Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCIENTISTS_DEATH_LAWSUIT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-11-28-16-47-42

Family sues US over scientist's mysterious death

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The sons of a Cold War scientist who plunged to his death in 1953 several days after unwittingly taking LSD in a CIA mind-control experiment sued the government Wednesday. They claimed the CIA murdered their father, Frank Olson, by pushing him from a 13th-story window of a hotel - not, as the CIA says, that he jumped to his death.

Sons Eric and Nils Olson of Frederick, Md., sought unspecified compensatory damages in the lawsuit filed in federal court, but their lawyer, Scott D. Gilbert, said they also want to see a broad range of documents related to Olson's death and other matters that they say the CIA has withheld from them since the death.

Olson was a bioweapons expert at Fort Detrick, the Army's biological weapons research center in Maryland. Their lawsuit claims the CIA killed Olson when he developed misgivings after witnessing extreme interrogations in which they allege the CIA committed murder using biological agents Olson had developed.

The CIA had a program in the 1950s and `60s called MK-ULTRA, which involved brainwashing and administering experimental drugs like LSD to unsuspecting individuals. The project was investigated by Congress in the 1970s.

Olson consumed a drink laced with LSD by CIA agents on Nov. 19, 1953, the suit says. Later that month, after being taken to New York City purportedly for a "psychiatric" consultation, Olson plunged to his death.

At the time - when Eric and Nils Olson were 9 and 5 years old, respectively - the CIA said he died in an accident and did not divulge to his family that Olsen had been given LSD.

But in 1975, a commission headed by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller released a report on CIA abuses that included a reference to an Army scientist who had jumped from a New York hotel days after being slipped LSD in 1953. Family members threatened to sue, but President Gerald Ford invited the family to the White House, assuring them they would be given all the government's information. CIA Director William Colby handed over documents and the family accepted a $750,000 settlement to avert a lawsuit.

In an email, CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said that while the agency doesn't comment on matters before U.S. courts, "CIA activities related to MK-ULTRA have been thoroughly investigated over the years, and the agency cooperated with each of those investigations." She noted that tens of thousands of pages related to the program have been released to the public.

In a statement, Eric Olson said that the CIA has not given a complete picture of what happened to his father.

"The evidence shows that our father was killed in their custody," he said. "They have lied to us ever since, withholding documents and information, and changing their story when convenient."

http://www.psychforums.com/therapy/topic25992.html

Wilderness Therapy?

Postby JustTony » Tue Apr 08, 2008 2:40 am


I am not officially against psychiatry YET...key word yet, becaus I dont know all the facts and I am posting even this on pure suspicion and fear. Fear that I have been messed with beyond repair.

I was a troubled youth, i can admit that. My folks split up when I was young. I was raised by a single-mother who had alot of issues and was always bringing different ppl in the house for personal reasons. We also were not that well off financially, but my mom later got a govt. job and that changed 4 the better a little bit.

She also went from secular to devout christian in a matter of months and next thing I know my butt is stuck in christian camps and church schools learning how evil I was and how imperfect I am. I was also taught a bunch of #######4 morals that had nothing at all to do with Christianity, which ###$ me up alot honestly cause it was soo confusing.

Anyways I got kicked out of alot of schools because i couldnt tolerate verbal persecution and other injustices brought upon me so I chose to fight people. And one thing my hockey playing taught me, I was a great fighter and to this day have lost few, and have fought MANY. I also joined in with a "sub-culture" as my parents and teachers refferred to it, and began partying and drinking yadda yadda, honestly it was all typical teenage behavior blown out of proportion by a confused Christian parent with an even stricter Christian husband, who became known as my sted-father, who I suspect truly cares little about me and my siblings. And because the wilderness program I was basically kidnapped and taken to against my will was run by former military personnel, and he is a retired lt. colonel, I suspect it was his idea, not my REAL parent's.

Anyways I was out in the Utah dessert at a wilderness camp called 2nd Nature, based in Duchesne, for 4 months and did a month in "after-care" but I got kicked out. I was supposed to do 9 months but I said "###$ that" and caused a little arguement and got expelled. But while I was out there, we were over 50 miles away from ANY civilization and miles from any road. We had nothing except hiking and camping gear and ate dehydrated $#%^ the whole time except for a few special occasions, that werent too special if u ask me. They evaluated our every move, we were forced to write daily journal entrys and do psychological excercises and group therapy. We had NOTHING from the modern world, and were not kept up to date on anything, not news, not date, not even time of day.

