Fred Collins, A Little History (Thanks for trying for the re

[`]

Copyright 1983 The Washington Post  
The Washington Post
January 29, 1983, Saturday, Final Edition
SECTION: Metro; B7

LENGTH: 272 words

HEADLINE: Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against Drug Program

BYLINE: By Leah Y. Latimer, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:
A Fairfax County man's class-action suit requesting $750,000 for each of the participants in Straight Inc. , a national drug rehabilitation program with a Fairfax branch, was rejected yesterday by a federal judge who said the man's charges of brainwashing and harassment were an individual matter.

U.S. District Court Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. said there was insufficient evidence to prove that the suit, filed in Alexandria last month by Fred Collins, 20, represented the wishes of more than 3,000 program participants cited in the suit. Bryan said Collins could, however, proceed with an individual suit against the program.

The ruling followed a last-minute attempt by Collins' attorney to limit the persons included in the suit to participants in the Fairfax program. "It doesn't make any difference, class or no class" action, attorney Philip Hirschkop said yesterday, "as long as we can go forward."

Ronald Goldfarb, a D.C. lawyer representing the Florida-based drug rehabilitation program, called Collins a "rebel without a constituency" and contended that "90 percent of the case was thrown out" as a result of the ruling.

Collins had charged that he was held captive in Florida by Straight counselors for 5 1/2 months last year. His suit alleged that the firm's methods included regular mental and physical abuse such as solitary confinement and lack of food.

Bryan also denied a motion by Collins to release the names of program participants. Earlier, a group of parents and participants in the Straight program presented affidavits denying Collins' charges and saying they did not want to be in the lawsuit.

[`]

Copyright 1983 The Washington Post  
The Washington Post
May 11, 1983, Wednesday, Final Edition
SECTION: Metro; C9

LENGTH: 470 words

HEADLINE: Red Eyes Basis of Drug Diagnosis, Court Told

BYLINE: By Eve Zibart, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:
A staffer at Straight Inc. , a drug rehabilitation agency, testified in federal court in Alexandria yesterday that he "diagnosed" that college student Fred Collins had a drug problem because Collins had red eyes "symptomatic of marijuana use" during an interview.

Christopher Yarnold, who interviewed Collins at Straight's branch in St. Petersburg, Fla., conceded under questioning that Collins told him he had not smoked marijuana in more than three months.

Collins, 20, a sophomore at Virginia Tech, is seeking $750,000 in damages from Straight Inc. in U.S. District Court, contending that he was forced to remain in the program for 130 days and subjected to constant mental and physical abuse. Collins' family lives in Fairfax, where the agency recently opened a drug treatment program.

Dr. James Egan, the chief of psychiatry at Children's Hospital in Washington, testified yesterday that Collins was "a typical, perhaps above average" student whose drug and alcohol use was "modest by contemporary standards."

Egan told the jury that he would not have referred Collins to a rehabilitation program. Egan testified that he believes that Collins has developed "neurotic symptoms" such as depression, anxiety and nightmares since he left the Straight program.

Defense lawyers for Straight deny that Collins was subject to any physical or psychological abuse. They contend that the program, which they say Collins joined voluntarily, is based on nationally accepted therapeutic practices.

During Yarnold's testimony yesterday, Collins' chief counsel, Philip J. Hirschkop, invited the staffer to come down from the witness stand and look into Collins' eyes, and "tell the court when he had his last drink."

Yarnold then walked up to Collins, who was seated in the well of the courtroom, looked into his eyes and said, "They look good."

Joey Glaze, 17, a Straight staffer who also helped admit Collins to the program, testified that Collins stood up at a "group rap" in St. Petersburg and said he was thinking of leaving the program. Glaze wrote in the staff book that evening that "Fred Collins was confronted and blown away for wanting to leave. We need to ride his butt." Glaze told the jury that meant staffers needed to concentrate on helping Collins.

