A New Hampshire jury on Tuesday found a former leader at a youth detention center guilty of holding down a teen while he was raped in 1998.
The jury deliberated over three days following a four-day trial.
Bradley Asbury, now 70, was found guilty on both counts of being an accomplice to aggravated sexual assault. He faces a maximum prison term of 20 years on each count.
Asbury served as a house leader at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester. He was accused of restraining 14-year-old Michael Gilpatrick on a staircase with help from a colleague, while a third staffer raped the teen and a fourth forced him to perform a sex act.
It was the second criminal trial to stem from a broad 2019 investigation into longstanding abuse at the center. Asbury is among 11 men who worked there or at an associated facility in Concord who were arrested.
The case turned on the testimony of Gilpatrick, now 41. He said he’d struggled to cope with the attack for many years and that talking about it at the trial was part of a healing process.
He said he wanted to hold the perpetrators accountable and recalled having an out-of-body experience during the attack.
“I can see it happening, but I can’t do anything,” he testified. “I was just not there. But there.”
Gilpatrick got into several heated exchanges during cross-examination, and at one point called the defense lawyer a “sick man” as the attorney urged him to repeat his claim of rape over and over.
During closing arguments, the lawyer, David Rothstein, said “I want to apologize to anyone I may have upset during that exchange, or any other exchange.”
Rothstein said Gilpatrick lived in an imaginary world in which he’d created villains to explain things that had gone wrong in his life.
“Mike Gilpatrick falsely accused Brad Asbury of a crime that he not only didn’t commit, but which, in every shape and form, was virtually impossible to commit,” Rothstein said.
He said there were no eyewitnesses or corroborating pieces of evidence, and that Gilpatrick had changed crucial details over time to suit the narrative. He said such an attack on an open staircase in the middle of the facility would have been seen or heard by somebody else.
He said Gilpatrick was motivated by money, pointing out he’d already received more than $146,000 against an anticipated payout from a related civil case.
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