DCYF, New Boston police among defendants in lawsuit alleging years of failure to protect girl – WMUR Manchester

Accuser’s attorney says she was kept in dungeon by adoptive parents
Accuser’s attorney says she was kept in dungeon by adoptive parents
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Accuser’s attorney says she was kept in dungeon by adoptive parents
The New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families and the New Boston Police Department are among two dozen defendants named in a lawsuit filed by a woman who said she was kept in a basement and abused for years.

The lawsuit alleges systemic failures that prevented her from getting help.
“Her life was a nightmare, in that she was treated in the most vile fashion,” said Mike Lewis, the accuser’s lawyer. “And as the lawsuit indicates, the people who should have protected her didn’t. And it’s shocking.”
The lawsuit documents Olivia’s arrival in New Hampshire as a 14-month-old baby adopted from China by Denise and Thomas Atkocaitis in 2004.
The alleged abuse started when she was 3. According to the lawsuit, she was tied to a metal column with a dog leash. Eventually, an 8-foot by 8-foot basement dungeon was built, and Olivia spent most of her days locked in the room with a bucket for a toilet, fed maybe once a day, according to the lawsuit.
It was one of her three siblings who reported to a school counselor what her lawyer calls enslavement.
The lawsuit alleges that Olivia suffered years of abuse and imprisonment in the Helena Drive home deep in the woods of New Boston. She said she tried to escape multiple times and each time was returned by police to her parents.
“The police actually went into the home and documented the dungeon that Olivia was living in, but Olivia remained there for the next seven years,” Lewis said.
The attorney representing the New Boston Police Department said in an email that it was the investigative efforts of New Boston police that led to Olivia’s removal from the home, and the department denies the allegations that it failed to protect her.
“It takes enormous courage to do something like what she’s done here,” Lewis said. “And the big question is whether she’s going to be punished for doing that or whether there’s going to be an acceptance of some level of responsibility.”
Denise and Thomas Atkocaitis pleaded guilty to felony child endangerment and now live out of state.
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