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16
The Troubled Teen Industry / Teen Screen, Children's Rights, and DATIA
« on: August 06, 2011, 03:10:11 PM »
Teen Screen

Teen Screen was developed by Dr. David Shaffer, known for his connections to the pharmaceutical industry   and Columbia University.  Many watchdog groups opposed the use of mental health screening programs and viewed them as marketing opportunities for drug manufacturers.   It was proven that these mental health screenings were conducted on minors without parental consent.  In 2005, Teen Screen became the subject of a lawsuit in Indiana filed by parents who objected to the “passive consent” procedure.  The Rutherford Institute, a non-profit civil liberties organization, criticized the use of "passive consent," by which parents who do not want their children screened need to sign a form and send it in to the school.  If the school does not receive a form, it is assumed that the parents do not object.  In June 2006, after the lawsuit, Teen Screen changed their consent procedures to require active parental consent, but offered incentives such as movie tickets and gift vouchers to students to encourage participation.  In situations where neither parent is accessible (i.e., in teen shelters or the juvenile justice system), passive consent (parental consent assumed if not explicitly denied) would suffice.  Teen Screen led to massive drug use with children in the foster care and juvenile justice system where there was scant oversight or protections for human rights.

The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution guarantees our citizens the right to protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, a right that extends to all citizens regardless of their age.  There were several important Supreme Court Decisions regarding whether children could be tested for drugs by schools:

 1) Vernonia School District v. Wayne Acton  
 2) Board of Educ. of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma Petitioner v EARLS.  

In 1995 by a 6-3 decision in Vernonia School District v. Wayne Acton the U. S. Supreme Court decided that because public school athletics are susceptible to injuries, their right to Fourth Amendment protection could be waived in order to protect them from the added dangers of illegal drug use. The court gave schools the right to require suspicionless drug testing.  Before making it to the Supreme Court the issue made it to the Federal Appeals Court.  At the appeals court Veronia had submitted as their expert witness Dr. Robert L. DuPont, Jr.  Dr. DuPont is the founding director of   the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the second White House Drug Czar.  It was Dr. DuPont's NIDA that administered a $ 1 million grant to The Seed -- Straight's predecessor program.  Later Dr. DuPont became a paid Straight consultant and was an expert witness for Straight in several civil trials.  DuPont became chairman of the scientific advisory board for Psychemedics--the world's premier hair testing drug program. The Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF) is a leader in establishing national and international drug policy and lobbying successfully for its own interests.

Board of Educ. of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma Petitioner v EARLS by a decision of 5-4, the U.S. Supreme Court extended suspicionless drug testing beyond the scope of the Veronia decision to include suspicionless drug testing of any student involved in any extracurricular activity in a school.  The court decided that "schools' interest in ridding their campuses of drugs outweighs an individual's right to privacy.  The justices were aided in their decision process by an Amicus Curie (friends of the court) brief that had been filed with the court and signed by a large number of individuals prominent in American drug policy, many of whom had relationships with DFAF.    

The Drug Free America Foundation has positioned itself as a leader in establishing national and international drug policy. Straight Foundation, under its new name, DFAF co-sponsors The Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) workshops.  

References and citations:

 1. TeenScreenTruth.com, http://www.teenscreentruth.com/teenscre ... ayers.html

 2.  Groenendijk, Charly, AntidepressantsFacts 2004 – 2009,  Antidepressantsfacts.com,  http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/Bus ... rogram.htm

3.   Breggin, Peter,  Dr. Peter Breggin PhD Psychologist, International Counselors, Social Workers,  Psychiatrists, Psychologists,  & Educators,   ICSPP.org, http://www.icspp.org/  Dr. Breggin's 40-year effort to expose the scientific and ethical hazards of biopsychiatric theory and practices including psychiatric diagnoses, drugs, and ECT.  And second, to encourage and inspire humane and ethical empathic social services and therapies that assist individuals and families toward better and more successful lives without the harmful effects of biopsychiatric interventions. You can also visit Dr. Breggin's professional page at Breggin.com,  http://www.Breggin.com.
 
4.  According to PublicIntegrity.org, more than a third of pharmaceutical companies' resources go into promotion and marketing.  Notice that these companies spend many more millions of dollars to market their products than they invest in research and development.  Perhaps we should be demanding better research rather than great commercial advertising to push products for which there is not adequate research into patient safety and into the efficacy of treatment.

Company Marketing costs  in Research and Development
Pfizer$16.90 billion in Marketing $7.68 billion in Research and Development
Glaxo Smith Kline$12.93 billion  in Marketing $5.20 billion in Research and Development
Sanofi-Aventis$5.59 billion, $9.26 billion
Johnson & Johnson$15.86 billion, $5.20 billion
Merck$7.35 billion$4.01 billion
Novartis, $8.87 billion, $4.21 billion
Astra Zeneca$7.84 billion, $3.80 billion
Hoffman La Roche$7.24 billion, $4.01 billion
 Bristol-Myers Squibb$6.43 billion, $2.50 billion
Wyeth$5.80 billion,$2.46 billion
Abbott Labs$4.92 billion,$1.70 billion

Annually, the industry spends nearly twice as much on marketing as it spends on research and development, although drug companies report neither total precisely. Various news reports estimate that the industry spent anywhere between $30 billion to $60 billion on marketing in 2004. The trade group PhRMA estimates its members spent $39 billion on R&D that year. As this table shows, the same year, 11 major companies reported spending close to $100 billion on marketing, along with administrative expenses not categorized separately. Those companies reported spending $50 billion on R&D.  In 2004, Pfizer spent almost $120 million for media ads for Lipitor, the world's number-one selling prescription drug, while companies promoting erectile dysfunction treatments Viagra, Levitra and Cialis spent $425 million. Direct to consumer advertisement has also grown significantly: from $791 million in 1996 to $3.8 billion in 2004.

 5. The actual copy of the lawsuit is on the Rutherford Institute's website. case 3:05-cv-00586-JTM-CAN - Rutherford.org  http://www.rutherford.org/PDF/Filed_Complaint.pdf

 6. Lenzer, Jeanne,  British Medical Journal, US teenager's parents sue school over depression screening test, BMJ.com,  http://www.bmj.com/content/331/7519/714.2/suppl/DC1

7.   Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton (94-590), 515 U.S. 646 (1995). Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/94-590.ZO.html  http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/f ... ronia.html

8.  BOARD OF ED. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST.NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE CTY. V. EARLS (01-332) 536 U.S. 822 (2002),  242 F.3d 1264, reversed.  Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court.     The Student Activities Drug Testing Policy implemented by the Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92 of Pottawatomie County (School District) requires all students who participate in competitive extracurricular activities to submit to drug testing. Because this Policy reasonably serves the School District’s important interest in detecting and preventing drug use among its students, we hold that it is constitutional.  http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-332.ZO.html

 9.  BOARD OF EDUC. OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DIST. NO. 92 OF POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY, OKLAHOMA Petitioner, v. EARLS.  June 27, 2002 These are the signers of the Amicus brief in support of drug testing.  The signers include: Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF);   Robert DuPont who is on DFAF's advisory board;  Peter Bensinger (Peter Bensinger is former head of the DEA and is the business partner with Robert DuPont);  Julie Murdoch, Esq. (an employee with Bensinger, DuPont & Associates);  Bensinger DuPont & Associates, Bethesda, MD;  Institute for Behavior & Health, Bethesda, MD (another Robert DuPont company); Institute on Global Drug Policy (a division of  DFAF);   Eric Voth, MD, Topeka, KS (but Dr. Voth is the director of DFAF's  Institute on Global Drug Policy);  Ambassador Melvyn Levitsky who has co-authored an article on drug policy with Dr. Eric Voth;  Donald Ian Macdonald, M.D. (Straight's former national research director turned White House Drug Czar); Stephanie Haynes of Save Our Society From Drugs TM,  (but SOS is a Betty Sembler foundation);  Legal Foundation Against Illicit Drugs (an organization founded by Calvina Fay, executive director of DFAF, and others);  Otto Hauswirth, M D, of the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Addicts (DFAF's Calvina Fay is director the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse); Carolyn Burns, of Louisville, KY. DFAF's Calvina Fay is a board member and past president of  Drug Watch International (DWI).  DWI or its International Drug Strategy Institute division  includes or has included  Robert L. DuPont and  Peter Bensinger, Straight's former national research director Donald Ian Macdonald, Straight's former national clinical director Miller Newton and Straight-Springfield's former research director Dr. Richard Schwartz, MD. Straight's former national executive director Bill Oliver is an Honorary Advisor for DWI (he also became director of parent training for P.R.I.D.E.).  Joyce Tobias, formerly acting secretary for DWI, used to be a very active Straight parent.  Alex Romero, a DWI board member,  and Nancy Starr, a DWI delegate,  were signers.  And, of course, the Drug and Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) was a signer.  You may see the brief itself at this website: http://www.datia.org/resources/amicusbrief.htm

17
Synanon therapeutic model

Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich, Sr., a reformed alcoholic and a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.), created his own program, Synanon, to treat persons with addictions.  Professionals, even those without drug addictions, were invited to join Synanon. The Synanon program became the model for substance abuse treatment.     The New York Psychiatrist, Daniel Casriel M.D., founder of AREBA  (today the oldest surviving private addiction treatment center in the United States) and co-founder of Daytop Village   wrote a book about his experiences at Synanon.   In the Synanon therapeutic model, control was exerted over members by in group sessions having members humiliate one another and encouraging clients to expose one-another’s innermost weaknesses.      These group session confrontations were called “the game”.  

In 1974, the legal authorities began to question Synanon's promises and practices.  Many persons, who turn to substance abuse, do so because they are attempting to escape some trauma in their personal life.  Clients may be dealing with physically, emotionally or sexually abusive situations, dealing with tragedy or loss or even have been a victim of crime. These methods of coercive psychological control can lead to physical abuse and even human rights violations.  Thus the use of degrading and humiliating techniques of mind control established by Synanon and CEDU/Brown Schools constituted psychologically abusive treatment.  

The concept of "lifetime rehabilitation" did not agree with therapeutic norms, and it was alleged that the Synanon group was running an unauthorized medical clinic. To avoid regulation and investigation Chuck Dederich declared that Synanon was a tax exempt religious organization, the "Church of Synanon."  Children who had been placed in Synanon began running away and an “underground railroad” established to help return them to their parents.  There was physical abuse of clients and in 1978 a state Grand Jury in Marin County issued a scathing report about child abuse at Synanon and the lack of oversight by governmental authorities.  The child abuse at Synanon was widely covered by San Francisco area newspapers and broadcasters but they were largely silenced by lawsuits from Synanon lawyers, who made libel claims.   These lawsuits ultimately turned out to be a large part of Synanon's undoing, by giving journalists access to Synanon's own internal documents.  The small Point Reyes Light newspaper, a weekly in Marin County, received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1979 in recognition of its coverage of Synanon when other news agencies avoided reporting on it.  

In spite of mounting evidence that the Synanon therapeutic model of confrontation therapy was ineffective and abusive, it was copied by others, including Mel Wasserman who founded CEDU Education.  CEDU Education was a chain of parent-choice private-pay residential programs.   The CEDU model of therapy influenced a growing number of facilities in the in the therapeutic boarding school industry.   A Synanon center was even established in Germany.  Dederich was arrested while drunk on December 2, 1978.  The two Synanon residents pleaded "no contest" to charges of assault, and also conspiracy to commit murder.  While his associates went to jail, Dederich himself avoided imprisonment by formally stepping down as the chairman of Synanon.  The Internal Revenue Service revoked Synanon's Federal tax exemption, and all of its properties were confiscated and sold.  By the mid-1990s, Synanon was no longer in operation but confrontational therapy had become the norm in residential substance abuse treatment.

Matrix House

Matrix House was a self-help therapeutic community which was established in the Clinical Research Center in the National Center for Mental Health in Lexington, Kentucky.  Matrix House was an official aftercare agency under the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act (NARA) of 1966.  Participants were under civil commitment.    The Matrix House was the first unit of the center which was completely operated and administrated by ex-addicts.  In group sessions Matrix participants used “the game” of confrontation which was patterned after Synanon.

References and citations:


1.  Where did it come from?, Synanon Church and the medical basis for the $traights, or Hoopla in Lake Havasu, by Wes Fager (c) 2000 http://thestraights.com/theprogram/synanon-story2.htm

2.  Szalavitz, Maia (2007-08-20). "The Cult That Spawned the Tough-Love Teen Industry".  Mother Jones. Maia Szalavitz claims to charts the influence of Synanon in other programs including Phoenix House and Boot Camps. http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... ustry.html

3.  ACI describes itself as a wholistic healthcare organization made up of physicians and a wide variety of healthcare professionals experts in the field of healing addiction. http://www.acirehab.org/

4.  Daytop History, Daytop Homepage,  Father William B. O’Brien who founded New York's Daytop Village included Synanon's group encounters and confrontational approach in his research into addiction treatment methods.   http://www.daytop.org/history.html

5.  "So Fair A House: The story of Synanon" New York: Prentice-Hall. 1963

6.   Morgan, Fiona, One big dysfunctional family: A former member of the Synanon cult recalls the "alternative lifestyle" that shaped her, for better and worse, Salon Magazine, March 29, 1999, http://www.rickross.com/reference/synanon/synanon2.html

7.  Synanon at the Internet Movie Database.   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059774/

8.   Clark, Michael D.,  Her life with "One Big Brother", San Jose Mercury News, March 19, 1999, http://www.rickross.com/reference/synanon/synanon4.html

9.  Gerstel, D. U. (1982). Paradise, incorporated: Synanon. Novato, CA: Presidio Press.

 10. Jack Anderson, "NBC Cancelled Jonestown Story", March 20, 1981, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/images/jtr8/i ... rticle.pdf

 11, Ever unconventional, long controversial, By Keith Chu, The Bend Bulletin, November 15, 2009,  http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.d ... ory=NEWS01

12,  Struggling Teens, StrugglingTeens.com went online as a website for information about the many schools and programs available for troubled teens. The website lists news and articles as a resource for both parents and professionals, as well as anyone interested in helping troubled teens find successful paths to adulthood. http://www.strugglingteens.com/artman/p ... 5922.shtml

13,   A German offshoot of Synanon, website in German. http://www.synanon-aktuell.de/

14,   R. S. Weppner, Matrix House.  Its first year at Lexington, Ky, HSMHA Health Rep. 1971 September; 86(9): 761–768, PMCID: PMC1937175, NCBI.nlm.nih.gov, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1937175/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 9-0005.pdf

18
Tacitus' Realm / Former head of OSC Scott Bloch gets off scott-free
« on: August 04, 2011, 12:29:43 AM »
Former head of OSC Scott Bloch gets off scott-free
http://www.examiner.com/homeland-securi ... scott-free

Dr. Janet Parker DVM provided a victim impact statement to the US District court in Washington DC (District of Columbia)  regarding victim impact on the victims/survivors of Teen Challenge when residential treatment abuse was not investigated by US Attorney Scott Bloch in spite of numerous reports of child abuse and neglect.  It was believed that he would serve 1 month in jail because he plead guilty to criminal contempt of the US Congress - having erased digital files from his governmental office computer when confronted with the FBI armed with a subpoena from the US Congress.  But in spite of his guilty plea - Scott Bloch apparently is now going free.  No justice for those whistleblowers and survivors/victims who were wronged.

Quote
Hundreds of whistleblowers betrayed by the disgraced former head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), Scott Bloch, were conflicted about his recently imposed 30-day prison sentence. It was too light of a punishment, but it seemed better than nothing. However, aided and abetted by government prosecutors and a federal judge, Bloch managed to avoid serving any part of that sentence. On August 3, 2011, Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth allowed Bloch to withdraw his guilty plea.

Continue reading on Examiner.com Former head of OSC Scott Bloch gets off scott-free - Los Angeles Homeland Security | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/homeland-securi ... z1U1dstlKw

19
These are the countries where Teen Challenge Global runs programs: http://www.globaltc.org/
American Samoa, Angola (3 facilities), Argentina (2), Aruba, Australia (9),  Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus (2),  Belgium, Bolivia,  Brazil (14), Cambodia,  Canada (24), China (3), Costa Rica, Croatia, Czech Republic (3),  Denmark, Dominican Republic (2),  Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland,  France (2),  Germany (20),  Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, West Africa
Guinea-Bissau,  Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland (6), India,  India (7), Ireland (2), Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kazakhstan (16), Kenya, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia,  Latvia, Lithuania (5), Macedonia,
Mexico (5), Moldova, Nepal,  Netherlands (2),  New Zealand, Norway (2), Pakistan (3), Paraguay, Poland (4), Portugal (8),   Romania, Russia (14), Serbia (3),  Singapore (4), Slovakia (3),  South Africa (11),  Spain, Swaziland (8),  Sweden, Switzerland (3),  Trinidad-Tobago, West Indies, Uganda, Ukraine (7),  UK, Wales (8), UK, England (8), UK, Scotland (4),  Uruguay (2),  Venezuela

USA
Teen Challenge USA National HQ
Men's Program, Women's Program
National President: Jack Smart                
PO Box 249                                          
Ozark, MO  65721 USA
Phone: 417-581-2181
Email: http://www.teenchallengeusa.com

The Assemblies of God Church exists in 80 countries and runs outreach through over 1,000 centers overseas.  Teen Challenge is directly connected with Assemblies of God Church – both through management and also through financial connections even though they attempt to hide this association when trying to recruit clients for their centers.  

There is a direct recruitment of ex-convicts as ministers and also as staff for Teen Challenge centers.  Teen Challenge New England boosts that over  90-98% of their staff are former “graduates” of the Teen Challenge drug addiction program.  Teen Challenge New England was at the time directly recruiting from within the prisons – including an in house program at Dartmouth House of Correction.   Also the court system court still orders persons into Teen Challenge in lieu of jail time.

See the 185 page May 2008 Doctors Thesis of Rodney Hart – former “recovered graduate” of Teen Challenge and Director of the Teen Challenge New England.
FORCEFULLY ADVANCING THE KINGDOM OF GOD: TEEN CHALLENGE NEW ENGLAND— A SYSTEMIC APPROACH FOR KINGDOM GROWTH
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GORDON-CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF MINISTRY BY RODNEY B. HART MAY, 2008


http://www.tcnewengland.org/.../Rodney% ... er%201.pdf


Also see The Texas Faith-Based Initiative at Five Years:Warning Signs as President Bush Expands Texas-style Program at National Level

http://www.tfn.org/site/DocServer/TFN_C ... ?docID=201

20
Straight is no longer in the treatment business. It now receives federal funds to help small businesses setup drug-free work places. It is also a think tank for national and international drug policy. In 1995 Straight Foundation, Inc. changed its name to Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF) See:  Florida Department of State Division of Corporations, Corporate Filings, P.O. Box 6327, Tallahassee, FL 32314 http://www.sunbiz.org/index.html  E-mail: [email protected]  

Drug Free America Foundation (formerly Straight Foundation Inc.)

Advisory Board
Alfred Hoffman, Jr.
Job Title:  President, Hoffman Partners LLC
Location: Fort Myers, FL

Ambassador Melvyn Levitsky
Job Title: Professor University of Michigan
Location: Ann Arbor, MI

Andrew P. Thomas, Esq.
Job Title:County Attorney
Location: Maricopa County, AZ

Christy McCampbell
Job Title: Deputy Assistant US Department of State, INL
Location: Washington, DC

Clayton M. Wilcox, Ph.D.
Job Title: Former Superintendent Pinellas County Schools
Location: Largo, FL

Columba Bush
Job Title: Former First Lady State of Florida (Jeb Bush's wife)
Location: Tallahassee, FL

Daniel Lungren, Esq.
Job Title: Former Attorney General
Location: Sacramento, CA

Darryl Ervin Rouson, Esq.
Job Title: State Representative and Former President NAACP
Location: St. Petersburg, FL

H. Lee Moffitt, Esq.
Job Title: Former Speaker Florida House of Representatives
Location: Tallahassee, FL

Honorable Brad Owen
Job Title: Lt. Governor State of Washington
Location: Olympia, WA

Honorable Jeb Bush
Job Title: Former Governor State of Florida
Location: Tallahassee, FL

Honorable Richard Baker
Job Title: Mayor
Location: City of St. Petersburg, FL

James Gills, M.D.
Job Title: St. Luke’s Cataract and Laser Institute
Location: Tarpon Springs, FL

Karen P. Tandy
Job Title: Former Administrator Drug Enforcement Administration
Location: Washington, DC

Malcolm Beyer, Jr.
Job Title: Community Anti-Drug Advocate
Location: Jupiter, FL

Mary Evertz
Job Title: Community Volunteer Retired Journalist
Location: St. Petersburg, FL

Robert Dupont, M.D.
Job Title: Founding Director National Institute on Drug Abuse
Location: Rockville, MD

Ronald Weaver, Esq.
Job Title: Community Anti-Drug Advocate
Location: Tampa, FL

Steven Raymund
Job Title: Chairman of the Board Tech Data Corporation
Location: Clearwater, FL

Susan Latvala
Job Title: Pinellas County Commissioner
Location: Clearwater, FL

Martin Fiorentino, Jr., Esq.
Job Title: Fiorentino & Associates
Location: Jacksonville, FL

Venice Maki
Job Title: Goodwill Ambassador
National Recording Artist

Board Of Directors
Alejandro Vassilaqui
Job Title: Director

Betty S. Sembler
Job Title: Chair

D. Jay Snyder, Esq.
Job Title: Legal Counsel/Vice Chair
James D. Sewell, Ph.D

Job Title: Director
James W. Holton, Esq.

Job Title: Director
John E. Stross

Job Title: Director
Joseph Garcia, Esq.

Job Title: Secretary
Kevin P. Kauffman
Job Title: Director

Stuart Lasher
Job Title: Treasurer

Walter P. Loebenberg
Job Title: President/Vice Chair

William S. Jacobs, Jr., M.D.
Job Title: Director

Special Advisors
David A. Gross, M.D., FAPA
David G. Evans, Esq.
Eric Voth, M.D., FACP
Ernest Aeschbach, M.D.
Stephanie Haynes

21
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ))) ) ) Magistrate Case No: 10-215-M-0-DAR
v. )
SCOTT BLOCH )
)
DEFENDANT )


_________________________________________ )

VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT OF JANET LOUISE PARKER

My name is Janet Louise Parker and I am the Executive Director of Medical Whistleblower, in Lawrence, Kansas. As a human rights defender, Medical Whistleblower steps forward to directly advocate for those who report medical fraud, abuse and neglect and human rights violations.1 Medical Whistleblower provides educational materials to enhance understanding of human rights issues especially those issues involving health care and the medical community. Medical Whistleblower also runs a non-profit human rights advocacy network, the Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network. The Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network works in collaboration and cooperation with other non-profit organizations and individuals, to publicly promote human rights advocacy and enforcement. The Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network provides public petitions for purposes of encouraging legislation that will promote human rights and protect human rights defenders. In 2010 the Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network provided the United Nations with a report for the USA’s Universal Periodic Review.
1
I, Janet Louise Parker, come before this Court to file this victim impact statement, under Victims’ Rights Laws and Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 32,2 to advocate as a human rights defender for all persons who have been harmed because of Scott Bloch’s lack of enforcement of whistleblower protections, lack of enforcement of civil rights protections and refusal to enforce international human rights law. Scott Bloch in his role as counsel for the Office of Special Counsel did not do his duty to protect those who provided valid whistleblower complaints even those brought forward by human rights defenders and mandated reporters.

The United States of America has a primary responsibility for protecting the human rights of its citizens3 and for protecting human rights defenders. In this great nation, the United States of America, we have a blemish on our record of defending human rights, because high governmental officials turned a blind eye while children were neglected and abused in Teen Challenge and other residential treatment centers.4 Scott Bloch, former Deputy Director and counsel to the Department of Justice's Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives (2001-03) was responsible for failing to protect the human rights of US citizens in the Teen Challenge programs and other non-governmental organizations funded by that office. We cannot stand as an example for other nations when we have not yet secured the protection of human rights for our own children on our own soil. When mandated reporters or human rights defenders come forward to report concerns to governmental authorities such as the Office of Special Counsel, we must provide them adequate, and meaningful protections and effective action on their complaints.

