A sexual assault trial began Monday for Jeffrey Buskey.

He is a 60-year-old former youth counselor from Litchfield, New Hampshire.

He is accused of assaulting four boys at the Youth Development Center in Manchester in the late 1990s.

The first case to reach trial involves David Meehan.

He was 14 when he arrived at the facility in 1995.

Buskey faces 21 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault in that case.

Meehan filed the first of more than 1,100 lawsuits about abuse at the facility over six decades.

His allegations led to Buskey's arrest in 2019.

They also led to nine more arrests and a settlement fund for victims.

A prosecutor asked Meehan what the center meant to him.

He answered, "Hell."

Meehan testified that Buskey gave him soda and snacks.

He also let him play basketball.

Then Buskey subjected him to near-daily rapes, Meehan said.

A jury awarded Meehan $38 million in May 2024.

But the state is seeking to reduce that amount to $475,000.

In his opening statement, Associate Attorney General Thomas Velardi said Meehan had planned to keep his experiences secret for life.

He said Meehan finally told his wife in 2017.

At that time, he feared one of their sons might be sent to the facility.

Velardi said Buskey used violence and threats to overpower Meehan.

Meehan eventually stopped fighting back.

In a police interview, Buskey denied abusing Meehan.

He said they had a "great relationship."

Defense attorney Delia McCarthy told jurors there is no evidence to support Meehan's allegations.

She said his room was in a central hallway in a building "like an echo chamber."

So a violent assault could not have gone unnoticed, she said.

She also said Meehan has suffered from mental illness.

She said he experienced delusions and hallucinations.

She called his account "an unbelievable story" told by an unreliable witness.

The facility is now called the Sununu Youth Services Center.

It is set to close and be replaced by a smaller building.

In other cases tied to the scandal, three former workers have been convicted.