InDepthNH.org (https://indepthnh.org/author/damien-fisher-indepthnh-org/page/9/)
Two of the jurors who awarded David Meehan a record $38 million for the hundreds of rapes and beatings he suffered as a child while in state custody are shocked to learn the New Hampshire Attorney General’s office plans to cap the payout at $475,000.
The jury in Rockingham Superior Court is holding the state of New Hampshire to account for the rapes, beatings, and brutality suffered by David Meehan as a child, awarding him $38 million in damages which represents the largest amount awarded in a contested civil liability trial in state history.
As a child in state custody, his attorney says David Meehan was raped at least 200 times. He suffered almost as many beatings, and was forced into hellish solitary confinement for at least 100 days.
New Hampshire State Prison Warden Michelle Edmark claims she had to fire long-time Corrections Officer Claudia Cass Prescott for refusing to follow direct orders, and not because Cass Prescott was telling Department of Corrections leadership about the staffing crisis inside the state prison for men in Concord.
Daniel Meehan never saw any signs that his son, David Meehan, was being abused at home, nor did he ever know his child was getting raped and beaten by state employees.
David Meehan’s lawyers rested their case Monday after calling their final witness in the lawsuit arguing the state is liable for the horrific sexual and physical abuse against him at the Sununu Youth Services Center, then called YDC in Manchester.
State officials knew it had an abuse problem in its juvenile detention system in the early 1990s, before David Meehan says he was brutalized and raped for years by staff at the Sununu Youth Services Center, then called YDC.
A medical expert called to testify for David Meehan in his trailblazing lawsuit against the state testified Thursday he will need life-long Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment costing up to $1.5 million.
In the more than 20 years since David Meehan was released from the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, he’s struggled with addiction, depression and severe anxiety while having trouble holding a job and forming healthy relationships.