Gesse Trial Opens With Explosive Claim: DCYF Sent Girls To Known Abuser

By Damien Fisher, NH Journal

Kristy Gesse began to cry Monday during the opening of her trial against the state of New Hampshire as her attorney, David Vicinanzo, described the sexual abuse Peter Tsetsilas allegedly committed against a teenage girl placed in his care by the Division for Children, Youth and Families.

But the emotional moment prompted by Vicinanzo’s opening statement to jurors was not about the abuse Gesse says she suffered. Vicinanzo was discussing what he said happened to a different girl nearly a decade before Tsetsilas raped Gesse.

And that other girl, identified only as L.O., tried to report her abuse to police, only to be stopped by people inside DCYF who were supposed to be protecting her, Vicinanzo said.

The result of DCYF’s efforts to quash L.O.’s report, he said, was that Tsetsilas kept his contract with the state and continued to house troubled teens at his Saddleback Mountain Retreat in Deerfield.

Eventually, that’s where DCYF sent Gesse in 1993.

“They knew. They knew. They knew he was a child predator. They knew, and they still sent young girls into his care for years,” Vicinanzo said.

Gesse is one of about 300 adult survivors suing the state, claiming they were physically and sexually abused as children in care homes and group facilities that contracted with DCYF. She is also the first of the contract-home survivors to have her case go before a jury. The trial began Monday in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord.

The Gesse-Saddleback trial has been described as a test of state liability for abuse in private facilities where children were placed by the state, separate from the main Youth Development Center facility litigation.

Deputy Solicitor General Sam Garland told jurors the state did not fail Gesse. The man responsible for her abuse was Peter Tsetsilas, not anyone inside state government, he said.

“This case concerns events that took place more than three decades ago. In 1993, Peter Tsetsilas, a private citizen who was not employed by the state of New Hampshire, committed serious crimes against [Gesse],” Garland said during his brief opening statement.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER Attorney David Vicinanzo gives the opening statement during the first day of the Kristy Gesse (at right) trial at Merrimack Superior Court in Concord on June 15, 2026. This is the second civil case involving YDC.

But how Gesse ended up under Tsetsilas’ control is on the state, Vicinanzo told jurors. They knew Tsetsilas was dangerous, he said.

Gesse experienced physical violence from her stepfather for years before she was removed by DCYF and eventually placed at Saddleback in early 1993. Once there, Peter Tsetsilas began isolating her, grooming her and, finally, repeatedly raping her, Vicinanzo said. Gesse was turned into his sex slave, he said.

That is almost the same scenario L.O. reported to police in 1985, according to Vicinanzo. Both girls also reported that Tsetsilas threatened to send them to the Sununu Youth Development Center if they ever refused him or told anyone about the abuse. Even then, Vicinanzo said, the horrific treatment of children inside YDC was an open secret in the foster-child community.

When DCYF officials learned L.O. was talking to police, they moved to kill the investigation, Vicinanzo said. Documents Vicinanzo obtained in February show DCYF officials pressured L.O. to stop talking to New Hampshire State Police Trooper Michael Hureau in 1985.

“[DCYF] staffers repeatedly urged her not to pursue charges against Peter T. The most common argument was that L.O. would ‘ruin’ that family ‘if she pursued charges.’ She was also warned that ‘it would take years’ and she could ‘free herself’ by ‘taking back’ the allegations,” Vicinanzo wrote in a pretrial motion.

The existence of L.O. and her 1985 report were not known until February, Vicinanzo said Monday during his opening statement. His legal team sent discovery requests to the Department of Justice, the Department of Safety, the Department of Health and Human Services, and DCYF. The response from the state, he said, was that almost no records of Gesse, Saddleback or Tsetsilas existed.

DAVID LANE/UNION LEADER. Sam Garland makes the opening statement for the state during the first day of the Kristy Gesse trial at Merrimack Superior Court in Concord on June 15, 2026. This is the second civil case involving YDC.

However, Vicinanzo’s team did get a one-page report with three entries on Tsetsilas indicating he had been investigated for sexual abuse in 1985. Vicinanzo’s team tracked down Hureau, now retired, who kept his own copy of the investigative report, Vicinanzo said.

“He had his own file in his basement. How come they didn’t have it at [State Police] headquarters?” Vicinanzo said.

L.O.’s case got trapped in limbo when she stopped cooperating with Hureau, Vicinanzo said. She would not have been able to pursue charges on her own but would have needed her DCYF caseworker’s help. However, DCYF did not want the abuse reported, Vicinanzo said.

“He was dependent on [DCYF] to get him the okay to go forward with the prosecution because [L.O.] was a ward of the state, a minor in state custody,” Vicinanzo said. “They never did.”

DCYF officials knew about the L.O. allegations when Gesse was sent to Saddleback, Vicinanzo said. Once she was under Peter Tsetsilas’ control, Gesse’s caseworker visited her once in the four months she was at Saddleback, he said. That should not be surprising, he argued, because almost none of the DCYF caseworkers in the 1990s were trained in spotting or preventing sexual abuse.

“The practice in [DCYF] was to presume the sexual abuse of children did not exist. This see-no-evil, hear-no-evil practice reflected something deeper in the culture at [DCYF],” Vicinanzo said. “Bad news made the agency look bad; it caused political problems; it could derail careers and cancel promotions. So, better to deny it existed.”

That attitude was entrenched by the time Gesse ended up at Saddleback, Vicinanzo said. When Peter Tsetsilas’ wife, Beverly Tsetsilas, discovered the abuse, he kidnapped Gesse and checked her into a Concord motel under an assumed name, according to Vicinanzo.

There, Gesse was held prisoner for nearly a month while Tsetsilas continued to beat and rape her daily, Vicinanzo said. When Concord police finally rescued Gesse, she was an underweight, beaten child. Her DCYF caseworker waited a week before seeing Gesse in person and never got her the appropriate follow-up medical care, Vicinanzo said.

Hanging over Gesse’s trial is the fate of the David Meehan jury verdict. Meehan is the first and, so far, only YDC survivor to have his case heard by a jury. In 2024, that jury awarded him $38 million in damages based on the state’s role in enabling and covering up hundreds of rapes.

But the state has argued the verdict should be reduced under New Hampshire’s $475,000-per-incident sovereign immunity cap. The New Hampshire Supreme Court is now reviewing that issue after an appeal from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Until the Supreme Court rules in the Meehan case, no other YDC lawsuit can move forward under an ordered stay.

That stay does not stop the 300 contractor-home cases like Gesse’s. It is possible she and the other contractor-home survivors could be awarded tens of millions of dollars each. And because survivors like Gesse are not eligible for the state’s YDC Settlement Fund, they have no incentive to settle their claims through that process.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.