In order to protect our civil liberties and rights guaranteed under the US Constitution and all of its amendments and the Bill of Rights, we as a nation must ensure the protection of human rights defenders. The United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders A/RES/58/178 of
2
22 December 2003 - Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 5 is addressed not only to States and human rights defenders but to all individuals, groups and organs of society. Article 10 of the Declaration states that “No one shall participate, by act or by failure to act where required, in violating human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The United States of America has an obligation as a nation state to protect the rights of defenders against abuses by third parties.6 7 Many whistleblowers and human rights defenders reported human rights violations within programs funded by grants from the White House Office for Faith-based and Community Initiatives. It is important that our government publicly reaffirm the importance of the work carried out by human rights defenders. Human rights defenders helping victims to access justice for violations of human rights law or international humanitarian law, even attorneys, are regularly subjected to threats, violence and harassment. Human rights defenders can be prevented even from providing humanitarian aid to victims of human rights violations. It is a common tactic to put these courageous whistleblowers through hostile workplace evaluations meant to discredit them and remove classified security clearances, medical licenses, pilot’s licenses and other professional credentials from human rights defenders in order to halt their advocacy.

Scott Bloch as former Special Counsel at the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) failed to uphold anti-discrimination laws and whistleblower protections for federal employees and also failed in his duties at the Office of Special Counsel to protect human rights defenders as required under international human rights law. We need to see the Office of Special Counsel abide by its nondiscretionary statutory duties to enforce the laws within its jurisdiction, particularly 5 U.S.C. §1214(e), as well as ascertaining that the Merit Systems Protection Board

3
(MSPB) studies whether federal employees are adequately protected from reprisal and other prohibited personnel practices (PPP’s), per 5 U.S.C. §1204(a)(3), and how agency heads have interpreted their nondiscretionary statutory duty to “prevent PPPs,” per 5 U.S.C. §2302(c).

When Scott Bloch was appointed as Deputy Director and counsel to the Department of Justice's Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives, Teen Challenge centers already had a well known public reputation for child abuse. Their tactics were known to be remarkably similar to documented abuse within Straight, Inc. which was the most abusive "behavior modification" clinical trials8 and insurance fraud ever documented in the U.S.A. (50,000 children and adults were in Straight Inc.).9 Melvin Sembler, former head of Straight, Inc., now operates the Drug Free America Foundation,10 which endorsed and made direct referrals to Teen Challenge. Thus Teen Challenge may be acting as the de facto inheritor of Straight, Inc.'s legacy of child abuse and neglect as well as their business model using troubled teens for profit. The abuse of children in residential centers has not stopped but has gotten even more governmental power to hide its true nature from law enforcement and regulators. Abusive teen rehabilitation centers are now even more numerous and the industry is still not regulated by the US federal government. There is no adequate means to monitor these facilities for human rights abuses.

Teens who ended up in the Teen Challenge programs did not really “volunteer.” Teen Challenge gets the vast majority of its residents either directly from the jails or from courts which sentence them to a live-in program in lieu of jail. This usually happens after the judge gives the individual a choice to go to a correctional facility or Teen Challenge for year.11 Any student leaving Teen Challenge without completion of the 12 month program can be court ordered to a correctional facility for non-completion of the courts requirements. Teen Challenge also actively recruits right from the jails. Law Enforcement Assistance Agency (LEAA)12 grants
4
were responsible for the rapid growth of teen rehabilitation centers which did not need to meet the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) standards for clinical research using human subjects.

Teen Challenge in Texas was the first facility exempted from licensing and inspection regulation.13 The arrangement between governmental financial support and Teen Challenge raises questions about the constitutional separation of church and state. As exempt faith-based drug treatment centers, Teen Challenge facilities are not required to have licensed chemical dependency counselors, conduct staff training or criminal background checks, protect client confidentiality rights, adhere to state health and safety standards, or report abuse, neglect, emergencies and medication errors.14 Amid continuing complaints of physical, emotional, psychological and sexual abuse, 15 Teen Challenge programs are reported to foster a deliberate atmosphere that was both anti-gay 16 and anti-Semitic.17 Several former students of Teen Challenge say that staff 1) use physical punishment 18 2) ridicule intimidate and/or verbally abuse children 19 3) use chemical restraints 20 4) employ cruel or humiliating treatment or other emotionally abusive behavior 21 5) abuse sexually 22 6) assign excessive exercise or work duties 7) deny food, clothing, shelter, medical care 23 and/or prescribed therapeutic activities 24   8) deny contacts with family, counselors, or legal representatives as a form of punishment 25 9) force them to do missionary activity 26 which may be also a violation of child labor laws 27 and 10) force them to sign over paychecks to Teen Challenge.28 Teens confined to Teen Challenge have also been victims of forced labor scams 29 such as an unlicensed telemarketing scam in Florida that paid workers only 33 cents a day for a 40 hour work week while at the same time swindling the public with a fraud scheme.30 There are cases where teens have been subjected to cruel and degrading treatment and even what could be considered torture 31 with no possibility to escape
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from their abusers as they are court ordered into the facility and refused contact with the outside world even their families.
Teen Challenge facilities were cited for abuse as early as 1998.32 As a US Attorney, Scott Bloch demonstrated a lack of proper due diligence in his work and clear bias, as he awarded start up grant money (2001-03) to Teen Challenge programs even though the facilities were not required to meet regulatory health and safety standards, and were not inspected. Amidst all the media coverage over Teen Challenge child abuse and without this influx of federal funding, the centers would surely have lost clients and probably closed. But the combination of jail recruitment strategies and extensive funding supplied by the Faith-based and Community Initiative grants along with an exemption from having to demonstrate compliance with existing standards, faith based facilities were flourishing. In Florida and Texas, Teen Challenge centers were being accredited by the Texas Association of Christian Child Care Agencies (TACCCA) and the Florida Association of Christian Child Care Agencies (FACCCA). The programs have no medical component and center instead of around prayer, Bible study and religious conversion. With no regulatory control over the quality of the staffing, Teen Challenge in Winthrop Maine hired registered sex offenders for staff.33 Teen Challenge facilities did not uphold First Amendment rights and also did not enforce workplace anti-bias laws.34 There was also lack of proper oversight over the educational standards of the program.35

Torture is the calculated physical and psychological assault on the individual, a practice used to instill fear, punish or degrade, to dehumanize, or to obliterate the self. The true goal of torture is soul murder. It is often said that anyone who has been tortured remains tortured, long after the physical wounds have healed. Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain by one human being against another, thus it leaves particular kinds of mental and psychological scars.
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This soul wrenching trauma is different from other traumas because torture is a violation committed in secret and in spite of official denial. Many believe that torture only occurs in the most repressive regimes, but the reality is that torture is widespread in all parts of the world. Although it is often perpetuated by police or security forces, it can also be carried out by detaining authorities such as immigration officials, prison staff, hospital staff, and in Teen Challenge it is done by peer mentors and staff. Torture can be physical or psychological. Many can understand severe physical abuse as being torture. But psychological torture like that practiced by the staff at Teen Challenge or any of the Straight Inc. derivative centers can be just as traumatic. The psychological wounds of both physical and psychological torture last a lifetime. The coercive and abusive methods of Straight Inc. which were mimicked by Teen Challenge staff were designed to obliterate the sense of self and instill fear and obedience to authority in young teens. These abusive methods included sleep deprivation, beatings, sexual humiliation, sexual assault, prolonged sitting or standing in forced positions, isolation and detention for prolonged and indefinite periods of time, forcing one teen to abuse another and prolonged denial of rest, sleep, food, water, and adequate hygiene.

Many victims continue to suffer in silence and torture victims commonly report feelings of fear, guilt, shame, anger, disillusionment, insecurity and humiliation. For victims of torture coming forward to speak about what happened to them is very difficult. This is true for the tens of thousands of US children who were physically and psychologically abused and even sometimes sexually abused in the program called Straight Inc. and its legacy program Teen Challenge. What happened behind the closed doors of Teen Challenge is very deeply personal and highly traumatizing and so speaking about it can evoke for survivors a range of emotions.
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Survivors are afraid to speak publicly and may not have fully revealed their experiences to families and friends, in some instances they may not have come to terms with it themselves.

Survivors of torture find it very difficult and challenging to try to move forward with their lives. Many who had spent time in Straight Inc. and other abusive teen rehabilitative centers such as Teen Challenge speak with frustration that the fact, that their torture actually occurred, has never been publicly acknowledged. This denial wounds the soul. Teen Challenge survivors have individual and often different conceptions of justice, some speak of the importance of criminal prosecutions, and others speak about civil compensation, rehabilitation or prevention of recurrence. But for everyone there is a need to restore that sense of dignity and control that was taken from them when they were tortured.

The United States of America which has signed the UN Convention Against Torture and therefore has an obligation to investigate, prosecute and punish those who do torture. But the reality is that society has a deep seated prejudice toward the weak or powerless and there is a special stigma in the cases of persons who claim to be psychologically injured and who need to seek compensation or support. Governments are a reflection of the pervasive reactions to the horror of torture and so therefore denial, indifference, avoidance and repression are common. Impunity of the perpetrators will prolong, or in some cases deepen, the mental scars borne by the victim or by members of their families, as denial of the wrong makes psychological healing difficult. To obtain any justice through the court system, the torture victim is expected to testify to and provide a recounting of the violation suffered in order to create a public record of the event, and while this truth– telling may have a reparative value for many victims, it may also be deeply traumatic bringing to the surface old emotional wounds. In addition those suffering from the mental anguish of torture do not always show physical scars and thus it is easier to deny the
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extent of their trauma and suffering. The right to reparation for victims of a wrongful act is a well-established principle of international law.36 I believe that we can no longer afford to endorse the kinds of political compromises that give rise to de jure or de facto amnesties for perpetrators or enablers of torture within the teen residential treatment industry.

The Special Counsel at the United States Office of Special Counsel should scrupulously comply with the law in discharging his/her duty and that includes communicating with Congress and cooperating with the US Department of Justice. The US Congress has just newly enacted Public Law 111-122 The Human Rights Enforcement Act of 2009 passed on Dec. 22, 2009. Participating for the first time in the Universal Periodic Review Process, President Barack Obama has publicly announced our nation’s renewed commitment to the principles embodied in international human rights law. So now is the time to enforce the protection of human rights here in the U.S.A.

I believe that the highest officials of Department of Justice should keep faith and human solidarity with victims, survivors and future human generations, and reaffirm the international legal principles of accountability, justice and the rule of law, by demanding accountability for those who did not take action to stop the abuse of children and adults in Teen Challenge.

Many victims of Teen Challenge feel that a public apology including acknowledgment of the facts and acceptance of responsibility is particularly pertinent. Officials such as Scott Bloch, former Special Counsel at the United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC), were supposed to uphold whistleblower protections for federal employees and act on their complaints, especially complaints regarding the abuse of children.
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I submit this victim statement not just for myself as a human rights defender but also for all who have had their human rights violated because of the lack of enforcement of whistleblower rights, civil rights, and human rights. I hope the Court will consider that there have been grave violations of human rights due to the lack of proper enforcement of both federal law and international human rights law by Scott Bloch. Scott Bloch plead guilty to criminal contempt of Congress for withholding from the US Congress and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee "pertinent" evidence concerning his misconduct in office. Scott Bloch’s actions could be construed as intent to hide these human rights violations from the US Congress, the US President and the Supreme Court of the United States. I believe this should be considered when determining his sentence in this criminal case and the range of time he could be incarcerated. Sentencing Scott Bloch to incarceration would send a clear message that US public officials need to properly discharge their duties prior to giving out federal grant moneys to unlicensed, uninspected and unregulated residential facilities.


Respectfully Submitted,




___________________________
Janet Louise Parker
Dr. Janet Louise Parker DVM
Executive Director, Medical Whistleblower
Medical Whistleblower Advocacy Network
P.O. Box C,
Lawrence, KS 66044
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1 The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has supported this right of every individual to form and freely participate in organizations and non-governmental groups for the purpose of observing, denouncing/reporting, and promoting human rights, Kawas Fernández v. Honduras
2 Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 32 “Before imposing sentence, the court must address any victim of the crime who is present at sentencing and must permit the victim to be reasonably heard.” “In Camera proceedings, Upon a party’s motion and for good cause, the court may hear in camera any statement made under Rule 32(i)(4).”
3 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights
4 The US House under the leadership of Congressman George Miller conducted investigations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) during the 110th Congress uncovered thousands of cases and allegations of child abuse and neglect since the early 1990’s at teen residential programs. Currently, these programs are governed only by a weak patchwork of state and federal standards. A separate GAO report, also conducted by at the committee’s request, found major gaps in the licensing and oversight of residential programs – some of which are not covered by any state licensing standards at all. GAO concluded that without adequate oversight “the well-being and civil rights of youth in some facilities will remain at risk.” State reported data to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System in 2005 found that 34 states reported 1503 incidents of youth maltreatment by residential facility staff. Of the states surveyed by GAO, 28 reported at least one youth fatality in a residential facility in 2006. GAO concluded both of these statistics understate the incidents of maltreatment and death.

5 The United Nations Charter and The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the General Assembly resolution 53/144 of 8 March 1999, adopted the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, known as the Declaration on human rights defenders and subsequent resolutions. See resolution A/RES/58/178 of 22 December 2003.
6 United States has a responsibility in relation to actions and omissions of non-State actors Article 12, paragraph 3, of the Declaration, also reiterated by numerous human rights bodies, the Human Rights Committee and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
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7 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including the right to life and freedom of association and expression, should be protected from violations not only by State agents, but also private persons or entities. Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 31 on article 2 of the Covenant on the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States parties to the Covenant, 26 May 2004.

8 In 1971 the United States Senate's Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights under the directorship of Senator Sam Ervin began an investigation of the US government's role in behavior modification. Senator Ervin's 650 page report was published in November 1974 under the title "Individual Rights and the Federal Role in Behavior Modification."

9 The Seed, a network of teen drug rehabilitation centers was closed after a US Congressional Investigation into child abuse at their facilities. Melvin Sembler, Betty Sembler and some other Seed parents formed their own Seed-like program which they called Straight, Inc. Straight was quickly accused of criminal child abuse by Florida's licensing and investigating agency the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (HRS) with Bob Marshall as the principal investigator. But Straight Inc. still went on to become the largest juvenile drug rehabilitation program in the world and one of the most destructive. There were many lawsuits by victims of abuse with large jury awards of damages. Other suits were settled out of court. In 1985 the Semblers fearing civil suits by the victims of the abuse and fearing possible criminal prosecution, changed the mission of Straight, Inc. from "treatment" to "education" and its name from "Straight, Inc." to "Straight Foundation, Inc."

10 After Straight Inc. had to be closed, the name of the educational foundation became the Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF). So today Straight has morphed into an organization called the Drug Free America Foundation, which specializes in helping small businesses set up Drug Free Workplaces, and in promoting national and international drug policy that allows coercive and abusive treatment methods.

11 UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Article 10.1
12 Straight Inc. managed to get two startup grants from the Law Enforcement Assistance Agency (LEAA) in 1976 and again in 1977 for $50,000 each. Unlike the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Law Enforcement Assistance Agency (LEAA) had not been setup to fund programs involved in human experimentation and thus it had no policy for human consent forms.
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13 Lester Roloff, who founded Roloff Homes, had a showdown with the Texas Attorney General and left Texas in 1985. Wiley Cameron Sr., assumed control of the Roloff Holmes and strategically lobbied for the alternative accreditation law. Then Cameron was appointed to serve on the board of directors of Texas Association of Child Care Agencies (TACCCA). Roloff Homes moved back to Texas and was able to open 5 facilities accredited by the TACCCA. By 2000, reports of physical abuse, beatings and sadistic punishments resurfaced. Roloff Homes’ administrators were criminally convicted in 2001. Teen Challenge facilities were also cited for abuse as early as 1998. Other law suits involved the Texas InnerChange Prison Program. All these were faith-based programs.

14 Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies is just the same as the Texas agency and Teen Challenge center in Florida are members of Florida Association of Christian Child Care Agencies or FACCCA. Not surprisingly, evidence of extensive abuse has turned up with the Florida facility of almost an identical manner to what was documented in Texas. http://www.heal-online.org/childtorture ... nchallenge West Florida Teen Challenge Boys’ Ranch in Bonifay, Florida is a confirmed abusive teen program. The contract parents must sign with Teen Challenge states that the Florida Association of Christian Child-Caring Agencies’ (FACCCA) "intent" is to "insure the physical and spiritual health, safety, and well being" of the children and therefore that the boy’s ranch must meet FACCCA’s "minimum standards." Parents have to agree to hold the ranch and its employees harmless from "any and all liability" for injury to the child "even injury resulting in death." Parents must agree "that God desires that they resolve their dispute with one another within the church and that they be reconciled in their relationships in accordance with the principles stated in I Corinthians 6:1-8, Matthew 5:23-24, and Matthew 18:15-20." If they cannot resolve their disagreement privately within the church, parents must accept resolution through "biblically based mediation" by rules of the Association of Christian Conciliation Services. There is no refund of tuition or deposits if the boy leaves the ranch before 15 months even if the ranch has expelled him. A detailed report provided by Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Inc. Nov. 4th, 2004 newsletter. http://childrenshealthcare.org/

15 Dallas Teen Challenge Boys Ranch in Winnsboro in January 1996 was sued because a counselor and convicted drug trafficker sexually molested a young man there and two other boys, one of whom also was 16 or younger. The law suit alleged that "(The counselor) sexually molested (the plaintiff) on at least six different occasions at the ranch." The lawsuit further alleged that the church, ranch executive director Paul Ecker and the ranch's board knowingly employed men with criminal histories as counselors despite
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being informed by state regulators the practice was illegal. According to the lawsuit, most of the residents were there as a condition of probation or deferred adjudication and had psychological or substance abuse problems. During the day, they performed chores, including caring for livestock, and took part in religious education. At night, they were "locked down" and monitored by alarm systems, to prevent unauthorized departures. Many of them had substance abuse problems and were admitted to the program as part of their probation despite the repeated citations from state regulatory authorities, The Assemblies of God entities continued to send men who had criminal records involving narcotics and physical violence to the facility.

16 Minnesota Teen Challenge is run by the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination and in their The Official Teen Challenge Student Handbook instructs students to “conduct themselves in a manner pleasing to God” and strictly forbids any “homosexual behavior”, as being gay, along with addiction, is a sin.

17 Proselytizing Report: "Teen Challenge" July 26, 1984, by Rick Ross to the Religious Advisory Committee to the Arizona Department of (ADOC) on May 10, 1984. Chaplains throughout the ADOC are expected to facilitate religious programming in a neutral, non-biased manner. Teen Challenge which openly admitted that its’ primary purpose is the promotion of a specific religious belief system through confrontational evangelism. Teen Challenge is run by the Assemblies of God. Any chaplain who engages in facilitating a program for Teen Challenge could easily be seen as assisting in proselytizing. The Teen Challenge program has often been equated to a drug rehabilitation theme however they do not do substance abuse treatment and do very little medical treatment at all due to a lack of medically qualified staff. However, in the organization's literature the "Teen Challenge Cure" is stated as follows: "The only cure for . . . drug abuse, is Jesus Christ." The connections between Teen Challenge and the penal system of the State of Arizona are numerous. Many full time jail and prison chaplains have dual positions as both volunteers and/or coordinators for Teen Challenge in addition to their staff position funded by the State of Arizona. Teen Challenge therefore presents an obvious problem. Teen Challenge also poses a serious problem regarding the abrogating of parental authority with minor children within ADOC juvenile facilities.

18Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5 No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
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19 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 16.1 & 2
20 UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 7
21 UN CAT, Article 1. 1 “For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”
22 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 34
23 UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 12.1
24 UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 10
25 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 13.1
26 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18
27 UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 7
28 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4
29 UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 8
30 Former Sanford, Fla. Teen Challenge director Wayne Gray was forced to resign when his unlicensed telemarketing scam discovered that Teen Challenge only paid workers 33 cents a day for a 40 hour work week. They pretended to sell timeshare vacations form the “Disney Planning Center Resort”. Men convicted of financial crimes took the customer’s credit card information over the phone. The
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investigation revealed that this scam which had no relationship to Disney. Wayne Gray moved on to Oklahoma Teen Challenge as Executive Director. (Action 9 news)
31 UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Article 1.1

32 In 1998, a boy filed suit against Dallas Teen Challenge Boys Ranch and Assemblies of God, alleging that a counselor, who was a convicted drug trafficker, sexually molested him and two other boys. The lawsuit also claimed that the ranch’s Executive Director, the church and the ranch’s board knowingly hired people with criminal histories to serve as counselors." (Austin American-Statesman, 5/13/1998) More here: http://www.texnews.com/1998/texas/molest0513.html

33 Registered sex offender, Shondi Fabiano was director of Teen Challenge in Winthrop, Maine and was convicted of Second Degree Child Molestation in Rhode Island. She is listed on the National Sex Offender Public Registry http://www.nsopr.gov She is listed officially as a co-head of Teen Challenge New England by the website of the Northern New England District of the Assemblies of God, and who is officially listed as a lifetime-registered sex offender for second-degree child molestation and sexual assault in the third degree. An online check of sex offender registries, including the Florida sex-offender registry run by Florida Department of Law Enforcement, also shows Shondi Fabiano also has a history of 2nd degree sexual assault conviction in Kent, RI. 3rd degree sexual assault in Rhode Island is essentially statutory rape of a 14- to 16-year old minor by a person over the age of 18, 2nd degree sexual assault is sexual assault of an incapacitated person or sexual assault using force or coercion, and second degree child molestation is what is generally termed as frank pedophile rape--sexual assault of a minor under the age of 14. Fabiano would have been nearly 24 years old at the time of the offense. Fabiano apparently in Rhode Island committed the crimes 10 years ago under her maiden name Shondi Barbato; she was originally charged with 1st degree child abuse (which involves sexual penetration of a child under the age of 14). It also appears Fabiano (under her maiden name of Barbato) has additional criminal history for she has a conviction for fraud (specifically attempts to obtain money under false pretenses, insurance fraud, and conspiracy) and a dismissed charge of possession of a controlled substance. Fabiano is still head of Teen Challenge New England despite not only state laws that prohibit sex offenders and persons convicted of crimes against children from working in children's homes. In fact, technically Fabiano should not legally be able to work at Teen Challenge at all, much less have her residence listed as Teen Challenge in Maine's sex offender registry; Maine has some pretty strict laws regarding contact with
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minors by registered sex offenders. But Shondi Fabiano is not the only rapist employed by Teen Challenge in Winthrop, Maine. They also hired Dennis Knox who was convicted of gross sexual assault after raping an unconscious female. He is listed on the Maine Sex Offender Registry http://sor.informe.org
34 UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Article 5
35 UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 13.1
36 The right of torture survivors to reparations as a matter of international law. Chorzow Factory Case (Germany v Poland), 1928, PCIJ, ser. A, no. 17, p. 47.

22
Teen Challenge / The Texas Faith-Based Initiative at Five Years:
« on: April 17, 2011, 03:35:01 AM »
The Texas Faith-Based Initiative at Five Years:
Warning Signs as President Bush Expands Texas-style Program at National Level
 by the Texas Freedom Network  -  excellent report 28 pages

Teen Challenge Health & Safety Violations(1995 state inspection immediately prior to deregulation under the Texas Faith-Based Initiative)

• No qualified credential counselors on staff.
• No chemical dependency services are being provided.
• No staff has current CPR and First-Aid training. No policies on psychiatric or medical emergencies were found.
• No documentation?[of the required] initial training for staff on client rights; client grievance procedures; confidentiality of client-identifying information; client neglect and exploitation; requirements for reporting neglect and other serious incidents; standards of conduct; emergency?procedures; and the individuals
specific job duties.
• The present handling of medications at this facility are badly out of compliance. No one we spoke to understood or delivered service according to the
policy?standards.
• Smoke detection alarm system inoperable.
• Exposed wires and electrical outlets?missing bulbs,dangling light fixtures, and holes in ceilings near light fixtures.
• Violated requirement to provide a safe, secure, and well-maintained environment.
• Violated food preparation requirements creating a potential health hazard.
• Violated requirement to disclose client Bill of Rights and client grievance procedures.
• Violated required admission criteria, intake consent procedures, treatment plans, discharge procedures and
discharge follow-up.
• Violated requirement that the facility shall not exploit clients by using client labor inappropriately.
• Violated incident reporting requirements.
• Violated requirement to: protect the health, safety, rights, and welfare or clients; provide adequate services?; comply with all applicable laws, regulation, policies, and procedures; maintain required licenses, permits, and credentials; and comply with professional and ethical codes of conduct.

23
Dr. Ruth Fox, founder of ASAM - Did research in Mind Control

ASAM, Dr. Ruth Fox ‘s legacy is this collusion with private contracts with governmental agencies and private corporations for non NIH research.   Dr. Ruth Fox’s Project MK-ULTRA a CIA mind control program was first brought to wide public attention in 1975 by the U.S. Congress, through investigations by the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission.  George Herbert Walker Bush  was CIA Director from January 30, 1976 – January 20, 1977.   Over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, and native Americans.  Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations." This was sanctioned governmental human rights abuses done by these LSD researchers and sometimes resulted in permanent disability and even death.  The CIA  itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense and monitoring was not done qualified scientific observers.

