State Faces Second Abuse Trial In Youth Detention Scandal

By Damien Fisher, NH Journal

For only the second time since the Sununu Youth Services Center sex abuse scandal was exposed in 2017, the state will be on trial over the abuse of a child in its custody.

But this time, the plaintiff is not a former resident of the Youth Development Center. She is one of the hundreds of children sent by the state to private facilities paid for by New Hampshire taxpayers.

Jane Doe No. 73, whose real name is Kristy Gesse, alleges she was abused at Saddleback Mountain Retreat in Deerfield, a group home for girls operated by Peter and Beverly Tsetsilas.

There are about 300 pending lawsuits in Merrimack Superior Court brought by adult survivors who say they were physically and sexually abused in private-contractor facilities used by the state. Unlike the roughly 1,600 YDC survivors who have filed claims, there is no settlement fund for survivors from those private-contractor homes.

David Meehan, the only YDC survivor so far to get a jury trial, said Gesse’s lawsuit is another chance to force the state to own up to its failures.

“It’s one of the first real tests of whether the state can be held responsible when it placed kids in homes it chose and kept using,” Meehan said in a letter to his fellow survivors.

According to Gesse’s lawsuit, Department of Health and Human Services administrators knew about abuse happening at Saddleback but kept paying Peter and Beverly Tsetsilas to take in girls.

Gesse was sent to Saddleback in the early 1990s despite what her attorneys say was a documented warning sign: another girl, identified in court records as L.O., had accused Peter Tsetsilas of raping her in 1985.

According to a pretrial statement filed by Gesse’s lead attorney, David Vicinanzo, L.O. was pressured by state caseworkers not to pursue charges against Tsetsilas, with workers allegedly warning her she would “ruin” the family if she moved forward.

Vicinanzo says the state has claimed records related to the 1985 allegation and Saddleback’s licensing and supervision cannot be located. But Gesse’s legal team says it found some of those records through its own investigation and that they show state officials knew about allegations against Tsetsilas years before Gesse was placed at Saddleback.

“Despite the Central Registry and laws requiring retention, the State claims it cannot locate records of Peter T.’s gross misconduct in 1985 or at other times, or of the licensing process or exercise of required supervision of its agents, Peter T., Beverly Tsetsilas and Saddleback,” Vicinanzo wrote.

“The undersigned, however, through their own investigation, have found some of the records from 1985, and they show beyond doubt the State was well-aware of Peter T.’s practice of abusing girls in State custody. The State simply looked the other way and kept sending prey to this predator for eight more years.”

Gesse was later repeatedly raped and held captive at a Concord motel, according to court records.

Both Peter and Beverly Tsetsilas are now dead. Peter Tsetsilas pleaded guilty in 1994 to child endangerment and interference with custody. Saddleback was shut down after Gesse was rescued from the motel, but it reopened in June 1993 under Beverly Tsetsilas. It closed for good later that same month.

Whatever the jury decides in Gesse’s case could set the tone for hundreds of other survivors from private-contractor homes. With no access to the YDC Settlement Fund, those survivors are relying on jurors to deliver justice.

Since the legislature created the fund in 2023, 425 claims have been settled, with the state paying out close to $240 million — a little more than $500,000 per claim on average.

Meehan was awarded $38 million in damages by a jury in 2024 after it found the state liable for “wanton, malicious, and oppressive” conduct. New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella is appealing the award. His office argues the state should pay only $475,000 under the state’s liability cap.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the case.

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.