Documents unsealed earlier this week in criminal cases against five former Youth Development Center guards describe in gruesome detail repeated sexual and physical abuse perpetrated against minors held at New Hampshire’s juvenile jail in the late 1990s.

The documents – arrest affidavits released in response to a request filed by attorneys for David Meehan, the first survivor to bring his case to trial in civil court – detail a sweeping investigation conducted by New Hampshire state police from 2017 until the men were arrested in 2021.

The arrest affidavits include in-depth law enforcement interviews with five minors who allege abuse, including Meehan. In all, nearly 1,300 people have filed lawsuits alleging they were abused while held at YDC between 1960 and 2021, according to an analysis conducted by NHPR and The Pudding.

The documents state that as of the spring of 2021 over 180 interviews had been conducted with accused perpetrators, victims, and witnesses.

Eleven former staffers have been criminally charged, one of whom has pleaded guilty and another of whom was found incompetent to stand trial. Charges against the other nine remain pending, with the earliest trial date set for this September.

Earlier this month, Hillsborough County Judge William Delker ordered the public release of 61 documents that had originally been filed under seal. While all the documents remain restricted on the courts’ website, a portion of the unsealed documents were shared by Meehan’s lawyers.

Interviews with former residents of YDC describe how a “hit squad” of guards terrorized them, inflicting repeated sexual assaults and beatings and forcing them into solitary confinement for up to nearly two months.

Meehan told investigators that he was sexually abused – sometimes on a nearly daily basis – during his time at YDC from 1995 to 1999.

Another man who was sent to YDC in 1997 at the age of 14 told an investigator that two guards raped him while two other staffers held him down. The guards who allegedly raped him –Stephen Murphy and Jeffrey Buskey – and the guards who allegedly restrained him –Bradley Asbury and James Woodlock – have all been charged with crimes.

A woman who was sent to YDC in 1996 at the age of 14 told an investigator that Buskey forced her to perform sex acts on him.

The disclosure of the arrest affidavits comes as Meehan’s lawyers spar with New Hampshire’s Office of the Attorney General over the amount in damages he should receive. After a jury found the state liable and awarded Meehan $38 million in damages, the state argued that the damages should instead be capped at $475,000, because the jury wrote on its verdict sheet that only one “incident” had occurred. At a hearing Monday, the matter remained heavily in dispute.

Meanwhile, the criminal cases continue to move forward. Of the nine men whose cases remain in progress, five live in the Concord area:

■Bradley Asbury, 69, of Dunbarton, has been charged with two counts of being an accomplice to felonious sexual assault for restraining a resident while two guards sexually assaulted him at some point between October 1997 and June 1998. Asbury’s trial is set to begin on November 18.

■Gordon Thomas Searles, 68, of Weare, has been charged with four counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault that are alleged to have occurred in 1995. Searles’ trial is set to begin on September 23.

■Jonathan Brand, 59, of Concord, has been charged with three counts of felonious sexual assault that are alleged to have taken place in 2007 and 2010. Brand’s first of two scheduled trials is set to begin in March 2025.

■Trevor Middleton, 55, of Belmont, has been charged with one count of felonious sexual assault and one count of aggravated felonious sexual assault that are alleged to have taken place between 1999 and 2001. Middleton’s trial is set to begin in January 2025.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.