Doe 533 didn’t know that what he experienced as a child was wrong, and that Mount Prospect and the state could be held to account, until he spoke to his pastor in the last couple of years, Vicinanzo said.
The case is similar to former Bishop Guertin High School student Larissa Troy, whose sexual abuse lawsuit was allowed to go forward even though the statute of limitations in that case seemed to have expired, Vicinanzo said. Troy did not bring her complaint against the school until 2018, years after the legal expiration date passed. But the Supreme Court ruled that the statute of limitations clock did not start until she became aware in 2017 that Bishop Guertin had knowingly hired a convicted sexual offender. That offender, Brother Shawn McEnany, is the man Troy alleges of assaulting her as a teen in 1992. Troy and the school reached a settlement last year.
John Doe 533 is one of about 130 people forced by the state to attend Mount Prospect as children who are now suing over the abuse they suffered. Part of the wider Sununu Youth Services Center sex abuse scandal, independent institutions like Mount Prospect that contracted with the state to take in children in state care are now facing allegations of abuse.
Mount Prospect emailed the following comment on Feb. 2: “First and foremost, we recognize that most youth who go through residential treatment programs are there because they have experienced significant trauma in their lives. The students and families we serve depend on us to provide structure, skills, healing, and, most importantly, hope. We support our students, regardless of their life experiences, in overcoming their obstacles and realizing their potential.
“The legal process exists for a reason, we are actively engaged in it, and the dismissal was correct under the law.
“We are proud of the decades of compassionate care we have provided to thousands of children and families through our safe, trauma-informed, evidence-based treatment and services.”
Jeffrey Caron, the president of Mount Prospect, was charged with DUI in 2016, but pleaded guilty to a reckless driving charge, which is a violation-level offense, after he drove his car into a utility pole in Lebanon. He also pleaded guilty to transporting drugs in his car in the same incident. Caron was head of Mount Prospect at the time of the accident.
Caron founded a non-profit company that now has a multi-million contract with the state of Vermont providing services for troubled youth in school settings similar to Mount Prospect.
A staffer at one of the Vermont schools that Caron’s company operates, the Vermont School For Girls, was charged last year for alleged sexual misconduct with a student. Elvis Mata-Capellan, a former dorm supervisor at the Vermont School for Girls, was charged with 12 felonies, including sexual assault, sexual exploitation of a minor and obstruction of justice.
According to Vermont newspaper Seven Days, Mata-Capellan isn’t the only Caron employee at the Vermont School for Girls to allegedly abuse a student. Morris David Nelson, the math teacher at the school who was convicted in 2017 of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old student, also had a criminal record, for assault and distributing controlled substances.
In 2021, the Vermont Permanency Initiative, Caron’s nonprofit that runs the Vermont School for Girls, paid Nelson’s victim, a New Hampshire resident, $250,000 to settle a civil lawsuit, according to Seven Days. The victim claimed the school was negligent in hiring Nelson and for failing to report abuse to New Hampshire’s Division for Children, Youth and Families. The school did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.
CORRECTION: The previous version erroneously said Jeffrey Caron pleaded guilty to DUI in 2016, when in fact he was charged with DUI, but pleaded guilty to a reckless driving charge, which is a violation-level offense.