Medical doctors are necessary to manipulate public policy and to further the financial interests of the  criminal enterprise of Straight and its progeny,  which use vulnerable patients for profits while ignoring patient's real needs and fostering a system of abusive human rights violations.  So high level medical doctors were used to provide legitimacy such as former White House drug czars Robert DuPont, MD (a former paid Straight consultant) and Donald Ian MacDonald, MD (Straight's former national medical research director) who are members of the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse (a DFAF subsidiary).   Richard Schwartz, MD, former medical research director for Straight - Springfield is another forum member.

The  predecessor of Straight Inc. the Seed opened for business in June 1970  in Florida.??  The Seed was a substance abuse treatment center for adolescents and children.   So in 1970 with a start up grant for $1 million dollars  from the federal government's NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse )--a subsidiary of the sprawling NIMH (National Institue of Mental Health) the Seed program was established.  Melvin Sembler's son was enrolled in Seed and Melvin Sembler, (personal friend to George H. W. Bush),  became President of the Board of Straight Inc.  Director of NIDA, psychiatrist Robert L. DuPont, Jr.  had approved the grant.

The American Society of Addiction Medicine was "founded" by Dr. Ruth Fox,  the architect of the Straight Inc.  rehabilitation centers and the guru of mind control techniques using abusive coercive control and experimental LSD drug therapy.  The CIA had experimented with LSD on prisoners at the NIH's lock-up hospital in Lexington, Kentucky where NIH had set up its own experimental program called MATRIX.

Ruth Fox was the founder of ASAM — The American Society for Addiction Medicine — that exists to promote A.A. and the 12-Step treatment of alcoholism, this is done by pretending to give doctors helpful advice about what works to treat or cure alcoholism. Dr. Ruth Fox, Medical Director of the National Council on Alcoholism in the United States, had used LSD in alcoholic rehabilitation.  She endorsed the use of the drug LSD for therapeutic use.  She claimed that LSD  made the experimental subjects have a new feeling of compassion and tenderness for others.  Dr. Ruth Fox also felt that LSD was very helpful in changing alcoholics' thinking and behavior:  “LSD does seem to make the patient more willing to undertake the total program necessary for his recovery. After LSD most of the patients who formerly refused to cooperate were willing to take disulfiram, attend group therapy and to affiliate with A.A.”  Ruth Fox, Alcoholism, Behavioral Research, Therapeutic Approaches, 1967, page 775, quoted in Slaying the Dragon, William L. White, page 229.

And Dr. Ruth Fox was such a unethical research scientist that she gave her patients disulfiram and then alcohol, to deliberately make them very sick, in an attempt to build up an aversion to alcohol. Even after she discovered that the aversion therapy didn't work, and even after one patient nearly died from an almost fatal reaction to a single ounce of alcohol, she still insisted on giving each patient at least one session of being sick from the disulfiram/alcohol combination, before she released them from the hospital. (See: Disulfiram (Antabuse) as an Adjunct in the Treatment of Alcoholism, Dr. Ruth Fox, in Alcoholism: Behavioral Research, Therapeutic Approaches, edited by Ruth Fox, M.D., foreword by 'Mrs.' Marty Mann, Springer Publishing Company, Inc., New York, 1967.)

The ASAM still collects financial donations to the Ruth Fox Endowment Fund and sends the money overseas where the prying eyes of the FBI can't follow it.   The money of the Ruth Rox Endowment fund is used to pay for continuing education (courses about ASAM philosophy and to fund scholarships for FASAM interns and doctors).

These techniques of using drugs to force compliance out of patients became the hallmark of the new AA, and American Society of Addiction Medicine programs.  The American Society of Addiction Medicine even wrote their own book based in part on Ruth Fox's pioneering treatment of alcoholics with LSD.  No mention is made of the patients who became permanently psychotic or committed suicide under her LSD treatment.  No accounting for violations of civil rights, privacy or human rights.

This historical abuse of human subjects by substance abuse treatment doctors was well documented in the Congressional Church Committee report and the Rockefeller Commission.  (Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate, 94th Congress, 2nd Session, April 26 (legislative day, April 14), 1976.)  The published evidence indicated that Project MKULTRA involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methods, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function on US and Canadian citizens.   Over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an "extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign."     Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to "unwitting subjects in social situations."  Dr. Ruth Fox, founder of the ASAM, utilized a variety of drugs including LSD on alcoholics, homeless persons, enlisted military personnel and even on unsuspecting public citizens,  as part of CIA research into mind control.  LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject's knowledge or informed consent, a violation of the Nuremberg Code that the U.S. agreed to follow after World War II.   The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that "Prior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects".   Following the recommendations of the Church Committee, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities which, among other things, prohibited "experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject" and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission.  Subsequent orders by Presidents Carter and Reagan expanded the directive to apply to any human experimentation.

The coercive violence of the Straight program lived on in a series of other rehabilitation centers long after the United States Congress had ordered the organization shut down for human rights abuses.   The Federation of State Physicians Health Programs came from the state chapters of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.  So the Washington Physicians Health Program is the former Washington State Chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Surprising to most doctors is that the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs has a State Physicians Health Program in almost every state.  This State Physician Health Program is a non governmental organization with tax exempt status and incorporated to limit their Board of Directors from liability. The State Physician Health Program  is now the predominant investigator of any medical professional who might be "impaired" or even a "disruptive doctor".  Under the Health Care Quality Improvement Act there does not even need to be valid legal evidence to remove a doctors license.  Thus doctors, nurses, pharmacists, chiropractors, dentists, and even veterinarians are now controlled by this organization which is the grandchild of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.  It's practices are related closely to those of the leaders of the Straight Inc and Seed rehabilitation centers.   The same web of patient abuse behind closed doors has now gained official status as a governing agency watchdog with coercive control over medical professional's licenses through "monitoring" and investigation.

The human behavior experiments were strongly condemned by the US Congress but the financial association of her and her colleagues with private funding from undisclosed sources continued unabated.  The ASAM doctors who had lost their medical licenses were more than eager to be reinstated as doctors in order to perform research in newly established substance abuse residential treatment centers and to use drugs on captive patients without proper informed consent.  Who could complain, certainly not the “addicted” patients.  So the pharmaceutical companies found “human subjects” who were controllable and who could be forced in locked facilities to take these experimental drugs.
 

In return for cooperating with the pharmaceutical industries corporate goals there would be political influence exerted to soften certain legislative language to facilitate the ASAM doctors to regain their medical licenses permanently and to erase their soiled records of addictive behaviors and criminal activity.   The ASAM strategically analyzed how to circumvent the medical quality control system that was preventing them from expunging the addiction behavior from their records.  A Federation of State Physicians Health Program’s committee was established for monitoring the addicted ASAM members who wanted their medical licenses back.  This FSPHP monitoring committee was made up of addicts themselves and a few non addicts, but after several years the non addicts dropped out and the addicts were monitoring themselves.   When it was politically expedient the monitoring committee just decided that every addict in the group who had been previously monitored didn’t need to be monitored anymore and the committee was just disbanded and discontinued.  All the addicts were deemed “cured” of their addiction and not needing any more monitoring.   Thus a clean record expunged of all past compulsive and criminal behavior was created.  This coupled with legislative actions at the state level in several states was then were used to hide from the public the criminal past infractions and inappropriate behavior of the ASAM members.  A few states – notably Texas and Georgia were particularly favorable to former addicts having the court system erase previous criminal infractions.

For example in Atlanta, Georgia,   Judge Marsh actually co-owed the Talbott Marsh Recovery Center with the former ASAM President George Douglas Talbott.   Judge Marsh court ordered “impaired” persons to be incarcerated in the Talbott Marsh Recovery Center for “treatment” and also made judgment on sealing records of past addictive behaviors of those deemed “cured” by Dr. George Douglas Talbott.   Dr. George Douglas Talbott was known for severe abusive behavior which led to the suicide deaths of many medical professionals under his “monitoring” program.  While ASAM President of the Board, he was successfully sued by Dr. Leon Masters for false imprisonment and abusive treatment.

The ASAM addicted doctors were not only “cured” but now they had also established a system of substance abuse “monitoring” through the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs which they attempted to put in place in every state in the USA.  Through contracts with the state departments of health, they established themselves as the only competitor for state funding through medical licensing fees.  With generous outside funding from non disclosed sources, the ASAM doctors were able to effectively underbid others for these substance abuse treatment monitoring functions.  Thus doctors so addicted that their own medical licenses were removed or curtailed were now placing themselves to be the monitors of every licensed medical doctor within the USA.  With an aggressive  and expensive advertising campaign through medical and nursing association journals the newly established Physicians Health Programs presented themselves as advocates for “impaired physicians” and suggested to everyone in the medical field to “turn in” other doctors, nurses, dentists, chiropractors, pharmacists etc to be “monitored” by the Physicians Health Program.   Deliberately targeting allied professionals such as non-medically trained assistants, office managers, and paraprofessional staff to “snitch on doctors”, the ASAM found target doctors to force into their abusive monitoring system.  So the addicts are now collecting gossip, rumor and outright fabrications against licensed medical doctors and privately investigating the personal lives and backgrounds of those doctors.   Any criminal could make a complaint against a doctor and expect to have the Physicians Health Program dig up dirt on their competitor or whistleblower.  In addition ASAM embraced not just substance abusing doctors (alcoholics and drug addicts) but also "sex addicts" and compulsive gamblers as members of their growing non-profit organization.  These "sex addicts" were monitored by other "sex addicts" and deemed "cured" or "recovered" and placed back into medical practice with no warning to patients about their past sexually compulsive histories.

To demonstrate why this is dangerous to potential patients one has only to look at the Teen Challenge hiring practices.   Teen Challenge is a residential substance abuse treatment center for teens.

A convicted Sex Offender Heads Teen Challenge in Maine. Registered Sex Offender Shondi Fabiano and her husband, Peter, are the directors of the Teen Challenge in Winthrop, Maine. Shondi Fabiano was convicted of Second Degree Child Molestation in Rhode Island. She is listed on the National Sex Offender Public Registry. http://www.nsopr.gov

Maine Teen Challenge Hired Another Convicted Sex Offender.  Registered Sex Offender Dennis Knox has joined Shondi Fabiano as the second rapist employed by the Teen Challenge in Winthrop, Maine. Dennis Knox, age 35  was convicted of gross sexual assault after raping an unconscious female. He is listed on the Maine Sex Offender Registry. http://sor.informe.org

In addition the ASAM actively courted law enforcement, promising them to take the “impaired physician” off their hands and quietly spirit them away where they couldn’t cause any commotion or public spectacle.  This even included providing direct ASAM training to the King County Sheriff’s Department in Seattle WA so that officers would handle all cases involving licensed medical professionals by turning them over to the ASAM doctors of the Washington Physicians Health Program.  This allowed a seamless flow of persons through assertion of color of law authority of the ASAM doctors over any licensed medical professional.  The first phone call of the police would be to the nongovernmental organization the Washington Physicians Health Program and the ASAM doctors would immediately respond to control the targeted doctor.  The Washington Physicians Health Program contract with the Washington Department of Health was used to promote color of law authority to the ASAM doctors.   Thus the police force in King County (Seattle and surrounding area) would not abide by constitutional protections of civil law but would instead turn over any medical professional to the color of law authority of the ASAM doctors of the Washington Physicians Health Program.  No warrant necessary, no informed consent, no need for true legal representation, no doctor/patient relationship required, the ASAM knew how to manipulate the doctor with coercive force and threats against their medical license.   Law enforcement would not log complaints by doctors against the ASAM/Washington Physicians Health Program because the WPHP was a subcontractor of the Washington Department of Health.  Law enforcement officers would take as absolute truth any diagnosis presented by the WPHP about any “impaired” doctor and would cooperate fully with the ASAM doctors to force the recalcitrant doctor to obey them.   There would be no investigation into the violations of civil or even human rights – because according to the protocols approved by the ASAM – the “impaired” doctor is unable to make informed choice and needed to be controlled and forced to do what the ASAM desires.
 

The ASAM and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs politically worked to change legislative law in each state to be favorable for them to control the investigation into any quality control issues related to doctors or other licensed medical professionals.  Presenting themselves as experts on the treatment of addictions, the ASAM doctors did educational programs to train others to view “problem” doctors through the lens of ASAM principles built around the Dr. Ruth Fox tradition of abusive and coercive control.   Thus they could protect their own addicted or criminally involved members and remove the medical licenses from anyone who would dare report their criminal behavior.   They also started another organization which they would use to prevent licensed medical professionals from being able to access their own medical credentialing verification documents.  The Physicians Health Program insists that state medical boards refuse to accept already well documented credentials and force applicants to send credentialing to a independent incorporated centralized agency the ASAM corruptly controlled.  This essentially prevents whistleblowers from seeking a medical license in any state in the USA and shuts down a doctor’s ability to even go overseas with a clean record and obtain a medical license.   The ASAM’s and FPHP control over medical licensing is absolute and is not open to law enforcement scrutiny and also not under the control of any governmental body.  The state board of medicine does not control what goes on behind those closed doors.  The US Congress cannot pierce the covert halls of this power and even the FBI is stopped at the door by the protestations of HIPPA and confidentiality which require a high burden of proof in order to obtain a subpoena.    The ASAM addicted doctors have created a system they control and in which they can hide whatever criminal activity they want.   Thus if you want to money launder and not get caught, you want to do it within the medical community with the help of the FSPHP and their associated colleagues, so drug addicts, alcoholics, persons with sexual compulsion, sex offenders, compulsive gamblers and other addicts now can sit in judgment on any whistleblower naïve enough to try to report their criminal activity.

 

If law enforcement wants to prevent medical fraud then we must dismantle this FSPHP system of power and control, and put power back in the hands of elected officials and real medical professionals with clean records and no past history of addictive behavior.

 

The techniques learned by Dr. Ruth Fox in mind control experiments using alcoholics as clinical subjects were easily adapted to silencing whistleblowers.  These principles became the basis for the “Big Book” or the manual used by the ASAM to train all their followers.  Inherent to this ASAM program designed for alcoholics were the following principles:

 

    * We were powerless
    * A power greater than ourselves will restore us to sanity
    * We were wrong
    * Our problems are the result of defects of character
    * We admit/confess our sins to persons we had harmed

 

This kind of dogma is absolutely false for anyone who is an innocent crime victim or victim of trauma.   For persons suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder one of the most important healing concepts is the concept of empowerment and personal control.    Forcing whistleblowers, victims of sexual assault or combat trauma to admit they were morally wrong and suffer from a defect of character is absolutely contrary to what would be right for their personal healing.   Holding a trauma victim in a locked facility and forcing confessions of “sins” in order to be released is essentially psychological coercion and torture.  But this is exactly what the Physicians Health Programs, ASAM, and other associated programs do to all crime victims, combat veterans, whistleblowers, and victims of bullying in the workplace.   Forcing a whistleblower to admit they are powerless and must obey a power greater than themselves is a way of making the whistleblower be silent and to bend to the political and social power of the criminal enterprise.

 

One has only to look at the past history of abuse of this substance abuse treatment method to understand how brutally abusive it is (SEED, Straight Inc., Talbott Marsh Recovery Center)  There have been four US Congressional investigations into these abusive programs but they still multiply and thrive in spite of the exposure of their abusive methods.   Now this abusive program has taken hold of the quality control system within the medical community and entrenched themselves as the “monitors” of proper behavior.   The message is clear to all licensed medical professionals:

 

    * Admit you are powerless in front of the power of the ASAM and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs and you will never “snitch” on any ASAM member.  
    * Admit that the power of the ASAM and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs will rule your life as a professional doctor.
    *  Admit you are wrong and have a defective character and need a “recovered” ASAM addict to tell you how to run your life and what you are allowed to do.
    * Admit you have “sins” you are embarrassed about and which can be used by the ASAM and the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs for blackmail and extortion.

 

Dr. George  Douglas Talbott MD is a former president of ASAM, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, which is yet another Alcoholics Anonymous front organization.  ASAM exists to promote A.A. and 12-Step treatment to doctors, and to fool doctors into thinking that 12-Step treatment and Alcoholics Anonymous actually work to cure alcoholics.

Right now in Atlanta Georgia at the Talbott Recovery Center Dr. George Douglas Talbott, an admitted "recovered" alcoholic is running a rehab clinic that  is specifically aimed at other doctors and medical professionals who have been forced to go through his treatment program by a state review board or professional society.   But history has proven that his program makes doctors and nurses commit suicide.

    "At least 20 doctors, nurses and other health professionals who have gone through the Ridgeview Institute's nationally acclaimed treatment program over the past 12 years have killed themselves since leaving the hospital."
    — Atlanta Journal Constitution

In May, 1999, just after Talbott stepped down as president of ASAM, a jury awarded Dr. Leonard Masters, of Jacksonville Florida, a judgment of $1.3 million against Talbott, his daughter-in-law Morrison, and other Talbott associates for malpractice, fraud, and false imprisonment, based on Masters' stay at Talbott's Atlanta, Georgia, treatment facility in 1994.

The Federation of State Physicians Health Programs hold a contract with the Medical Associations in each state to provide these services and the cost is paid from both the State Department of Health and the Federal taxpayer as well as heavily financially  influenced by malpractice insurance companies and large medical corporations.  Medical Professionals when they apply for their licenses are unwittingly signing a contract for this non governmental agency the State Physicians Health Program to "monitor" them.   The State Physicians Health Program is not itself monitored by anyone for what they do to the licensed professionals behind closed doors.  Suicides are still common.  The ASAM paid to settle a claim in Atlanta involving multiple suicides of licensed professionals at the Talbott Marsh Recovery Center.  Marsh stands for Judge Marsh who was a part owner and financially benefited by forcing people to go to treatment there.

The State Physicians Health Program, a non governmental entity over which the State Department of Health has little supervisory oversight and control has been given almost police like powers to take away the license of any medical professional they choose to target and in addition have been granted by most of the State Legislatures quasi-governmental immunity from being sued for damages from injured persons.   Thus the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs have prevented the bereaved families of the medical professionals who committed suicide from ever receiving  justice.

You can identify the members of the American Society of Addiction Medicine by the letters FASAM behind their name. The ASAM website still encourages donations to the Ruth Fox Endowment Fund in honor of their "Founder".  But one can wonder whether the ASAM is an organization that truly is meant to serve the patients needing addiction treatment.  Their stated goal of increasing access to addiction treatment can be translated to increasing income of their FASAM members.  ASAM supports research that furthers FASAM financial goals and is geared to increase use of their misguided principles in the ASAM BIG BOOK more widely.  Financial incentives to keep patients captive in abusive addiction treatment centers while making maximum profit is not good public health policy, nor is it quality patient care which should be based on values inherent in the HIPPOCRATIC OATH.   There is no mention of ethical values of patient care in the ASAM  mission statement,  instead their mission statement makes it clear that the goal is to further the  use of their ASAM brand of Addiction treatment.

Remember that a central element to torture is the enforced loss of control and autonomy of the person and that mind control techniques use denying basic needs to a person in order to force submission to power.  This submission to power is what the corrupt criminal enterprise’s protection apparatus is all about.   The Federation of Physicians Health Programs is a corrupt criminal enterprise that is used to hide medical fraud, patient abuse and neglect, human rights violations, drug diversion and money laundering within the medical community.

"Chapter 3, part 4: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals". Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments Final Report. http://www.hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/ ... ap3_4.html. Retrieved 2005-08-24.

"The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence". Church Committee report, no. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.. Washington, D.C..: United States Congress. 1976. pp. 392. http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/churc ... _0200b.htm.

"Opening Remarks by Senator Ted Kennedy". U.S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, and Subcommittee On Health And Scientific Research of the Committee On Human Resources. 1977-08-03. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/his ... ring01.htm.


Who are the Doctors in the ASAM?

262 Physicians have been awarded Fellow status by ASAM, and they can be found listed here;

Terry L. Alley, M.D., FASAM,Warrior,AL,2000
James Alley, M.D., FASAM",Macon,GA,1998
Maris Andersons, M.D.,CD,CCFP,FASAM",Toronto,ON,1996
Andris Antoniskis, M.D., FASAM",Portland,OR,2004
Mihran N. Ask, M.D., FASAM",Loma Linda,CA,1998
Ray P. Baker, M.D., FASAM",Surrey,BC,1996
John Robert Baker, M.D., FASAM",Batesville,AR,2008
E. J. Barice, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Riviera Beach,FL,1996
Andrea G. Barthwell, M.D., FASAM",River Forest,IL,1998
Gabrielle B. Batzer, M.D., FASAM",Honolulu,HI,1996
Louis E. Baxter, Sr., M.D., FASAM",Princeton,NJ,1998
Richard A. Beach, M.D., FASAM",Navarre,FL,1996
Manoher R. Bearelly, M.D., FASAM",Makanda,IL,2006
Lee H. Beecher, M.D., FASAM",Minneapolis,MN,1998
Jeffrey A. Berman, M.S., M.D., FASAM",Summit,NJ,2006
Sheila B. Blume, M.D., FASAM",Sayville,NY,1996
Jacob Bobrowski, M.D., B.Sc., FASAM",Toronto,ON,2000
Steven C. Boles, D.O., FASAM",Peoria,AZ,2008
Douglas L. Bovee, M.D., FACP, FASAM",Eugene,OR,1998
Michael F. Boyle, III, D.O., FASAM",West Bloomfield,MI,1996
Burns M. Brady, M.D., FASAM",Louisville,KY,2006
Jess W. Bromley, M.D., FASAM",Hayward,CA,1996
David W. Brook, M.D., FASAM",New York,NY,2000
William S. Brostoff, M.D., FASAM",Vallejo,CA,1996
Kirk J. Brower, M.D., FASAM",Ann Arbor,MI,1998
Lawrence S. Brown, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Brooklyn,NY,1996
Donald G. Browning, M.D., FASAM",Little Rock,AR,1996
Milton E. Burglass, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Cambridge,MA,1996
William George Campbell, M.D., CCSAM, FASAM",Calgary,AB,2000
Andrew Campbell, Ph.D., FASAM",Indianapolis,IN,2000
Neil A. Capretto, D.O., FASAM",Aliquippa,PA,1996
Greg Carlson, M.D., FASAM",Minneapolis,MN,1996
H. B. Carlson, M.D., FACP, FASAM",Littleton,CO,1996
Paul G. Casola, M.D., Ph.D., FRCPC",Toronto,ON,2003
John N. Chappel, M.D., FASAM",Reno,NV,1996
Jean-Pierre Chiasson, M.D., FASAM",Ville Mont Royal,PQ,1996
H. W. Clark, M.D., JD, MPH, FASAM",Rockville,MD,1998
D. K. Cockrell, M.D., FASAM",Indianapolis,IN,1996
Irving A. Cohen, M.D.,FACPM,FASAM",Topeka,KS,1996
Stephen M. Colameco, M.D., FASAM",Sewell,NJ,2004
Robert A. Collen, M.D., FASAM",Cerritos,CA,1996
Donald R. Cornelius, M.D., FASAM",Wellington,,1996
Sandra J. Counts, M.D., FASAM",Seattle,WA,1996
Graeme M. Cunningham, M.D., FASAM",Guelph,ON,1996
Carol Cunningham, Ph.D., FASAM",Winston Salem,NC,1996
Robert D. Daigle, M.D., FASAM",San Jose,CA,2000
John Daigle, M.D., FASAM",Tallahassee,FL,2000
Jeff Daiter, M.D., FASAM, CCFP",Richmond Hill,ON,2006
John C. Dalco, M.D., FASAM",Scituate,MA,1996
Donald Lee Damstra, M.D., FASAM",Prescott,AZ,1996
Scott Mitchell Davis, M.D., M.A., FASAM",Palm Desert,CA,2008
Louis E. Deere, D.O., FASAM",Dallas,TX,1996
Anthony H. Dekker, D.O., FASAM",Phoenix,AZ,1996
Alexander F. DeLuca, M.D., FASAM",New York,NY,1998
Peter A. DeMaria, Jr., M.D., FASAM",Philadelphia,PA,1998
Avtar S. Dhillon, M.D., FASAM",Williamsburg,VA,2003
Andrew DiBartolomeo, M.D., FASAM,MBA,FACE",Akron,OH,1996
William E. Dickinson, D.O., FASAM, FAAFP",Everett,WA,1996
Dennis C. Doherty, D.O., FASAM",Atlanta,GA,2004
Martin C. Doot, M.D., FASAM",Des Plaines,IL,1996
Joseph E. Dorsey, M.D., FASAM",Hollywood,FL,1998
Robert L. DuPont, M.D., FASAM",Rockville,MD,1996
Judith Earley, Ph.D., FASAM",Atlanta,GA,1996
Paul H. Earley, M.D., FASAM",Atlanta,GA,1996
Allan Michael Ebert, D.O., FASAM",Flint,MI,2006
Steven J. Eickelberg, M.D., FASAM",Paradise Valley,AZ,1996
Nady El-Guebaly, M.D., FASAM",Calgary,AB,1996
John P. Epling, Jr., M.D., FASAM",Shreveport,LA,2000
Sara A. Epstein, M.D., FASAM",Los Angeles,CA,1996
Stanley J. Evans, M.D., FASAM",Portland,ME,2000
Steven R. Ey, M.D., FASAM",Newport Beach,CA,2003
J. Ramsay Farah, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Hagerstown,MD,2008
John P. Femino, M.D., FASAM",North Kingstown,RI,1996
James L. Ferguson, D.O., FASAM",Annapolis,MD,2008
Peter Kenneth Finelli, D.O., FASAM",Elmwood Park,NJ,2008
Timothy L. Fischer, D.O.,FASAM",Orangeburg,SC,2003
Marc J. Fishman, M.D., FASAM",Baltimore,MD,2008
Michael L. Fox, D.O., FASAM",Farmington Hills,MI,2004
Kenneth I. Freedman, M.D.,MBA,FACP, FASAM",Jamaica Plain,MA,2003
Marc Galanter, M.D., FASAM",New York,NY,1996
Joseph L. Galletta, M.D., FASAM",Hemet,CA,1998
Samuel B. Ganz, D.O., FASAM",Corpus Christi,TX,1998
Charles F. Gehrke, M.D., FASAM",Tecumseh,MI,2000

