A sexual assault trial got underway on Monday for a New Hampshire man whose arrest more than seven years earlier set off one of the largest youth detention scandals in U.S. history.

Jeffrey Buskey, 60, a former youth counselor from Litchfield, faces allegations concerning four boys who were held at the Youth Development Center in Manchester in the late 1990s.

In the first of his cases to go to trial, he is charged with 21 counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault involving David Meehan, who was 14 when he arrived at the facility now called the Sununu Youth Services Center in 1995.

Meehan filed the first of over 1,100 lawsuits alleging physical, sexual, or emotional abuse that spanned six decades.

His allegations resulted in the arrest of Buskey and another former worker in 2019, an unprecedented criminal investigation, nine further arrests, and the creation of a settlement fund to compensate victims.

As the testimony commenced on Monday, prosecutor Audriana Mekula asked Meehan, “What is YDC to you?”

"To hell with it," he retorted.

During his civil trial, Meehan described how Buskey had transformed from a trusted father figure into a horrific abuser, testifying that he had given him soda and snacks and allowed him to play basketball with a local high school team before subjecting him to near-daily rapes.

"It went from being someone I trusted, someone I thought was not just there to help me but who I believed cared about me, to hurting me," he said.

Reporters generally refrain from identifying individuals who claim to have been victims of sexual assault unless those individuals have come forward publicly, as Meehan has done.

A jury awarded him $38 million in May 2024, though that verdict remains contested as the state seeks to reduce the amount to $475,000.

In his opening statement on Monday, Associate Attorney General Thomas Velardi told jurors that Meehan had intended to take his experiences to the grave, but eventually confided in his wife in 2017, when he feared that one of their sons might be sent to the facility.

"What you are about to hear is a real horror story of what a 16-year-old boy was put through," he told the jurors.

"The very thought of his own flesh and blood being sent to this same place where he was terrorized finally broke his resolve to keep this secret."

He said that Buskey used violence and the threat of it to overpower or coerce Meehan, who, he said, eventually stopped fighting back.

"It simply evolved into a way of life, whether he was engaged in combat or merely striving to survive," he said.

In a police interview transcript recently filed in court, Buskey was unable to recall his home address from the 1990s and struggled to spell his then-fiancée’s last name, yet he brought up Meehan’s name unprompted.

He denied abusing him, asserting that they had a “great relationship.”

"I consistently treated the boy with kindness and was perpetually endeavouring to assist him," he said.

In her opening statement, defense attorney Delia McCarthy told jurors that there was no evidence to corroborate Meehan’s allegations.

Meehan’s room was located in a central hallway of a building that was “like an echo chamber,” she said, which made it impossible that he could have been violently assaulted without anyone else noticing.

McCarthy further asserted that the trial would expose inconsistencies in Meehan’s claims.

She said Meehan has suffered from mental illness since childhood and, as an adult, has experienced delusions and hallucinations.

"This is an unbelievable story, contradicted by the records and by the people who were there, and told by an unreliable, deeply troubled storyteller," she said.

The youth center, which once housed more than 100 children but now typically serves fewer than a dozen, is named after former Gov. John H. Sununu.

Lawmakers have approved closing the facility, which now holds only those accused or convicted of the most serious violent crimes, and replacing it with a much smaller building at a new location.

In the remaining criminal cases, three men have been convicted: Bradley Asbury, Stanley Watson and James Woodlock.

Jurors acquitted Jonathan Brand and deadlocked in the case of Victor Malavet, resulting in a mistrial.

Charges against Trevor Middleton were dropped; Frank Davis was deemed incompetent to stand trial, and Gordon Searles died while awaiting trial.

Stephen Murphy, who faces pending charges, saw one trial conclude in a mistrial and another end in an acquittal on three charges and a hung jury on five others.

Lucien Poulette is awaiting trial.