Malavet’s lawyers attempt to discredit the prosecutor on the third day of the YDC criminal trial

By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — Attorneys for Victor Malavet, the former youth corrections officer accused of sexual assault, made mistakes Wednesday in trying to discredit accuser Natasha Maunsell, who was 15 and 16 at the time of the alleged crimes.

It was Maunsell’s second day on the witness stand in Malavet’s trial in Merrimack County Superior Court. She largely kept her composure as defense attorney Mariana Dominguez repeatedly questioned her credibility, mentioned the lies she told as a troubled teenager and questioned her current personal finances.

The biggest lie Maunsell admits to occurred when Malavet was first investigated by YDC supervisors and Earl Gage, an officer with the State Office Complex Police Department, in 2002. Maunsell lied to adults in 2002 and denied that Malavet abused her. Maunsell showed some emotion to the jury, saying she was scared and felt trapped and hopeless.

“I thought it wouldn’t matter. I thought they wouldn’t care. I thought no one would believe me,” Maunsell said.

This is the first criminal case to emerge from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s YDC Task Force. The task force was created in response to the massive scandal that arose when numerous adult survivors came forward in recent years about the abuse they suffered as children incarcerated at the Youth Development Center in Manchester, the YDSU in Concord and other state facilities.

The state is currently a defendant in over 1,000 pending civil cases, including Maunsell.

Malavet, who worked as a police officer and security guard on the college campus after leaving YDC in the early 2000s, allegedly manipulated and assaulted Maunsell between 2001 and 2002. Maunsell came under Malavet’s authority when she was held in the detention center for the assaults she committed.

Staff at the YDC facility controlled every aspect of residents’ lives, Maunsell said. They dictated when the children, some as young as 10, woke up, when they went to bed, when they went to the bathroom and when they were allowed to eat, Maunsell testified.

Dominguez played investigators a video clip from Maunsell’s 2002 interrogation in which the teenager Maunsell appeared angry and dismissive when questioned about the alleged abuse.

“I was so caught up in myself. I was scared,” Maunsell said.

There were moments when Maunsell seemed to struggle to control her emotions when questioned about her past. Dominguez asked Maunsell about an incident in which 15-year-old Maunsell lied to staff and other residents about being a mother.

Maunsell had a difficult past when she was taken into state custody and was new to the prison. She said she struggled. She learned that one of the other juvenile inmates had a baby, and she began telling people that she had a one-year-old child who lived in Florida with the child’s father.

“I was 15 and had no identity,” said Maunsell. “I didn’t really have consistent thinking at that age.”

When YDC staff confronted her, she finally admitted that she had lied about the baby, Maunsell said on the witness stand.

If Dominguez made any headway with jurors who pressed Maunsell about her lies as a teenager, she likely lost ground when she delved into Maunsell’s current finances. For the past three years, Maunsell has borrowed money from a finance company that specializes in making loans to people who might settle in court.

Maunsell has withdrawn about $150,000 over the past three years to pay rent, groceries and other expenses for her family, which includes dependent children, she said.

“Situations happen,” Maunsell said.

Dominguez went after Maunsell about the cars she bought with the borrowed money, but she hit a dead end. In 2021, Maunsell bought a 2012 Audi A7, financing the purchase with some of the borrowed money. That year, she bought a 2008 Honda Civic for $1,700, she testified.

But Dominguez insisted that this was not the only car Maunsell had purchased. The lawyer specifically asked Mansell about the $70,000 Mustang.

“I’ve never owned a Mustang,” Maunsell said.

When Dominguez showed Maunsell a printout of the financial records, Maunsell identified the “Mustang” expenses as a previous loan. Maunsell had borrowed about $65,000 from another court-filed loan company whose business name included “Mustang.” The new company repaid that loan under the new agreement, she said.

Next, Dominguez attempted to charge Maunsell with lying about her Audi by showing Maunsell a police report showing her driving a 2022 Audi. Maunsell stated that weeks before that report, she had wrecked her 2012 vehicle in an accident and received a rental for the 2022 car from her insurance company.

Dominguez pointed out that the current loan company charges 34.5 percent interest on all funds withdrawn before the settlement. If Maunsell wins her civil case, the company will get the money back with interest. If she goes to court and loses, the company will forgive the loan. However, if it turns out that Mansell lied about the abuse and she loses, she will have to pay back the loan in full with the 34.5 percent interest.

While Dominguez wanted to make it clear that Maunsell was only interested in a large compensation sum, the loan terms paradoxically also provided Maunsell with a strong incentive to tell the truth.