Collins' attorneys also tried to show a pattern of abuse in the Straight facilities that would have intimidated Collins. Leigh Bright of Oxon Hill, who was in the program with Collins in St. Petersburg, testified that she had a confrontation with program director Miller Newton, now Straight's national clinical director. Bright told the jury that Newton "grabbed me by the hair and threw me to the floor" and called her obscene names.

Newton was called as the first defense witness late yesterday and is expected to continue his testimony today.

[`]

Copyright 1983 The Washington Post  
The Washington Post
May 25, 1983, Wednesday, Final Edition
SECTION: Metro; C9

LENGTH: 581 words

HEADLINE: Three Testify Against Straight Inc.

BYLINE: By Eve Zibart, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:
A 20-year-old Canadian who was enrolled in the Fairfax County branch of Straight Inc. testified in federal court yesterday that he was tied up in car with nylon ropes by his Straight custodian last month but escaped during a traffic jam on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

Two other former clients of the Florida-based drug rehabilitation agency told the jury that they were kidnaped, both at their parents' instigation, and forcibly returned to the program after escaping.

The witnesses testified yesterday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on behalf of Fred Collins of Fairfax, who is seeking money damages from Straight for detaining him in the program for more than four months last year.

The testimony is being heard by the same jury that found two weeks ago that Collins had been held in the program against his will. The jury is expected to begin its deliberations on the issue of damages today.

Collins, 20, is seeking compensatory damages for financial losses he claims were incurred because of his imprisonment in the drug program and punitive damages.

In his opening statement to the jury, Philip J. Hirschkop, Collins' chief counsel, said he planned to show "a continuing pattern" of false imprisonment by Straight staffers, both before and after Collins' stay.

Jeffrey James McQuillen, 20, of Toronto, who was enrolled in the Springfield branch of Straight, described in court his escape from his Straight custodian during a traffic jam on the bridge.

McQuillen, who said he was bound by nylon ropes, said he tried "picking at the rope with my fingernails and biting it," and finally ripped all his belt loops off. When the driver pulled on to the shoulder and crawled into the back seat, McQuillen rolled into the front and scrambled out, he testified.

Arletha Luann Schautteet, 19, testified that after six months in the St. Petersburg, Fla., branch of the program, from October 1981 to April 1982, she was allowed to drive between her job and the Straight facility. "One night I was driving a girl home from night school and I just kept going," Schautteet told the jury.

Four days later, her mother came to the friend's house where Schautteet was staying. "Three people came running out of the bushes," Schautteet testified, "They fought with me for about 30 minutes, grabbing my arms and legs and trying to push me into my mother's car." Schautteet said she was released through the intervention of a lawyer called by her fiance.

Hope Yvonne Hyrons, 19, testified that while her mother was driving her to a doctor's appointment, two "very tall" men who said they had car trouble got in on either side of her. After her father also got in the car, she was taken to Straight, Hyrons testified.

Dr. James Egan, head of psychiatry at Children's Hospital, testified that as a result of Collins' detention by Straight, he exhibits chronic depression, low self-esteem, guilt, paranoia and excessive-compulsive behavior and needs psychiatric counseling.

Dr. John Meeks of the Psychiatric Institute of Montgomery County, testifying as a witness for Straight, said Collins' emotional problems dated back to his childhood and were not induced by his experiences with the drug rehabilitation program. Collins' father, Fred Collins Sr. of Mount Vernon, enrolled him in the program.

Meeks also testified that if Collins was awarded a large sum by the jury, "he might feel exonerated" and say that drugs were not the source of his emotional and family problems.

[`]

Copyright 1983 The Washington Post  
The Washington Post
May 26, 1983, Thursday, Final Edition
SECTION: Metro; C1

LENGTH: 729 words

HEADLINE: Drug Patient's Award $220,000

BYLINE: By Eve Zibart, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:
A federal jury in Alexandria yesterday awarded $220,000 in damages to a Fairfax County man who was detained for more than four months last year by the Florida-based drug rehabilitation agency Straight Inc.

