Narvin Lichfield owner of Dundee Ranch arrested!

[Anonymous]

Earlier Ken Kay was trying to convince others that Narvin Lichfields arrest had to do with the interference of District Attorney Vargas investigation. According to the Tico Times that was not the case. Hopefully Kay is next.


"NEWS FLASH!!
(Posted at 12:30 a.m.)

At the request of the Prosecutor?s Office, Dundee Ranch Academy owner Narvin Lichfield was detained by police last night at 9 p.m. and is being held in jail.

The Prosecutor reportedly is looking into allegations that Lichfield was detaining children against their will and forcing them to sing declarations claiming they wanted to stay at Dundee Ranch under their own volition.

The Prosecutor is also reportedly investigating allegations that Lichfield was attempting to ship kids off to the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs? (WWASP) behavior-modification program in Jamaica.

The judge is expected to rule on the case today."

TicoTimes.net

[Anonymous]

They should be locking up Joe Atkin, too. He's played a major role in the operations at Dundee. His daddy is J. Ralph Atkin, founder of Skywest Airlines. J. Ralph's name is all over the various WWASP programs.

[Anonymous]

That is so nice to hear.

[FaceKhan]

Whew I think we should be sending our police and prosecutors to Costa Rica for training.

Finally a country that does not let them hide behind their corporate webs.

(what kind of a name is Narvin anyways, sounds like a fish.

Well I hope he rots in jail till this goes to trial. And what would be even better is if he agreed to testify against Kay and the other Lichfields and Atkins and they got extradited to Costa Rica for trial.

[Anonymous]

doesnt Costa Rica execute drunk drivers, like on the spot? I'd hate to be tried down there, lol...

[Antigen]

All I know about Costa Rica is that it's famous for having the most Libertarian government on the planet at the moment and that a good friend of mine just loves the place for vacations cause it's so laid back.

One theory among Libertarians has been that if we get law enforcement and the judiciary out of the business of snooping into people's private affairs they can be more effective at their primary role in going after serious criminals.

This story tends to bear that out, don't you think?

Yeay Costa Rica! I bet real estate there is way out of our price range, just as it is in New Hampshire.

Time is running out. The Indians' botanical knowledge is disappearing even faster than the plants themselves.

--Richard Schultes, Harvard University educator, authority on medicinal plants

[Anonymous]

What about the States? We all know these "requirements" are not being met for other WWASP run facilities here in the US


The Child Welfare Office's (PANI) report listed 15 problems Dundee needs to fix in the next 30 days in order to get legal and remain open:

1. Inadequate facilities: not enough ventilation or lighting in the dorms, and no privacy.

2. Inadequate food and meal portions.

3. Communication between students and their families too restricted.

4. Staff unqualified to attend to needs of children.

5. Immigration status of students not clear.

6. Some punishments qualify as physical and psychological abuse.

7. Academy overcrowded.

8. Cleaning facility should not be students' responsibility.

9. Academy has no permit from Education Ministry.

10. No guaranteed comprehensive health-care.

11. Many students held at Dundee against their will.

12. Dundee's investments in academy not directly benefiting students.

13. Management and leadership of program not professional.

14. Academic structure not clear: no lessons taught.

15. Some parents have complained that academy does not really offer what it advertises.

[Anonymous]

NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com


"Owner of Private Discipline Academy in Costa Rica Is Arrested
By TIM WEINER


MEXICO CITY, May 23 ? The owner of an American behavior modification program in Costa Rica housing nearly 200 American youths was jailed today after accusations that students had been deprived of their civil liberties.

The owner, Narvin Lichfield, was detained pending a judge's review of allegations brought by a local prosecutor. Those allegations include charges that children were held against their will and physically abused at the Academy at Dundee Ranch, in rural Costa Rica, according to Adilia Caravaca, a Costa Rican lawyer representing the mother of a child at Dundee.
 
 
A 14-year-old California girl who fled the academy on Thursday and returned home with the help of United States Embassy officials said by telephone today that Dundee Ranch staff members had beaten and physically restrained children who tried to leave the academy.

The girl, whose mother insisted that her name be withheld, said staff members "tried to make us sign a contract saying we didn't want anything to change and told us we had to sign the contract or we would be sent to Jamaica."

Dundee Ranch and a similar behavior modification program in Jamaica, Tranquility Bay, are affiliated with a Utah organization, the World Wide Association of Speciality Programs and Schools, known as Wwasps. About 30 children were sent from Costa Rica to Jamaica this week after child welfare officials visited Dundee Ranch on Tuesday and told youths there that they did not have to stay, officials said.

The Costa Rican authorities said punishments at the academy included emotional abuse, isolation and physical restraints.

Mr. Lichfield is a brother of Wwasps's founder, Robert Lichfield. The association operates 11 behavior modification centers that house 2,200 youths, about half of them in Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica, and half in the United States. Previous investigations have led to closings of Wwasps-affiliated programs in Mexico and the Czech Republic.

The arrest may spell the end of the academy, several parents of children at Dundee Ranch said. Some said in e-mail messages that they had faith in the program despite the charges. Others were desperately trying to contact their children to bring them home, but without success.

One, Yumiko Huffer, of Nashville, said her 17-year-old son had complained of mistreatment and had begged her to be sent home. "I sold my home to pay the tuition," more than $30,000 a year, she said in a telephone interview.

A Costa Rican security official, Ana Chacón, said it was likely that the children would eventually be returned to their parents or legal guardians."

NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com

[Anonymous]

Anyone have current info on Narvin Lichfield, still in jail, did he post bail??

[Anonymous]

Poor Narvin, how does it feel? To bad Bob ain't with you.

[lynn]

FaceKhan-
Quite possibly "Narvin" is a fish. My husband, who's done quite a bit of fishing- tells me that a "Dace" is a species of minnow.  
Needless to say, they're all starting to smell a lttle fishy right about now...

[ This Message was edited by: lynn on 2003-07-09 08:01 ]

[FaceKhan]

I wonder if they are all named after Fish, it would just be one of life's little mysteries.

In the meantime I am gonna keep trying to explain to people the lengths that parents will go to try to enforce their presumed right to their children's love. The song they sing is always the same, "sending little johnny away was the hardest thing I have ever done." I have heard this from so many parents that I am beginning to think it is included in the program literature as the thing to say when your kid's friend calls and asks where he has been disapeared to.

If you think your kid hates you or is on drugs or hanging out with the wrong crowd or getting bad grades or being disrespectful, you got two choices in my book, live with it and try to work through it. There is that word again...work, hmm I seemed to remember hearing that living was work somewhere along the way. If you can't handle that than just kill yourself and save your kid the trouble of having to look you in the eye at age 25 or 30 or 40 and try to explain to you why his life is falling apart because of what he suffered through and tried to tell you about when it was happening but you did not come and rescue him. Because if I have to hear one more fucking sob story from some crappy parent who cared more about their comfort then their kids life I will open up a fucking torture chamber for the parents and every parent who sends a check to a TBS or a wilderness academy is gonna wake up there one day and not leave until they learn to love my fucking program. And that goes double for all those stupid parents who think that a few positive letters expressing love and thankfulness and a bi-yearly phone call constitutes a healthy relationship with their child that was not there before the program intervened.

Get it through your heads, until your kid gets out of the program and back home and is past the age of majority so he can't be sent back and has had the time he needs to pick up the pieces of his self then the only relationship you are gonna have with your kid is the one the program tells him he has to make you think you have.





"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations, that some favors come at too high a price. I would look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this."

[ This Message was edited by: FaceKhan on 2003-07-08 23:26 ]