Victim in YDC abuse awarded $32M, but will likely get just $475G

David Meehan (YouTube screen capture)

BRENTWOD - A Rockingham County jury awarded $38 million on Friday to a man who said he was raped and repeatedly beaten at the former Youth Development Center, but a press release from the Attorney General's Office said the state will pay nothing more than $475,000.

David Meehan was the first of hundreds who sued the state, alleging he was sexually and physically abused and put in solitary confinement during the three years he was housed at the YDC in the early 1990s.

The jury awarded $18 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in enhanced damages because the state engaged in "wanton, malicious and oppressive conduct," according to Meehan's attorneys.

On the jury verdict form, jurors said they found that Meehan had proved one incident by a preponderance of the evidence.

David Meehan's father, Daniel Meehan, a former Rochester firefighter and Lebanon, Maine, fire department chief, testified for the state earlier in the week, saying his son had a history of untruthfulness.

The AG's office put out a statement Friday afternoon, saying that the state will pay out only $475,000 because that is the maximum they pay per incident and only once abuse "incident" was proved.

Meanwhile, a statement from David Meehan's attorneys did not mention the $475,00 cap and called the $38 million verdict "the largest verdict in a contested personal injury case in the history of New Hampshire."