Anne Geller, M.D., FASAM",New York,NY, 1996 ( One of the founding members of ASAM, past president of ASAM  and testified about abuse of Dr. Leonard Masters and against Dr. George Douglas Talbott MD)

Caroline M. Gellrick, M.D., FASAM",Evergreen,CO,1996
Stanley E. Gitlow, M.D., FACP, FASAM",Naples,FL,1996
Lee Gladstone, M.D., FASAM",Chicago,IL,1998
William Glatt, M.D., FASAM",South San Francisco,CA,2000
Roger A. Goetz, M.D., FASAM",Fernandina Beach,FL,1996
Lance L. Gooberman, M.D., J.D., FASAM",Merchantville,NJ,1998
Adam Joseph Gordon, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Pittsburgh,PA,2008
Lloyd J. Gordon, III, M.D., FASAM",Brandon,MS,1996
Marc N. Gourevitch, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",New York,NY,2003
Douglas L. Gourlay, M.D., FRCPC, FASAM",Waterdown,ON,2003
Douglas Graham, M.D., FASAM",Victoria,BC,1996
Allan Graham, M.D., FASAM",Denver,CO,1996
Roland W. Gray, M.D., FASAM",Brentwood,TN,2003
Raju Hajela, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Calgary,AB,1998
James A. Halikas, M.D., FASAM",Naples,FL,1998
William F. Haning, III, M.D., FASAM",Honolulu,HI,1996

Lynn R. Hankes, M.D.,FASAM",Mercer Island,WA,1996 ( Involved in brutal psychological abuse of doctors in Washington State leading to suicides and  other doctors who were suicidal under his "monitoring" program in the Washington Physicians Health Program )

Harley J. Harber, M.D., P.A., FASAM",Salem,AR,1998
John Harsany, Jr., M.D., FASAM",Hemet,CA,2000
Stanley M. Haugland, M.D., FASAM",Windsor Heights,IA,1996
Thomas L. Haynes, M.D., FASAM",Grand Rapids,MI,1996
William H. Hazle, M.D., FASAM",Pocatello,ID,1996
Howard A. Heit, M.D., FACP, FASAM",Fairfax,VA,1998
Arnold J. Hill, M.D., M.Sc., FASAM",Marlborough,MA,1998
Thomas R. Hobbs, M.D., Ph.D., FASAM",Harrisburg,PA,1998
William J. Howell, M.D.,FASAM",Birmingham,AL,2003
Elizabeth F. Howell, M.D., FASAM",Salt Lake City,UT,1998
Robert B. Hunter, M.D., FASAM",Houston,TX,1996
Conway W. Hunter, Jr., M.D., FASAM",Sea Island,GA,1996
Richard D. Hurt, M.D., FASAM",Rochester,MN,1998
Gordon L. Hyde, M.D., FASAM",Lexington,KY,1996
Henry E. Irby, M.D., FASAM",Jackson,MS,2000

Richard R. Irons, M.D., FASAM",  Lawrence, KS,1996 (Created a new diagnosis "Sex Addiction" based on the 12 step program and then claimed he could treat it.  There is no such diagnosis in the DSM IV R  He was an intern at Messigner clinic in Topeka KS,  Founding father of Sexual Recovery Institute in AZ and was involved in the Interstate Sexual Trauma Institute in MN.  All these programs use the  12 step approach to sex addicts.   Dr. Irons is now deceased but the fabricated diagnosis of Sex Addiction is still treated there if you want to see how this site relates to ASAM and 12 step   http://www.sexualrecovery.com/sex-addicts.php )

Gary A. Jaeger, M.D., FAAFP, FASAM",Carson,CA,2000
Margaret A. E. Jarvis, M.D., FASAM",Waverly,PA,2003
Steven M. Juergens, M.D., FASAM",Mercer Island,WA,1996
Jeffrey David Kamlet, M.D., FASAM",Miami Beach,FL,2006
Geoffrey P. Kane, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Brattleboro,VT,1996
Lori D. Karan, M.D., FACP, FASAM",San Francisco,CA,1996
Steven S. Kipnis, M.D., FACP,FASAM",Orangeburg,NY,2003
Ebenezer Adekunle Kolade, M.D., FASAM",Bridgeport,CT,2008
Dexter Donald Koons, M.D., FASAM",Pueblo,CO,2008
Howard G. Kornfeld, M.D., FASAM",Mill Valley,CA,2003
Margaret M. Kotz, D.O., FASAM",Cleveland,OH,2008
Mark L. Kraus, M.D.,FASAM",Waterbury,CT,1996
Theodore B. Krouse, M.D., FASAM",Ocean City,NJ,2002
Kevin B. Kunz, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Kailua Kona,HI,2003
Donald J. Kurth, M.D., FASAM",Alta Loma,CA,2000
Tommie F. Lauer, M.D., FASAM",High Point,NC,2000
Steven Joseph Lee, M.D., FASAM",New York,NY,2008
John D. Lenton, M.D., FASAM",Midway,GA,1996
Petros Levounis, M.D., M.A., FASAM",New York,NY,2008
Michael Shawn Levy, D.O., FASAM",Las Vegas,NV,1998
M. D. Lewis, M.D., FASAM",Malibu,CA,1998
Michael R. Liepman, M.D., DFAPA, FASAM",Kalamazoo,MI,1996
Richard F. Limoges, M.D., DLFAPA, FASAM",Philadelphia,PA,2000
George Thomas Lloyd, M.D., FASAM",Butler,PA,2008
Lance Peter Longo, M.D., FASAM",Milwaukee,WI,2000
Donald I. MacDonald, M.D., FASAM",Rockville,MD,1996
Robert D. MacFarlane, M.D., FASAM",San Diego,CA,1996
Joseph C. MacMillan, M.D., FASAM",Alliston,ON,1996
Bonnie H. Madonik, B.Sc. M.D., FASAM",Toronto,ON,2006
Herbert L. Malinoff, M.D., FACP, FASAM",Ypsilanti,MI,1996
Edward H. Maloney, M.D., FASAM",Missoula,MT,1996
Eugene A. Mangieri, M.D., FASAM",Northport,AL,1998
J. Paul Martin, M.D., FASAM",Asheville,NC,1996
Thomas Charles Martin, M.D., FASAM",Holden,ME,2006
Sarz Maxwell, M.D., FASAM",Chicago,IL,2003
Susan V. McCall, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Portland,OR,2008
Brian Joseph McDevitt, D.O., FASAM",Varney,WV,2008
John P. McGovern, M.D.,FASAM(Honorary",Houston,TX,1998
Gerald J. McKenna, M.D., FASAM",Lihue,HI,1996
C. Richard McKinley, M.D., FASAM",Augusta,MO,1996
Mark A. Menestrina, M.D., FASAM",Brighton,MI,2008
Richard S. Merrick, M.D., FASAM",Rancho Palos Verdes,CA,1998
James M. Merritt, M.D., FASAM",Searcy,AR,1996
Adam M. Meyers, D.O., FASAM",Asbury Park,NJ,2003
Peter E. Mezciems, M.D., CCFP, FASAM",Guelph,ON,1996
Robert J. Middleton, M.D., FACP, FASAM",Louisville,KY,2000
Shannon C. Miller, M.D., FASAM, CMRO",Cincinnati,OH,2003  (US Air force forensic evaluations )
Michael M. Miller, M.D., FASAM",Madison,WI,1996
Norman S. Miller, M.D., FASAM",East Lansing,MI,1996
Earl H. Mitchell, M.D.,FASAM(Honorary",Washington,DC,2001
Joseph Molea, M.D., PA",Tampa,FL,2004
Charles W. Morgan, M.D., FAAFP, FASAM",Philadelphia,PA,1996
David P. Myers, M.D., FASAM",Tampa,FL,1998
George W. Nash, M.D., FASAM",Tucson,AZ,1996
Geneva F Nash, M.D., FASAM",Albuquerque,NM,1996
Robert R. Nelson, M.D., FASAM",Honor,MI,1996
James J. Nocks, M.D., FASAM, MSHA",Oxford,PA,1996
Kevin D. O'Brien, M.D., FASAM",Dade City,FL,1996
Dawn V. Obrecht, M.D., FASAM",Steamboat Springs,CO,1996
David L. Ohlms, M.D., FASAM",Saint Louis,MO,1996
Gary D. Olbrich, M.D., FASAM",Portland,OR,2000
Nicholas A. Pace, M.D., FASAM",New York,NY,1996
Wayne Edward Pasanen, M.D., FASAM",Lowell,MA,2008
Larry H. Patton, M.D., FASAM",Richardson,TX,1996
John D. Patz, D.O., FASAM",Seattle,WA,2008
Gary L. Patzkowsky, D.O., FASAM",Enid,OK,1998
Ronald F. Pike, M.D., FASAM",Worcester,MA,1996
Melvin I. Pohl, M.D., FASAM",Las Vegas,NV,1996
Craig T. Pratt, M.D., FASAM",Columbus,OH,1996
Mark R. Publicker, M.D., FASAM",Gorham,ME,1998
Anthony B. Radcliffe, M.D., FASAM",Redlands,CA,1996
Elmer H. Ratzlaff, M.D., FASAM",Kihei,HI,1998
Peter D. Rogers, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Columbus,OH,1996
Bryce B. Rohrer, M.D., FASAM",Goshen,IN,2003
Peter Rostenberg, M.D., FASAM",New Fairfield,CT,1996
Jeffrey D. Roth, M.D., FASAM",Chicago,IL,2000
Alphonse Kenison Roy, M.D., FASAM",Metairie,LA,1996
Terry A. Rustin, M.D., FASAM",Houston,TX,1996
Stephen J. Ryzewicz, M.D., FASAM",Wilbraham,MA,2008
Richard Saitz, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Boston,MA,2003
Edwin A. Salsitz, M.D., FASAM",New York,NY,2003
Mario J. Sanchez-Martinez, M.D., FASAM",Miami,FL,2008
Stan G. Sateren, M.D., FASAM",Columbus,OH,1998
Seddon R. Savage, M.D., FASAM",Concord,NH,1996
S. L. Schlesinger, M.D., FASAM",Kahului,HI,1996
Max A. Schneider, M.D., FASAM",Orange,CA,1996
Sidney H. Schnoll, M.D., Ph.D., FASAM",Westport,CT,1996
Mark T. Schreiber, M.D., FASAM",Virginia Beach,VA,2000
Terry K. Schultz, M.D., FASAM",Denver,CO,1996
Jerome E. Schulz, M.D., FASAM",Saint Paul,MN,1998
Richard Schwartz, M.D., FASAM",Vienna,VA,1998
William Marion Scott, III, M.D., FASAM",Piedmont,SC,2008
Peter L. Selby, MBBS, CCFP, FASAM",Toronto,ON,2006
Jeffery A. Selzer, M.D., FASAM",Glen Oaks,NY,2004
Kevin M. Sherin, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Orlando,FL,1996
Gail N. Shultz, M.D., FASAM",Tucson,AZ,1998
Jean Sinkoff, M.D., FASAM",Warren,MI,1998
Gregory E. Skipper, M.D., FASAM",Montgomery,AL,1998
John D. Slade, M.D., FASAM",New Brunswick,NJ,1996
C. Chapman Sledge, M.D., FASAM",Hattiesburg,MS,1998
Doyle P. Smith, M.D., FASAM",Jackson,MS,1996
David E. Smith, M.D., FASAM",San Francisco,CA,1996
James W. Smith, M.D., FASAM",Seattle,WA,1996
Barry S. Solof, M.D., FASAM",West Covina,CA,2003
Richard Graves Soper, M.D., J.D., FASAM",Nashville,TN,2008
Ravindra Prakash Srivastava, M.D., FASAM",Hilton Head Island,SC,2008
John B. Standridge, M.D., FASAM",Harrison,TN,2008
Barry Stimmel, M.D., FASAM",New York,NY,1996
Billy H. Stout, M.D., FASAM",Oklahoma City,OK,2006
Michel A. Sucher, M.D., FASAM",Scottsdale,AZ,1998
Gerald L. Summer, M.D., FASAM",Montgomery,AL,1996
Donal F. Sweeney, M.D., FACP, FASAM",Santa Barbara,CA,1997
Donald Sweeney, M.D., FASAM",Westfield,NJ,1998

G. D. Talbott, M.D., FACP, FASAM", Atlanta, GA,1996 (Founding member of ASAM,  Dr. George Douglas Talbott ran the Talbott Marsh Recovery Center in Atlanta GA. He was responsible  for the suicides of over 20 medical professionals and was found responsible in a court of law of abuse  and false imprisonment of Dr. Leonard Masters MD.  Dr. George Douglas Talbott is still running a treatment center for licensed medical professionals in Atlanta GA and gets referrals on contract from the State Medical Boards including Maine and Texas)

John Calvin Tanner, D.O., FASAM",Jacksonville Beach,FL,1998
Trusandra Elaine Taylor, M.D., FASAM",Philadelphia,PA,2006
Scott A. Teitelbaum, M.D., FASAM",Gainesville,FL,2008
Peter L. Tenore, M.D., FASAM",Bronx,NY,2008
Duraiyah Thangathurai, M.D., FASAM",Pasadena,CA,2008
Kenneth W. Thompson, M.D.,FASAM",Strasburg,PA,2003
Berton J. Toews, M.D., FASAM",Casper,WY,1998
Richard E. Tremblay, M.D., FASAM",Olympia,WA,1996
Joseph Alder Troncale, M.D., FASAM",Wernersville,PA,2008
Kenneth F. Tullis, M.D., FASAM",Memphis,TN,1996
Michael Varenbut, M.D., CCFP, FASAM",Richmond Hill,ON,2006
John J. Verdon, Jr., M.D., FASAM",Shrewsbury,NJ,1996
Jorge A. Viamontes, M.D., FASAM",Kirkwood,MO,1998
William Vilensky, D.O., R.Ph., FASAM",Longboat Key,FL,1996
Mark C. Wallen, M.D., FASAM",Sewell,NJ,1998
Arthur N. Ward, M.D., FASAM",Atlanta,GA,2000
Will W. Ward, M.D., FACP, FASAM",Louisville,KY,2000
Alan A. Wartenberg, M.D., FASAM, FACP",Attleboro,MA,1996
Michael F. Weaver, M.D., FASAM",Richmond,VA,2003
Dennis A. Weis, M.D., FASAM",Des Moines,IA,1998
James W. West, M.D., FASAM",Rancho Mirage,CA,1996
Howard Cary Wetsman, M.D., FASAM",Metairie,LA,2008
Norman Wetterau, M.D., FASAM",Dansville,NY,2003
Charles L. Whitfield, M.D., FASAM",Atlanta,GA,1996
Jeffery Neal Wilkins, M.D., FASAM",Los Angeles,CA,2008
Robert A. Williams, M.D., M.P.H., FASAM",Rome,GA,1996
Bernd Arthur Wollschlaeger, M.D., FAAFP., FASAM",North Miami Beach,FL,2008
Lance S. Wright, M.D., FASAM",Darby,PA,1996
Martha J. Wunsch, M.D., FASAM",Blacksburg,VA,2006
Elmer Yu, M.D., FASAM",Wilmington,DE,2003
Christopher Ziegler, M.D., FASAM",Harrisburg,PA,1998
Penelope P. Ziegler, M.D., FASAM",Williamsburg,VA,2000
Doctors in the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs

Board of Directors

Board of Directors and Officers
President
Michael H. Gendel, MD

President-Elect
Susan V. McCall, MD, MPH
   
Immediate Past President
Martin C. Doot, MD

Secretary
Luis T. Sanchez, MD
   
Treasurer
Peter A. Mansky, MD
 
Directors
2002-2004*
2003-2005*

Northeast
Terrance Bedient, CHE
Linda Bresnahan, MS

Central
Carole Hoffman, LCSW, CSADC
Stan Sateren, MD

Southeast
Gary D. Carr, MD
Warren Pendergast, MD

Western
Scott Alberti, CCDC, III
Jaye Swoboda, MD
At-Large
   
John Southworth, CADC
Michael Wilkerson, MD
 
*Term is two-years and can overlap into another term

 
Standing Committees
Executive Officers
Michael H. Gendel, MD, MD, Chair, FSPHP President
Susan V. McCall, MD, MPH, FSPHP President-Elect
Peter A. Mansky, MD, FSPHP Treasurer
Luis T. Sanchez, MD, FSPHP Secretary

Directors
Carole Hoffman, LCSW, CSADC, FSPHP Central Regional Director
Warren Pendergast, MD, FSPHP Southeast Regional Director

Nominating

Immediate Past President
Martin C. Doot, MD, (IL)

Northeast
Luis T. Sanchez, MD, (MA)

Central
Candace Backer, LCSW, MHC, (IN)

Southeast
Gary Carr, MD, (MS)

Western
Charles Walton, MD, (UT)

Pres. APP
Susan V. McCall, MD, MPH, (OR)

Bylaws
Michael W. Wilkerson, MD, Chair (NC)
Stan Sateren, MD (OH)
Lynn Hankes, MD, FASAM (WA)
Sarah Early, PsyD (CO)
 

Program
Luis T. Sanchez, MD, Chair (MA)
Linda Bresnahan, MS, (MA)
Terry Bedient, CHE (NY)
Doris Gundersen, MD (CO)
Carole Hoffman, LCSW, CSADC (IL)
Stan Sateren, MD (OH)
Bert Towes, MD (WY)

 

Publication
Linda R. Bresnahan, MS, Chair, (MA)
Sarah EArly, PsyD (CO)
John A. Fromson, MD, (MA)
Carole Hoffman, LCSW, CSADC, (IL)
Greg Skipper, MD (AL)
 

Public Policy
Susan V. McCall, MD, MPH, Chair, (OR)
Steve Dilts, MD, (CO)
Monica Feider, MSW, LICSW, (MN)
David Iverson, MD, (CO)
Martin C. Doot, MD, (IL)
 

Finance
Peter Mansky, MD, Chair, (NY)
Susan McCall, MD, MPH, (OR)
Ray Pomm, MD, (FL)
 

Membership
Scott Alberti, CDCC, III, Chair, (WA)
Gary D. Carr, MD, (MS)
 

Past Presidents
Martin C. Doot, MD, Chair (IL)
Lynn Hankes, MD, FASAM (WA)
John A. Fromson, MD, (MA)
David T. Dodd, MD (TN)
Gerald L. Summer, MD (In Memorium)
Richard Irons, MD (In Memorium)
Violet Eggert, MD (In Memorium)

 

Monitoring =  This committee has been disbanded temporarily
 

Ethics
John A. Fromson, MD, Chair, (MA)
Scott McClure, MD, (CO)
Warren Pendergast, MD (NC)
Lynn Hankes, MD, FASAM, (WA)

Guidelines Task Force
Susan McCall, MD, Chair, (OR)
Michael Ramierz, MS, (MT)
Gary D. Carr, MD, (MS)
Terrance Bedient, CHE, (NY)
Warren Pendergast, MD, (NC)
Charles Gehrke, MD, (MI)
Lynn Hankes, MD, FASAM, (WA)
Doris Gundersen, MD (CO)

Research Task Force
Physician Health Research
Planning Group
   

Michael H. Gendel, MD, Chair, (CO)
Steve Dilts, MD (APA), (CO)
Penny Ziegler, MD (AAAP), (VA)
Anne Linton, MD, (ASAM),
Carole Hoffman, LCSW, CSADC, (FSPHP), (IL)
Linda R. Bresnahan, MS, (FSPHP), (MA)
Martin C. Doot, MD, (FSPHP), (IL)
Ellen McCantz-Katz, MD (FSPHP), (VA)
Janet Knisely, PhD, (FSPHP), (VA)
Sarah Early, PsyD, (FSPHP), (CO)
Luis T. Sanchez, MD, (FSPHP), (MA)
Roger Brown, PhD, (AMA), (IL)
*2 of the FSPHP members are official and voting

CAC Task Force = This committee has been disbanded temporarily

The Stated Goals of the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs:

    * The FSPHP will achieve national and international recognition as an organization providing support for state physician health programs.
    * The FSPHP promotes the best medical care possible for all patients.
    * The FSPHP contributes toward this effort by promoting early identification, treatment, documentation, and monitoring of ongoing recovery of physicians prior to the illness impacting the care rendered to patients.
    * The FSPHP organizational structure shall be adequate to achieve its vision and mission.
    * The FSPHP will pursue the development and use of consistent standards, language, and definitions among state physician health programs to fulfill its mission.

24
The Troubled Teen Industry / Creating a New Board Speciality
« on: April 16, 2011, 06:50:59 AM »
Creating a New Board Speciality in order to control Federal Grant Funds and other Public Financing

American Society of Addiction Medicine certification FASAM  is not equivalent to medical board certification. On their website the ASAM admits that the ASAM  " examination is not a Board examination. ASAM is not a member of the Board of American Board of Medical Specialties, and ASAM Certification does not confer board Certification. "  http://www.asam.org/ExamHistory.html

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)   is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides diagnostic criteria for mental disorders.  The ASAM conveniently refuses to acknowledge the DSM IV R criteria for various addictive disorders and instead has their own criteria which was concocted by their own doctors with histories of addiction.   Dr. George Douglas Talbott was one of the initial writers of the ASAM manual on addiction.  This book is used by ASAM doctors as the bible to diagnosis people with "addiction".   So they created their own criteria and based that on symptoms which in the real DSM IV R are attributed to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Acute and Complex).  The PHP never gives anyone just a diagnosis of PTSD because that would not allow them to legally prevent their whistleblowing testimony to be heard in a court of law.  It is important to recognize the difference between PTSD which is a psychiatric injury as opposed to what is a mental disease.  This is a legal as well as a medical concept.  

Based on this newly concocted diagnostic manual dreamed up by the members of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the ASAM then started their own credentialing program and called the graduates who learned their new diagnostic approach Fellows and gave them the initials FASAM behind their names.  The ASAM is now trying to grandfather in their FASAM members as being boarded experts in behavioral medicine without going through the strenuous residential internships currently required to call a doctor a boarded expert.   Should allegations of domestic violence and human rights violations be permanently erased from a doctor's record so that he can move into a position of national political influence and power?

There are specific professional organizations which provide Board Specialty training in medicine and psychology.  These organizations have clear stringent guidelines as to who is given the honor and professional status as a boarded expert. Credentialing in the Boarded specialties as a MD is a challenging process that weeds out those without adequate clinical or academic skills.

