Dear Ellen Arnold Esq,
I hope you will be able to share this with the other signers of the op-ed you published. I thank you in advance for this.
I read the op-ed “Group of Granite Staters apologizes to YDC victims”. I thank you, BUT:
NOBODY, including your co-signers, has asked for a Grand Jury Criminal Investigation into the State’s cover-ups of the YDC abuse. Conversely, the AG ordered a Grand Jury Criminal Investigation into St Paul’s School following lobbying by the NHCADSV, who got a contract out of it, with their “pro bono” attorney, David Vicinanzo, representing “most, if not all,” of the administrators at St Paul’s School who were being investigated. The AG also ordered a Grand Jury Investigation into the Diocese of Manchester. Both resulted in millions of dollars being shelled out with behind doors secret deals going on. I have absolute proof that sexual assault was not addressed and that the entire exercise in both cases was about blackmail and quick claims with NDAs. And I have absolute proof that the NHCADSV and public officials were engaging in a “Kids for Cash” type scheme and racketeering. It is my sincere belief that the AG’s office was also getting kickbacks or favors out of these and that AG Gordon MacDonald may not have ascended to the New Hampshire Supreme Court if the NHCADSV had not shut down ABC/GMA from airing a program in July 2019, which would have revealed the blackmail activity going on.
I have spent many years investigating what has been going on and as my family are taxpayers in New Hampshire, I am most concerned about the abuse of our money for an ongoing racketeering Kids for Cash scheme that spans back to 1988 or so when the new Child Sex Crimes Unit began and hired James F McLaughlin as the child sex crimes investigator. James F McLaughlin was hired for the Diocese investigations; the St Paul’s investigations, and he was added to the Laurie list in June 2018 when the St Paul’s investigation was ongoing. Gordon MacDonald argued in August 2018 to keep the Laurie List private. James F McLaughlin’s hearings to get off the Laurie List happened in Spring 2024, shortly before the David Meehan trial. Brandon Chase, of the AG’s office, was present in those hearings along with the Banking Commission lawyers. Brandon Chase represented the State in the David Meehan trial. Some victims of YDC abuse have stated that they were sodomised by police on their way to YDC. James F McLaughlin wrote an op-ed in 1994 “Knight and Stick” magazine, which was on the subject of how children who are sexually abused become adult felons. It’s almost as if it were a game plan, and when you consider that police pensions are tied up with Prisons Inc, creating adult felons by abusing children, becomes an economic prospect for police and city councils who rely on cheap prison labor for snow clearing, painting Merricmack County Superior Court house, etc, etc.
I am in touch with victims of YDC abuse. I am also in touch with people who have been wrongly incarcerated due to the coercion of minors in sex crimes investigations. I came across all of this because I was curious as to why the high-profile criminal trial of NH v Owen Labrie was so sensationalized. My husband is an alum of St Paul’s School, and we have friends whose children were in both the class of Owen Labrie and of Chessy Prout, the State’s “victim”. Our friends told us at the time that the portrayal of the incident, the portrayal of the school was completely wrong. I decided to get all of the discovery, trial transcripts, TV interviews, books, articles that were tied to the case and find out what really happened and what drove it. Without going into detail, St Paul’s School was politically targeted, Owen Labrie was framed and Chessy Prout was recruited before the trial by affiliates of the White House “Not Alone” task force (which was strategically tied to UNH) to be a “survivor” with the goal of the White House “Not Alone” affiliates (which included SurvJustice, NHCADSV) to be able to infiltrate St Paul’s School, data mine, and get lucrative blackmail lawsuits.
McLane Middleton are more than aware of this because Michael Delaney represented St Paul’s School during the criminal trial. His quest to join the First Circuit as a judge was curtailed by Chessy Prout’s letter to the US Senate Judiciary Committee. While news media spun the story to highlight Michael Delaney’s forcing Jane Doe to lose her anonymity and reveal herself as Chessy Prout – this was media spin. The more concerning issue in that letter was the allegation that Michael Delaney tampered with student witnesses for the State of New Hampshire and that Prosecutor Catherine Ruffle allowed these witnesses to testify. One of them, Andrew Thomson, was the son of Lucy Hodder Esq of St Paul’s Board of Trustees, NH Charitable Foundation, and legal counsel to Governor Hassan. He was, per Catherine Ruffle, given a deal after the mother of a 15-year-old, “E.W.,” complained to Concord PD and St Paul’s School about his unlawful sexual relationship with her daughter. This admission was sealed until months after the trial. When it was unsealed, Catherine Ruffle retracted the admission.
It transpires that David Vicinanzo – the pro bono attorney for the NHCADSV who lobbied for the Grand Jury Investigation into St Paul’s School and hired Brian Harlow on the 10th anniversary of AG Phil McLaughlin’s Grand Jury Investigation into the Diocese “to expand their business” – represented “most if not all” (per Assistant AG Jane Young) of the administrators at St Paul’s School who were required to speak to the Grand Jury.
It transpires that the AG’s office (Assistant AG Jane Young) informed David Vicinanzo that he had a conflict of interest because he also represented “E,” who I believe to be “E.W.” – the 15-year-old with whom Andrew Thomson had admitted (in writing) to having an unlawful sexual relationship. The AG’s office did nothing about David Vicinanzo’s conflict of interest. It allowed him to block depositions and interviews with his clients, administrators of St Paul’s School ,who knowingly covered up sexual abuse at the school of minors.
