CONCORD, NH — The first criminal case linked to New Hampshire’s expansive childhood abuse scandal ended in a mistrial on Tuesday after a jury could not reach a verdict on charges against a former juvenile detention center employee accused of raping a teenage girl in 2001.
Victor Malavet, 62, is one of them nine men was charged in the five-year investigation into allegations of abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, even though, unlike the others, he worked at a separate state-run facility in Concord.
After about 11 hours of deliberation spread over three days, jurors failed to agree on the 12 counts of aggravated sexual assault.
The jurors had declared they were deadlocked two hours earlier, but Judge Dan St. Hilaire ordered them to proceed. He declared a mistrial after receiving a letter from the jury that read, “After additional time and careful deliberation, we are still unable to reach a unanimous decision on any charge.”
During the four-day trial, Natasha Maunsell, who was 15 and 16 when she was held in prison in 2001 and 2002, testified that Malavet was frequently alone with her in a candy storage room, the laundromat and other locations and that she repeatedly raped her.
“I remember having this gut-wrenching feeling that this was never going to end. This was never going to stop and it was going to continue the same way every time,” she testified.
Malavet did not testify, and his attorneys called no witnesses in his defense. But jurors heard him deny the allegations Thursday during testimony from a police officer who had been allowed to secretly record her interview with him in April 2021.
“The only relationship I had with her and all the children was a professional relationship,” he said.
Malavet’s lawyers argued that Maunsell fabricated the allegations to obtain money from a lawsuit. Maunsell is one of more than 1,100 former residents who charges filed claims that abuse has been taking place for six decades and that approximately $150,000 in loans before a settlement is reached.
“It’s all lies. Money changes everything, but it can’t change the truth,” defense attorney Jaye Duncan said in her closing argument.
Both sides declined to comment after the mistrial was declared. The judge said a status conference would be held before the trial was rescheduled. In a statement, Attorney General John Formella called the outcome disappointing but said his office remains committed to prosecuting abusers.
In the only civil case to come to court so far, jury awards David Meehan $38 million in May for abuse he claims he suffered in the 1990s at the Youth Development Center, although the verdict remains in dispute.
Together, the two trials highlight the unusual dynamic of the state attorney general’s office simultaneously prosecuting those accused of having committed crimes and defend the state. While attorneys for the state spent much of Meehan’s trial portraying him as a violent childa difficult teenager and a delusions of an adultprosecutors based their case on Mansell’s testimony in the criminal case.
Normally, the Associated Press does not identify people who say they were sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Maunsell has done.
During the trial, Maunsell acknowledged that she denied being sexually abused when asked about it in 2002, 2017 and 2019. She said she lied the first time because she was still in the facility and feared reprisals, and again later because she thought no one would believe her.
“It was so long ago that I thought no one would care,” she said. “I thought no one would care … so I held on for a long time.”
