By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD – Restoring the structure of the selection of the Youth Development Center child abuse claims administrator to the state’s Supreme Court was supported by all who testified Thursday, including several victims and their lawyers.

State Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, who is sponsoring the bill, called the changes to the appointment process of a Youth Development Center claims administrator a “profound injustice” which occurred during the budget without debate last year.

Altschiller urged it be reversed.

What is not in the new bill is a return to the process that allowed attorneys up-front payments. None of the lawyers who spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday said they had a problem with leaving it as a system where they are paid over time.

The focus for the bill, Altschiller said “is about whether the state keeps its promise to the most vulnerable who are survivors of rape and physical abuse at the former Youth Development Center.”

She said the original idea of allowing these individuals to avoid a traumatic trial through a settlement with a fund administrator was a good one.

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice John Broderick was selected by the Supreme Court as administrator in 2022 and served until he said he was forced out last July when the change in the law was made.

There are currently about 1,530 pending claims with a potential exposure to the state of $1.8 billion. The fund has about $127 million now but could receive more if the state sells the current Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly known as YDC, in Manchester as it plans.

Since the change last June, the governor has not nominated someone to replace Broderick and the process of claims administration has not restarted, which some lawyers said is further victimizing those who were abused as children by state employees.

Altschiller said now the victims have three options “all terrible:” to go before a political appointee knowing that the attorney general can veto any settlement. They can reject an inadequate offer and go to trial but then they face years of delay in a public trial. Or she said, they can give up entirely which she argued benefits the state.

Altschiller said one victim, David Meehan, was strong enough to endure a trial. He was awarded a $38 million settlement but the state is arguing it be reduced to $475,000 which is now the subject of a pending Supreme Court case.

She said her bill restores the system as designed, returns to the judicial branch to appoint the administrator and eliminates the veto power and restores good cause as a standard for removal.

Altschiller said it returns to bipartisan compromise that protects both sides – survivors and state.
“I know you are loyal to this governor,” she said to fellow members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a majority of whom are Republicans.

But she urged them to be loyal to something greater: fairness.

“Would you want your trauma to be brought before a judge chosen by the person who harmed you?” Altschiller asked.

This echoed words of Broderick last summer when he told InDepthNH.org.

“In what world does the defendant get to go in before the trial and say, ‘I would like to pick the judge. I can replace the judge. We can overrule the jury.’ We would laugh at that. It would be funny except we are not talking about children who were sent to bed without TV. They were sexually and physically abused and this went on 50 years,” Broderick said.

Altschiller said these were children. “Vulnerable, broken children,” and this state failed them for 50 years.
“We cannot fail them again.”

VICTIMS WANT A RETURN FOR JUSTICE

Joelle Wiggin, a victim specialist of nearly 20 years who has been working with the victims in these cases said she has listened to “excruciating details” of people who were vulnerable children whose stories were buried for decades “in order to survive.”

The fund, she said, offered something to them that was hopeful. Survivors were given a structure and an ability to tell their story fully and not be rushed, she said.

“For many, it was the first time that someone believed them,” she said.

Healing cannot begin when someone is stuck in the middle of a process, she said. While the financial settlement mattered to those who completed the process, it is also the acknowledgement that the state failed them which is important.

She said in the past year since the change and the halting of the settlements, she has witnessed fear and people feeling that this was a betrayal and the state is turning its back on them, that they will no longer reach a fair resolution.

Three men, now in their late 40s to early 60s, testified. Jeff Merrill said he was first victimized at the former Anna Philbrook Center. He said he was urged to look at the settlement fund, but wanted to put it behind him and did not agree to do anything until 2020 when he said he reached out to attorney Rus Riley.

Finally, he said “Somebody gave a shit.”

“The state should be accountable,” he said.

He said he supported the bill and a return to an independent administrator.

Johnnie Plaisted, 47, another survivor, said he began to be victimized by people who were supposed to protect him from such horrors when he was 13.

“It’s like I am back 13 again…in a room ….feeling I was a bad person…after dealing with everything. The place was so bad that I escaped and was AWOL for three years. I couldn’t go to school. I couldn’t do what a normal child would do. The state robbed me of it. And now this big slap in my face. It has all been switched around,” he said.

“But I am a true survivor. And not just me. there are others. The fund was going in the right direction. We were not going to have to go out in public,” he said.

“I shouldn’t even have to be here fighting for my rights,” he said. “You guys have the power to change this back,” and he urged them to do so.

Chuck Miles, 58, of West Palm Beach, Florida came to testify in support of the bill. He, too, described himself as a victim at the hands of the state. He called the change a stall tactic that could financially implode New Hampshire.

“I want some justice for this,” he said. “John Broderick was a beacon of hope to me.”

He said the legislature made the change without input from the victims. Miles said Broderick could sift through potential fraudsters.

“He was the perfect person for that position. It was to be a fair and mutual process. He was a fair and mutual decider…a beacon of hope to me. I’m tired of being angry. My brain hurts from this,” he said.

Attorneys also testified in support of SB 558.

Mark Knights, attorney, with Rus Riley representing the majority of the survivors who have chosen the settlement fund route, supported the structural neutrality, independence of decision making and claimant confidence in the settlement fund before it changed.

“All understand the concept of a kangaroo court,” he said. “That the process is preordained.”

In the months that have passed since the change, a number of survivors have left the fund and resumed their court cases, Knights said.

Absent restoration of that neutrality, additional withdrawals are likely.