CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A former employee of a New Hampshire youth detention center continued working with children in a state job for nine months after police began investigating allegations that he held a boy down while colleagues raped him in 1998.
James Woodlock went on leave from his position as a juvenile probation and parole officer in November 2017, well after David Meehan told police he had been abused in the 1990s at what was then called the Youth Development Center in Manchester, the state’s only juvenile detention center, the state attorney general’s office told The Associated Press.
The attorney general’s office is investigating. Woodlock, who hasn’t been charged criminally, declined to comment when a reporter visited his home.
Officials won’t say whether his leave is voluntary, whether he is being paid or what, if any, action they took before he went on leave. They also won’t say when they learned of the allegations, though law enforcement officials said that in general, such notifications happen as soon as possible unless a delay is crucial to protect the investigation.
All that should be part of the attorney general’s investigation, said Lyn Schollett, executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.