Posted: Fri Jun 30, 2006 1:01 pm Post subject:
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A post from that link:
This is a COMPLETE list of PURE programs some they stopped refering to for a differnt number of reasons (non-payment and conditional licesing and the program simply ask that PURE stop refering to them then spoke out against them.
Red Rock Academy
Cedar Mountain Academy
Sorenson?s Ranch
Lost Legacy Ranch
Oak ridge military academy
Turning Point
Reality Ranch
Summit Achievement
Skyline Journey
Glacier Mountain Academy
Kids Peace
Harbor House for Girls
Safe Harbor
Harbor House for Boys
High Top Ranch
New Horizons Youth Ministries
Whitmore Academy
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RE: KIDS PEACE
July 20, 2006
Ex-KidsPeace counselor admits to sex with teen
He will be sentenced in October on charges from incident at North Whitehall facility.
By Debbie Garlicki Of The Morning Call
A former KidsPeace counselor who had sex with a 16-year-old resident of the North Whitehall Township facility for troubled youths pleaded guilty Wednesday to institutional sexual assault and corruption of a minor.
Jerry J. McChristian, 34, who no longer works at the youth home, told the judge that he was ''pushed'' into having sex with the girl in August.
Lehigh County Judge Robert L. Steinberg asked him what he meant. McChristian, of 2106 S. Lumber St., Allentown, mumbled an inaudible response.
Steinberg noted that McChristian was an adult and the girl was a child and asked McChristian why he did not reject alleged advances by a teen girl who wouldn't have been at the facility if she didn't already have problems.
Whether or not the sex was consensual, the judge said, McChristian was over 18 and the girl was under 18 and having sex with her was an act that would corrupt a minor.
After Senior Deputy District Attorney Matthew Falk outlined the prosecution's case, the judge askedMcChristian whether or not he had sex with the girl. McChristian didn't answer and appeared reluctant to speak.
Steinberg told him that if he didn't want to plead guilty, a trial would be scheduled.
''I don't want a wishy-washy response from you,'' Steinberg told McChristian.
He asked McChristian again whether he engaged in inappropriate acts with the girl.
''I was pushed into it,'' said McChristian, who is free on bail. He was represented by attorney Michael Brunnabend of Allentown.
Falk said that on Aug. 10, the girl asked a KidsPeace staff member if she could make a telephone call. The girl got permission, and McChristian escorted her into a conference room where she made a call.
McChristian and the girl then had sex on the floor, Falk said. The girl reported the incident to someone at KidsPeace, who called state police.
Authorities tested evidence on a carpet in the conference room and found that DNA from the carpet matched McChristian's DNA, according to Falk.
Falk said he explained the negotiated plea to the victim, who is expected to testify at McChristian's sentencing hearing on Oct. 12.
The prosecution and defense agreed to a binding sentence of probation for the charge of institutional sexual assault, which is a third-degree felony. There was no agreement on the sentence McChristian will get for the corruption of a minor charge and no agreement on whether the sentences for the two charges will run consecutively or concurrently.
Corruption of minors carries a maximum sentence of 21/2 to five years in prison.
Can KidsPeace 'withstand' award to boy's mother?
July 25, 2006
Paul Carpenter
Just for the fun of it, suppose you are an institution with enough money to propose a $100 million expansion.
Let's say this expansion is approved by North Whitehall Township officials in 1997. (This is after a boy, Mark Draheim, is put in your care.) Even if you decide not to build the expansion, you have $100 million at your disposal.
That, in a conservative investment portfolio, would give you annual dividends 166 times what Marsha Draheim, Mark's mother, will get to compensate her for her son's asphyxiation. At that rate, you could throttle more than 100 kids a year without denting that $100 million principal.
A weekend news story was not supposition. It told how Lehigh County Senior Judge John P. Lavelle engineered a settlement in a lawsuit against the KidsPeace National Center for Kids in Crisis Inc.
The lawsuit involved the 1998 death of 14-year-old Mark Draheim at the big KidsPeace facility in North Whitehall Township. The suit also said KidsPeace did nothing to stop the sexual abuse Mark suffered while imprisoned there.
The story noted he was the second boy to die there while being restrained by staff members. Jason Tallman, 12, was killed in 1993. That death also resulted in settlement, which avoids exposure in open court.
KidsPeace, the story said, claimed in court documents that it ''was not in a position to pay a substantial judgment,'' and KidsPeace flack Mark Stubis was quoted as saying the Draheim settlement ''was structured in such a way that we can withstand it.''
How much did Lavelle decide KidsPeace can withstand? Marsha Draheim's end of a so-called $1.2 million settlement will come in dribs and drabs, at $30,000 a year. But Lavelle made sure the lawyers got their end ? more than 40 percent of the $1.2 million ? in a lump sum, hubba-hubba.
(If the lawyers put their share in an investment portfolio, they'll get nearly the same amount each year ? but also without touching the principal ? that Draheim will receive.)
There were a few items the news story did not mention. For example, both of the boys asphyxiated at KidsPeace were were of small stature when they were terminally ''restrained'' by big staffers. Both were sent to KidsPeace by county authorities against the wishes of their families.
The Draheim lawsuit alleged the boy was repeatedly raped at KidsPeace, and the rapists included at least one adult. Even KidsPeace's own medical records, prior to his death, revealed rectal injuries, but KidsPeace never reported the assaults to authorities.
The Tallman boy was killed by a KidsPeace staffer named Dean Sine, who faced a half-hearted prosecution and was acquitted with the help of testimony by Dr. Isidore Mihalakis, a pathologist who said the death was accidental.
When Sine was acquitted, he and his KidsPeace colleagues cheered in court, and Sine laughed in the face of the boy's father. KidsPeace kept him on the payroll after that.
Later, Sine was sent to prison for repeatedly raping a young boy in Montgomery County. Those assaults were a year before Mihalakis and his ilk testified on Sine's behalf.
I have written extensively about KidsPeace, and not just about the Tallman-Draheim cases. Based on what I have learned in the process, I cannot escape the feeling that this is a monstrous establishment.
I doubt, however, that it will ever be held accountable. It is powerful and it has a cozy relationship with youth authorities who use judges to wrest control of children from parents, forcing the parents to use medical insurance to pay for placements at KidsPeace.
Marsha Draheim will get $30,000 a year, and KidsPeace will continue to rake in untold millions of dollars with the help of that power structure.
http://www.mcall.com/news/columnists/al ... snews-misc ---------------------
Mark Draheim was restrained to death in 1998. Hello?
Since when is physical, mental, sexual abuse and restraint related deaths okay in some programs but not others?
Why is KIDS PEACE not on CAICA's watchlist? Seems like a slam dunk troubled program to me but then again, so is Whitmore and it didn't make the CAICA watchlist either.
