MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A judge has reduced bail for a former New Hampshire youth center worker accused of sexually assaulting four teenagers, including one at gunpoint.

Jeffrey Buskey, 54, of Quincy, Massachusetts, was one of a group of former workers at the Youth Development Center in Manchester arrested in April and charged with either sexual assault or being accomplices to abuse between 1994 and 2005. The center, now called the Sununu Youth Services Center, has been the target of a broad criminal investigation since 2019, as well as a lawsuit in which more than 200 men and women allege they were physically or sexually abused as children by 150 staffers from 1963 to 2018.

Buskey is the only defendant who is still incarcerated, according to his lawyer, Shelagh O’Donnell. She said during a hearing Thursday that he can’t afford the current cash bail of $50,000, which would mean that he’d be in jail for a long time before his trial starts. She said he could pay $2,000 and another $1,000 for a GPS monitoring bracelet.

Prosecutors objected, saying that Buskey could remove the bracelet and be a flight risk.

The judge granted Buskey’s request, saying the state didn’t prove that his release “will not reasonably assure” his appearance in court.

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