By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — Records discovered in the Saddleback Mountain Retreat sex abuse lawsuit show state officials knew about the disturbing allegations against group home owner Peter Tsetsilas, but the state doesn’t have those records.

In fact, DHHS Chief Legal Counsel Frank Nachman testified on Monday that the state found almost no records related to Saddleback, which was shut down in 1993 after Tsetsilas was arrested for kidnapping and raping one of the girls placed in his facility by the state.

Nachman led the search for records in the lawsuit brought by survivor Kristy Gesse and testified Monday he could not find much. Scouring file cabinets and basements, and combing through electronic records, Nachman and his team produced a handful of pages.

“I think we located a copy of [Saddleback’s] license,” Nachman said.

But lawyers for Gesse, who originally filed her lawsuit against the state as Jane Doe 73 before coming forward with her identity, already showed jurors in Merrimack Superior Court the documents they found without help from Nachman or the state. Those documents indicate that leaders in the agency that became the Division for Children, Youth and Families not only knew Tsetsilas was accused of raping a teen referred to as L.O. in 1985, but helped kill the police investigation into those allegations.

‘[DCYF] staffers repeatedly urged her not to pursue charges against Peter T. The most common argument was that L.O. would ‘ruin’ that family ‘if she pursued charges.’ She was also warned that ‘it would take years’ and she could ‘free herself’ by ‘taking back’ the allegations,” Gesse’s attorney David Vicinanzo wrote in a pre-trial motion citing the 1985 reports.

But those 1985 reports, kept in a basement office by the now retired State Police Trooper who investigated the 1985 case, are just part of what should be available. There are no records of any regular background investigation for Saddleback owners Peter and Beverly Tsetsilas, no Saddleback facility inspections, no records of any reports against either Tsetsilas, and no records of the 1993 DCYF investigation into Gesse’s case conducted after she was rescued from the Concord motel where Peter Tsetsilas kept her as a sex slave.

Under questioning from another Geese lawyer, Nathan Warecki, Nachman testified he also failed to find any state documents or memos authorizing the records related to Saddleback or Gesse to be destroyed. Under current practice, such destruction memos are required when documents are destroyed, Nachman said. 

Nachman’s time on the witness stand highlights a serious problem for the state. The lack of supporting records in Gesse’s case could be seen as gross incompetence, at best, by the people who are tasked with protecting children from abuse and neglect. At worst, it was an effort at an intentional coverup of the sexual abuse of a teen girl facilitated by the state.

Deputy Solicitor General Sam Garland, struggling to keep the lawsuit from spinning out of control, asked Nachman if he ever knew of DCYF or other Department of Health and Human Services employees improperly destroying documents.

“I’m not aware of that ever happening,” Nachman said.

Improper evidence destruction is a serious matter, according to Nachman, and DHHS staffers know they could get in trouble for such behavior.

“They could face consequences,” Nachman said.

But it was Gesse who suffered the real consequences for DHHS and DCYF failures. As an abused teen, she was placed at the Deerfield residential group home in late 1992. Soon, Tsetsilas began grooming her and isolating her from the other girls so that he could rape her, according to court records. When Beverly Tsetsilas became aware of the abuse, she got angry with her husband, but didn’t report him or stop him. 

To avoid trouble with his wife, Peter Tsetsilas reported Gesse had run away, kidnapped her, and checked her into the motel where she was held hostage for close to a month. There, the increasingly violent Tsetsilas raped her almost daily and threatened to kill her.

When Concord Police rescued Gesse, DCYF officials had reported her missing for about a week. The discrepancy might be explained by the fact Gesse’s DCYF caseworker managed to see her in person once during her four month stay at Saddleback.

The trial, which started last week, could go to the jury by the end of this week. Gesse’s legal team expects to finish presenting witnesses by Wednesday. The state will be calling a handful of witnesses to make the case that Gesse’s abuse is not DCYF’s fault.