Author Topic: Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations  (Read 2326 times)

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Offline Anonymous

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« on: June 21, 2007, 01:30:11 PM »
Suit claims students at schools were sexually, physically exploited
By Thomas Burr
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 06/21/2007 01:15:46 AM MDT

WASHINGTON - A Utah man remains on presidential candidate Mitt Romney's state finance committee despite his ties to an organization that a lawsuit alleges abuses children.
    Robert Lichfield, who helped launch the Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools (WWASPS), held a fundraiser for Romney in southern Utah earlier this year that raked in more than $300,000 and has been a top financial supporter of the former Massachusetts governor and other Republicans in recent years.
    Lichfield, meanwhile, is named in a federal lawsuit alleging that students of the schools associated with WWASPS were subjected to "physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse." An amended complaint in U.S. District Court in Utah lists 140 plaintiffs.
    The suit, filed last year and now moving through the court system, contends students were forced to eat their own vomit, clean toilets with a toothbrush and brush their teeth afterward, were chained or locked in dog cages, kicked, beaten, thrown and slammed to the ground and forced into sexual acts.
    Defendants in the suit deny any wrongdoing. Program officials say the plaintiffs don't have sufficient knowledge of the operation to claim such abuses and that neither WWASPS nor Lichfield operates or owns the schools involved. (Lichfield does act as landlord for some schools.)

Romney's campaign Ð which has accepted nearly $15,000 from the


Lichfield family so far this year Ð says the campaign's "finance effort is done according to strict rules and is fully transparent."
    "It's my understanding that these complaints are part of a civil lawsuit between two parties," Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said. "Questions regarding the nature of those civil lawsuits should be directed to the parties involved in adjudicating them."
    Utah was the second-biggest state for Romney's first-quarter fundraising efforts. The former head of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City drew nearly $3 million from the state in the first three months of the campaign.
    Lichfield did not respond to a request for an interview through WWASPS, but the president of the organization, Ken Kay, says the lawsuit is bunk.
    He called the allegations "ludicrous," adding, "We don't condone any type of child abuse and it's highly unlikely that any of the incidents ever happened."
    Kay says the lawsuit Ð like those before it that were unsuccessful Ð come out of "opportunist" lawyers goading former students telling stories and also from students who want to hurt the schools because they were forced to go there.
    The troubled teens making the allegations "are the trouble," Kay says. "They have a history of fabrication and out-and-out lying."
    Kay, who said he was unsure where Lichfield was now, heralded Lichfield as a community-oriented person who gives more to education and health care than to political races. "He is a great man, and he does a lot of very good things," Kay said.
    The lawsuit, filed on behalf of 17 former students and their parents, contends differently. The suit says Lichfield "directly or indirectly, owned, operated, or otherwise directed the conduct and activities of each and every other" defendant, including various schools in the United States and other countries.
    The suit claims that minor children were subjected to abuse, and that "such abuses were inflicted on some children for several years."
    "In many instances, the abuse could be accurately described as torture of children," the complaint says.
    Thomas M. Burton, a lawyer in California and Utah who has sued WWASPS seven times unsuccessfully, says the "tough-love" programs are unconstitutional. He says he got involved in lawsuits against the schools when he saw two young girls, shackled hand and foot and taken to a house with blacked out windows. "There's something really, really wrong with that," Burton said.
    "It appears to me that no one has a right to lock up a kid who has not been adjudicated for breaking the law," he said.
    Romney and Lichfield also made the news in Maine recently when the Portland Press Herald reported that an organization affiliated with Lichfield was the top donor in the governor's race there. RECAF Inc., the paper reported, gave $250,000 to a political action committee set up by the Republican Governors Association to buy television time to support Republican Chandler Woodcock.
    Romney was chairman of the RGA when the PAC was set up. WWASPS has no affiliated schools in the state.

