The NHCADSV were the primary opposers to House Bill 1633, introduced by Rep. Ellen Read (D) and killed today by the Senate. The Bill was a simple no-brainer to allow victims of sexual assault better access (via a palm card or similar posted in the offices of public agencies) to know what their rights are under existing state laws, which you can read here.
But the NHCADSV doesn’t want people to know what the law is. As Rep. Read pointed out in InDepthNH, “A Right Kept Secret is Not a Right.”
Currently, victims’ rights are not known to victims of sexual assault, unless they are given a rape kit, because they are hidden inside the rape kit box, and the SANE nurses decide who gets those. The 98% publicly-funded private non-profit, the NHCADSV, runs the Sexual Assault Nursing Program(SANE) for the state. But sometimes those SANE nurses don’t know the laws themselves, as was revealed in the testimony of one of NHCADSV’s SANE representatives when HB1633 was first introduced. She was unaware of a law passed six years ago to ban at-home rape kits (HB705). The Victims’ Rights bill to know their rights passed in 2016, but apparently, the NHCADSV and its partner, the NHDOJ, want there to be gatekeepers so that only certain chosen people get to find out what those rights are.
Why?
The simplest explanation is this: The NH DOJ stated that there would be “unintended consequences” if the bill passed, and that if it did pass, there would probably need to be 1000 more rape kits used per year. Where does that number come from? From people who have asked for rape kits and have been denied them. These are likely to include teenagers who have been sexually abused under state care/DCYF. The teenagers who could sue the State in 20 years for sexual abuse under state care, just like the victims of YDC abuse, are suing now for sexual abuse under state care in the 1990s. The AG’s office refers those cases to the NHCADSV, which refers them to their own attorneys, who are making millions off the settlements.
So what’s the real reason that the NHCADSV doesn’t want people to be informed of their rights when they present themselves or are presented as a rape victim at a hospital, police department, department of corrections facility, the Youth Detention Center, or a Rape Crisis Center tied to the NHCADSV? If the law exists, what’s the resistance to making it easily visible?
The most logical explanation is that the NHCADSV and AG’s office want to control who gets classified as a rape victim. It’s selective. If the rape is by one of the State’s employees while someone is under State care, the liability is on the State, and the AG’s office and its sidekick, the NHCADSV, don’t want that. (The AG’s office has admitted in writing that there is no documentation that makes the NHCADSV autonomous from the NH AG’s office.
The NH DOJ is currently blocking the Senate committee from access to the YDC and the kids held there. Cassandra Sanchez, from the office of children’s advocate, alerted the powers that be to the abuse that is still going on. The NHCADSV has been silent on this issue. Why? They are listed in the protocols under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and they are the SOLE source for the AG/DOJ, police, and DOC on Domestic and Sexual violence. You would think that if they cared about child victims of abuse, they would be screaming blue murder. But no. Silence.
So here’s what’s been floated as most likely the real reason for the resistance against HB1633 by the NHCADSV and AG’s office – preventing liability for the State, DCYF, and NHCADSV for rape of children or adults under state care or who have escaped state care:
National statistics reveal that 60-90% of sex trafficked children come out of state care (foster care, state facilities, etc.).
New Hampshire has failed to vet foster caregivers, failed to give criminal background checks, and failed to check sex offender registries for these, per reports from the US DHHS Office of Inspector General. Not in just a few cases but in the majority of the cases that the US DHHS OIG investigated.
Imagine the liability for the NHCADSV, DCYF, and Law Enforcement if they gave victims of sexual abuse under state care or who escape state care, rape kits that yielded DNA evidence proving that their own state employees or foster caregivers had raped a kid while the State had failed to do criminal background checks on the caregivers and failed to check sex offender registries.
Jefferey Strelzin, from the AG’s office, should be required to elaborate on his criticism of HB1633, saying that it would have “unintended consequences”.
Currently, with qualified and sovereign immunity, the State can easily frame someone for sexual assault (the State requiring no corroborating evidence or witnesses) who isn’t a State employee or a DCYF-tied caregiver, while protecting its liability for those who are. If you think that’s absurd, remember that an assistant deputy sheriff had his rape of a female inmate overturned by the State’s Supreme Court because it was unclear if he was employed by the Sheriff’s department or the DOC at the time he was transporting the inmate. It’s sick. He was an employee of the State, period. But the Supreme Court in New Hampshire has been reported to have predetermined the outcomes of cases before it. How much do you want to bet that the Supreme Court will stick with the State’s $475K cap on David Meehan’s claim against the State for YDC abuse versus the $38 million jury award?
HB 1633 passed the House 340-1. Rep. Eileen Kelly, who was on the board of the NHCADSV, was the sole voter against it.
HB1633 was removed in the Senate on April 23, 2026, by Senators Gannon and Carson. Senator Debra Altschiller gave a speech against it. She used to work for HAVEN, a division of the NHCADSV, which once lobbied for a victim’s bill of rights but now wants that hidden from people who present themselves to agencies who could easily be escapees of state care, needing fast information.
Outside the presentation of HB 1633 to the Senate, the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Ellen Read – a survivor who was drugged and denied a rape kit – swore in the hallway. Allegedly, Jodi Grimbilas reported her for her language. This quickly led to House Speaker Sherman Packard (who gives himself license to call female representatives a “bitch” in chambers) censuring Rep. Read and then removing her from her own housing committee.
The three senators behind removing HB1633 had all received straw donations from the NHCADSV in the 2023/2024 election cycle via Jodi Grimbilas and her lobbying firm, J. Grimbilas Strategic Solutions LLC, who reported it on their own RSA 15A return.
The NHCADSV didn’t report the payments to J. Grimbilas to be used to pay Senators because it’s illegal to make straw donations, and as a 501 c 3, the coalition can’t make political donations.
How many of the 150 bills that the NHCADSV tracks each year are killed or passed because they paid off Senators via J. Grimbilas or some other firm?
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