The same jury of five men and one woman found two weeks ago that Straight had kept Fred Collins Jr., 20, against his will in both the St. Petersburg program and at the agency's new Northern Virginia facility in Springfield. Yesterday, that jury awarded Collins $40,000 in compensatory damages and $180,000 in punitive damages, which are intended to punish a wrongdoer. Attorneys for Straight said they will appeal.

"Fantastic," Collins said after the verdict was announced. "I'm thinking about becoming a lawyer."

Straight executive director Bill Oliver, who testified Tuesday that the nonprofit agency has a net worth of $2.9 million, said he was surprised and "hurt" by the jury's decision.

"We didn't intend" to injure Collins, Oliver said. "We didn't think we had; obviously we didn't want to. But any reasonable person would have to look very hard at the jury's decision."

Straight clinical director Miller Newton, speaking to a rally of about 200 supporters outside Alexandria's city hall, called the verdict "unfair" and "really scary . . . . It means that every time I or any other staff member tries to help a young person, we'll have to be frightened of the legal consequences."

The jury deliberated almost four hours before reporting its verdict to Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. Jury foreman Michael A. Kibler refused to discuss deliberations, saying, "The figures speak for themselves."

Collins' attorneys had asked the jury to award compensatory damages covering three years of college tuition and living expenses, estimated at $30,000 and $13,000 for psychiatric therapy.

According to Collins, his father would have continued to pay for his college education if Straight staffers had not ordered Collins' parents to disown him after his escape from the program last October.

The request for punitive damages was based on what Collins' chief counsel Philip J. Hirschkop described as a "continuing pattern" of false imprisonment by Straight Inc. staffers. The jury heard testimony from former Straight clients who claimed to have been kidnaped into the program and from a Canadian man who told the jury that he made his escape from his Straight custodian during a traffic jam on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

Hirschkop suggested to the jury that only a settlement of "hundreds of thousands of dollars" would "hurt Straight enough" to stop them from detaining clients.

Straight's attorneys argued that whatever family and emotional problems Fred Collins has are the result of his admitted drug use as a teen-ager and are not Straight's fault.

Straight attorney Ronald L. Goldfarb told the jury that Collins, who wept during his own testimony, was "a con man, a role player' " who was trying to put the blame on Straight for his family problems.

Hirschkop, in his closing argument, hammered at testimony that Miller Newton had told a 19-year-old former Straight client who refused to enroll in the program voluntarily, "I don't give a damn about your legal rights."

Hirschkop also recalled to the jury a sworn deposition by former Florida Health and Rehabilitation Services investigator Terrell Harper warning Newton about some of Straight's practices. In the deposition, which was read to the jury, Harper testified that he repeatedly told Newton that practices such as locking clients in private homes overnight and threatening recalcitrant clients with involuntary commitment to mental institutions were illegal.

Dr. James Harold Egan, head of psychiatry at Children's Hospital, testified on Collins' behalf that his imprisonment by Straight had induced a moderate chronic depression and a number of neurotic symptoms.

In Straight's defense, Dr. John Meeks of the Psychiatric Institute of Montgomery County said he believes Collins may have a personality disorder that gives him "a constant preoccupation with what other people think of him," but that it dated back to Collins' childhood and had nothing to do with his experiences with Straight.

Hirschkop and cocounsel David J. Fudala also have asked Bryan to issue a court order outlawing some of Straight's techniques. Hearings on that motion are scheduled to begin in three weeks.

GRAPHIC: Picture, Families of people who have been treated by Straight, Inc. , demonstrate at a rally in favor of the organization at Market Square in Alexandria, by Craig Herndon -- The Washington Post

[`]

Copyright 1983 The Washington Post  
The Washington Post
July 24, 1983, Sunday, Final Edition
SECTION: Metro; Around The Region; B7

LENGTH: 195 words

HEADLINE: Request for Ban on Rehabilitation Methods Is Denied

BYLINE: From news services and staff reports

BODY:
An Alexandria federal judge has declined to issue a court order banning a Florida-based drug rehabilitation program's controversial peer-pressure techniques.

