February 17, 2026

NH residents: Ask your senators to support SB558

To our clients—

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Senate Bill 558, introduced by Senator Debra Altschiller. SB558 would reverse changes to the Settlement Fund signed into law last year, placing the Administrator’s Office back under the supervision of the judicial branch and removing the attorney general’s ability to veto the administrator’s settlement decisions.

Attorney Mark Knights and Victim Specialist Joelle Wiggin spoke to the committee about how last year’s changes harmed survivors of abuse at YDC facilities. There were several John Does who also gave powerful testimony to the committee about the impact of the changes.

In the next several weeks, the Judiciary Committee will make a recommendation on whether to advance the bill. The members of the Judiciary Committee are Daryl Abbas, Debra Altschiller, Sharon Carson, Bill Gannon, and Tara Reardon. It is important to share with your senators that they should support this bill. You can send a single email to all five members of the Judiciary Committee by clicking this link. And you can find your local senator here: https://gc.nh.gov/senate/members/wml.aspx.

Please be mindful that sending an email may identify you. If you would like to remain anonymous, please don’t identify that you were at a YDC facility; instead, say that Senate Bill 558 is important to you and that you would like them to support it.

The lawmakers want to help, so please be polite and let them know that they should support Senate Bill 558. You do not need to be detailed; even just a short message asking them to support the bill should be enough.

WMUR Article

WMUR aired a segment Thursday evening in which four former employees from YDC shared their opinions about the YDC lawsuits. Predictably, those former employees claimed nothing bad could have happened at YDC while they were there. We understand that news coverage like this can be very distressing for victims.

We were asked to provide a comment for Thursday’s news segment. Attorney Mark Knights shared the following statement with WMUR:

“We don’t need to make a statement when 48 jurors already have. Together, 48 impartial men and women concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that three former YDC staff members sexually victimized children and sent those men to jail for decades and awarded David Meehan $38 million, based, in part, on the testimony of five other former YDC staff members who described the culture of abuse at YDC. The verdicts returned by those 48 impartial citizens speak louder than the denials of former staffers who now have to try to explain how they could be so ignorant of rampant abuse that flourished under their noses for years.”

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Thank you,