By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD — Jurors in the Saddleback Mountain Retreat sex abuse civil trial will have to determine what state officials knew about the abusive retreat owner before he raped and kidnapped a teen girl placed in his care decades ago.
But the stakes in Kristy Gesse’s civil trial, which started Monday in Merrimack Superior Court in Concord, go far beyond the Saddleback Mountain Retreat in Deerfield and owner Peter Tsetsilas.
Gesse, is one of hundreds of adults who say they were abused in group homes contracted by the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families to take in children who were wards of the state.
According to Gesse’s lawyer, David Vicinanzo, DCYF not only knew Peter Tsetsilas was an abuser, but it helped kill a previous sexual abuse investigation involving another teen girl placed at Saddleback by the state.
“They knew Peter Tsetsilas previously sexually abused a girl. They knew he was a child predator. They knew. They knew and they still sent young girls into his care for years,” Vicinanzo said during his opening statements Monday.
Gesse is using her name in her lawsuit now that the case is in front of a jury. She previously went by Jane Doe 73 in her complaint. The trial began Monday morning with opening statements before jurors were taken to the Saddleback property in Deerfield to view the buildings and grounds where Gesse says Tsetsilas began his abuse.
Saddleback closed for good in 1993, months after 16-year-old Gesse was finally rescued from a Concord motel where Tsetsilas was keeping her as a sex slave, according to Vicinanzo.
By the time she turned 16, Gesse was placed at Saddleback and put into the care of Peter and Beverly Tsetsilas, who are both now deceased.
Peter Tsetsilas soon started grooming Gesse for abuse, giving her gifts and isolating her from the other girls. He then started preying on her fear of getting put into the Sununu Youth Services Center, then known as the Youth Development Center or YDC, where stories of terrifying, abusive state employees were well known to children in the state care system.
During her time at Saddleback, Gesse’s case worker went to see her in person just one time, Vicinanzo said.
When Beverly Tsetsilas discovered that her husband was abusing Gesse, he reacted by taking the girl to Concord and checking her into a motel under an assumed name. Vicinanzo said Tsetsilas used the name of a different girl placed at Saddleback who had previously gone missing and was reported as a runaway.
Gesse was locked up at the motel for three weeks, during which she was raped and physically assaulted by Tsetsilas. Vicinanzo said she lost 20 pounds in the few months she spent with Peter and Beverly Tsetsilas, and was in poor health when she was rescued by Concord Police.
But, Gesse’s DCYF case worker didn’t see her for a week after she was rescued, and she was never given proper medical care after her ordeal, Vicinanzo said.
Peter Tsetsilas ended up pleading guilty to in 1994 to misdemeanor charges of child endangerment and interference of custody. Saddleback was shut down after Gesse was rescued from the motel, but it reopened in June of 1993 under Beverly Tsetsilas. However, it closed for good later that same month.
Deputy Solicitor General Sam Garland, who is leading the defense of the state, told jurors DCYF officials did nothing wrong. It’s a matter of private individuals committing crimes, and not state employees committing crimes, he said.
“This case concerns events that took place more than three decades ago. In 1993, Peter Tsetsilas, a private citizen who was not employed by the state of New Hampshire, committed serious crimes against [Gesse,]” Garland said.
Tsetsilas’ business, Saddleback Mountain Retreat, was never owned or operated by the state, Garland said, keeping the distance between DCYF and Tsetsilas front and center for the jury.
But Garland’s argument, and the state’s defense, started to come apart in February of this year when Vicinanzo’s team discovered documents that he was told did not exist. After state officials with the Department of Justice, the Department of Safety, the Department of Health and Human Services, and DCYF all said there were no longer any records of Gesse’s case, Saddleback’s state licensing, or any other complaints about Tsetsilas, Vicinanzo said he got a one page report with three lines indicating there were two other victims who came forward in the 1980s.
Vicinanzo was able to track down records for one of those victims, L.O., who in 1985 told New Hampshire State Trooper Michael Hureau that Tsetsilas repeatedly raped her while she was a resident at Saddleback. L.O.’s story of being groomed, isolated, and abused matches Gesse’s experience. Tsetsilas even threatened L.O. with placement inside YDC if she refused him, or told anyone, Vicinanzo said.
Hureau was never able to pursue a case against Tsetsilas in 1985 because that victim was pressured by DCYF officials to stop cooperating, according to Vicinanzo.
“While police were doing their investigation, [DCYF] officials were doing their best to undermine it. At every opportunity they tried to isolate and coerce [L.O.] to change her story, to take it back, recant. [They told her] that she was ruining this man and his family. The evidence will show that they did not want to hear her story and they ignored it,” Vicinanzo said.
There are about 300 adult survivors who have filed lawsuits against the state alleging they were abused in contracted care homes, and Gesse is the first to get a civil trial in front of a jury. These survivors are not eligible for the state’s Settlement Fund system created in 2023 for the Youth Development Center survivors.