The accuser in the first criminal trial connected to the YDC abuse scandal described being raped as a teenager by a former state employee several times in 2001. She told jurors: “I remember having this gut-wrenching feeling that this is never going to end.”
Natasha Maunsell testified for several hours Tuesday in the high-profile criminal trial of Victor Malavet, 62. It is the first criminal trial since the Attorney General’s office announced a sweeping investigation into claims of child abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly known as the Youth Development Center (YDC).
Although Malavet was charged in connection with the state’s criminal investigation into YDC, he is accused of committing crimes at the former Youth Detention Services Unit in Concord, a separate but similar facility.
Malavet’s attorneys maintain Maunsell’s story is a lie motivated by money. Maunsell is among the more than one thousand people who have sued the state seeking monetary damages over alleged child abuse at various youth facilities in New Hampshire.
Maunsell told the jury Malavet, who worked as a youth counselor, gave her special attention at YDSU, discussing Biblical scripture with her and giving her good marks for behavior.
Maunsell said one day, Malavet asked her to accompany him to a storage room to get candy for the other children held at YDSU. It was in this storage room that Maunsell says Malavet raped her for the first time. Maunsell was 16 years old.
“He pulls me close to him and he starts to kiss me and I pull back and that’s when everything changed,” said Maunsell, adding, “That’s when I understood what was happening.” Maunsell told jurors Malavet then forced her to perform oral sex, then vaginally raped her.
Maunsell said during the assault she noticed a scar from a gunshot wound on Malavet’s abdomen.
Maunsell also described several other alleged rapes by Malavet in various areas of the juvenile detention center over the span of several months in 2001.
“I went right back to the dayroom and sat with the other kids. That’s what I did every time after,” said Maunsell.
In 2002, police interviewed Maunsell as part of investigation into whether Malavet had an inappropriate relationship with Maunsell.
“I was afraid of what might happen to me if I had told on their staff and told them what happened to me and what was happening to me and what Victor [Malavet] had done to me,” she said. “So, I had lied to them. And I said that Victor [Malavet] was a Christian brother.”
Maunsell says after she lied to investigators, the next time she saw Malavet, he made the American Sign Language sign for “I love you” with his hand through the window to her cell and said, “Thank you.” Maunsell understood that to mean Malavet was grateful that she did not make any allegations against him.
Maunsell told jurors she decided to come forward to law enforcement in 2020 after someone who had been detained with her at YDC contacted her on Facebook regarding the abuse allegations there. The first civil complaints alleging abuse at YDC were filed in January of 2020.
On cross examination, Malavet’s attorneys emphasized that fact that the first time Maunsell made her allegations was to Rus Rilee, an attorney who represents the vast majority of alleged YDC victims in ongoing civil lawsuits. Rilee’s name is listed on the defendant’s witness list and may testify.
“You’d agree there is money to be gained in a civil suit?” asked Malavet’s attorney, Maya Dominguez, underscoring the defense’s case that Maunsell changed her story only after she saw an opportunity to benefit financially.
Earlier this year, the state was found civilly liable for having allowed child abuse at the former Youth Development Center in Manchester. A jury awarded a historic $38 million to David Meehan, the first person to sue the state over allegations of child abuse at YDC, though that verdict is still in dispute.
Dominguez returned to the 2002 investigation where Maunsell denied that Malavet had been inappropriate with her, citing a transcript of an interview of Maunsell by a DHHS ombudsman, where the ombudsman assures Maunsell she is there to make sure Maunsell isn’t being abused, and that her responses would not be shared with YDSU staff.
“At one point, she specifically asks you if you and Victor [Malavet] had ever kissed. And you denied that?” asked Dominguez. Maunsell replied, “Yes.”
Dominguez also highlighted the fact that Maunsell was visited frequently at YDSU by her father and other family members and that she had an attorney with whom she met privately.
Maunsell, who is now 39, testified that sometime as an adult, although she could not say when, she confided in her father that she had lied to investigators in 2002.
Dominguez confronted Maunsell with a transcript of her interview with state police investigators in 2020. During the interview, investigators asked Maunsell if they could contact her father to corroborate her story. According to the transcript, Maunsell asked the investigators if she could contact her father first.
“You wanted to give him a heads up before [the police] spoke with him?” asked Dominguez.
“Just about a phone call, the fact that they were calling,” replied Maunsell.
Dominguez also attacked the implication that Malavet had any unique power over Maunsell compared to other staff, pointing out he had no supervisory powers and that there were other staffers who had chosen Maunsell for certain privileges.
Maunsell’s testimony is scheduled to resume on Wednesday.