   
   
   Romney in Utah this weekend
   
   Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will return to one of his favorite - and most lucrative - fundraising spots this weekend: Utah. Romney has scheduled a $500-per-person fundraising breakfast Saturday in the EnergySolutions Arena, hosted by Jazz owner Larry Miller. Later that day he will hold a $1,000-a-plate luncheon in Logan at the home of Cache Valley Electric CEO Jim Laub. And that evening, Romney is hosting a $2,300-per-person fundraiser at his vacation home in Deer Valley.




http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_6191979

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Its almost worth the $500 admission fee to his first fundriaser to ask him to his face, and videotape it, why he takes blood money from child abusers. Love to see his reaction to that question! Anyone up for a 500 dollar breakfast confrontation?
    :rofl:
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline OverLordd

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2007, 11:19:29 PM »
Well, ill be calling Govenor Romneys office on monday and bitching some one out.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
our walking down a hallway, you turn left, you turn right. BRICK WALL!

GAH!!!!

Yeah, hes a survivor.

Offline Nihilanthic

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2007, 01:43:47 AM »
Nobody is going to care unless you find a way to make them want to care.

Make it something wedge-issue-ish or really inflamatory and/or sensational.

Well, wait, I thought torture camps were sensational enough.

 :roll: I expect zip.shit to happen.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
DannyB on the internet:I CALLED A LAWYER TODAY TO SEE IF I COULD SUE YOUR ASSES FOR DOING THIS BUT THAT WAS NOT POSSIBLE.

CCMGirl on program restraints: "DON\'T TAZ ME BRO!!!!!"

TheWho on program survivors: "From where I sit I see all the anit-program[sic] people doing all the complaining and crying."

Offline Anonymous

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2007, 11:35:59 AM »
State Police are investigating one of Mitt Romney's top campaign aides for allegedly impersonating a trooper by calling a Wilmington company and threatening to cite the driver of a company van for erratic driving, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the probe.

Jay Garrity, who is director of operations on Romney's presidential campaign and a constant presence at his side, became the primary target of the investigation, according to one of the sources, after authorities traced the cellphone used to make the call back to him. The investigation comes three years after Garrity, while working for Romney in the State House, was cited for having flashing lights and other police equipment in his car without proper permits.
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Offline Ursus

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #4 on: June 23, 2007, 12:09:02 PM »
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286152,00.html
Romney Aide Takes Leave Amid Allegations He Impersonated a Law Enforcement Officer
Friday , June 22, 2007
AP

BOSTON —  An ever-present aide to Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney took a leave of absence Friday after he became the subject of investigations in two states for allegedly impersonating a law enforcement officer.

His attorney denied the charges.

Jay Garrity, who serves as director of operations and is constantly at the side of the former Massachusetts governor, is accused of leaving a lengthy message with the answering service of a plumbing company on Mother's Day, identifying himself as "Trooper Garrity" of the Massachusetts State Police and complaining about erratic driving by a company driver.

Click to Hear Romney Aide's Call from MyFoxBoston.com.

The district attorney in Boston is investigating the call, which was tape recorded by an after-hours operator. Impersonating an officer is a misdemeanor charge carrying a fine of up to $400 and one year imprisonment.

"Listening to the message, it sounded like he was calling control and speaking back and forth to people," said Dot Barme, whose Burlington company, Wayne's Drains, received the call. "I had my husband listen to it and he said, 'He's not talking to anybody; he's talking back and forth to himself," Barme told The Associated Press.

Stephen Jones, an attorney representing Garrity, said his client did not make the May 13 call, first reported by The Boston Globe, and has no connection with the cell phone to which it was traced.

"He has insisted since he's heard about this to have a voice analysis done to exonerate him or prove he did not do this," Jones said.

Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, confirmed the investigation.

"We're looking into a phone call placed to an area business by an individual who represented himself as a state trooper," Wark said. "We do not believe the person who made that call is a state trooper and we are working to determine his identity."

Meanwhile, Garrity also has been accused of telling a New York Times reporter who had been following Romney's motorcade in New Hampshire last month that he had run the license plate of the reporter's rental car, and that he should break away from the caravan.