Even in the field of psychology which is not the practice of medicine,  there are still strict guidelines for board certification.  The American Board of Professional Psychology was incorporated in 1947 with the support of the American Psychological Association. The ABPP is a unitary governing body of separately incorporated specialty examining boards which assures the establishment, implementation, and maintenance of specialty standards and examinations by its member boards. Through its Central Office, a wide range of administrative support services are provided to ABPP Boards, Board Certified Specialists, and the public.A Specialty is a defined area in the practice of psychology that connotes special competency acquired through an organized sequence of formal education, training, and experience.  In order to qualify as a specialty affiliated with the ABPP, a specialty must be represented by an examining board which is stable, national in scope, and reflects the current development of the specialty. A specialty board is accepted for affiliation following an intensive self-study and a favorable review by the ABPP affirming that the standards for affiliation have been met. These standards include a thorough description of the area of practice and the pattern of competencies required therein as well as requirements for education, training, experience, research bases of the specialty, practice guidelines, and a demonstrated capacity to examine candidates for the specialty on a national level.

This is not true of the new board "speciality" criteria of the newly created Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness (ABHW)  - which was previously the American Managed Behavioral Healthcare Association. The goal of the American Managed Behavioral Healthcare Association was to make money on substance abuse treatment and mental health services.  Instead their CEO and Chairman of the ABHW Board, Pamela Greenberg, is also Senior Vice President in the Stephens Inc. company in Dallas TX which supplies financial services for health insurance companies.  The goal of this alliance is to make money for the financial investors (Stephens Group LLC).  Those making management decisions are not trained in medicine or psychology, they are trained in financial assessment, risk management, cost benefit insurance statistical analysis, economics, public policy, survey research and other related fields. They are not medical doctors or psychologists.  

It must be remembered that part of the funding for the State Physicians Health Programs is provided from medical malpractice insurance companies.  The State Physicians Health Program is not designed to help targeted doctors recover and go back to practice,  nor are they designed to truly protect the vulnerable patients from abuse, neglect and medical fraud. The State Physicians Health Program is designed to make their Directors money and to protect large hospital and medical corporations from medical malpractice suits.  The State Physicians Health Program will readily sacrifice a medical doctor's career for corporate profits.

The Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness (ABHW) http://www.abhw.org/   organization run by Pamela Greenberg is designed to protect certain financial interests such as Medical Malpractice and Health Insurance companies (Aetna, Value Options, Cenpatico, Magellan Health Services, Optum Health Services, Shaller Anderson Behavioral Health, MHN)  and also the financial interests of Big Pharmaceutical companies ( Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca International, Bristol Myers, Reckitt Beckiser).  ABHW mission can be seen at  http://www.abhw.org/page3.html

ASAM states in their mission statement that their goal is to establish addiction medicine as a specialty recognized by professional organizations, governments, physicians, purchasers and consumers of health care services, and the general public.  The American Managed Behavioral  Healthcare Association (AMBHA) and the American Society of Addiction Medicine  (ASAM) are together promoting this new medical boarding and will be grandfathering those who already have the FASAM credentials in without the need for the normal hospital residency. These newly boarded "experts" in behavioral medicine would then be able to compete for Federal Funding on an equal basis to the already existing Medical Doctor Board  and Psychologist certifications in Psychiatry and Psychology but these new graduates would be trained in the Dr. George Talbott and Ruth Fox traditions.  One can only imagine what Dr. George Douglas Talbott ("recovered" alcoholic) and these other FASAM doctors would then do politically and financially with this new credentialing based on past history of medical fraud, patient abuse and human rights violations.

25
One Example of a Medical Whistleblower

One of these essential Medical Whistleblowers was Allen Jones who was an investigator for the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General of the Food and Drug Administration.  He wrote an excellent report about a criminal corruption of our governmental processes for the approval of pharmaceutical drugs and their use on vulnerable populations such as the elderly,  prisoners,  welfare recipients,  the homeless,  children, teenagers in rehab and the mentally ill.  His report as well as other supporting evidence can be seen at this link from the Psychiatric Law Project in Anchorage Alaska - Attorney Jim Gottstein.

Allen Jones Report

The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health was established by U.S. President George W. Bush in April 2002 to conduct a comprehensive study of the U.S. mental health service delivery system and make recommendations about pharmaceutical treatment.  The commission, using the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a blueprint, subsequently recommended screening of American adults for possible mental illnesses, and children for emotional disturbances in order to increase the use of highly controversial and inadequately tested pharmaceutical drugs.  Many of these drugs were found to be dangerous and had serious long term health effects as well as being so physically addictive that it was almost impossible to take the patient off them after they had been initiated. There are few potential benefits from the Texas Medical Algorithm plan, except increased profits for pharmaceutical companies.  There are serious concerns about the potential for unnecessarily causing neurological damage and contributing to increased medical costs,  potential substance abuse and pharmaceutical drug dependence.

NAMI and other pharmaceutical industry front organizations are used to compromise of scientific integrity under color of authority.  Organizations that protect the civil rights of the disabled  look askance at the irony of the use of the word freedom, contending the commission is yet another example of the excesses of drug industry marketing.  The effects of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health recommendations are to simply foster drug use rather than the prevention of mental illness and use of alternative treatment modalities.

TMAP, which was created in 1995 while President Bush was governor of Texas, began as an alliance of individuals from the University of Texas, the pharmaceutical industry, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. Through the guise of TMAP, critics contend, the drug industry has methodically influenced the decision making of elected and appointed public officials to gain access to citizens in prisons and State psychiatric hospitals.

Allen Jones was the investigator for the Office of Inspector General regarding the approval of psychotropic drugs by the Food and Drug Administration. Allen Jones, was a former investigator in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General (OIG), Bureau of Special Investigations.  His very detailed report can be found on the Psychrights.org website.  

Many critics contend that the strategy behind the commission was developed by the pharmaceutical industry, advancing the theory that the primary purpose of the commission was to recommend implementation of TMAP based algorithms on a nationwide basis. TMAP, which advises the use of newer, more expensive medications, has itself has been the subject of controversy in Texas, Pennsylvania and other states where efforts have been made to implement its use.

Jones wrote a lengthy report in which he stated that, behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, was the "political/pharmaceutical alliance." It was this alliance, according to Jones, which developed the Texas project, specifically to promote the use of newer, more expensive antipsychotics and antidepressants. He further claimed this alliance was "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab."

A coalition of over 100 advocacy organizations, united under the banner of Mindfreedom.org in representing the psychiatric survivors movement, has been galvanized by their strong opposition to the New Freedom Commission.

 

See also articles on this website

http://psychrights.org/articles/articles.htm
 

Opponents of the New Freedom Commission plan have questioned the motives of the commission, largely from a civil liberties perspective, asserting the initiative campaign is little more than a thinly veiled proxy for the pharmaceutical industry, which, in its pursuit of profits, is too eager to foster psychotropic medication interventions. Some opponents contend that its objectives are to foster chemical behavior control of American citizens.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was receiving reports of increased rates of suicide, especially during the first months of drug use and widespread extra label use of these medications in direct violation of their black box warning about potential adverse side effects.

"TeenScreen"  which was a program to screen every American shoolchild for mental disease,  represented naked pharmaceutical company greed.   Even before these New Freedom Commission recommendations were made there were 15 million Americans on Zyprexa (7.4 million) and Risperdal (7.6 million) alone in 2002.   Sales of atypical antipsychotic drugs reached $6.4 billion, making them the fourth best selling class of drugs in America. The combined sales of antidepressants and antipsychotics jumped from around $500 million in 1986 to nearly $20 billion in 2004 – a 40-fold increase. (Anatomy of an Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker, Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 7, Number I , Spring 2005)  The article is available at: http://psychrights.org/Articles/EHPPPsy ... c(Whitaker).pdf

In April, 2000, AHRP filed a complaint about the experiment, with the Office of Human Research Protection--see: http://www.ahrp.org/Initiatives/YaleComplaint.php

But this was not enough profit for the pharmaceutical companies and therefore additional marketing and political pressure were used to create a public mental health policy to screen children and get more of them on atypical antipsychotics.   This was the TeenScreen program which was designed to diagnose mental illness in teenagers, but has been shown to be coercive and unreliable.   The same political/pharmaceutical alliance that generated the Texas project is behind the New Freedom Commission.   Using the marketing strategy behind TeenScreen, this alliance is lobbying to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy and thus force on children and adults  expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects.  The global pharmaceutical market is forecast to grow to US $842 billion in 2010 (Pharmaceutical Market Trends 2006-2010 by S. Seget)

26
The Troubled Teen Industry / The Guard Dog was Silent in the Night
« on: April 16, 2011, 06:43:36 AM »
The Guard Dog was Silent in the Night

http://medicalwhistleblower.jigsy.com/about


Why would medical professionals today who pledged to obey the Hippocratic oath not come forward when they saw abuse, neglect and human rights violations?  The answer to that question is very complex and rooted in the undercover system of how quality control happens in the American medical system.

This is essentially the old Sherlock Holmes clue of the Silent Dog in the Night.

Quote
The Clue of Silence


In the story Silver Blaze by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle a critical piece of solving the crime centers on a clue of silence.  In this mystery story Detective Sherlock Holmes investigates the theft of a prized racehorse.  During the investigation, Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard asked Holmes if there was any particular aspect of the crime calling for additional study.  Holmes replied "Yes," and pointed to "the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime." Inspector Gregory replied, "The dog did nothing in the night-time."  Holmes said, "That was the curious incident." This curious incident was the failure of the guard dog to bark during the intrusion.  This clue of silence was an important material fact, and the famous detective then deduces that the dog knew the culprit.  This reduced the number of suspects and eventually solved the case.

In 2001,  Dr. Janet Parker DVM, Executive Director of Medical Whistleblower,  was actively assisting in the investigation of  the Straight Inc situation in conjunction with Department of Justice officials but from a different perspective.  The previous ISAC United Nations complaint had been written from the perspective of the teen victims of the  psychological and sometimes physical abuse and torture.  Dr.  Janet Parker focused her own investigation on why the medical professionals mandated by law to report such abuse,  had often times been silenced.  

 The Health Care Quality Improvement Act HCQIA appears on first glance to be a law to protect the public health but has instead been twisted by persons with political power and financial influence to a means to remove any targeted Medical Whistleblower.  This threat of removal of medical licenses and discrediting of Medical Whistleblowers is done through a process of behind the scenes administrative actions and quasi-judicial meetings coupled with quasi-governmental immunity for non governmental subcontractors.  Doctors and other medical professionals are exposed to Bad Faith Peer Review and whistelblower retaliation that strikes at the heart of their very professional and personal life.  A covert system of intimidation and witness suppression was uncovered.   Victims of human rights abuses need to have medical professionals come forward report the abuses and testify in court if they are to receive any justice.

Quote
Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard asked Holmes if there was any particular aspect of the crime calling for additional study.  Holmes replied "Yes," and pointed to "the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime." Inspector Gregory replied, "The dog did nothing in the night-time."  Holmes said, "That was the curious incident."

The history of these non governmental organizations showed political and financial connections between the Straight Inc,  the American Society of Addiction Medicine and their ASAM state chapters which had morphed into the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs (FSPHP).  

Funding of the ASAM program was shunted to off shore accounts and taken as charitable donations to a tax-exempt non profit organization.    Surprisingly the state governments allowed these chapters of the ASAM to become the investigative arm of the Department of Health, in spite of their lack of proper credentials to do that and their obvious historical connections with patient abuse and human rights violations as well as probable hidden criminal violations of the ASAM members themselves over their own personal addiction pasts (drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual violations, gambling).   This system was hidden under the legal umbrella of another non profit, the Federation of State Physicians Health Programs.  The Federation of State Physicians Health Programs was set up as a State Physician Health Program in each state and incorporated to limit any liability for their PHP directors and board members for their actions.  In addition these State Physicians Health Programs have private contracts (undisclosed to the public) with the State Medical Associations which permitted them to hide their actual influence and control over targeted doctors and to hide their reporting activities to the National Medical Databank and the State Medical Board.

The Federation of State Physicians Health Programs obtained through political power the contracts to "monitor" and "investigate cases in development" for the various State Departments of Health.   Thus the very persons who had direct personal and financial ties to abuse of patients became the Department of Health watchdog for medical quality assurance for every licensed medical professional in the state.   A carefully worded contract provided a wall of deniability for the State Governor appointed members of the State Medical Board for any abusive actions the Physicians Health Program (PHP) might take against a targeted medical professional.  This allowed the FSPHP to act without any governmental supervision over their actions except a once a year limited financial audit. The State Medical Board members abdicated their governmental regulatory responsibility to persons with known Human Rights abuses in their background.

This governmental power to "monitor" every licensed medical professional in the state also came with HIPPA protections of the State Physicians Health Program records which limited law enforcement access to their files and prevented adequate supervision of their actions for civil rights and human rights violations.  But this HIPPA privacy did not protect the targeted doctor's privacy,  instead in careful legal wording in the contract the State Physicians Health Program obtained permission from the State Department of Health to secretly behind the doctor's back and without any due process in court share private information from the "case in development" with employers, potential employers, co-workers, family, friends and even the National Medical databank, all under the guise of "protecting the public health".  The State Physicians Health Program Directors scoffed at Federal Privacy Act provisions and did whatever they pleased, knowing that their actions would never get scrutiny from the State Department of Health or Federal Law Enforcement.

In addition to obtaining the exclusive rights as a subcontractor to do the Medical Quality Assurance "monitoring" of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, therapists, chiropractors, and other medical professionals,  the State Physicians Health Programs lobbied and received quasi-governmental immunity from prosecution for this violation of Civil Rights and even Human Rights.   Thus we allowed persons with a history of involvement in human rights violations to have immunity for any further human rights violations by shielding them from the investigatory powers of law enforcement.  Instead, using this Department of Health contract,  the State Physicians Health Program utilizes the powers of law enforcement to force targeted doctors to its will.

Thus when doctors asked legal questions about who held the contract with the State Physicians Health Program they would be given vague, misleading and deceptive answers to clear legal concerns regarding their privacy if they "volunteered" for the PHP program of "monitoring".  If they did not "volunteer" they were told that they would be reported to the National Medical Databank and their career in medicine would be over.

Do not mistake this "volunteering" to be in the Physicians Health Program to be a free act of informed consent.  The Physicians Health Program is coercive, deceptive, manipulative and uses both "Color of Law" and "Color of Official Right" violations of civil rights,  as well as direct threats against the medical professional's license in order to force persons into their program.  There is nothing voluntary about how they do this.  They even use secret abductions (interventions) if necessary to obtain illegal custody of targeted doctors.  This includes doctors who are blowing the whistle on human rights abuses, patient neglect and abuse and medical fraud by the state government against the federal government.  This was a perfect way to silence any whistleblower who might have the audacity to report any human rights violations of substance abuse treatment facilities in the future.   The ASAM substance abuse treatment professionals had learned their lesson after two United States Congressional investigations into Straight Inc and SEED.  They had learned from the Dr. Leonard Masters case that serious damages are awarded by the courts to victims of Human Rights abuses.  They wanted to prevent any intrusive investigations into their treatment facilities by Federal FBI agents.   They learned to hide their abuse by becoming the watchdog over all licensed medical professionals in the state.


The Fox was in charge of the Hen House.


There is no avenue for choice of medical provider or any informed consent given to any medical professional targeted by the Physicians Health Program instead they are given a list of facilities "approved" by the Physicians Health Program and run by ASAM doctors.  The medical professional is told that the law mandates that they comply and their attorney is told that the Physicians Health Program acts as a arm of the State Department of Health.  No one tells the targeted doctor that nobody in the State Department of Health monitors or supervises what happens behind the closed doors.  The actual contract that controls the interaction between the State Medical Board and the Physicians Health Program is kept secret from the targeted doctor and their chosen personal attorney as well.

These civil rights potentially violated include but are not limited to rights  of privacy, due process, protection against unreasonable search and seizure, right to free speech, right to know the accusations against you,  right to know your accuser and to confront him/her,  right to a jury trial and constitutional rights to liberty and property (US Constitutional  Rights guaranteed by Amendments I, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XIV).   In addition persons in the United States have rights guaranteed under international law and medical professionals as mandated reporters of abuse, neglect and human rights violations are considered as Defenders of Human Rights under international law.

In addition, honest, law abiding, competent medical professionals who wished to report patient abuse and neglect were targeted and silenced.  This was accomplished by lowering the evidential standard necessary to force a doctor into the PHP program of  "monitoring".   By arranging for legislative amendments secretly hidden in other state legislation that changed the standard from "proof" of impairment to "reasonable cause".  The PHP considers any accusation even unsubstantiated by any proof to be "reasonable cause to suspect".    So the PHP takes unsubstantiated allegations from disgruntled employees,  estranged or divorced spouses,  angry competitors and even those whose criminal behavior has been revealed by the medical whistleblower.   Remember that the PHP is directly paid by the State Department of Health for "monitoring" the targeted doctor and has a strong financial incentive to keep the medical professional in the program indefinitely while being paid handsomely for it.  This is self referral for financial gain of a patient to oneself, after a workplace forensic examination and is considered medically unethical.  In addition the PHP forces the targeted doctor into treatment centers controlled by the ASAM. The AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs has stated in their reports that referral incentives, kickbacks, or fee-splitting among physicians are problematic, as they may create a conflict of interest between physicians’ responsibility to serve the best interests of their patients and physicians’ personal financial gain. Medical Whistleblower believes that there should be strict standards of evidence in forensic evaluations presented to governing bodies such as the State Medical Board which considers administrative actions such as removing a medical license.

The PHP also expanded the criteria for taking cases to include "disruptive doctors" and "mental health".   The PHP asserts every doctor is "impaired" and pushes for "addiction" to be the primary diagnosis even if no "proof" of addiction even exists.  Their criteria for reasonable suspicion is a catalog of the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder not  addiction.  Facing brutal whistleblower retaliation and bullying in the workplace, medical whistleblowers do exhibit the signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  A review by the court record of the tactics of former ASAM President Dr. George Douglas Talbott reveals that exaggeration, falsification, forgery and outright fabrication on medical records was used against the medical professionals he targeted. Based on investigative research, Executive Director of Medical Whistleblower,  Dr. Janet Parker DVM,   placed a complaint in front of the United Nations in 2009,  for the many Medical Whistleblowers who had suffered denial of Due Process.  This complaint was  regarding the rights of Medical Professionals to act to protect victims of Human Rights Violations and as Defenders of Human Rights to report those violations to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Nothing in this complaint should be construed as a desire to prevent proper medical quality control to occur and for State Medical Boards to assert their proper exercise of governmental authority.  But instead the complaint is a plea that we look carefully at who we place as the watchdog of this very important process and to ensure that proper safeguards for both medical whistleblowers and medical professionals who are patients be safeguarded. Should allegations of domestic violence and human rights abuses be permanently erased from a substance abuse treatment ASAM doctor's record so that he/she can move into a position of national political influence and power?   It is a national disgrace that we allowed medical professionals to be driven to suicide in a system that never protected their civil rights or human rights.   We do need a system of checks and balances between the civil rights and human rights of the medical professionals and also of the vulnerable patients needing treatment and compassionate care.  But when whistleblowers are targeted unfairly, the medical quality assurance system does not protect vulnerable patients from abuse.  It must be remembered that Doctors and other medical professionals can themselves become patients and thus needing a compassionate system of care while they regain their health and move back into their chosen profession of medicine.   DO NO HARM is a tenet of medicine and also of law enforcement.

In addition to being an advocate for those who have medical licenses and are therefore mandated reporters of child abuse, sexual assault and human rights violations,  Dr. Janet Parker realized that many other professionals are involved in providing information to investigative agencies.  These persons could be patent attorneys,  NIH researchers,  certified public accountants,  attorneys,  law enforcement officials, Department of Health investigators,  Food and Drug Administration investigators, prison guards and even airline pilots.  So persons from a wide range of professional backgrounds might have evidence of abuse, neglect, medical fraud or human rights violations -  all could be Medical Whistlelbowers.

We need to protect the right of the guard dog to bark in the night.

27
Scott Bloch and the Hiring of Disgraced Catholic Schoolmaster Alan Hicks

Scott Bloch, the former Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel will be spending 1 month in Federal prison. Washington DC District Federal Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson sentenced Scott Bloch to prison time in spite of pleas of his defense counsel that he should just walk away after deliberately wiping his computers and erasing evidence when under a US Congressional investigation. Scott Bloch has many things to explain regarding his tenure as the chief enforcement officer of the OSC for whistleblower protection and for prosecution of Hatch Act violations.

None of these is as perplexing as Scott Bloch’s special treatment of the disgraced school headmaster Alan Hicks. After Alan Hicks was dismissed in disgrace from St. Gregory's, Scott Bloch hired his son’s former Catholic Boarding school headmaster as an expert consultant on a no-bid contract. Scott Bloch did this in apparent violation of civil service rules, according to documents released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Alan Hicks had served previously a short stint as a teacher of philosophy at the University of Kansas, but that did not really quality him as an expert for the OSC.

But why would Scott Bloch preferentially protect the disgraced headmaster of St. Gregory’s Academy? Alan Hicks had left St. Gregory’s Academy in the wake of allegations concerning priests of the Society of St. John sexually preying on young students at St. Gregory's Academy. St. Gregory's, which is owned and operated by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, is a private Catholic high school for boys located in Moscow, Pennsylvania. Scott Bloch’s son had attended this all boys’ Catholic boarding school. Bloch gave the ex-headmaster a one-year appointment at the Office of Special Counsel as an expert consultant. Alan Hicks, former headmaster at St. Gregory’s was supposed to “advise on curriculum of future Office of Special Counsel training program.” Alan Hicks under this appointment would be entitled to receive as much as $111,966.40, but the only work produced for this generous appointment was only a single four page memo dated September 16, 2004. A FOIA request by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) only obtained a redacted version with only a blank piece of paper for this 4 page memo.

Alan Hicks was recruited by Fr. Arnaud Devillers to be headmaster at St. Gregory's. Hicks had previously studied philosophy and logic at the University of Kansas. At University of Kansas Hicks was in the Great Books program under Dr. John Senior, for whom he worked as an assistant instructor.

The St. Gregory’s Catholic traditionalist educational program was strongly influenced by Hilaire Belloc, a militant Catholic journalist, historian, and poet. Belloc was deemed by some to be anti-Semitic and not concerned to conceal his views. Belloc also considered Islam to pose a dangerous threat. Belloc's Roman Catholicism was uncompromising and he was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. Tuition and board for each student at St. Gregory’s Catholic boarding school for boys totaled $6,800 per year.

Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond, President of the College of St. Justin Martyr, in a June 7, 2002 letter warned the parents of children attending St. Gregory’s and stated clearly “…the SSJ priests had the opportunity to harm boys at St. Gregory's because of a pre-existing environment suited to their perverse purposes. I say this because parents, graduates, and other concerned parties who have read the above-mentioned letter have contacted me to share their experiences with me, and their stories indicate that the environment at St. Gregory's is not a healthy one for boys. That environment was largely the creation of Mr. Alan Hicks, the Headmaster of St. Gregory's Academy. In short, the bright promise of St. Gregory's has been betrayed by the very one whose task it has been to fulfill that promise.”

It is clear from Dr. Jeffrey Bond’s letter of warning to parents that he believed that Mr. Hicks acted in a callous and uncaring manner toward the boys who had been sexually abused. He states further that “Mr. Hicks' attitude reveals a remarkable ignorance concerning the ways in which homosexual predators "groom" their victims by degrees.”

In one instance of inappropriate homosexual contact that parents recounted to Dr. Bond, Dr. Bond concluded that ….”neither Mr. Hicks nor Mr. Clark expressed a single word of concern for the welfare of this young man. They did express concern for their own jobs, however, by joking about how they would soon be "eating out of garbage cans." They also denied responsibility by stating that it was unrealistic for them to have to patrol the hallways of St. Gregory's at night.”

Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond after delineating numerous instances of sexual situations that occurred at St. Gregory’s with several different boys concludes that “the moral threshold was crossed long before by the creation and tolerance of a poorly supervised and unsafe environment for boys….. Clearly Mr. Hicks should not be in charge of a Catholic boarding school for boys. I therefore encourage all parents to insist that the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter take responsible action by removing Mr. Hicks in order to ensure that St. Gregory's Academy be the educational womb of Catholic gentlemen that it purports to and ought to be.”

You can read the entire letter in its entirety here.
http://www.saintjustinmartyr.org/news/L ... rents.html

The US Federal Office of Personnel Management advises that experts may be hired on a non-competitive basis only if he is “a specialist with skills superior to those of others in the same profession, occupation or activity.” In addition federal agencies are not supposed to use consultant appointments just to be able to avoid the normal employment procedures.

