http://www.newsregister.com/news/result ... _no=168548Dundee teens escapes Costa Rican camp, goes to jail here
Published: July 19, 2003
By MATTHEW D. LaPLANTE
Of the News-Register
A Dundee teen, who fled a Costa Rican academy for troubled youths after law enforcement officials invaded the campus in May, is in custody at the Yamhill County Juvenile Detention Center today after allegedly attacking several juvenile department staff members and a sheriff's deputy.
Cody Crawford was one of about 200 mostly American students boarded at the Academy at Dundee Ranch - a world similar in name alone to the Yamhill County town where Cody grew up - after running afoul of the rules back home.
Flush-cheeked and blond-haired, with a fledgling semblance of matching whiskers on his upper lip, the 16-year-old's wholesome appearance is betrayed by his record, which includes arrests for dealing drugs at a local middle school and burglarizing several Dundee-area homes and wineries.
He's called the "The Red Hills Rebel" by locals, a moniker that likely owes its origin more to his truculent manner than to his slew of misdeeds.
Of course, that's the very sort of challenge that motivates juvenile department counselors to work so hard.
But two years worth of probation violations and several new crimes suggested Cody might need something in excess of that which local authorities could deliver. So, following an April arrest for attempted burglary, criminal trespassing and theft, his mother asked the court to consider the Academy at Dundee Ranch - a behavioral modification program in Costa Rica she heard about from a relative and researched online.
Featuring stone fountains, a swimming pool and hacienda-style buildings amid a verdant atmosphere of tropical plants and animals, Dundee Ranch seemed more like a resort than behavioral modification facility - indeed, the academy's representatives boasted they had developed a utopian mix of each.
The website promised a "progressive academic program É appropriate behavior modification É emotional growth courses É and a balance of recreation, exercise, learning and social opportunities."
After a trip to Central America to see the facility first hand, Robin Crawford told Judge John Collins she found the perfect place for her son to get the help he needed to rid his life of alcohol, drugs and criminality.
And she agreed to pay the $2,000-per-month tuition as well.
Collins consented to the arrangement, signing the order that allowed Cody to leave the United States for a chance at a new life through the academy.
"As it turns out, things are not as they appeared," Cody's attorney, Lindsay Soto, said at a hearing held Friday morning in Collins' courtroom.
Hell in paradise
Testifying at the hearing, Cody described a harrowing experience which began the day his mother dropped him off. "It was like a total joke," he said.
The idyllic setting that Robin Crawford had been shown was actually reserved for upper-level students who had earned the privilege of staying in nicer rooms and eating decent food.
Cody said he was holed up in a hot, dirty, overcrowded room with a dozen other first-level students. The square meals his mother had been shown during her visit weren't what Cody found on his plate. "We ate rice and beans, every day and for every meal."
And rather than being handed "appropriate behavior modification" by the diverse group of clean-cut staff members pictured on the academy's website, first-level students were introduced to four large Jamaican men who reeked of marijuana and used physical force to deal with misbehavior. "You would hear kids screaming and they would come back and their faces would be black and blue," Cody said.
Acting on information from the academy's former director and parents who had pulled their children from the institution, Costa Rican law enforcement agents converged on the grounds of Dundee Ranch on the morning of May 20.
The students were summoned into the cafeteria, where officials informed them they had the right to call their parents and ask to be sent home.
Accounts of subsequent events vary widely, but all seem to indicate that over the next few days staff members at the academy fought to maintain order as dozens of students rioted and scores tried to escape.
Cody said he was beaten by staffers trying to prevent him from leaving, but he finally made it out with the help of an official from a Costa Rican child welfare agency.
Lost in the jungle
A four-hour drive in the darkness of night ended in the town of San Pedro, where Cody was lodged in a child welfare shelter. There, he met a Jamaican teen who said he had been at the shelter for two years and had yet to receive any help finding his family.
"I didn't want to end up like that," Cody said. "So I decided to try and find the embassy."
Unaware even of the city in which he was located, Cody wandered aimlessly for several hours.
Then, a Good Samaritan named Isaac Wabe stopped his car to pick him up. Cody spent the next week with the Wabe family as Robin Crawford made arrangements to come for her son.
Upon arrival, she learned from officials at the U.S. Embassy that prosecutors wanted to speak to the family about what happened at Dundee Ranch. The Crawfords were detained in Costa Rica for a month as officials tried to sort out what happened.
Dundee Ranch owner Narvin Lichfield, a native of Utah, is under court order to remain in Costa Rica while allegations made against him and his staff members are investigated. And Department of Social Services officials in South Carolina have issued a restraining order forbidding Lichfield from returning to a similar facility he owns in that state.
The Crawfords returned to the United States on June 25. They said they'll join a class-action lawsuit against Lichfield and the WorldWide Association of Specialty Programs, with which the academy was affiliated.
But the matter that began with Cody's illegal activities in Oregon is far from over.
Dispute over treatment
Citing the breakdown of the court's plan for the teen's security and treatment, Deputy District Attorney Debra Markham on Friday asked Collins to place Cody in the custody of the Oregon Youth Authority for placement in a foster home.
In the meantime, Markham said, the troubled teen should be placed in the county's juvenile detention facility.
But Soto, Cody's attorney, disagreed. "Cody didn't fail the program, the program failed him," he said. "Detention is a real drastic measure and it should be reserved for people who have done something wrong."
Soto argued for a 30-day grace period in which the Crawfords could examine a treatment facility in Payson, Ariz.
After contacting a representative of the Arizona facility on the court's speaker phone, Collins declined to approve that move. He ordered Cody into OYA custody.
But capitulating to part of Soto's argument, Collins agreed to allow Cody to remain out of custody until the OYA could find appropriate foster placement for him.
Juvenile department authorities reluctantly accepted the judge's decision, asking only that Cody agree to submit to random urinalysis tests as a condition of his release.
The first test, they decided, would take place before Cody left the courthouse Friday.
Cody's mother and sister waited in Collins' courtroom as Cody was led to the basement floor of the courthouse and the offices of the county's juvenile department.
Initially, the teenager said he didn't have to go, but an hour later authorities said they caught him trying to use the rest room facilities secretly.
The sample they ultimately obtained indicated a high level of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive chemical found in marijuana.
Back in detention
Set against going into custody, Cody "reacted violently to say the least" when told he had failed the urinalysis test, Markham later told Collins.
Four juvenile department staff members were called in to control the angry teen, who was ultimately immobilized with the help of Sheriff's Deputy Bob Eubanks.
An hour later, Eubanks entered the courtroom with a bandage wrapped around a bloodied finger that had been injured in the altercation. He was among those who heard Cody pledge to kill himself as Collins explained why the release agreement had been terminated.
"To be blunt, it looks to me like you've been smoking dope," Collins told Cody, who was listening in over a speakerphone from the detention center.
"I'm going to kill myself and it will all be your fault," Cody answered back.
The white-bearded judge winced at the young man's words, but didn't waiver in his decision. He said new charges of assault were likely to be filed against Cody for the way he reacted.
Soto didn't argue against the detention, but asked for leniency in future proceedings, citing the context of Cody's reaction. "He's been through a lot of different things in a very short time," Soto said.
