AARC is currently going through the same process KIDS went through before it was finally shut down. Despite the fact that AARC, like KIDS, is blatantly breaking the law in numerous ways, these things take time. Personally, I don't believe that it will take as long to shut down AARC as it did with KIDS because Vause is apparently having some trouble keeping his lies strait. It's only a matter of time before his influential friends decide to save themselves and their careers and back out. From what I've heard, some of them are already getting quite irritated by his assertion that they're in bed together.
It's almost eerie how history repeats itself...
Over the years TV shows and investigators looked in to the program. Some were permitted to enter the building, ask questions, and film. Nobody was permitted to speak with the reporters except the graduates. Eventually, the states began investigating reports of abuse and false imprisonment in California, Utah, and Texas. Kids of El Paso and Kids of Southern California shut their doors in 1989 due bankruptcy. The legal battles to fight claims of physical abuse, false imprisonment, and mind control proved to be too much. Kids started coming to NJ from all over. A few months after that Salt Lake closed it's doors. In spite of all the investigations and inquiries the New Jersey program stayed open. About a year after an airing of "West 57th St." Bergen County Prosecutors went in and pulled people out who were over 18 and asked them if they wanted to leave. Some did, some did not. The prosecutors repeated this action a few months later.
Shortly after this investigation Newton shut down the building at 80 Commerce Way in Hackensack and began looking for another building. The clients were sent to what they called "Satellite Homes" where 7-20 or more kids and staff would meet and have group sessions at family's homes. He was also seen by a former parent to be holding open meetings in a church in River Edge, NJ. He relocated to an empty warehouse in Secaucus, New Jersey. He changed the name from Kids of Bergen County, to Kids of North Jersey. Secaucus is an industrial town with mostly minorities. He knew he could get Medicaid funding there. The State of New Jersey gave Newton a special certificate to operate from the Commissioner of Health and Human Services.
New Jersey knew that Kids was a controversial program and proceeded to have state officials check it out. They found numerous counts of insurance fraud and many major insurance companies had already stopped funding. Families desperate to keep their children in Kids were putting third mortgages on their homes. New Jersey launched a Medicaid fraud investigation in 1999, which was Newton's demise. During this time, R*b*cca Ehrl*ch was in the process of suing Newton and his team of psychologists for $4.5 million. She won that suit in 2001. Her attorney was Phil Elberg. Elberg took on Newton again in 2003 winning a 6.5 million dollar settlement for former client L*lu C*rt*r, who spent 13 years in Kids of Bergen County and Kids of North Jersey.
