Hi Damien [Fisher], Re: YDC Abuse Victims Tell Supreme Court State Broke Promises
Do you know how Nixon Peabody are allowed to represent the plaintiffs at all in the YDC cases?
It’s a supreme conflict of interests. Not a minor one. A massive one.
Nixon Peabody’s own client, NHCADSV, is contracted with DCYF and DOC (for Prison Rape Elimination Act).
NH AG’s office has no documentation, by its own admission in writing, to show that NHCADSV is autonomous from the NH AG’s office.
NH AG’s office refers claimants of YDC abuse on its site to the NHCADSV.
NHCADSV then refers these claimants to Nixon Peabody, who also represent the Crisis Centers and are on the board of the Children’s Advocacy Centers.
Nixon Peabody also represents the Diocese of Manchester/Catholic Charities, which is also indelibly tied to DCYF per the wording of RSA 169 c 3 vii.
MULTIPLE, MULTIPLE CONFLICTS.
Nixon Peabody has an additional conflict of interest:
NP joined Russ Rilee to represent David Meehan, the original plaintiff, after his suit was dismissed by AG Gordon MacDonald for “victim negligence”.
Per Secretary of State records, AG MacDonald was still listed on one Nixon Peabody account for a company managed by Gordon Humphrey.
Gordon MacDonald was still listed as an agent for Nixon Peabody on this company’s current records when he became the Supreme Court Chief Justice, too.
In fact, it appears that his name was only removed from the records when I pointed this out, and only then was he disqualified from YDC cases (December 2024).
Was Gordon MacDonald sharing in profits from settlements that Nixon Peabody achieved for claimants against YDC as a result of his interest in the law firm via his being an agent at NP for Gordon Humphrey’s company?
David Meehan, the original client for YDC, is yet to get paid, and the likelihood is that the Supreme Court will stick with the State’s interpretation of a single incident and $475K cap because to go with the jury award of $38 million would set a precedent that would very quickly bankrupt the state. Nixon Peabody represents 2000 claimants against the State. Some have already been paid several million. The current estimates for payouts are in the billions.
The State has paid out well over $100 million (the original amount sought by David Vicinanzo, Russ Rilee, Chuck Douglas) to dozens of clients but not to David Meehan off whose story they all went shopping for clients.
David Vicinanzo/NP used the NH v James Woodlock sentencing to slip in a victim impact statement for other clients with civil claims against the State whose names were never part of the Woodlock trial and whose claims were never prosecuted, let alone charged against Woodlock. They weren’t even from the same time period or job. Judge Delker allowed these to be put into the record. He then appeared to quote from these as opposed to quoting from David Meehan’s victim impact statement who was the only victim witness at the Woodlock trial.
Under ABA rules, a lawyer is prohibited from representing someone whose interests may interfere with an existing or former client’s interests. Yet, the NH Bar Attorney Disciplinary Office has ignored complaints about this.
The NH AG referred claimants of YDC abuse to the NHCADSV, who referred these to their own attorneys at Nixon Peabody and Shaheen & Gordon, who then sued the State for abuse at DOC and DCYF facilities, for which the NHCADSV has the Prison Rape Elimination Act Protocol.
Do you think the NH AG (Gordon MacDonald or John Formella) referred claimants to the NHCADSV, knowing that there would be a conflict of interest for the NHCADSV and its attorneys representing the claimants, in order to get the State out of having to pay too much to the claimants?
It’s mighty interesting, don’t you think, that David Vicinanzo never talked about the amount of money being asked at the beginning of the David Meehan v State of New Hampshire Trial?
Having sat on a jury for a civil award for medical malpractice, one of the questions asked during juror selection was whether they had an issue with the amount of money being asked by the plaintiff.
In the David Meehan case, this question was never asked. There was no discussion of it in the jury instructions.
Then, instead of reprimanding the jurors for violating their jury instructions (on the NH Juror site) NOT to discuss the trial with interested parties, what do they do? They contact Russ Rilee and David Vicinanzo, and what do these do? Instead of telling the Judge that they were inappropriately contacted by the jurors, they used the juror contact to leverage their case improperly. And what did Judge Schulman do? Instead of reprimanding them for inappropriate contact with jurors, he wrote a letter commending them as attorneys and sympathizing with their position. Did they promise him a kick-back if he wrote a letter sympathizing with them? The letter was so grovelly that it certainly looked like something was going on.
What if all of this is just a three-ring circus? What if the YDC was just another extortion scam after the coffers of St Paul’s, Dartmouth, Phillips Exeter Academy, Concord School District/PRIMEX, the Diocese dried up? It’s basically the same three-ring circus in all these cases, and they have lined their pockets beautifully on all, but there is never any accountability for the administrators of the institutions, ever. And they never go seeking it. That’s how you know it’s extortion they are after because if was justice, they’d be demanding accountability from the administrators and agencies involved.
YDC abuse is ongoing and not one of them is saying, what are we doing to stop it?
Authors’ and Speakers’ opinions are their own and may not represent those of Grok Media, LLC, GraniteGrok.com, its sponsors, readers, authors, or advertisers.
Disagree, agree, Got Something to Say, We Want to Hear It. Comment or submit Op-Eds to steve@granitegrok.com