David Vicinanzo is the one (backed by Chuck Douglas and others ) who petitioned to have the Grand Jury Investigation report blocked from publication despite AG Gordon MacDonald’s assurances that it would be published. He is also the one who praised Judge Richard McNamara for blocking its release. I discovered all of this through Right To Know requests from the AG’s office.
Consider this: The Grand Jury Criminal Investigation into St Paul’s School was ordered in July 2017, and it was completed in August 2018, with the ruling to keep it private announced in September 2019.
Consider also: That David Meehan came forward with his claims of abuse at YDC in 2017 (April I believe). But the State stalled on any criminal investigation and instead, Russ Rilee went shopping for additional claimants using David Meehan and the NHCADSV (a federally and state-funded “NGO” that trains police, prosecutors, and media, creates juror questionnaires, controls pretrial media, writes victim impact statements) gave an award to Russ Rilee…
AG Gordon MacDonald dismissed David Meehan and the Doe plaintiffs’ claims of sexual and other abuse at YDC for “victim negligence”. Gordon MacDonald, despite being the Supreme Court Chief Justice, is still listed as an agent at Nixon Peabody (where he was a partner with David Vicinanzo representing the Diocese and settling claims with or without evidence and sometimes for claims he knew were false – as documented). The claims against the State for YDC abuse went forward after his former partner from Nixon Peabody, David Vicinanzo, joined Russ Rillee Esq. And the AG’s office referred claimants to the NHCADSV, who then referred them to their own “pro bono” attorneys who get a large percentage of each claim.
RSA 169 c 3 vii – ties the DCYF to Catholic Charities – raising the question as to conflicts of interest for David Vicinanzo to represent anyone in the YDC claims – especially because some priests who were jailed for child sex abuse also worked at the YDC and yet their names have been removed from the Grand Jury Report on the Diocese (eg Father Francis Talbot). Who removed it, when, and why?
The NHCADSV gets kick backs from settlements brought by the attorneys it refers claimants to. For proof of this, please see Rapuano & Does v Dartmouth College. The case settled for $14 million of which Chuck Douglas and Steven J Kelly got $4.9 million, the 9 plaintiffs got $75k-80K each, WISE (also David Vicinanzo’s client) got $500K and the NHCADSV got an undisclosed amount agreed upon by Judge Landy McAfferty – estimated to be $2-3 million. Yet documentation of this sum cannot be found on the NHCADSV’s IRS 990 and there are no RSA15A filings that reveal the value of the referrals between NHCADSV and the law firms: Nixon Peabody, Douglas & Leonard, Shaheen & Gordon who all work too closely with the NHCADSV.
I draw your attention to the following document which is co-authored by Amanda Grady Sexton of the NHCADSV, City of Concord Council Public Safety Committee, Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s re-election campaign committee and Steven J Kelly Esq who was the lead attorney with Chuck Douglas in Prout/Doe v St Paul’s School, Jane Doe v St Paul’s School, Rapuano & Does v Dartmouth College.
Please read the bios very carefully. Now consider that the NHCADSV is manipulating the media; that Amanda Grady Sexton is married to Adam Sexton of WMUR, which got the exclusive TV coverage for the Owen Labrie trial and the David Meehan case. After the State announced it was capping the limit in his award to $475K, WMUR announced it, and the jurors contacted David Vicinanzo and Russ Rilee, calling Vicinanzo a familial “Dave”. Judge Schulmann, instead of admonishing the jurors for disobeying jury rules that mandate no contact with interested parties for a period of time after the verdict, wrote an opinion siding with the attorneys and commending the integrity of their character. It makes you wonder if the judges themselves are in on the kickback scheme and the former AG as well, via a financial interest in Nixon Peabody due to his still being listed as an agent there.
Joelle Wiggin of the NHCADSV, who worked in the AG’s office, allegedly switched sides to join Nixon Peabody as “paralegal and victim specialist” in the David Meehan case. That’s like asking the public to pay for the training of a bank teller and then the bank teller switches sides to work with the bank robbers and tell them where all the weaknesses in the bank system are.
Don’t get me wrong: the victims of YDC are victims, and they have been horrifically abused. But why are none of you demanding that the first people who pay for their abuse should be those who enabled it and got rich off it? Why is John Stephen not called to account? He was head of DHHS in the 1990s when David Meehan was at YDC. What about Judge Howard on the First Circuit? He was AG in NH in the 1990s when this happened. What about Kelly Ayotte, who worked in the AG’s office when this happened? What about the NHCADSV who have been present at every AG and Governor’s commission on child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence since the 1980s. They have the contract for the Prison Rape Elimination Act. How are they enforcing it? They are not. Sex abuse and violence continue today in NH youth facilities and against young adults in Merrimack County Jail, and the NHCADSV has enabled it.
But dare to bring up the coercion of minors in sexual assault cases, or money laundering, or kids for cash, or child trafficking by public officials, agencies, and non-profits, and you’ll have the NHCADSV via their attorneys at Shaheen & Gordon going after you for defamation. I know. I am a victim of this kind of witness intimidation. My attorney reminded them that it is not defamation if it is true. They backed off but were upset because they were concerned about Amanda Grady Sexton’s reputation as she was running for office again.
The very people who are making claims against the State are also those who enabled the abuse and have profited from it. I would have been very happy to educate you and your co-signers with all the discoveries I have made about New Hampshire’s “Kids for Cash” scheme.
Kind regards,
Claire Best
Email to Ellen Arnold and several members of the NH Media – lightly edited.
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