CONCORD (AP) — An attorney for a former youth counselor said Thursday that New Hampshire prosecutors dropped charges against his client because they realized they couldn’t get a conviction based on “baseless, uncorroborated claims.”
Bruce Kenna represents 50-year-old Stephen Murphy, of Danvers, Massachusetts, who was charged in July with raping a teenage boy at New Hampshire’s youth detention center 26 times in the 1990s. Attorney General Gordon MacDonald dropped the charges against Murphy and another former counselor Wednesday, saying court deadlines were impeding the state’s ability to conduct a broader investigation into the Youth Development Center. Further charges are possible, he said.
Murphy later worked as a clubhouse attendant for the Boston Red Sox, which suspended without pay in July. In a statement Thursday, his lawyer questioned whether prosecutors ruined his client’s reputation out of “political correctness.”
“If they ‘investigate’ long enough, they can probably eventually find former juvenile criminals that will help them,” Kenna said.
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