LETTER: NH Child Protection Failures Spotlight Power, Politics, and Influence of NHCADSV

To the Editor, A Manchester Middle School teacher was arrested but given no sex offender registry status for sexting with a 7th grader.

Concord School district failed to vet a staffer who came from the University of Southern New Hampshire before he was arrested for sexual misconduct charges.

Public and private schools in Exeter (Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter High School) also escaped scrutiny. Focus was put on St Paul’s School where the scholarship student, Owen Labrie, was framed for sexual misconduct which even his accuser claimed he didn’t commit - per police records documenting “I have never said he raped me”. Meanwhile “crooked deals” were cut between Concord Police, lawyers, prosecutors and the School for misconduct by others, including administrators who failed to report documented felony rape of minors by adults.

Who is to blame in all of this? The New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence which picks and choses what cause célèbre cases it will get behind and sensationalize and which actual cases it will ignore and suppress.  And why does it do this? Poliitcs, power and money.  How does it do it? The creation or suppression of pretrial media and ex parte statements by police, prosecutors, lawyers, and the Attorney General.

It is 101 to vet anyone working with children. There don’t need to be commissions to figure out what happened to further enrich the “stakeholders”. There needs to be a dismantling and audit of the agencies involved who are creating the “best practices” - this includes the NHCADSV which works hand in glove with local law enforcement whose budgets to investigate and pay witnesses are approved by city councils. Who is the Chair of the Concord City Council Public Safety Committee? Amanda Grady Sexton of the NHCADSV. She is married to Adam Sexton, the Political director and a reporter for WMUR which gets the exclusive TV access to sexual assault trials.  Who is she connected to? Senator Deborah Altschiller of HAVEN who is married to Howard Altschiller of Seacoast Online and formerly the head of the NH Press Association.

The NHCADSV is a publicly funded “non-government agency” (NGO) which trains police, prosecutors, educators, administrators, witnesses, AG’s office to further its own ends, not to further the public interest which is, and always should be, the safety of children, interests of families and due process.