Police: Cousens Gave Teen Cocaine Before Assault

It was an afternoon that included unwanted drugs and unwanted sex, according to a Merrimack Police detective's report to a district court judge.

The details of the afternoon were contained in the accused's court file as part of an affidavit  written by Det. Scott Park as means to obtain 43, of 222 Amherst Road.

In the affidavit, Park says Cousens, who is charged with two counts of felonious sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child younger than 16, took the victim on a ride around the Greater Nashua area, buying her a pair of shoes and a fleece jacket at the Merrimack Premium Outlets before allegedly purchasing a quantity of cocaine in Hudson with the teenager in his 2008 Toyota Tacoma.

Park's report says the teenager believed the white substance, purchased through a window to window transaction across the Merrimack River, to be cocaine. Her suspicions were confirmed, Park said, when Cousens allegedly began to snort the powder and encouraged her to do the same.

He allegedly told the victim, in coercing her to try the drug that “this was the best way to try it, because he was with her and could protect her.”

But Park said he did not protect her. Instead, after convincing the teenager to take the drug, he took her back to his house where he allegedly sexually assaulted her after she told him she was feeling sick and had blurry vision.

The teen told authorities that Cousens brought her up to his bedroom and laid her on his bed, where he is alleged to have assaulted her, police said.

According to the victim's mother, Park wrote in the report, Cousens has made it a habit in the last few months to buy her daughter expensive clothing and shoes, items he claimed were cast offs of his own daughter. The victim's mother turned over the clothing to police for evidence, saying it seemed obvious now that Cousens had been buying her daughter items “in an attempt to establish a sexual relationship.”

According to Park, Merrimack's investigation into this incident began on April 3, when he was contacted by Amherst Police Detective Patrick Webster, who'd taken the initial report from the victim and her mother. The afternoon in question was April 1 and the victim's mother said her daughter had broken down on April 2, telling her doctor during a routine check up that she'd been sexually assaulted the day before, and coerced into ingesting cocaine. She also recounted the story to her mother.

A drug screening was performed at the doctor's office and did return a positive result for cocaine, Park said.

Following the victim's meeting with Park, and before the arrest warrant was requested on April 11, the victim's mother contacted Park to let him know her daughter had been receiving text messages from Cousens checking to see if everything was “good” between them. Park took photos of the messages and advised the victim not to delete them, which she agreed to.

The statements made to police, doctors and forensic interviewers by the victim and her mother, as told by Park, were enough for Judge Clifford Kinghorn to sign an arrest warrant for Cousens on April 11. Police attempted to locate him late last week, but after no sign of him over the weekend, sought the help of the public on Monday to track him down. Cousens turned himself in to police on Tuesday, April 16, around 5:30 a.m. He posted $50,000 surety bail later in the morning following his arraignment in Merrimack's District Court.

This is not Cousens' first brush with the law by a long shot, according to the Nashua Telegraph. The newspaper says Cousens has been arrested multiple times since 2002, charged with “domestic violence, including simple assault criminal threatening, false imprisonment, second-degree assault and was found guilty of driving while intoxicated. Several of the simple assault charges lodged against him were dropped, according to Telegraph archives.”

Cousens' charges constitute class B felonies for the sexual assault and a class a misdemeanor for endangering the welfare. A probable cause hearing is scheduled for April 23 at 9:30 a.m.