Man guilty of holding teen down while he was raped at youth center

By NICK PERRY, Associated Press

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire jury on Tuesday found a former juvenile detention center guilty of holding down a teenager while he was raped in 1998.

Bradley Asburynow 70, was found guilty on two counts of complicity to aggravated sexual assault. He faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years on each charge. The jury deliberated for three days after one four-day trial period.

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 the help of a co-worker while a third co-worker raped the teen and a fourth forced him to perform a sex act.

It was the second criminal trial to emerge from a wide-ranging 2019 investigation into long-term abuse at the center. Asbury is one of 11 men who worked there or at an associated facility in Concord who were arrested.

The case hinged on the testimony of Gilpatrick, now 41. He said he had struggled to cope with the attack for years and that talking about it during 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 see it happening, but I can’t do anything,” he testified. “I just wasn’t there. But there.”

After the verdict was read Tuesday afternoon, Gilpatrick cried and hugged family members. Asbury shook his head as he was handcuffed and thanked his family and supporters as he was led away.

Gilpatrick got into several heated arguments during cross-examination, at one point calling the attorney a “sick man” as the attorney urged him to repeat his claim of rape over and over.

During closing arguments, the attorney, David Rothstein, said, “I want to apologize to anyone I may have upset during that conversation, or any other conversation.”

Rothstein said that Gilpatrick lived in an imaginary world in which he created villains to explain things that had gone wrong in his life.

“Mike Gilpatrick falsely accused Brad Asbury of a crime that not only did he not commit, but was, in any form, virtually impossible to commit,” Rothstein said.

He said there were no eyewitnesses or corroborating evidence, and that Gilpatrick had changed crucial details over time to fit the story. He said such an attack on an open staircase in the center of the facility would have been seen or heard by someone else.

He said Gilpatrick was motivated by money, pointing out that he had already received more than $146,000 against an expected payout from a related civil case.

The prosecutor said Gilpatrick could not perfectly remember all the events surrounding the rape, but had always been consistent in his memory of the main event. He couldn’t tell anyone at the time, the prosecutor said, because Asbury was in charge.

“Instead of guiding Mike, counseling him and showing him a better way to live his life, these four adult men, including the defendant, betrayed trust,” said Assistant Attorney General Adam Woods .