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Oregon “Tough Love” School Sued For Child Abuse: Nine Students File $14 Million Suit
Oregon “Tough Love” School Sued For Child Abuse: Nine Students File $14 Million Suit
Portland, OR - Nine former students of one of Oregon’s best known “tough love” boarding schools filed a lawsuit today alleging emotional, physical and sexual abuse. The suit is being brought by attorneys Kelly Clark, Steve Crew, Gilion Dumas, Kristian Roggendorf, Peter Janci and the Portland law firm O’Donnell Clark and Crew, who often bring child abuse cases in Oregon and around the nation. The suit alleges claims of battery, negligence, and infliction of emotional distress against Mount Bachelor Academy and its parent companies, Aspen Education Group and CRC Health. The suit seeks more than $14 million in compensatory damages, and punitive damages will be sought as well.
Located 26 miles east of Prineville, the controversial “therapeutic boarding school” known as Mt. Bachelor Academy was closed by the State of Oregon in November of 2009 based on the findings of an investigation related to charges of systemic abuse and neglect. According to a report by the Oregon Department of Human Services, Mt. Bachelor Academy reportedly used “punitive, humiliating, degrading and traumatizing” tactics as “treatment”1 – an approach some say stems from the Synonan self-help group of the 1960's, which was rejected as a cult by mainstream mental health community by the late 1970s.2 At the time of its closure in 2009, Mt. Bachelor Academy reportedly had more than 75 staff supervising approximately 90 students who were being charged a tuition of $6,400 per month.
“The so-called ‘treatment’ that these children were forced to endure on a daily basis at Mt. Bachelor Academy is obscene. Not only did the program ‘break kids down’, it did nothing to build them back up,” said Kelly Clark, an attorney for the Plaintiffs. “We intend to prove that this wasn’t education, it wasn’t treatment and it wasn’t ‘tough love’ – this was abuse.”
The plaintiffs in today’s suit, who all attended Mt. Bachelor Academy in the late 1990s, allege: that they were subjected to regular psychological abuse and shaming, including being required to reenact traumatic experiences (such as prior instances of child sexual abuse) in front of their peers; that they were subjected to extreme isolation and prolonged deprivations of food, water, shelter, and basic medical care; that students were required to go days with little or no sleep and were also regularly forced into “chain gang” style labor; that phone calls to their families were limited and were monitored by Mt. Bachelor Academy staff; and that parents were instructed by staff not to believe their children if they claimed malfeasance or abuse – i.e., the children will lie, it is all part of the treatment process, parents were told.
The allegations in today’s lawsuit are consistent with the findings by the Oregon Department of Human Services.3 In late 2009, following a seven month investigation, DHS found multiple incidences of “abuse and neglect” and “serious violations of Oregon’s licensing standards.” The DHS report cited nine substantiated claims of abusive practices, including “punitive, humiliating, degrading and traumatizing” activities such as “sexualized role pay and reenactment of traumatic events, such as prior physical or sexual abuse.” The state also found that these were not isolated incidents; instead, “many of [the abusive] behaviors fell within the range of behavior expected, encouraged or condoned by the Mount Bachelor Academy program itself . . . .”
DHS determined that “MBA poses a serious danger to public health or safety of children . . . [and] should not be permitted to continue operating as a therapeutic boarding school for children.” Thereafter, in November of 2009, the state gave Mt. Bachelor Academy 72 hours to shut down its program and remove students from its facility. The facility closed on November 3, 2009. Later, in October 2010, as part of a settlement of a suit by Mt. Bachelor against the state contesting the DHS findings of abuse, Aspen Education Group and CRC Health Group (the parent company’s of Mount Bachelor Academy) agreed that DHS had reasonable cause to believe that abuse or neglect had occurred at the school, and that DHS had a reasonable basis to investigate and to seek corrective actions.
Today’s lawsuit names Mt. Bachelor Academy and its parent companies as defendants. Those include Aspen Education Group – a national conglomerate of therapeutic boarding schools which, at its peak had nearly 40 youth programs throughout the United States – as well as Aspen’s parent company, CRC Health Group. CRC Health Group is a large national healthcare corporation owned by Bain Capital, a private equity firm with $65 billion in assets.4
Today’s lawsuit is part of a larger response to decades of abuse and mistreatment in so-called “tough love” facilities – both inside and outside of the Aspen Education Group. According to previous news reports, at least four children have died in Aspen-owned facilities since 2004.5 One of those incidences occurred in Oregon in 2009 – the death of student Sergey Blashchishen during a wilderness hike in the Redmond-based Sagewalk Wilderness School. Blashchishen, a minor at the Sagewalk facility, collapsed in August of 2009 while hiking on his second day Aspen’s Sagewalk program. Staff had reportedly ignored repeated signs of a serious medical problem, and the boy died at the scene.6 The lead sherif’s investigator on the Sagewalk case recommended that the Lake County district attorney file homicide charges.7 Sagewalk had previously been the subject of the nationally broadcast ABC television series “Brat Camp” in 2005.
As Peter Janci, one of the Plaintiffs’ attorneys explained,“Many ‘tough love’ schools have been a breeding ground for abuse – isolating vulnerable kids and subjecting them to debunked so-called ‘treatments’ by unqualified staff, while their parents are kept in the dark and bilked out of tens of thousands of dollars.”
Problems of abuse, injury and even death are present throughout the “tough love” industry. Some reports indicate that more than two dozen teenagers died in such facilities between 1990 and 2001.8
Today’s lawsuit is one in a growing number of actions by individuals who survived these facilities, only to be left with serious, long-term psychological injuries. Several weeks ago, a civil suit was filed against Silverado Academy in Utah for claims related to a staff member’s sexual abuse of at least 10 boys.9 Previously, in 2006, attorneys for another group of individuals filed a major lawsuit alleging neglect, fraud and abuse against the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools and related entities. That suit is still pending in federal court in Utah, and now includes 353 plaintiffs who allege they were wronged by therapeutic boarding schools and their related entities.
“This is a watershed moment in exposing organizations that have profited from broken promises to desperate families,” said Clark. “We believe that institutions like Mt. Bachelor Academy need to be exposed for what they are and held accountable for the permanent damage they have done to the lives of vulnerable teenagers entrusted to their care.”
Clark and his firm are among the most prominent child sexual abuse attorneys in the nation, having brought over 300 claims against such organizations as the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, the Boy Scouts of America and dozens of other youth-serving organizations. Clark has twice won landmark child abuse cases at the Oregon Supreme Court, and last year was lead counsel in a six week sex abuse trial against the Boy Scouts of America resulting in a jury verdict of nearly $20 million.
Media Conferences with Attorneys:
1. The DHS report can be found here: http://www.
2. http://motherjones.com/
3. The DHS report can be found here: http://www.
4. http://www.crchealth.com/
http://www.
5. http://www.
8. http://prospect.org/cs/
9. http://www.ksl.com/index.
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