A sexual assault trial began Monday for Jeffrey Buskey, 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, who 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 alleging abuse at the facility over six decades.

His allegations led to Buskey's arrest in 2019, nine additional arrests, and a settlement fund for victims.

A prosecutor asked Meehan what the center meant to him, and he answered, "Hell."

Meehan testified that Buskey gave him soda and snacks and let him play basketball.

He said Buskey then subjected him to near-daily rapes.

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 when he feared one of their sons might be sent to the facility.

Velardi said Buskey used violence and threats to overpower Meehan, who eventually stopped fighting back.

In a police interview, Buskey denied abusing Meehan and 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."

Therefore, she argued, a violent assault could not have gone unnoticed.

She also said Meehan has suffered from mental illness and experienced delusions and hallucinations.

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

The facility, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center, is set to close and be replaced by a smaller building.

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