State Drops Case Against Alleged YDC Abuser Malavet

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH

When prosecutors called Sununu Youth Development Center sex abuse survivor Natasha Maunsell this week to tell her they were dropping the case against Victor Malavet, part of her was relieved.

“My soul would be treacherously ripped apart if I had to go through that all again,” Maunsell told InDepthNH.org.

Malavet, 63, was heading for a third trial on a dozen felony sex abuse charges accusing him of grooming and raping Maunsell when she was a teen inside the YDC detention system and he was a youth counselor. The first two trials against Malavet ended in mistrials, and the state notified Merrimack County Superior Court this week it was pulling the plug on the third.

And while Maunsell is happy she won’t have to tell her story to a third jury, that she won’t have to open up about the worst things that happened to her as a child in front of a group of strangers, she’s frustrated by the end result. Victor Malavet, the man she says raped her, is free.

“It's unbelievable that he's not punished, it's unbelievable he's not held accountable for the damage that he's done,” Maunsell said.

Malavet’s public defenders, Maya Dominguez and Zosia Buse, told the Union Leader they are relieved by the state’s decision.

“This has been an incredibly long and difficult journey for him and his family. Mr. Malavet has always maintained his innocence. Mr. Malavet also has great respect for the legal process and is grateful that this chapter is finally closing.”

Maunsell did get some justice in the form of a settlement from the state for her civil claims. The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office negotiated a $4.5 million payment to end her civil lawsuit against the state.

The money is allowing Maunsell to get therapy and treatment she needs, but it’s not what she really wanted. She hoped she would see justice.

“The settlement was the state's way of extending their justice, but that wasn’t true justice, true justice would have been a conviction,” she said.

The Attorney General’s Office released a statement that it did not make the decision to drop the charges lightly, but believed it could not pursue a third trial.

“We continue to take the allegations seriously and have confidence in the evidence. However, after two trials and careful consideration of the record, including feedback from prior proceedings, and the impact of the passage of time on the evidence and witnesses, we have concluded it is not appropriate to try this case a third time,” the statement reads.

Malavet was the first of the 11 accused YDC abusers to go on trial. There are hundreds of alleged abusers named by more than 1,600 survivors who could still be charged, but the state’s YDC Task Force stopped investigating after the first round of indictments in 2021.

This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.