Questions have also been raised about how Scott Bloch used his federal office at Faith Based and Community Initiatives in regards to his own personal financial dealings. Bloch was a shareholder in O'Meara, Ferguson and Kearns (OFK) which was founded by Patrick O'Meara, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, graduate, onetime seminarian and former director of young adult ministry for the Mobile, Alabama, diocese. O'Meara, Ferguson and Kearns had clients from 40 dioceses, eight religious orders, 15 Catholic universities, and more than a dozen other Catholic entities as among its actual or prospective clients. Bloch's May 2003 financial disclosure form estimates the value of his OFK stock at between $5,000-$15,000. Scott Bloch said that he is a "private investor in O'Meara Capitol Partners, which then later became O'Meara Ferguson Kearns. He claimed that he was a small shareholder, a passive investor." Bloch had a relationship through O'Meara, Ferguson and Kearns with Republican National Committee Catholic Outreach chair Deal Hudson and also with Bishop David Ricken of Cheyenne, WY. Deal Hudson resigned his Republican National Catholic outreach position, following revelations that while a member of the faculty at Fordham University he engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a freshman woman. OFK shareholder Scott Bloch was the key firm contact on OFK documents on deals with the Cheyenne, WY, diocese as well as the Southwest Indian Foundation (a New Mexico-based Franciscan-affiliated charity). The Southwest Indian Foundation had received federal grants from the Veterans Administration "to assist community-based agencies [to] acquire, renovate, or build transitional housing facilities, provide supportive services for homeless veterans and purchase vans for outreach to or transportation of homeless veterans." But there were concerns in how that federal money was spent. Southwest Indian Foundation in April 2005 was given a rating of “F” as a non-profit charity by the American Institute of Philanthropy because Southwest Indian Foundation did not directly benefit charity recipients adequately, because too much money was used for fund raising overhead and too little for actual charity work.

Scott Bloch was involved with the Southwest Indian Foundation according to documents at the OFK. In May of 2009, The Arizona Republic reported on its yearlong investigation of activities between the Don Stewart Association (DSA), a Phoenix-based televangelism ministry , and its affiliated secular charities including Southwest Indian Foundation. Twenty two charities, including the Southwest Indian Foundation, had ties to the Don Stewart Association and were accused of performed controversial transactions with supplies that helped inflate their finances. With such lapses in financial accountability, it was difficult if not impossible to tell if the charity actually raised its own funds or even how much of the money actually was theirs. Charities in the network, such as Southwest Indian Foundation, had used up to 76 percent of their donated cash on salaries and other expenses and often gave cash to other charities in the same network. In non-profit organizations there are many connections between charitable organizations including shared board members and shared staff, personal ties and family connections. The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) is the world's largest workplace charity campaign which allows federal employees and military personnel to donate a portion of their paychecks to charities of their choice. The 22 charities reported $154 million in total revenue over three years. About four-fifths of that was in the form of gifts in kind. The charities transferred ownership of goods to other groups including $80 million of goods that the charities never physically handled.

Scott Bloch’s relationship with Deal Hudson of the Republican National Committee (RNC) is also under scrutiny. Deal Hudson was once a top consultant to the White House on Catholic issues and the former chairman of the Republican National Committee’s Catholic outreach effort. But after being exposed for a sexual liaison with an 18 year old Fordham University student and even more recent sexual misconduct, Deal Hudson was forced to resign his RNC position as well as forced out of his job as Crisis publisher. Crisis magazine is affiliated with the think tank, Morley Institute for Church and Culture.

While at OSC, Scott Bloch made a deliberate habit of avoiding the competitive merit system and instead hiring his own political allies and recent graduates from the ultra-conservative Ave Maria law school. Scott Bloch had ordered the removal from the OSC Web site and training materials any statement that discrimination based on sexual orientation was a banned practice in the federal workplace. This was in spite of an existing federal policy that “prohibits discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation.” Scott Bloch professed the view that discrimination simply based on sexual orientation simply did not come under OSC purview. While at the OSC, Scott Bloch deliberately removed several qualified career civil servants from their positions by forced transfer and other retaliatory measures (including removing staff expressing concerns about consultant Alan Hicks). This is why Bloch was under investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency and a Senate committee.

The OSC is an independent body charged with defending federal employees who disclose incidents of abuse, waste or mismanagement, or who have been discriminated against in the workplace because of political affiliation or personal status. But what was Scott Bloch’s record as head of the OSC. Scott Bloch, as Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel, dismissed or otherwise disposed of 600 whistleblower disclosures where civil servants reported waste, fraud, threats to public safety and violations of law. Scott Bloch has did not identify a single case where he has ordered an investigation into the employee’s charges. Bloch reported that he made 470 claims of retaliation disappear. Scott Bloch never – not once – affirmatively represented a whistleblower to obtain relief before the civil service court system, called the Merit Systems Protection Board. There are those who believed Scott Bloch needed to be terminated under the “neglect of duty statute.”

To protect the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) from outside pressure, the agency’s director is appointed for five years and cannot be removed except in cases of illegal misconduct. But Scott Bloch’s employment as Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel ended abruptly on October 23, 2008 during a meeting with White House officials. On April 27, 2010 Bloch pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of Congress for, according to the U.S. Attorney, "willfully and unlawfully withholding pertinent information from a House committee investigating his decision to have several government computers wiped ...." Bloch was originally slated to be sentenced on July 20, 2010. On February 2, Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson ruled that Bloch faced a mandatory sentence of at least one month in prison. Now after her final ruling Scott Bloch faces a month in jail for pleading guilty to criminal contempt of the US Congress.


“It is beyond ironic that Scott Bloch heads the very office that is supposed to enforce the rules against nepotism and favoritism,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch.

Documents obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility
(PEER) http://www.peer.org/ under the Freedom of Information Act:

See the pay scale and terms of Alan Hicks consultant appointment
http://www.peer.org/docs/osc/05_12_04_c ... nt_pay.pdf
View the redacted work product of Alan Hicks
http://www.peer.org/docs/osc/05_12_04_c ... esults.pdf
Read the “Consultant Statement of Work”
http://www.peer.org/docs/osc/05_12_04_c ... iption.pdf
Look at unfolding developments in the troubled tenure of Scott Bloch as Special Counsel
http://www.peer.org/watch/federal_info.php?row_id=23


Concerns continue to be raised about the Charitable Choice program, under which Scott Bloch rolled out the Faith-based and Community Initiatives program. Charitable Choice clearly blurred the line between public funding and private religious organizations. These distinctions regarding separation of Church and State were further eroded with a new Texas law that allows for the financing of parish meeting rooms and schools as long as no “sanctuaries” or “chapels” are built with the tax-exempt bond financing. Usually State and local municipal bonds are issued to benefit nonprofit organizations that pledge to use the funds to fulfill a public purpose. The long-term borrowing created by the bonds are backed by the government's ability to tax its residents so in order to protect the tax payers these bonds are secured usually with real estate holdings. But in Austin Texas $79.8 million in bond financing went to the Capital Area Cultural Education Facilities Finance Corporation and is not backed with the value of diocesan real estate holdings. This new Texas law opens the door for faith based organizations with little collateral to qualify for large amounts of municipal bond money. Making money easily available to religious non-profits without real estate assets, puts the general taxpayer at risk should the non-profit not fulfill its debt obligations on the municipal bonds. This municipal bond money used to further the capital improvements of a particular religious group, would in the event of debt non-payment fall on all tax-payers regardless of religious affiliation. Charitable Choice opens this door and the new Texas law holds the door open widely for those who been coached to use this system.



References and additional information:

1. Alan Hicks was former Headmaster, St. Gregory's Academy, RR 8, Box 8214, Moscow, Pa., 18444 St. Gregory's Academy 100 Griffin Road Moscow PA 18444
2. Information taken from: The June 26, 1994 issue of The Wanderer 201 Ohio Street, St. Paul, MN 55107
3. Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond, President, College of St. Justin Martyr, 142 Market Road, Greeley, PA 18425, http://www.SaintJustinMartyr.org
4. Joe Feuerherd "Catholic connections help pitch plan". National Catholic Reporter. FindArticles.com. 06 Apr, 2011. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... n15933152/
5. White House pulls plug on fundraiser’s ‘briefing’ Washington Times, 12:01 a.m., Friday, June 3, 2005 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... 131-8586r/
6. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national non-profit alliance of local, state and federal scientists, and law enforcement officers. PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, Phone: (202) 265-7337 Fax: (202) 265-4192 Email: info[at]peer.org http://www.peer.org/ Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals. Public employees are a unique force working for environmental enforcement. In the ever-changing tide of political leadership, these front-line employees stand as defenders of the public interest within their agencies and as the first line of defense against the exploitation and pollution of our environment. PEER works nation-wide with government scientists, land managers, environmental law enforcement agents, field specialists and other resource professionals committed to responsible management of America’s public resources. Resource employees in government agencies have unique responsibilities as stewards of the environment.
7. Southwest Indian Foundation 100 West Coal Avenue, Gallup, NM 87301
8.American Institute of Philanthropy Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report http://www.charitywatch.org/ratingguide.html American Institute of Philanthropy, P.O. Box 578460, Chicago, IL 60657 Phone: (773) 529-2300
Fax: (773) 529-0024 E-mail: http://www.charitywatch.org/
9. Joe Feuerherd "Catholic connections help pitch plan". National Catholic Reporter. FindArticles.com. 06 Apr, 2011. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... n15933152/
10. Don Stewart: A life in pursuit of God's reward, The Arizona Republic / AZCentral.com by Robert Anglen, ?May 4, 2009? http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... t0504.html
11. Anglen, Robert (May. 3, 2009). "Network of charities". The Arizona Republic. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... twork.html.
12.Anglen, Robert (May. 3, 2009). "Follow the cash: Charities spent bulk of it on salaries, expenses". The Arizona Republic. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... ainer.html.
13."Attorney general reviewing charities' practices". KSWT-TV. May 10, 2009. http://www.kswt.com/Global/story.asp?S= ... enu613_2_6.
14.Anglen, Robert (Sept. 27, 2009). "Feds look into group of charities". The Arizona Republic. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... y0927.html
15.Finances, Fraud, and False Teaching in the Troubled History of Don Stewart by G. Richard Fisher http://www.trinityfi.org/press/donstewart.html
16. White House pulls plug on fundraiser’s ‘briefing’ Washington Times, 12:01 a.m., Friday, June 3, 2005 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/200 ... 131-8586r/
17.Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national non-profit alliance of local, state and federal scientists, and law enforcement officers. PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, Phone: (202) 265-7337 Fax: (202) 265-4192 Email: info[at]peer.org http://www.peer.org/ Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals. Public employees are a unique force working for environmental enforcement. These front line employees have unmatched technical knowledge, long-term service and proven experiences which make these professionals a credible voice for meaningful reform. PEER works nation-wide with government scientists, land managers, environmental law enforcement agents, field specialists and other resource professionals committed to responsible management of America’s public resources.

18.,http://www.co.travis.tx.us/commissioners_court/agendas/2005/02/text/vs050215_a2.asp

28
Teen Challenge / Scott Bloch and Hatch Act Violations & Teen Challenge
« on: April 16, 2011, 06:05:11 AM »
Scott Bloch and Hatch Act Violations & Teen Challenge
"Reality is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of ugly facts".

Scott Bloch's Role as Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel

In theory, as the independent U.S. Special Counsel, for the Office of Special Counsel, Scott J. Bloch was responsible for investigating waste, fraud and abuse, and for protecting whistleblowers. Governmental employees who come forward with reports of waste, fraud, abuse, and illegal and dangerous activities are known as whistleblowers. Whistleblowers and Mandated Reporters constitute our national alert system for when there is something seriously wrong with the governmental bureaucracy. Unfortunately, the cruel hard facts are that the usual reaction to a whistleblower by his or her management is not a correction of the problem, but rather retaliation in the form of forced transfers, demotions, revocation of security clearances, and even being fired. Whistleblowers who are retaliated against are supposed to be able to go to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to seek redress. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is supposed to act independently. The OSC can force investigations into retaliation, and also into misconduct that is reported by whistleblowers. But under Scott Bloch as Special Counsel of the OSC, the potential safe harbor at the OSC to report problems became a very unfriendly place to whistleblowers. This so-called whistleblower-protector intentionally caused hundreds of whistleblower cases to be permanently destroyed without an investigation.

The agency empowered to investigate violations of the Hatch Act was the Office of Special Counsel, an office of which Scott Bloch was appointed to head in 2004. So in this sequence of political choices by President George W. Bush, Scott Bloch would have had to investigate himself for whistleblower allegations of using the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) program for partisan political purposes. http://www.osc.gov/hatchact.htm

Scott Bloch protects himself

The Office of Special Counsel is the government office in charge of protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing the Hatch Act—a law that forbids government employees from using federal resources for political ends. The Special Counsel reports directly to the White House. But when staff expressed concerns for how Scott Bloch was handling cases Scott Bloch retaliated. Scott Bloch became under investigation himself for a variety of violations – including prohibited personnel practices and discrimination against the employees in his office. Scott Bloch purged more than 20 % of his staff – many of whom were experienced career professionals with years of work with whistleblowers. Scott Bloch also did preferential hiring of Alan Hicks in conflict with federal personnel practices.


Scott Bloch, Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel, became under investigation into whether he himself had violated the Hatch Act. Scott Bloch's use of his position as the Deputy Director of the Faith-based and Community Initiative program for political purposes would be a violation of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act is the federal statute designed to limit the ways in which federal employees may participate in partisan political activities. http://www.osc.gov/hatchact.htm


Scott Bloch's misconduct while at the OSC

Scott Bloch was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Office of Special Counsel in 2001. Prior to his appointment as Deputy Director of the DOJ's Department's Office of Faith-based initiatives, he was for a decade an attorney in Lawrence, KS. In 2004, Justice Clarence Thomas swore him in as Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). Bloch was removed from his position at the Office of Special Counsel in October 2008, after it was discovered he had ordered his office to erase all references to workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, claiming his office lacked the authority to protect gay and lesbian workers.


During his tenure as head of the Task Force on Faith-based and Community Initiatives Scott Bloch turned a blind eye when Teen Challenge staff were accused of abuse of minors and young adults in their programs based on discrimination against them because of their religious beliefs and their sexual orientations. Teen Challenge was also accused of coercive abusive practices against young women who wished to have reproductive choice regarding their own bodies. Teen Challenge was found to do coercive practices against those of Jewish faith as well as other faiths in an effort to force them to accept Jesus Christ. Persons of other faiths were court ordered into Teen Challenge facilities under the false belief that they were treatment programs for substance abuse when in fact there was no medical or psychological treatment component to their programs and there was no licensed professional involved in supervising care in their facilities. Teens in Teen Challenge were "locked down" and monitored by alarm systems, to prevent unauthorized departures. Teen Challenge essentially kept youth in a locked up facility for a year to 18 months in order to force their religious conversion to evangelical Christian faith. While held in these facilities, there was no permitted communication or contact with the outside world not even to family members unless coercive control and oppressive monitoring by Teen Challenge staff. Teen Challenge facilities in both Texas and Florida had been exempted by the state governors - Texas Governor George W. Bush and Florida Governor "Jeb" Bush from licensing requirements and state inspection. Thus staff in Teen Challenge - many who were recruited directly from the Teen Challenge outreach to jailed prisoners - were at liberty to use the captives for any purpose they wished.

John Ellis "Jeb" Bush served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. George W. Bush served as the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 until 2000, when he resigned as governor following his election as the 43rd President of the United States. During the years of 1995 through the election of George W. Bush as President of the US - there were no meaningful protections for persons committed to lock up facilities owned and operated by Teen Challenge. Numerous allegations about child abuse surfaced but investigations were shut down without proper explanation and then the governors of Florida and Texas altered state law to exempt Teen Challenge from any state investigations and permitted them to be licensed by an accrediting agency that did no investigations at all and did not report to any governmental agency.

George W. Bush was the 43rd President of the United States (2001-2009) and the 46th Governor of Texas (1995-2000). As President of the United States George W. Bush encouraged Scott Bloch to provide money through the Charitable Choice program to certain religious organizations that supported him in his political campaigns. The growing concerns regarding the mounting evidence of criminal activity in Teen Challenge (fraud and money laundering) and also allegations of child abuse made it critical for the continuing unfettered operation of Teen Challenge that all federal investigations and whistleblower complaints against Teen Challenge be closed without prosecution and without even investigation. Teen Challenge was central to George W. Bush's war against drugs and also to his political popularity with the religious right, thus important to President George W. Bush's re-election campaign. So exempted from state licensing and regulatory oversight by Governor George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush, these centers would not even have federal investigations by the FBI, Health and Human Services, US Department of Labor, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Food and Drug Administration, National Institute on Drug Abuse, SAMSHA or any other federal agency, given the ability of the OSC to stop any federal employee whistleblower complaint in front of the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Questions about the validity of Scott Bloch's own law license

But what was Scott Bloch’s own criminal record? Did Scott Bloch properly obtain a license to practice law in DC? Why did the staff a DC court not notice criminal investigations against him and failed to flag that fact to the Committee on Admissions.

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.c ... ppeals.php


Scott Bloch's misconduct toward whistleblowers

Under Scott Bloch’s leadership, the historically inept Office of Special Counsel did knowingly and willfully ignore whistleblower disclosures. Legitimate whistleblowers were hardly recognized by Bloch who did not take their cases seriously until the whistleblower had already prevailed elsewhere. The OSC dismissed and closed hundreds of whistleblowing complaints without investigation. The OSC deleted hundreds of files pertaining to whistleblowing disclosures and complaints of retaliation and reprisal. When facing his critics within his own office, Scott Bloch reassigned those staffers within the OSC to field offices across the country – giving them 10 days to accept, or else they'd be fired. During Scott Bloch’s tenure there was also a rolling back of protections for federal employees against discrimination based on sexual orientation. As head of the Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, imposed retaliatory transfers on OSC staffers he perceived as having a “homosexual” agenda. Scott Bloch made staffing choices that selected for those who shared his discriminatory views and he also retaliated against OSC staffers who opposed his wrongdoing. He assigned interns to issue closure letters in hundreds of whistleblower complaints. OSC employees were intimidated so as to prevent them from cooperating with the Office of Professional Management governmental investigators.

Bloch closed cases without investigation and destroyed files of 56% of those cases. During the 2008, the OSC filed absolutely no corrective action petitions and no stays with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). In addition Scott Bloch continued to protect the Teen Challenge program from the mounting evidence that these unlicensed facilities were culpable in instances of child abuse, fraud against the public taxpayers, and even money laundering for illegal activities. Teen Challenge centers had received grant funding from the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives while Scott Bloch was Chief Counsel of that office. Scott Bloch did not as Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel make any attempt to investigate the allegations of those whistleblowing against Teen Challenge.

Scott Bloch himself misused prosecutorial power for political purposes. For what may be viewed as political or personal reasons, while Special Counsel at the Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch decided to launch into a broad investigation into the politically sensitive case of Karl Rove and the firing of US Attorneys. The Office of Special Counsel announced that it was forming an internal task force to determine whether there were violations of Rove’s office staff or other of provisions of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act is a law that bars federal employees from engaging in political activities using government resources or government time. Specifically the OSC was going to look into the firing of at least one U.S. Attorney, e-mails from the Republican National Committee email accounts and the suspected use of Cabinet agency managers on political development and Republican campaign goals. But Scott Bloch himself was a part of Karl Rove’s political strategy. Scott Bloch in his role as Deputy Director of the Task Force on Faith-based and Community Initiatives was implementing that political strategy to reward those who had supported President Bush’s campaign and could be counted on to provide votes in the future.

There is no better way to prevent an investigation into your own conduct than to be in charge of the investigation yourself. What better means to stop whistleblowers who are federal employees from bringing criminal activity to the attention of the DOJ than to be the man in charge of all the whistleblower appeals from all those agencies? Then to divert attention from Hatch Act violations that you wish to hide, initiate a "sweeping broad investigation" and thus try to shut down any competing efforts of the US Congress to actually find out the truth in the allegations.

That tactic served Robert Hanssen, former FBI agent and mole for the Russians, well. Robert Hanssen eluded the efforts of both the CIA and FBI to identify him as the person passing secrets to the Russians by being himself in charge of the FBI investigation. To prevent criminal activity from being prosecuted this tactic has again surfaced in the Karl Rove investigation headed by Former Special Counsel Scott Bloch.

Investigation and Allegations Against Attorney Scott Bloch

The Office of Personnel Management Inspector General launched an investigation into Bloch after whistleblowers in his own department came forward and exposed him inappropriately steering contracts toward cronies, discriminating against two OSC employees on the basis of their sexual orientation, and clearing the agency’s extensive backlog of cases by inappropriately closing cases without investigating them at all.

In 2006, Scott Bloch abruptly canceled an award ceremony for the federal whistleblower of the year, according to several employees, when he learned that the winner, a corrections official named Leroy Smith, planned to criticize the special counsel's office at a news conference afterward.

The Investigated Investigator, Leader of High-Profile Probes Is Under Scrutiny Himself By Elizabeth Williamson, Washington Post,April 30, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01256.html


Whistleblowers are united in requesting that a special investigator to look into these crimes because these are serious crimes committed at the highest levels of government and our justice system must a thorough investigation. It is important to let high governmental officials know that engaging in illegal activity cannot be done with impunity. Scott Bloch should not be safe in the knowledge that his crimes will go unquestioned.

Whistleblowers request special prosecutor in Scott Bloch case
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docume ... php?page=1

Whistleblower groups and some former employees of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel want more than probation for Scott Bloch who is still scheduled to be sentenced. In a six-page letter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson, lawyers for the whistleblower groups and former employees note allegations that Bloch discriminated against gay and lesbian employees, that he retaliated against employees who tried to draw attention to illegal actions, and that he deliberately interfered with federal investigators when he hired “Geeks on Call” to wipe out computer files. In April, Bloch pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of withholding information from Congress. The US prosecuting attorneys for the U.S. Justice Department said they would not oppose probation. One letter on behalf of whistleblowers says probation wouldn’t be strong enough. “On behalf of the victims of Mr. Bloch’s unlawful conduct, we urge the Court to award a sentence that appropriately reflects the severe, long-lasting, and broad impact of his actions,” http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/100 ... binson.pdf

Now Scott J. Bloch, the disgraced former head of the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), is scheduled to go back into court on March 30, 2011. After a long criminal investigation, on April 27, 2010 Bloch pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of Congress. Based on his actions, Bloch could have been charged with obstruction of justice, evidence tampering, destruction of official files, impeding an official federal investigation, civil right violations, Hatch act violations and violations of the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA). Instead, he was charged only with criminal contempt (a misdemeanor). Scott Bloch, the former Bush administration official who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal contempt of Congress has been trying to withdraw that plea since a judge ruled he would have to spend at least one month in prison. A group of government whistleblowers wants a special prosecutor appointed to handle the case of former Bush administration official Scott Bloch.

The whistleblowers wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that Bloch "gravely damaged the federal civil service" and say they are concerned about "about the appearance of impropriety" because the federal prosecutor currently handling the case supported a plea agreement before Bloch withdrew his guilty plea.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docume ... php?page=1

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.c ... e.php#more

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.c ... l_time.php


A more recent letter by a group of whistleblowers states requests a special prosecutor for the USA v Scott J. Bloch case.

http://whistleblowerlawyer.wordpress.co ... ic-holder/


The Judge has ruled Scott Bloch to spend time in prison

US prosecutors charging contempt of Congress charge is a rare. There are only two other reported cases in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in the past 20 years, according to court records. Bloch, who pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of the US Congress made a deal with prosecutors, claimed that he had the expectation that he'd get probation as part of that plea agreement. But U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson ruled that Bloch's plea requires "a mandatory minimum sentence of one month," The Washington DC US District Court Magistrate Judge Robinson rejected arguments for a lesser sentence from Bloch's lawyers and prosecutors. Robinson set Bloch's sentencing hearing for March 30, 2011. The Judge found Scott Bloch guilty and gave him a month in jail. Bloch, represented by Winston & Strawn partner William Sullivan Jr. will be appealing the Judge’s decision. Questions still remain why the DC staff issued Scott Bloch a law license in DC even though at the time he applied for his law license he was actually under a FBI investigation. We will soon see whether Bloch’s law license will be revoked by the District of Columbia Bar Association as the result of the recent guilty plea and sentencing.

Scott Bloch’s Plea Agreement
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/dqu29000.pdf

Judge denies Scott Bloch’s right to appeal sentencing verdict 3-29-11
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docume ... php?page=1

Judges order is stayed pending appeal in Scott Bloch case March 10, 2011
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/robinson_order.pdf

Bloch’s DOJ press release 4-27-10
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/blo ... -27-10.pdf

Whistleblowers request special prosecutor in Scott Bloch case
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docume ... php?page=1

29
Scott Bloch Protects Teen Challenge - Food Stamp Fraud & Child Abuse

"Reality is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of ugly facts".

