Trial over sexual assault of child welfare counselor continues after sick juror replaced

Aug. 30—CONCORD — Jury deliberations will continue Tuesday in the trial of Victor Malavet, a juvenile counselor accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl at the Concord Juvenile Correctional Facility in 2021.

After a juror suddenly became ill on August 30, Judge Daniel St. Hilaire of Merrimack Superior Court replaced the juror with an alternate and instructed the jury to bring the new member up to speed. The trial ended at noon. The case will resume at 9 a.m. on September 3 in Merrimack Superior Court.

Malavet, 62, of Gilford, is accused of 12 counts of aggravated sexual assault that occurred between June and November 2001. He worked as a youth counselor at a facility where children were held while awaiting court decisions.

Malavet, who was arrested in April 2021, is the first of nine defendants to be prosecuted as part of a multi-year investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the Youth Development Center in Manchester and the Youth Detention Services Unit in Concord in the 1990s and 2000s.