Former youth center resident testifies against worker accused of rape

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A former resident of a youth holding facility in New Hampshire described a staffer Tuesday as a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” who raped her in a storage closet just before handing out candy to other children as a reward for good behavior.

Victor Malavet, 62, faces 12 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault against Natasha Maunsell, who was 15 and 16 when she was held at the Youth Detention Services Unit in Concord in 2001.

She testified against him on the second day of his trial, describing the excitement she felt when he picked her to help retrieve candy for other residents and the fear, shame and confusion that followed as he kissed her, forced her to perform a sex act on him and raped her.

“After he was done he just hurried and got the candy,” transitioning back into the man who had discussed Bible verses with and treated her kindly, she said.

“Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” she said, referring to Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel featuring a scientist and his evil alter ego. “It felt like a totally different personality.”

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they have come forward publicly, as Maunsell has done.

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It is the first criminal trial arising from a five-year investigation into allegations of abuse at the Sununu Youth Services Center in Manchester, though unlike the other eight men facing charges, Malavet worked at a different state-run facility where children were held while awaiting court disposition of their cases.

In opening statements Monday, Malavet’s attorney Maya Dominguez said Maunsell made up the allegations in an attempt to get money from the state. Maunsell is among more than 1,100 former residents who are suing the state alleging abuse that spanned six decades.

“You’d agree there is money to gain in a civil suit?” Dominguez asked Maunsell on Tuesday.

“There is monetary compensation for damages,” Maunsell agreed.

Dominguez, who will continue her cross-examination Wednesday, sought to chip away at the prosecution’s argument that Maunsell was under Malavet’s control and isolated from her family and the outside world.

Dominguez was granted permission by the judge to bring up the fact that Maunsell was transferred to the facility from Manchester after she assaulted two staffers there with a lead pipe, a crime for which she served 10 years in prison.

In her testimony, Maunsell acknowledged lying to authorities who investigated Malavet in 2002, saying she was too scared to say anything other than that he was a friend and mentor. She also described feeling particularly fearful during one of the alleged assaults.

“I remember having this gut wrenching feeling that this is never going to end. This is never going to stop, and it’s going to continue the same way every time,” she testified. “I just remember that particular time feeling especially scared, and trapped.”

In a civil case in May, a jury awarded David Meehan $38 million for abuse he says he suffered at the Youth Development Center in the 1990s, though the verdict remains in dispute.

Together, the two trials highlight the unusual dynamic of having the state attorney general’s office simultaneously prosecute those accused of committing offenses and defend the state. While prosecutors likely will be relying on the testimony of the former youth center residents in the criminal trials, attorneys defending the state against Meehan’s claims spent much of that trial portraying him as a violent child, troublemaking teenager and delusional adult.