What is the role of the Office of Special Counsel in Protecting Human Rights?

Whistleblowers and Mandated Reporters constitute our human rights national alert system and tell us when there is something seriously wrong within our community or within the governmental bureaucracy. Mandated reporters are critical to the protection of our citizen's human rights and report human rights violations including elder abuse, sexual assault on children, and sometimes report serious violations of international treaty obligations. Mandated reporters are supposed to have protection for their disclosures. But where does that protection reside, in what respective agency- Health and Human Services (HHS), SAMSHA, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) or in the US Department of Justice? Well in reality it is a myth that mandated reporters are protected for their disclosures of serious governmental wrongdoing. There is no federal agency that is empowered or obligated to protect them. One of the crucial links in the possible protections for those who are human rights defenders is the expected review of whistleblower complaints that should be provided through the Merit Systems Protections Board and the Office of Special Counsel. The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) hears whistleblower complaints from those who have classified security clearances. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) hears whistleblower complaints from all whistleblowers from all the federal agencies and is the place of final appeal for those denied their complaint under the MSPB. Neither agency hears mandated reporter reports or is obligated to protect mandated reporters. The Office of Special Counsel is the governmental agency tasked to hear all complaints of whistleblower retaliation (after it has already happened that is). In addition it is also the federal agency empowered to investigate violations of the Hatch Act and also and the Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). Cases in front of the Office of Special Counsel take years to get to a hearing meanwhile there are no meaningful protections for the personal security and safety of the whistleblower nor are there protocols that will protect their personal and professional reputation. Therefore those who do criminal behavior and don’t want to get caught quickly realize that discrediting the whistleblower, using whatever dirty tricks that will get that accomplished, is the way to prevent federal investigation.

Scott Bloch served as Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel from 2004 until his removal in 2008. During that time there was essentially no protection for any whistleblower in federal service - this includes no protection for members of the Department of Justice (FBI agents) or any of the investigative agents of any federal agency (FDA, USDA, SAMSHA, Bureau of Prisons, HHS etc.) Thus no investigation into criminal activity occurring within any federal governmental agency would receive a sympathetic ear at the Office of Special Counsel in Washington DC. Hundreds of whistleblower complaints were summarily dismissed by Scott Bloch without any investigation at all. This included all whistleblower complaints from any agency investigating Teen Challenge or any whistleblower that had information regarding Karl Rove's alleged Hatch Act violations.

Scott Bloch served as the Chief Counsel for the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives from 2001-2003. For Scott Bloch to use his position as the Deputy Director of the Faith-based and Community Initiative program for political purposes would be a violation of the Hatch Act. The Office of Special Counsel is the government office in charge of protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing the Hatch Act—a law that forbids government employees from using federal resources for political ends. But the agency empowered to investigate violations of the Hatch Act was the Office of Special Counsel, an office of which Scott Bloch was appointed to head in 2004. So in this sequence of political choices by President George W. Bush, Scott Bloch would have had to investigate himself for whistleblower allegations of using the OFBCI program for political purposes.

http://www.osc.gov/hatchact.htm

After a long criminal investigation, involving allegations of obstruction of justice, evidence tampering, destruction of official files, impeding an official federal investigation, civil right violations, as well Hatch act violations and violations of the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), Scott Bloch on April 27, 2010 pleaded guilty to criminal contempt of Congress. Scott Bloch, the former Bush administration official who was given the responsibility and obligation to protect whistleblowers instead plead guilty to misdemeanor criminal contempt of Congress. Scott Bloch after pleading guilty attempted to withdraw that plea because Judge Deborah A. Robinson sentenced him to one month in prison. A group of government whistleblowers have requested in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that a special prosecutor appointed to handle the case of former Bush administration official Scott Bloch.

Whistleblowers request special prosecutor in Scott Bloch case

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/docume ... php?page=1


Financial Support by Charitable Choice Preferentially Given to Political Ally Chuck Colson

Scott Bloch served as Deputy Director of the DOJ Task Force for the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI). Attorney Scott Bloch, as a US Attorney, certainly did not do due diligence in determining whether it was appropriate to funnel funds to facilities that would be housing vulnerable children and adults and who were also hiring staff at those facilities who were ex-cons with known criminal convictions for sexual abuse of children, drug dealing, domestic violence and money laundering. Why? Perhaps it is because it was the wish of the new President of the United States, George W. Bush (January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009), to provide an open field for Charles Colson’s Innerchange Prison program and the expansion of Teen Challenge and the ministries of the Assembly of God. So protecting Teen Challenge and those who protected Roloff Homes and Chuck Colson’s new prison ministry was politically more important than protecting children from physical, psychological and sexual abuse or even protecting the federal tax payer from fraud.

Charles "Chuck" Wendell Colson is a Christian leader, cultural commentator, and former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973. Chuck Colson was named as one of the Watergate Seven and pled guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to defame Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg. Charles “Chuck” Colson was known as a man valuable to President Nixon because he was willing to be ruthless in getting things done according to David Plotz in a Slate March 10, 2000 article called " Charles Colson - How a Watergate crook became America's greatest Christian conservative"

Chuck Colson was known as Nixon's "hatchet man". Colson was described by some of his colleagues as "evil genius" in the Nixon administration. Many can still remember that it was Chuck Colson who was willing to resort to domestic terrorism and who discussed possible firebombing the Brookings Institution. In 1974, Attorney Chuck Colson entered a plea of guilty to Watergate-related charges. Colson was the first member of the Nixon administration to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges. Chuck Colson plead guilty to obstruction of justice in the Daniel Ellsberg case. Although he was given a one-to-three year sentence, Colson only served seven months at Alabama's Maxwell Prison. Colson was then a convicted felon with no right to vote but he received a pardon from Florida Governor Jeb Bush so he could again vote, once again practice law or serve on a jury. These were rights Colson had lost when he became a convicted felon. Charles Colson was converted to a born-again Christian while in prison. President George W. Bush was supporting his “faith-based” prison fellowship ministries program and promoting it in the Texas penal system.

Watergate-convict-turned-Christian evangelist converted to Christianity in 1973. Chuck Colson had a Jails for Jesus solution which was touted as a cheap fundamentalist Christian alternative to clinical programs for prisoners. Colson began working with a non-profit organization devoted to prison ministry which was called the Prison Fellowship. Through a radio broadcast called BreakPoint Colson promoted this prison program. Upon being released from prison, Chuck Colson's Innerchange worked with the new Faith-based and Community Initiatives program. These programs already exist in Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas and Texas.
http://www.nptimes.com/Feb02/npt2.html

Teen Challenge hires ex-cons

Teen Challenge was already opening its’ doors to hire known criminals (through a federally funded re-entry employment program) those who converted to Christianity. Teen Challenge had many centers in Texas and Florida. George W. Bush was governor of Texas January 17, 1995 – December 21, 2000, and had promoted legislation and administrative actions favorable to Teen Challenge and other evangelical Christian based programs like Innerchange. In 1997 the Texas legislature passed a bill allowing religious child care facilities to be accredited by a private sector regulator, the Texas Association of Christian Child Care Agencies (TACCCA). In 1997, Texas became the first state to use the faith-based effort, run by Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries – Innerchange. Governor of Texas George Bush Texas provided funds for the prison program - $1.5 million. The Roloff Homes were the first of eight faith-based child-care facilities accredited by TACCCA. Despite continued complaints of abuse and neglect, TACCCA re-accredited the Roloff Homes in April 2000. Roloff Homes was finally shut down for child abuse in Texas in 2001. Teen Challenge centers in Florida got accredited by an alternative agency just like those in Texas - so they too could avoid being regulated and inspected by state agencies.

The newly rapidly multiplying Teen Challenge facilities were therefore staffed by former prisoners who were recruited by Assemblies of God/Teen Challenge prison Chaplains. The Assemblies of God prison Chaplains often have dual responsibilities and may be also paid prison staff with fairly unlimited access to prisoners. With Teen Challenge staff paid for out of re-entry prison federal funds, the Teen Challenge facilities had low staff overhead. This financially beneficial arrangement permitted the rapid expansion of the Teen Challenge ministries program. This aggressive outreach of the Assemblies of God Teen Challenge program was also fueled by startup grants which were made possible through collaboration with the Faith-based and Community Initiative grant program and other linked programs.

In addition Texas Governor George Bush had exempted Teen Challenge in Texas from state regulation and inspection (following the state closing of Roloff Homes for child abuse). The investigators from the Texas state agencies (mandated to report human rights violations) were refused entry to Texas Teen Challenge facilities. By placing Scott Bloch in charge of reviewing all federal whistleblower complaints in 2001, the avenue for those in federal service to report child abuse as mandated reporters was essentially closed.

These public policy decisions opened the door for prisoners who professed religious conviction to be hired by Teen Challenge for positions working with children. Thus the arrangement of hiring “Christian” prisoners who were in re-entry prison programs (Innerchange) to work as staff, religious counselors and even directors of Teen Challenge facilities. One such prisoner with a record of criminal conviction of sexual child abuse was Shondi Fabiano, who was hired on staff and co-Directed the Teen Challenge Men's facility in Maine. She had previously been the head of the Teen Challenge Women's facility in Rhode Island prior to her marriage to Peter Sabiano.

Prisoners are probated from prison to faith-based outreach at Teen Challenge where they received counseling, study the Bible and attend church. These “Christian” criminals who had spent hard prison time had many criminal associates and criminal connections and were not always under the full control or adequate supervision of their parole officers. Parole officers saw these “Christian” jail coverts as well-behaved parolees as they were gainfully employed at the Teen Challenge facilities. Teen Challenge as an employer would vouch for the employed prisoners and make allowances for their non-compliant conduct in order to keep them “on the path”. These criminals in their re-entry employment at Teen Challenge were tasked to do missionary “outreach” to teens on the streets of New England. Protected by their employer Teen Challenge and poorly supervised by officials from the prison system, these “Christian” employees openly did street “interventions”. But Teen Challenge facilities had long been suspected of abusive practices and the continuing stream of complaints were surfacing but not getting any action by state or federal authorities.

Teen Challenge and Faith-based and Community Initiatives

Scott Bloch was appointed to the position of Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel by President George W. Bush. This followed Bloch’s appointment to the Task Force for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives which funneled money to Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge was a residential treatment program which claimed religious treatment for addiction and life challenging problems. Based on strong Christian principles, the intensive program takes residents come from the streets, detoxification facilities, hospitals or jails. Some are referred by pastors and counselors or court-ordered into treatment by judges. Teen Challenge was operated by the Assemblies of God. Scores of pastors, inner-city missionaries and evangelists have graduated from Teen Challenge.

Scott Bloch served as Deputy Director of the DOJ Task Force for the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI). Attorney Scott Bloch, as a US Attorney, did not do due diligence in determining whether it was appropriate to funnel funds to facilities that would be housing vulnerable children and adults and who were also hiring staff at those facilities who were ex-cons with known criminal convictions for sexual abuse of children, drug dealing, domestic violence and money laundering. Why? Perhaps it is because it was the wish of the new President of the United States, George W. Bush (January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009), to provide an open field for Charles Colson’s Innerchange Prison program and the expansion of Teen Challenge and the ministries of the Assembly of God. Chuck Colson had just been pardoned by Governor Jeb Bush and was moving once again in Republican campaign circles.

What is Charitable Choice?

The "Charitable Choice" provision (section 104) of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (welfare reform legislation) meant to privatize welfare requires states that contract with nonprofit organizations for delivery of social services to include religious organizations as eligible contractees. The goal of Charitable Choice was to end the welfare system of entitlement money that provides a safety net for the poor and needy and instead turn the system into a privatized system where corporate and non-governmental service agencies compete to provide services. Then when entering office, President George W. Bush issued an executive order known as the Faith-Based Initiative which created a bureaucracy with the sole purpose of providing support to faith-based providers of social services.

Although in theory this might sound like a system to save money and be economical with public funds, it ignores the basic reality of possible fraud by corporate entities such as residential treatment facilities, private prisons and pharmaceutical companies, and many others who benefit by the decreased federal oversight and transparency.

The Food Stamp Showdown

Scott Bloch served as the Chief Counsel for the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives from 2001-2003. In that position he funneled grant money to Teen Challenge in spite of mounting evidence of fraud, illegal activity and even sexual abuse of children in Teen Challenge centers. This was a politically important program that would be critical to President Bush’s and Karl Rove’s political strategy to keep the right faithful to the Republican party and would help generate income for Bush’s political campaign. Through the Faith-based and Community Initiatives program political allies were financially rewarded and other deserving NGO’s received little or nothing.

Teen Challenge gained national attention in 1995 when the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse (TCADA) threatened to shut down Teen Challenge of South Texas because continuing allegations of abuse and fraud. Teen Challenge of South Texas continued to assert that its counselors refused to trade in their faith-based approach for a "medical model" based on the concept that alcoholism is a disease rather than a manifestation of sin. The state regulators were requiring that staff be properly trained and that the facilities be licensed and inspected. Teen Challenge in Texas and in Florida was unlicensed and unregulated and investigators and child protective services were trying to find a way to get some regulatory control over the residential teen rehabilitation industry especially in light of continuing complaints of abuse. The state was demanding licensing and inspection. Teen Challenge had opted for an alternative accreditation program that did no inspections and was based on a faith based model.

State and federal regulators were trying to get regulatory and inspection control over Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge wanted no regulation at all. So there was a very public rally at the Alamo where, George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, came to the rescue, pushing forward state legislation that exempted many faith-based social programs from state interference. This gained Governor George W. Bush political support from the religious right. This was George W. Bush’s political base in Texas.

The Alamo event was a major victory for Teen Challenge and the opening of what became Mr. Bush's faith-based initiative. There is no question that eliminating basic health and safety standards made operations easier for a few faith-based programs in Texas, however the lack of minimum standards has threatened the safety of those participating in the program.

In Dallas Texas in 1998 two boys had filed they had been sexually molested by a staff member who was a convicted drug trafficker. After many reports of child abuse at Teen Centers nationwide, the Director of Teen Challenge San Antonio, received a letter from TCADA stating that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had determined that residents of Teen Challenge centers in Texas are no longer eligible to receive food stamps because the centers were not state licensed or inspected.

The San Antonio Teen Challenge center admitted that it depended on the food stamps for nearly half its annual food budget. Teen Challenge on the other hand claimed that federal food stamp regulations hindering men and women who are working to overcome addictions at Teen Challenge centers in four states. Reports kept surfacing that the food purchased with the food stamps was being sold on the black market and children in the Teen Challenge Centers fed nothing but water, white bread and peanut butter.

The Rhode Island Women’s Program was being run by a registered sex offender – Shondi Barbato and she was not the only sex offender on staff at Teen Challenge. State regulators in several states wanted to stop the direct access to children by registered sex offenders and violent criminal offenders in the Teen Challenge program. In most Teen Challenge centers food stamp money provides a majority of their funding. Those in child protective services were hopeful that this denial of food stamps would finally put an end to the hiring of registered sex offenders, drug dealers, violent criminals and other convicts to staff Teen Challenge Centers and force them to be licensed, inspected and regulated so that the safety of the children could be assured. In several states, including Massachusetts and Vermont, officials halted benefits to Teen Challenge clients because the programs were not formally recognized by state officials, and because clients were turning their Food Stamps over to administrators of the treatment program. The coupons were pooled together to buy groceries for those who live in dormitory-style housing for 18 months during their treatment. Thus through the actions of the federal USDA protect the human rights and body integrity of children in the care of Teen Challenge facilities.

The threatened cutoff of food stamps to Teen Challenge threatened to shut down Teen Challenge centers in Oregon, Florida, and Massachusetts. The Boston field Office for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) shut down food stamps to Teen Challenge New England. In Brockton MA in 2005 food stamps were provided roughly $150 for each man per month in Brockton, Massachusetts. This food stamp support totaled nearly $200,000 a year. The USDA stated to Teen Challenge that "The basis for your denial was that your program is not licensed by the state of Massachusetts."

But there was strong protest from the Director Teen Challenge New England, Rodney Hart who was the supervisor of Shondi Barbato, a registered sex offender hired at Teen Challenge New England. Rodney Hart, who is himself a 1976 graduate of Teen Challenge, advocated politically for creating a separate category for faith-based groups on a federal level which he said was the key to solving "a serious glitch that needs to be fixed at a higher level." Teen Challenge New England’s lawyer, Brad Martin filed a complaint against the government in 2005 on behalf of Teen Challenge New England, which has centers in Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Stamped Out http://www.worldmag.com/articles/10969 World Magazine August 27, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 33

The Director of Teen Challenge New England, Rodney Hart, goes on to state "The government does not have a lens to interpret faith-based recovery centers," he says. "It only recognizes the disease model, which is totally irrelevant to us." Mr. Hart adamantly refuses to obtain a state license, saying it would mean "obtaining an identity that doesn't correspond to who we are. . . . It would be like getting a deer-hunting license to hunt crocodiles." Stamped Out http://www.worldmag.com/articles/10969 World Magazine August 27, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 33

"Texas Freedom Network, a 23,000-member non-partisan grassroots watchdog group based in Austin conducted a five-year study of the policy and found, “As exempt faith-based drug treatment centers, [such] facilities are not required to have licensed chemical dependency counselors, conduct staff training or criminal background checks, protect client confidentiality rights, adhere to state health and safety standards, or report abuse, neglect, emergencies and medication errors.” http://www.schaler.net/inthenews/washblade.html


With the influence of President George W. Bush the federal government cleared the way for clients of the faith-based Teen Challenge drug and alcohol recovery program to resume receiving Food Stamps.

“In a joint opinion issued by the Secretaries of the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (USDA), and Health and Human Services (HHS), it has now been determined that residents of such treatment programs are eligible for Food Stamps, so long as the programs are operating in compliance with provisions of the Public Health Services Act. Under the opinion, state agencies which administer Food Stamps must recognize such programs as "operating to further the purposes of Part B of Title XIX" of the act -- however it also specifies that such programs are not required to be licensed by states in order to be eligible.” http://www.ombwatch.org/

What does Rodney Hart have to hide from state regulators and inspectors? Why does he refuse to cooperate with federal USDA inspectors and FBI agents? According to his thesis Teen Challenge New England had in 2007 589 beds and revenue that was about $7 million. The staff of Teen Challenge New England was 95% graduates of the program and there were 125 salaried staff. To learn more about the beliefs of Rodney Hart, Director of Teen Challenge New England see his 185 page thesis - http://www.tcnewengland.org/resources/R ... ersion.pdf


Additional Information on the Teen Challenge and Food Stamps:

Teen Challenge New England Intake Form
http://www.tcbrockton.org/resources/TCN ... e_form.pdf

Government Teen Challenge Record on Food Stamps
http://www.ombwatch.org/node/5198

Food stamp fraud in Honolulu and elsewhere
http://www.the.honoluluadvertiser.com/a ... ln09a.html

http://teenchallengecult.blogspot.com/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/05/0 ... ised-abuse

Under Charitable Choice provisions TNAF provided extensive financial support to Teen Challenge.

CRS Report - Charitable Choice, Faith-Based Initiatives, and TANF Vee Burke, Domestic Social Policy Division http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/675 ... 3Sep30.pdf

Additional Information about Sexual Abuse at Teen Challenge:
http://www.topix.net/forum/city/minneap ... 0#lastPost

http://www.tfn.org/religiousfreedom/fai ... challenge/

http://www.texnews.com/1998/texas/molest0513.html

http://sportsforum.ws/the-tavern/t-the- ... 53972.html

After the Alamo George W. Bush politically backed Teen Challenge as it helped him with his political campaign to get votes from the far right – especially the support of the fundamentalist evangelicals and also the Catholic vote. The Alamo standoff was the start of what was to become Mr. Bush's faith-based initiative. Teen Challenge New England Director, Rodney Hart started with Bob Woodson of the Washington, D.C.-based National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, who fought for Teen Challenge during the Texas controversy in 1995. Rodney Hart also approached Jim Towey, head of the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives under Bush (2002-2006) who worked with Attorney Scott Bloch. and now President of Ave Maria University. George W. Bush made providing food stamp money to Teen Challenge a priority for his administration, so through the Charitable Choice program and changes in the legislation for TNAF the federal government was once again providing money to Teen Challenge without any pesky regulation or inspection.



Teen Challenge and sex offenders

In Dallas Texas in 1998 two boys had filed they had been sexually molested by staff. http://www.texnews.com/1998/texas/molest0513.html But the sexual abuse was covered up and the prison re-entry (re-integration) program that placed ex-convicts in charge of caring for minors had high level political support from the then Governor of Texas George W. Bush.

According to the news report: “The alleged victim was 16 when he went to Dallas Teen Challenge Boys Ranch in Winnsboro in January 1996. According to his lawsuit, a counselor and convicted drug trafficker sexually molested him and two other boys, one of whom also was 16 or younger. "(The counselor) sexually molested (the plaintiff) on at least six different occasions at the ranch," the lawsuit states. The lawsuit further alleges that the church, ranch executive director Paul Ecker and the ranch's board knowingly employed men with criminal histories as counselors despite being informed by state regulators the practice was illegal.”

Teen Challenge in New England has for many years been an established program and was using persons from the prison reintegration program as labor. The Bristol County Sheriff’s office (in Massachusetts) was creating a Teen Challenge unit in the county jail. The 22 men in the minimum-security unit were working through Teen Challenge curriculum under the daily oversight of two Teen Challenge ministers. When men in the unit are released from prison, they are encouraged to enter one of the Teen Challenge centers in Massachusetts.

Peter Fabiano, came to the Brockton Teen Challenge for drug addiction treatment in approximately 2000. By 2005, by all reports, Peter Fabiano had been placed on the leadership fast track and was the supervisor of a center 30 miles south, in Fall River. Mr. Fabiano married Shondi Barbato (her maiden name). Shondi Barbato was supervisor of the Teen Challenge women's center in Rhode Island, and the couple were hoping to open a new center in Maine. Shondi Fabiano has a history of 2nd degree sexual assault conviction in Kent, RI. Shondi Fabiano then moved with her husband into the position of co-director in the Maine center.

http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles ... n50717768/



Shondi Fabiano was convicted of Second Degree Child Molestation in Rhode Island. She is listed on the National Sex Offender Public Registry. Maine has some pretty strict laws regarding contact with minors by registered sex offenders.

http://www.nsopr.gov

http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/fly...

http://sor.informe.org/cgi-bin/sor/step3.pl...

http://www.teenchallengeexposed.com


http://evangelicalsunderamicroscope.wor ... am-artist/

Shondi Fabiano actually originally had her address listed on the sex offender database originally as Teen Challenge New England – Augusta, 11 Hudson Lane, Winthrop, ME 04346.

Fabiano apparently, (at least per a search of the records site for Rhode Island's criminal courts) committed the crimes 10 years ago under her maiden name Shondi Barbato; she was originally charged with 1st degree child abuse (which involves sexual penetration of a child under the age of 14). It also appears Fabiano (under her maiden name of Barbato) has a conviction for fraud (specifically attempts to obtain money under false pretenses, insurance fraud, and conspiracy) and a dismissed charge of possession of a controlled substance. Shondi Fabiano then married Teen Challenge "graduate" Peter Fabiano and they both moved to Maine. She in turn promoted the hiring of ex-prisoners for multiple positions throughout Teen Challenge facilities in New England. Dennis Knox, who was convicted of gross sexual assault after raping an unconscious female, was also employed at Teen Challenge New England. Teen Challenge New England is composed of nine centers across New England and New Jersey and also a program in the Dartmouth, MA House of Correction.
http://www.teenchallengeexposed.com/

These are where Teen Challenge New England has facilities:

• Augusta, ME
• Boston, MA
• Brockton, MA
• Fitchburg, MA
• Johnson, VT
• Manchester, NH
• New Haven, CT
• Newark, NJ
• Providence, RI

In 2008 there had been articles about Shondi Fabiano and her convictions for second degree child molestation. So in light of the exposure of Shondi Fabiano’s registration as a sex offender, Rev. Rodney Hart, Director of Teen Challenge New England provided the press the following press release and then her name was removed from their public website of the Northern New England District of the Assemblies of God and put up a new website that does not give the names of any of the staff in direct contact with clients at their facilities.

