CONCORD, N.H. — There’s a serious problem with the indictments a grand jury handed up in 2021 against James Woodlock, a former staffer at the Sununu Youth Services Center, formerly called YDC.
Woodlock is scheduled to go to trial on felony charges of sexual abuse against children in the coming days, but now the whole case appears suspect as prosecutors have recently admitted there is no evidence to support one of the counts, according to a motion to dismiss filed Thursday in Hillsborough Superior Court in Manchester.
“The only plausible explanations are that the prosecutors improperly instructed the grand jury on the law or that the grand jurors violated their oath to apply the law faithfully,” Woodlock’s attorney, Richard Guerriero wrote in the motion to dismiss. “Either way, the grand jury proceedings were plainly and deeply flawed. The accused has the constitutional right to have his case heard by a properly functioning grand jury. That did not happen in this case. The indictments must be dismissed.”
Grand jury proceedings involve prosecutors presenting evidence to a jury panel. Those jurors then decide if the evidence they saw supports a criminal charge sought by prosecutors. Grand jury sessions take place in secret and happen without defense counsel being present to challenge the evidence.
The 2021 grand jury returned five counts against Woodlock for being an accomplice to aggravated felonious sexual assault after reviewing evidence presented by Task Force prosecutors and investigators.
According to the charges, Woodlock essentially helped other YDC staffers rape and sexually assault boys held inside YDC during the 1990s. He’s one of the original suspects charged in 2019 by the YDC Task Force formed by then-Attorney General Gordon MacDonald, who is now the chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
The Task Force, made up of New Hampshire State Police investigators and prosecutors with the Attorney General’s Office, was created to deal with the fallout when YDC victims started in 2017 going public about the abuse they suffered as children incarcerated there at the hands of state employees. The Task Force investigation resulted in 11 former staffers, all men, being criminally charged.
With Woodlock’s trial scheduled to begin June 2, Assistant Attorney General Audriana Mekula moved to drop one of the indicted charges earlier this month. That charge alleges Woodlock was an accomplice while suspect Jeffrey Buskey sexually assaulted a victim, referred to as D.M.
The problem is that there is no evidence Woodlock assisted or otherwise acted as an accomplice for Buskey’s alleged sexual assault on D.M.
“Although the discovery in this case is more than voluminous, the defense has not found an allegation by D.M. that the accused was an accomplice to Buskey forcing D.M. to perform fellatio as alleged in the prior, now-nolle prossed, indictment. … Prosecutors confirmed to counsel that they were also unable to locate a specific accusation by D.M. of such conduct,” Guerriero wrote.
This one dismissed indictment, based on no evidence, calls into question the credibility of investigators, prosecutors, and the whole case, Guerriero wrote.
“The fact that a baseless indictment has been dismissed here does not end the inquiry. The same grand jury which was either improperly instructed or which abdicated its responsibility returned the other indictments against the accused. Those remaining indictments must be dismissed,” Guerriero wrote.
When the phantom indictment was dropped earlier this month, Guerriero pushed for answers. New Hampshire State Police Sgt. Kelly LaPointe, said during a deposition that took place Wednesday that she never presented evidence to the 2021 grand jury to support the indictment in question.
“I mean, the indictments are based — should have been based — on the case, the arrest warrant. I did not see the indictments prior. I don’t even believe I was present during the reading of them. They get read to the grand jury while I’m out of the room. So I think it’s just a mistake,” LaPointe said during this week’s deposition.
LaPointe was the Task Force investigator who testified at the 2021 grand jury, and much of the evidence used to secure the original indictments was based on her work.
Given that one of the indictments is not based on any facts, that means either the grand jury was improperly instructed about how to consider evidence, or they went rogue and ignored their instructions, Guerriero wrote.
“There is also no reasonable and lawful explanation of how the grand jury returned the indictment when there was no evidence of the specific crime alleged in the now-dismissed indictment,” Guerriero wrote. “This calls into question the entirety of the grand jury proceedings which resulted in the pending 2021 indictments.”
Woodlock is accused of helping men like Buskey, who is facing numerous charges, and Brad Asbury. Asbury was convicted last year to acting as an accomplice to a rape of a child held at YDC and is currently imprisoned.
In April, a new grand jury returned an additional indictment against Woodlock, charging him with being an accomplice to a different sexual assault allegedly perpetrated by former YDC staffer Stephen Murphy.
Guerriero is objecting to that charge on the grounds it was brought after the statute of limitations expired, according to court records.
This article first appeared on InDepthNH.org and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.