Torture Alleged at Chain of Children's Homes
Sept 2011
SALT LAKE CITY (CN) - Hundreds of parents claim a group of boarding
schools tortured their children: locked them in dog cages, forced them to lie in
feces and eat vomit, masturbated them and denied the troubled teens any religion
"except for the Mormon faith."
The Utah-based World Wide Association Of Specialty Programs and Schools and
its owners - Robert Lichfield, Brent Facer and Ken Kay - went to great lengths
to hide the "torture," which began in the mid-1990s and continued for a decade,
the 357 plaintiffs claim in Salt Lake County Court.
The plaintiffs say that 59 schools and owners tied to the company "jointly
promoted, advertised, and marketed defendants' residential boarding schools as a
place where children with problems could get an education while receiving
instruction and direction in behavior modification for emotional growth and
personal development."
But they say the children were subjected to physical, emotional and sexual
abuse at the schools including, Cross Creek Center for Boys, Brightway
Adolescent Hospital and Red Rock Springs. They say the abuses inflicted upon
some children for years "could be accurately described as torture."
According to the complaint, students were locked in boxes, cages and
basements at the schools, denied medical and dental care, and forced "to carry
heavy bags of sand around their necks or logs throughout the day over many
days."
They were sexually abused, "which included forced sexual relations and acts
of fondling and masturbation performed on them," according to the 119-page
complaint.
Students were "forced to eat their own vomit ... bound and tied by hands
and/or feet ... chained and locked in dog cages ... forced to lie in, or wear,
urine and feces ... forced to sleep on cold concrete floors, boxspring, or
plywood," and put to forced labor, the complaint states.
Children were "kicked, beaten, thrown and slammed to the ground ... forced
to eat raw or rotten food ... poked and prodded with various objects while being
strip searched ... denied any religious affiliation, except for the Mormon faith
... [and] threatened [with] severe punishment, including death, if they told
anyone of their abuses and poor living conditions," according to the complaint.
Their mail was confiscated, and personal visits and telephone calls were
forbidden or discouraged, the parents say.
"At all times relevant, defendants did not disclose to the parents the
physical, emotional, mental, and/or sexual abuse to which their children were
subjected at their facilities and conspired, even to this day, to prevent them
from discovering such abuse," the complaint states.
The defendant company still operates residential centers in Utah, South
Carolina and Costa Rica, but has faced school shutdowns in Mexico, Jamaica and
Samoa amid child abuse investigations, according to the complaint. It says that
more than 2,100 students were enrolled in its schools in 2003.
The plaintiffs filed a similar lawsuit in Federal Court in 2006, which U.S.
District Court Judge Clark Waddoups dismissed in August for lack of
jurisdiction.The parents seek punitive damages for fraud, gross negligence,
false imprisonment, assault and battery, and breach of contract, and a
protective order to prevent spoliation of evidence.
They are represented by Windle Turley of Dallas, Texas and James McConkie
II with Parker & McConkie of Salt Lake