So in interest of full disclosure – this is the explanation that was the Official Press Release from Rev. Rodney Hart, President & CEO of Teen Challenge New England at the time that Shondi Fabiano was exposed in the press in 2008 for her position at Teen Challenge:

“Shondi Fabiano began using drugs at age 12 and was a heroin addict by the time she was 19 years old. She was living with and using drugs with a 21 year old man who was also an addict. While under the influence of narcotics she had sex with a 14 and a 15 year old boy. The two boys were family members of the 21 year old male that was Shondi’s boyfriend. The family of the boys filed charges against Shondi. Shondi’s public defender told her that if she didn’t want to go to jail for a long time she had better plead guilty. So she did. This was 15 years ago! Shondi sought help for her drug addiction at Teen Challenge and graduated with honors a year later. For the last 10 years she has dedicated her life to helping other drug addicts overcome their addictions and lead normal productive lives. Her life is a stellar example of one that has overcome incredible odds. Her life is a shining example and inspiration to all those who know and love her personally. She has been terribly embarrassed by this story. This was a tragic mistake that she will carry with her the rest of her life. She has completed probation without any violations and is no longer under any supervision. She is married, with a young infant and two teenage sons and poses no threat to anyone. To suggest that the community is at risk in any way is a gross exaggeration and extremely unfair to Shondi and the courageous steps she has taken to overcome the physical and spiritual obstacles in her life. Please direct all questions and comments to Rev. Rodney Hart, President and CEO of Teen Challenge New England.”

This is additional information that was already posted by others:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/2/17850/21034 7/

http://evangelicalsunderamicroscope.wor ... am-artist/

http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data ... 1213027887

Mounting Evidence of Criminal Activity Associated with Assemblies of God & Teen Challenge

Mike and Sharla Hintz from Clive Iowa campaigned for George W. Bush. But Reverend Mike Hintz, youth pastor at the First Assembly of God Church was later charged with the sexual exploitation of a child. Rev. Hintz was the youth pastor at the First Assembly of God Church for three years. Police said he started an affair with a 17-year-old in the church youth group. The Des Moines Iowa youth pastor was charged with sexual exploitation by another counselor and then turned himself in to police in 2004. Rev. Mike Hintz was fired from the First Assembly of God Church in 2004.

http://www.kcci.com/news/3976822/detail.html

http://www.kcci.com/r/4262185/detail.html


In Dallas Texas an 18-year-old man and his parents sued the Assemblies of God and the church's ranch for troubled youths, claiming the youth was molested by a counselor at the center. The alleged victim was 16 when he went to Dallas Teen Challenge Boys Ranch in January 1996. It was alleged tat the church Executive Director Paul Ecker employed men with known criminal histories. The alleged victim was according to his lawsuit sexually assaulted and molested on six different occasions by a counselor at the ranch who was a convicted drug trafficker. State regulations made it clear that this hiring of convicted offenders was illegal and yet Executive Director Paul Ecker continued to disregard regulations. Many clients of the Teen Challenge - Assemblies of God facility were court ordered into the Assemblies of God care as a condition of probation, and already had psychological or substance abuse problems. During the day, they performed chores, including caring for livestock, and took part in religious education. At night, they were "locked down" and monitored by alarm systems to prevent unauthorized departures. Employees and volunteers who were participating in an adult substance abuse treatment program called "Life Change" were admitted to the Teen Challenge facility as part of their probation. This was improper according to state regulations. (5/13/98, AP)

http://web.archive.org/web/200612080954 ... t0513.html

In New Mexico, Marty A. Hynes, 33, was charged with eight counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor, three counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor and one count of attempted criminal sexual contact of a minor. Hynes was a youth pastor at the First Assembly of God church when the alleged incidents occurred, between July and December 2001. (Las Cruces Sun-News, March 24, 2003) The allegations came to light after the girl attempted to take her life with over-the-counter medication.The girl testified that after she turned 17 years old, Hynes began to kiss and fondle her, and it eventually lead to sexual intercourse. The church dismissed Hynes from his position shortly after the allegations were made.

See article: Trial of former youth pastor begins
http://web.archive.org/web/200612080954 ... hynes1.htm

In 1998 in Gainesville, Georgia, Rev. L.G. Gilstrap, a 54 year old Assemblies of God minister, was convicted by a jury on 3 counts of child molestation and sentenced to 33 years in prison for a string of fondling incidents in 1988 involving brothers aged 10 and 13. Eight men testified during the trial that they too were molested by the minister when they were boys. Gilstrap, defrocked, started a new church, New Hope Ministries. Married, he was a former clerk for the Georgia House of Representatives. Three of the eight men who testified against Gilstrap said the minister occasionally took them to Atlanta to serve as House pages. After spending the day working at the Capitol, they said, the minister would take them to an Atlanta hotel and molest them. (Atlanta Constitution, 9/22/89)

Ex-Minister Gets 33-Year Sentence In Child Sex Case: Gilstrap Guilty of 3 Molestation Counts
http://web.archive.org/web/200610220755 ... strap2.htm

International Outreach of Teen Challenge and Money Laundering

The hiring of prisoners directly into Teen Challenge is not just in the USA but also is being done in Teen Challenge facilities throughout the world. Teen Challenge has facilities in 80 nations. The Northern New England District Assemblies of God located in Portland Maine with which Shondi Fabiano,(registered criminally convicted sex offender), was associated, also does outreach ministry to Taiwan, Peru, Paraguay, Argentina, the Caribbean, Russia, Chad and Honduras. The Assemblies of God runs their own independent Credit Union in Missouri to facilitate money exchange and sets up personal banking accounts for prisoners in the re-entry program who are employed by Teen Challenge.

In addition Teen Challenge was hiring ex-cons with criminal backgrounds in fraud and money laundering and putting them in charge of fund raising efforts for their operations. In Teen Challenge in Minnesota, Frank Vennes, a man with criminal convictions as a money launderer, was put on the Teen Challenge board and placed in charge of handling financial accounts. Vennes then defrauded numerous Christian donors in an elaborate affinity fraud and was a co-conspirator of the Thomas J. Petters Ponzi scheme. Vennes’ past federal crimes include money laundering, cocaine- and gun-running. Frank Vennes gave tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Governor Tim Pawlenty and former Senator Norm Coleman and former state GOP Chair Ron Ebensteiner all l supported a Presidential pardon from President George W. Bush for Vennes past crimes.



http://rippleinstillh2o.blogspot.com/20 ... frank.html


http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/2356354 ... -386k?da=y

http://minnesotaindependent.com/17098/n ... -vennes-jr


Labor Fraud Schemes, Lack of Workmen’s Compensation Coverage

In 2008 Sanford Florida, Wayne Gray, Director of Sanford Teen Challenge, did a telemarketing fraud scam. This criminal scheme utilized Teen Challenge teens in an abusive environment using them for dirt cheap labor to man the phone bank and paying the teens only 33 cents a day for a 40 hour work week. This time share vacation scam funneled customer’s credit card information over to men convicted of financial crimes. Sanford Teen Challenge director Wayne Gray has resigned in disgrace after a telemarketing scam he oversaw was exposed on WFTV. Gray fled when Action 9 news reporter Todd Ullrich showed up with a camera crew to do a follow-up.

http://www.wftv.com/news/16262550/detail.html

Rather than being fired for violations of child labor laws and telemarketing fraud, Wayne Gray was moved from Sanford Teen Challenge and re-employed by Teen Challenge in Oklahoma City as Executive Director. Sanford Teen Challenge supervisor Danny McCrimon was arrested March 8, 2009 for DUI. McCrimon, who was Operations Director at the Sanford location, was arrested by the Florida Highway Patrol and booked into John Polk Correctional facility on a $2000 bond.

http://www.teenchallengeexposed.com/

http://webbond.seminolesheriff.org/iinfo.aspx...

Alan Pauler, a resident of Wichita, Kansas, was accepted into the Teen Challenge of the Midlands program on September 23, 2003. Teen Challenge of the Midlands (Teen Challenge) is a faith-based organization located on an 80-acre complex in Colfax, Iowa, with a smaller “reentry” facility in Omaha, Nebraska, and a non-residential facility in Des Moines. Teen Challenge is a 501(c)(3) corporation. At the time of admission, Pauler did not have health insurance. Teen Challenge does not provide health insurance to its participants—called students. Several staff members are members of Reverend Hunsberger’s family. There are no certified substance abuse counselors at the Colfax site. Reverend Hunsberger distinguishes the “discipleship” program from drug treatment, saying that discipleship is “based on scriptural model,” “eating meals together, hanging out together, and living together in a community.” Pauler was assigned to perform construction work on campus duplexes for use by Teen Challenge staff members. He was also selected to work on several construction projects at off-campus locations for which he was not paid, but from which Teen Challenge benefited financially. Pauler sustained a fractured patella, which required surgery and a laceration to his head which required sutures. He has suffered ongoing pain and restricted movement. Teen Challenge carried workers’ compensation insurance coverage for its staff, but not for participants. Coverage was denied. The court decided that there is no workers’ compensation liability in analogous situations involving individuals seeking spiritual development from organizations that provide room, board, and a work requirement.

http://www.iowacourtsonline.org/court_o ... /9-458.pdf


Lack of Protection for Mandated Reporter Disclosure by Federal Employees and Whistleblowers

FBI agents report up the chain of command ultimately to the Director of the FBI and the White House. The President of the United States was George W. Bush who had already acted in his official capacity, as Governor of Texas, to protect Teen Challenge from state inspection and regulation and to overlook all complaints of child abuse. This lack of protection from the government happened in spite of mounting evidence of a continuing pattern of coercive psychological, emotional, physical abuse and even sexual abuse at Teen Challenge centers in Texas and other states. When there are disagreements on when to close a case or pursue the matter further, the decision is made based on the U.S. Department of Justice chain of command. When unsatisfied the final decider of FBI whistleblower complaints is the Merit Systems Protection Board and Special Counsel for the Office of Special Counsel. All whistleblower cases from federal employees would end up eventually for review by Special Counsel for the OSC, Scott Bloch. His decision to investigate or close the case and not appeal it at the Merit Systems Protection Board would be final and not subject to further appeal. His was the final decision of the Bush administration Department of Justice.

But there was little chance of any FBI agent being heard when presenting a politically unpalatable whistleblower complaint to the OSC or the Merit Systems Protection Board. So FBI agents and other federal employees who did their ethical and moral duty as federal officers of the US Department of Justice and other investigating federal agencies such as: Health and Human Services, SAMSHA, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Labor would report their whistleblower complaint to the OSC with little hope of a positive outcome. Those dedicated federal employees who were acting as mandated reporters of human rights violations and child abuse, were instead often demoted, stripped of their security clearances, threatened with pension removal and dismissed from their positions as law enforcement officers.

For decades, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) the very agency which was created to protect whistleblowers - was historically involved in tutoring agency managers on how to get rid of inconvenient, outspoken employees. Many of these brave whistleblowers have lost their jobs and life savings, defending themselves from retaliatory investigations, malicious prosecutions, baseless transfers, unwarranted demotions, suspensions, unjustified terminations and other reprisals by their respective government agencies.

Investigation and Allegations Against Attorney Scott Bloch

Scott J. Bloch was removed from his position in October 2008. During his tenure as head of the Task Force on Faith-based and Community Initiatives Scott Bloch turned a blind eye when Teen Challenge staff were accused of abuse of minors and young adults in their programs based on discrimination against them because of their religious beliefs and their sexual orientations. Scott Bloch while at the OSC had ordered his office to erase all references to workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, claiming his office lacked the authority to protect gay and lesbian workers and he also failed to protect LGBT teens from abuse by the staff and “peer mentors” in Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge was also accused of coercive abusive practices against young women who wished to have reproductive choice regarding their own bodies. Teen Challenge was found to do coercive practices against those of Jewish faith as well as other faiths in an effort to force them to accept Jesus Christ. Persons of other faiths were court ordered into Teen Challenge facilities under the false belief that they were treatment programs for substance abuse when in fact there was no medical or psychological treatment component to their programs and there was no licensed professional involved in supervising care in their facilities. Teens in Teen Challenge were "locked down" and monitored by alarm systems, to prevent unauthorized departures. Teen Challenge essentially kept youth in a locked up facility for a year to 18 months in order to force their religious conversion to evangelical Christian faith. While held in these facilities, there was no permitted communication or contact with the outside world not even to family members unless coercive control and oppressive monitoring by Teen Challenge staff. Teen Challenge facilities in both Texas and Florida had been exempted by the state governors - Texas Governor George W. Bush and Florida Governor "Jeb" Bush from licensing requirements and state inspection. Thus staff in Teen Challenge – many, who were recruited directly from the Teen Challenge outreach to jailed prisoners, were at liberty to use the captives for any purpose they wished.

John Ellis "Jeb" Bush served as the 43rd Governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. George W. Bush served as the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 until 2000, when he resigned as governor following his election as the 43rd President of the United States. During the years of 1995 through the election of George W. Bush as President of the US - there were no meaningful protections for persons committed to lock up facilities owned and operated by Teen Challenge. Numerous allegations about child abuse surfaced but investigations were shut down without proper explanation and then the governors of Florida and Texas altered state law to exempt Teen Challenge from any state investigations and permitted them to be licensed by an accrediting agency that did no investigations at all and did not report to any governmental agency.

Lack of Human Rights Protections in the USA

The US Attorney Scott Bloch at the Office of Special Counsel did not protect whistleblowers from any federal agency. Teen Challenge abused the children and young adults in their care. If you were a convicted criminal and worked at Teen Challenge no one was going to stop you from doing human rights abuses or criminal activity. Teen Challenge staff and Board members did criminal activity and international money laundering.

Scott Bloch did not enforce the Hatch Act or Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (Veterans’ Rights). Under his tenure at the OSC, veterans were denied their human rights and veteran whistleblowers were denied their appeals. Rather than protecting federal employees from prohibited personnel practices, Scott Bloch actually violated the rights of his own staff.

There was also a complete lack of any Department of Justice protocols to protect human rights defenders, whistleblowers and mandated reporters. This break down in the Department of Justice system meant that we did not have any functioning protections for human rights in the United States of America.

A political strategy furthered by Karl Rove was behind this miscarriage of justice. Scott Bloch furthered that political agenda with his actions both at the OSC and also at the Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. We need to bring Scott Bloch to justice for what he really did – obstruction of justice, Hatch Act violations, USERRA violations and Prohibited Personnel Practices and put into place appropriate safeguards for human rights and protection for human rights defenders.


Additional Information about the Office of Special Counsel:

http://www.osc.gov/Intro.htm

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency. Their basic authorities come from four federal statutes: the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act, the Hatch Act, and the Uniformed Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).


PPPs & Whistleblower Protection
OSC receives, investigates, and prosecutes allegations of Prohibited Personnel Practices or PPPs, with an emphasis on protecting federal government whistleblowers. OSC seeks corrective action remedies (such as back pay and reinstatement), by negotiation or from the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), for injuries suffered by whistleblowers and other complainants. OSC is also authorized to file complaints at the MSPB to seek disciplinary action against individuals who commit PPPs.

Disclosure Unit
OSC provides a secure channel through its Disclosure Unit for federal workers to disclose information about various workplace improprieties, including a violation of law, rule or regulation, gross mismanagement and waste of funds, abuse of authority, or a substantial danger to public health or safety.

Hatch Act Unit (Political Activity)
OSC promotes compliance by government employees with legal restrictions on political activity by providing advisory opinions on, and enforcing, the Hatch Act. Every year, OSC’s Hatch Act Unit provides over a thousand advisory opinions, enabling individuals to determine whether their contemplated political activities are permitted under the Act.

Hatch Act Unit also enforces compliance with the Act. Depending on the severity of the violation, OSC will either issue a warning letter to the employee, or prosecute a violation before MSPB.

Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (Veterans’ Rights)

OSC protects the civilian employment and reemployment rights of military veterans and members of the Guard and Reserve by enforcing the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).

Employee Information Programs

Section 2302(c) of title 5 of the U.S. Code makes agency heads and officials with personnel authority responsible (in consultation with OSC) for informing federal employees of their rights and remedies under chapters 12 and 23 of title 5. These chapters deal with prohibited personnel practices, whistleblower disclosures, political activity, and access to OSC and MSPB.

30
Teen Challenge Received Money from Peters Company Ponzi Scheme

Frank Vennes Jr., born-again ex con who served on the board of Teen Challenge MN, was a fraudster and money launderer. According to a federal search warrant affidavit, Vennes helped convince five investors to put $1.2 billion into Petters's companies, which won Vennes more than $28 million in commissions. Previously Frank Vennes Jr. had spent five years in prison for charges of illegally selling a firearm, using a phone to distribute cocaine, and money laundering, but claimed to be rehabilitated after finding God. Frank Vennes found guidance from evangelical Christian ministry while in prison and then upon leaving prison found support from the Assemblies of God run residential treatment facility Teen Challenge in Minnesota. The Directors of Teen Challenge MN knew about his previous convictions for money laundering, drug dealing and gun running but they still placed him in charge of financial affairs for Teen Challenge MN and for fund raising activities. Congressman Michele Bachmann had received many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Frank Vennes, his family and lawyer/lobbyist G. Craig Howse. In a letter to the Office of Pardon Attorney dated Dec. 10, 2007, a year after she was elected, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann wrote requesting a presidential pardon for Frank Vennes Jr., she stated in that letter to then President George W. Bush that Fidelis Foundation was "backed" by Frank Vennes Jr. and Bachmann stated that a Presidential pardon of Vennes would be "good for society".:

“As a U.S. Representative, I am confident of Mr. Vennes’ successful rehabilitation and that a pardon will be good for the neediest of society,” Bachmann wrote. “Mr. Vennes is seeking a pardon so that he may be further used to help others. As I know from personal experience, Mr. Vennes has used his business position and success to fund hundreds of nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping the neediest in our society. The Fidelis Foundation, backed by Mr. Vennes, has directed over $10.7 million in total gifts in the last three years, and the Fidelis Foundation has ranked #6, #9 and #7 as the largest grant-making foundation in Minnesota over the past three years.”

The appearance of Vennes’ success was a mask for a tangled financial web of lies. As a member of the Teen Challenge board as well as the financial committee, Frank Vennes reviewed the investment proposal with Petters’ business. Following a federal investigation, by Julio La Rosa, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the St. Paul IRS field office, Petters was convicted by a jury of masterminding a scheme that cost investors more than $3.5 billion. Frank Vennes was a broker for investors in Petters’ companies. Petters functioned as a venture capitalist and by attracting investment from hedge funds and individuals. Petters acquired Sun Country Airlines and Polaroid Corporation which are now in bankruptcy. Pretending they were selling real items such as electronic equipment, Petters and his colleagues took investors money for their own gain.. In 2009 Thomas Petters was found guilty, in front of U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle, on all 20 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

Specifically, Thomas Petters was found guilty on the following charges:

10 counts of wire fraud
3 counts of mail fraud
1 count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud
1 count of conspiracy to commit money laundering
5 five counts of money laundering.


Teen Challenge MN asserted the money invested in Petters Co. was given through a single contributor,the Fidelis Foundation. Fidelis Foundation is a public charity that acts as an investment agent on behalf of other public charities and nonprofits, including Teen Challenge. The Fidelis Foundation claims it is facing losses in the bankruptcy case of up to $27.6 million in Petters Co. notes. Fidelis Foundation, a Minnesota religious charity, had $27.6 million invested in eight promissory notes from Petters Co. backed by fictitious purchase orders. The Fidelis Foundation investment debt originally came from loans from the Harvest Foundation. The Harvest Foundation was the entity that initially loaned Frank Vennes $10,500,000 in 2001 and 2002.

Frank Vennes Jr. was a major financial contributor to Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann quickly distanced herself and withdrew the letter of support for a presidential pardon she had written for Vennes claiming that she may have too hastily accepted his claims of redemption. But she was not the only politican to receive money from Frank Vennes. Minnesota politicians, who were scrambling to jettison campaign cash donated by those involved in the fraud scheme, included Norm Coleman, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Pawlenty, Jim Oberstar, and Elwyn Tinkenberg.

Thomas Petters had major holdings in Sun Country Airlines, Polaroid and other companies. As the criminal case developed, several of Petters' companies were put into receivership and 10 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (see list below).

Additional Information:

http://www.startribune.com/projects/30350074.html, Petters case back in court, By DAVID PHELPS, Star Tribune, Last update: March 15, 2011

http://www.startribune.com/business/33420309.html, Part 3: Tom Petters: Giving that hurts, Charities that invested with Tom Petters dropped the ball when it came to making wise choices with donated funds, experts say. By DAVID SHAFFER, Star Tribune, Last update: October 27, 2008 - 11:54 PM

http://www.startribune.com/business/46674572.html
Audit firm sued over Metro Gem assurances, June 1, 2009 Star Tribune
The suit claims auditors failed to examine the business dealings of Frank Vennes Jr.'s company.

http://minnesotaindependent.com/tag/frank-vennes ‘Dirty money’: MN Teen Challenge returned Bachmann’s contribution, By Karl Bremer, Minneosota Independent, 4/20/09

Vennes got pardon letter from Bachmann same month he saw Petters fraud,
By Chris Steller , Minnesota Independent, 1/11/09

Bachmann’s office claims she donated at least one Petters-tainted campaign contribution to charity, By Karl Bremer, Minnesota Independent, 10/16/08

http://www.startribune.com/business/29817604.html
Federal officials: Petters tied to multi-billion dollar fraud scheme
By David Phelp and Liz Fedor, Star Tribune, September 26, 2008

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stori ... 6989.shtml
Developer Kuhn sues business partner, Published Thursday, August 9, 2007 The Florida Times Union

http://www.startribune.com/business/30398069.html
Reformed convict part of Petters probe, Millionaire Frank Vennes Jr. once gave inspirational talks to prisoners but is now under investigation.
By Jon Tevlin, Star Tribune October 4, 2008 - 8:27 PM

http://www.rippleinstillwater.com/2010/ ... frank.html Sunday, November 7, 2010 by Karl Bremer, Michele Bachmann's pardon pal Frank Vennes Jr. wants out of Petters Ponzi mess, Was post-election filing of plan to settle with investors politically motivated?

http://www.startribune.com/business/37369929.html Affidavit: Vennes knew of Petters fraud, David Phelps, Star Tribune, Jan. 10, 2009, Frank Vennes Jr., a Shoreview businessman who recruited investors for Tom Petters, found out something was amiss nine months before authorities moved in. Now they want access to his e-mail.

http://www.startribune.com/business/67235592.html Witnesses saw signs of fraud in 2000, Oct. 30, 2009, Star Tribune, David Phelps, With a subsidiary struggling to repay debt, Tom Petters wrote checks that bounced, GE exec Jack Marrone testified.

'Petters: 'It's not just me who knew', Nov. 4, 2009, Star Tribune, David Phelps, In a tape played for the jury, Tom Petters says he and his associates committed a fraud.

http://www.startribune.com/business/56779612.html Petters' woes haven't stopped his charity group, Sept. 2, 2009, Star Tribune, David Phelps, Separate from the businessman's fallen empire, the John T. Petters Foundation still awards scholarships -- it just keeps a lower profile.

http://www.startribune.com/business/40692097.html
Sketchy profile emerges for key player in Petters probe, March 3, 2009, David Phelps, A Los Angeles businessman who laundered money for Tom Petters' alleged Ponzi scheme may be in the government's witness security program.

http://www.startribune.com/business/35107584.html Sun Country seeks loan from a Petters company
Sun Country Airlines, in a motion filed Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, is seeking court approval to obtain short-term financing from a Petters Aviation company to help the carrier pay its bills until next spring.

http://www.startribune.com/business/35107584.html Star Tribune, Nov. 25, 2008 Mansion of Petters associate for sale; proceeds will be held
Frank Vennes Jr., a Shorewood businessman, got court approval to sell his Florida mansion for $5.8 million. A three-bedroom house in Bismarck, N.D., has already sold.

http://www.startribune.com/business/33287804.html # Part 1: The collapse of the Petters empire, Star Tribune,October 26, 2008 David Phelps,
Tom Petters, accused of massive investment fraud, has been a salesman since his youth. "He could talk your wallet right out of your pocket," a former boss says.

http://www.startribune.com/business/33336049.html # Part 2: Burned: The human toll of the Petters case, Star Tribune, David Phelps,
Flight attendants, hedge funds and retirees are caught in the wake of the federal probe. "I'm trying not to cry," said a woman who may have lost $100,000 in savings.

http://www.startribune.com/business/33420309.html Oct. 27, 2008 # Part 3: Tom Petters: Giving that hurts, Star Tribune, David Phelps,
Charities that invested with Tom Petters dropped the ball when it came to making wise choices with donated funds, experts say.

http://www.startribune.com/business/33480259.html # Part 4: Petters fraud case shakes foundations, Star Tribune,October 29, 2008, David Phelps
The future of the Thomas J. Petters Family Foundation is in doubt, and Another named for his son is bracing for fallout from the investment fraud investigation.

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