The New Hampshire attorney general's office is investigating that incident after the reporter, Mark Leibovich, recounted the May 29 events in a story about Romney last weekend. New Hampshire law prohibits citizens from accessing the state's license plate database.

"Jay has taken a leave of absence from the campaign to address these complaints," said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden.

Jones, the Garrity attorney, disputed the sequence of events. Leibovich has stood by his version of the story.

In 2004, Garrity was cited and fined by Massachusetts officials after a Ford Crown Victoria registered to him was found to have lights, a siren, radios and other law enforcement equipment — including a baton — after it was parked illegally in Boston's North End. At the time, Garrity was paid $75,000 annually as Romney's gubernatorial chief of operations.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline psy

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #5 on: June 23, 2007, 05:54:03 PM »
Quote from: ""OverLordd""
Well, ill be calling Govenor Romneys office on monday and bitching some one out.


Sure.  Do that.  It's what helped my very conservative father to figure out that they really don't give a shit.  He would get requests for donations from the GOP in the mail.  He wrote many letters to both the GOP and the president detailing the reasons why they had betrayed traditional conservative principles such as limited government...  He never got any responses.  He did, however, keep getting requests for donations.  I predict he will vote for Ron Paul (as will I).
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
"Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

Offline Anonymous

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #6 on: June 23, 2007, 06:19:53 PM »
Ron Paul is solidly anti-abortion. This will doom him among Democrats. And he's not worshipping the Bush sacred cow, so this will doom him among Republicans.

I'll take "Candidates who have no hope in hell of winning the primaries" for 500, Alex.
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Offline psy

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #7 on: June 23, 2007, 06:41:31 PM »
Quote from: ""Guest""
Ron Paul is solidly anti-abortion.


That is his personal view, yes, but if you look a little more closely his view of what policy should be is basically this: let individual states decide whether or not abortion should be permitted.  He is basically a libertarian, though becuase that word is often a misnomer, he calls himself a "constitutionalist".

I'll take "Candadates who may not win but if we don't start voting for them, the two party paradigm will never change and it has to start somewhere" for 1000, Alex.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
Benchmark Young Adult School - bad place [archive.org link]
Sue Scheff Truth - Blog on Sue Scheff
"Our services are free; we do not make a profit. Parents of troubled teens ourselves, PURE strives to create a safe haven of truth and reality." - Sue Scheff - August 13th, 2007 (fukkin surreal)

Offline Froderik

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #8 on: June 23, 2007, 06:45:17 PM »
Quote from: ""psy""
I'll take "Candadates who may not win but if we don't start voting for them, the two party paradigm will never change and it has to start somewhere" for 1000, Alex.

 :rofl: :tup: :smokin:
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Offline Ursus

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #9 on: June 23, 2007, 08:17:41 PM »
more Jay Garrity and Mitt Romney:
http://wwf.fornits.com/viewtopic.php?t=22043
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Offline Anonymous

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #10 on: June 24, 2007, 01:26:37 AM »
How many of you live in Ohio or Florida, or do you really think your vote still matters? (after you are given only two similar choices)
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Offline Froderik

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #11 on: June 24, 2007, 09:58:44 AM »
Is there a "none of the above" option on American balllots? (I have yet to vote.)
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Offline Rachael

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #12 on: June 24, 2007, 11:43:55 AM »
No, but you can always spoil your ballot. They count those too.

Rachael
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Justice, Justice shall you pursue.

Deuteronomy 16:20

Offline Deborah

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Utahn stays on campaign despite abuse allegations
« Reply #13 on: June 24, 2007, 11:17:22 PM »
Quote from: ""Froderik""
Is there a "none of the above" option on American balllots? (I have yet to vote.)


You can always write-in someone of your choice, even yourself.  :lol:
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gt;>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Hidden Lake Academy, after operating 12 years unlicensed will now be monitored by the state. Access information on the Federal Class Action lawsuit against HLA here: http://www.fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t=17700