Judge Albert V. Bryan Jr. Friday denied a request by 20-year-old Fred Collins of Alexandria, who was awarded $220,000 damages from Straight, Inc. in May, for an injunction prohibiting use of methods that Collins' attorneys claimed were physically and psychologically damaging.

Lawyers for Straight said yesterday that Bryan's decision was "the bigger victory."

"What the jury said was that one thing happened to one kid at one time," said Straight attorney Ronald L. Goldfarb.

"But Collins called into question the techniques of the whole program.

Somebody can fall down in the Vatican and get damages, but that doesn't call Catholicism into question."

Collins persuaded a federal jury that he had been falsely imprisoned for more than four months by the group, which operates a facility in Springfield, but was unable to prove assault charges against the program. Collins was awarded $40,000 in compensatory and $180,000 in punitive damages.

Goldfarb said that Straight will appeal the award.

[Cayo Hueso]

I was so glad to hear about this.  It was one of the first things I learned of after finding these sites.  I remember Fred and his brother.  Wasn't Fred some kind of MIT whiz kid?  To think of Newt up on the witness stand having to answer for what he did....fucking BEAUTIFUL!!!

Thanks for posting those again FKA. :smile:

People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security.

--Benjamin Franklin

[Erinys]

Omigod, Omigod Omigod!  I'm remembering.   No, it wasn't  my imagination or faulty lens of  misrecall.

Thank you, FKA.

Still shaking. gotta log off for awhile.

Tough Love: Abuse of a type particularly enjoyable to the abuser, in that it combines the pleasures of sadism with those of self-righteousness. Commonly employed and widely admired in 12-step groups.
--Chaz Bufe

[`]

sorry! didn't mean to shock people! in case i haven't mentioned it before, here is how i am getting these old news articles: i go to the local university library, i get on the library website and click on "find articles", i scroll down through the list of specialized search thingies til i get to one called "Lexis Nexis - Academic". within that one, i can either search for News, or I can do a Legal search and put  Straight, Inc. in on of the  _______ vs. _______ search fields.

[Erinys]

Hey fka, Not to worry!

I was glad to see the stories. (and thanks for the search tip, too) I was just taken aback by  my own reaction to seeing and reading them all in one place at one time.

Like a big fat bolus of  time-long-gone shot into the vein.

Psychedelics often produce psychotic and even violent behavior in those who have never used them.
--Timothy Leary

[Cayo Hueso]

On 2005-04-09 17:03:00, Erinys wrote:



I was glad to see the stories. (and thanks for the search tip, too) I was just taken aback by  my own reaction to seeing and reading them all in one place at one time.

Same same for me.  Seeing them in chronicological (spp, had a few tonight) order shook me a little too.  Good shake thought!!

The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest possible limits. ... and [when] the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
-- St. George Tucker, Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court 1803

[Froderik]

"chronicological"

Chronological, yes? :smile:

Keep up the good work, fka!

[Anonymous]

I think Trebach's book does a nice job of telling the story.  The articles are like weird snap shots.  I recall I actually have something like 10 hours of rambling audio tapes that I recorded the first 2 or 3 days after I escaped.  That would be weird to listen to ..

Fred

[Psycho6]

Fred Collins was a pussy at the time, and probably still is... although he may be a rich pussy. I remember his skinny ass in the program and he did/caused more harm to those of us inside than good.

[Anonymous]

I think you're the pussy and Fred at least got there sorry ass to pay and answer to there crimes... Fuck you pshcopussy. Yes and I'm sure I know you personally.

[Anonymous]

I think you're the pussy and Fred at least got there sorry ass to pay and answer to there crimes... Fuck you pshcopussy. Yes and I'm sure I know you personally.