By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — Jurors made short work of their deliberations, awarding $16 million to sexual abuse survivor Kristy Gesse who they found was raped 106 times after being placed in a group home contracted by the state.

But Tuesday’s verdict, announced around noon inside the Merrimack Superior Court in Concord, only requires the state to pay $4 million of the total. The remaining $12 million is the responsibility of dead abuser Peter Tsetsilas, his dead wife Beverly Tsetsilas, and the defunct group home, Saddleback Mountain Retreat in Deerfield.

Gesse’s attorney, David Vicinanzo, said Judge John Kissinger’s ruling to allow the jury to assign apportioned blame for the abuse is letting the state escape its responsibility for putting Gesse into a group home operated by a known predator.

“I believe the citizens in New Hampshire are decent people, and will not want to tolerate this sort of result where the state abuses children for many years, rapes children, and emotionally harms them for their entire lives, and then escapes full accountability, because they’re privileged as the state. I don’t think that the average citizen of New Hampshire actually thinks that is a good rule, and most people want their government to actually be held accountable for what it does,” Vicinanzo said.

Under Kissinger’s jury instructions, jurors apportioned 25 percent of the liability to the Department of Health and Human Services, 60 percent to Peter Tsetsilas, 10 percent to Beverly Tsetsilas who knew about the rapes and did not report them, and 5 percent to Saddleback, which closed in 1993 after Gesse was rescued.

Vicinanzo expects to appeal the verdict to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, saying the Kissinger allowed DHHS to blame Gesse’s rapes without facing consequences for facilitating the abuse. Gesse is the first of 300 other contractor home victims who claim they were physically or sexually abused in group homes contracted by the state.

“Because she’s a fighter, my guess is she will insist that we appeal to the Supreme Court and make our argument and convince the Supreme Court that the apportionment in this and other contractor cases is inappropriate,” Vicinanzo said. “They knew that Tsetsilas was a predator, and they put Kristy into his custody, essentially put her in the lion’s den, and he, being a predator, did what predators do and he abused her, raped her more than a hundred times.”

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office statement on the verdict thanked jurors for putting the onus on the deceased Tsetsilases, and not DHHS employees who knew he was a predator and worked to kill an earlier investigation into his rapes of a different girl.

“We respect the jury’s verdict and thank the jurors for their service. It is significant that the jury recognized that the individual who committed the criminal acts bears most of the liability for the plaintiff’s damages. We are grateful to our trial team for their professionalism and dedicated work and will review the verdict and determine appropriate next steps. We extend our sympathies to the plaintiff and acknowledge the difficulties she endured in bringing this case. Our commitment to protecting vulnerable children and serving the people of New Hampshire remains unwavering,” the statement reads.

Gesse was taken out of her abusive home at age 14, and placed at Saddleback in late 1992. Peter Tsetsilas raped her at least 106 times, both at the group home and motels in Concord where he kept her as a drugged sex slave for weeks. Her caseworker never visited Gesse in person after she was placed at Saddleback.

But DHHS knew in 1985 Peter Tsetsilas was an abuser. That’s when a different girl, L.O., came forward and reported he was repeatedly raping her at Saddleback. L.O.’s accusations never made it to criminal charges as DHHS employees pressured her to drop her claims and otherwise interfered with the State Police investigation. In 1988, DHHS renewed Saddleback’s group home license even though department policies dictated that the 1985 investigation should have ended its contractor status with the state.

After Gesse was rescued from the Concord motel, Peter Tsetsilas would be convicted of sexual assault and he later died. Beverly Tsetsilas was allowed by the state to reopen Saddleback  as a group home for neglected and abused girls in June of 1993, but she failed to make a go of the business even with the state contract. She has also since died.