Now that Im back, I am SOOO different. I used to have friends and do ALOT of sports and activities. I could get along fairly well with others and loved to be "nice" to other ppl. NOW, my life sucks! It already sucked but now it is living hell. I obsess about the smallest $#%^. I cant even hold a decent conversation with my own family, let alone one of my old friends. I feel brainwashed, I feel they told me a great big lie that I cant even re-call. All I know is now the world is crashing down on me, and it wasnt before I went. I have even heard ppl from my group tell me they put $#%^ in the water we drank out there, which they forced us to drink nearly a Gallon per day to "avoid dehydration." I was not depressed b4 I went out there, now I am, and was prescribed Lexapro which I took for about a month, hated it, and quit cold turkey. $#%^ is worse than it has ever been tho. Everything I say offends ppl, Im arrogant, Im provocative. I feel like $#%^, my family and friends hate me, and I feel crazy... Why all this $#%^ happen after 2nd Nature. How could my own parents do this $#%^ to me? Am I really such a failure? Did I really deserve to be put through this living hell? everyday is torture, what do I do? And can I reasonably place any blame on 2nd Nature, or is that just looking for an excuse? I dont even know anywore!!!!

http://www.thecolumbiastar.com/news/201 ... ional.html

RCSD goes national

Richland County Sheriff’s Department’s READY program airs on A&E

By Julia Rogers Hook


In 2010, a story was published in The Columbia Star about the Richland County Sheriff ’s Department’s program for troubled teens that imitates a night in jail. The teens are brought to the Sheriff ’s Department by parents who are frustrated and feel like their children are headed for trouble or worse…. going to jail for real.

Headed by Investigator Gerald Walls, the program is called the READY program, an acronym for Richland (County) Educating And Deterring Youth. The basic idea is to give problem teens a taste of what jail is like before it becomes a reality. The department does it twice a month, one time with male teens and one time with female teens. Walls said there is no difference in the treatment of the kids. Boys and girls alike are still treated as prisoners.

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said that when he started the program he wanted it to be tough, but he also wanted the area youth to realize the community and the police cared about their well-being.

The officers working with the kids in the READY program do not treat it as a trial run. An actual arrest is imitated from the handcuffing and searching of the teens to traveling in a paddy wagon to a real jail cell at the court house and all that goes with it. “ It’s not just about locking them up and leaving them to the justice system,” Lott said. “It’s about helping to get them on the right track. This program, under Investigator Walls, has proven to be invaluable for the students in the county.”

And the agenda is clearly working because earlier this year, the program grabbed the attention of A& E’s series “Beyond Scared Straight” producers, and they ran a segment of Columbia’s version on their nationally aired show.

“ When they got in touch with me, they said they had found us online,” Walls said. “ They came down here in April to see what we did, and then they decided to run it.”

The segment ran December 8 and showed troubled male teens spending a terrifying night in jail with the participating deputies doing their best to show exactly how hard institutional life can be. Now, the RCSD and Investigator Walls is receiving calls from across the country from other law enforcement agencies that want help starting a similar program in their area and even some from parents themselves who want to send their children to Richland County.

“It’s amazing…I got a call from a mother in California who wanted to bring her daughter to our program,” Walls mused. “This morning a detective in Wyoming called and wants our help in starting up a program there. Parents are willing to fly themselves and their kids across the country to do this program. I guess it just shows how many parents are frustrated and at their limit.”

Sheriff Lott said he was pleased with the national reaction to the show and the READY program.

“ To have so many parents and other agencies interested in what we are trying to accomplish lets us know that we are on the right track in saving our youth one by one with each session we conduct,” the sheriff said.

The RCSD program is one of the toughest out there as most deterrent programs just involve a visit to a jail and maybe speaking with inmates.

“ The difference in our program is that, as far as I know, we are the only program that keeps the kids overnight,” Walls said. “ We do have a program that just takes the kids to talk to the inmates as well, but the READY program is intense and intended to really scare these kids.”

Walls said the point is to reach the kids before they get into serious trouble.

“A lot of these kids are not really bad kids,” said Walls. “ They may be from a single parent home, or they may have hooked up with the wrong crowd. The purpose of our program is to make them realize that the paths they are choosing are not necessarily the paths they want to take.”

To get the teens into the READY program, parents have to agree to drop them off at the Sheriff ’s Department and leave them there overnight. They sign a permission slip and pay $10 to cover the uniforms and food for the night. And then the parent must leave the kids, often with both the parent and child in tears.

“It’s not an easy thing to do because we explain to the parents that it will be a tough night,” Walls said. “But one night of a mock arrest can prevent years of real nights in jail. These parents are at the end of their ropes.”

The officers working with these kids do not treat it as a trial run at all though. An actual arrest is imitated from the handcuffing and searching of the teens to traveling in a paddy wagon to a real jail cell at the court house and all that goes with it.

The officers are waiting for the kids to arrive and are bellowing out orders that echo in the parking garage of the jail as the teens are hurried out of the paneled van while still in cuffs. No one is smiling, and it all seems real. If a teen cracks a smile or tries to act tough, one of the officers will quickly end it, as can be seen on the A&E show.

There’s a scene where a teen is told to do a sitting squat against the wall. He makes the mistake of telling RCSD Officer Kelvin Griffin “This hurts man.”

Griffin gets close to the teen and screams into his ear.

“ I ain’t your ‘man’ and you don’t call me ‘man’ do you understand me? Do you?”

The teens are told they are to answer with only ‘yes sir/ mam’ or no sir/mam’ and deputies do another search before the kids are given prison jumpsuits and are put through rigorous calisthenics and assessments. They speak to counselors who try to get them to tell them why they are acting like they are. Most of the time the crime is as simple as ditching school or breaking curfew.

“If we can get them before they move on to bigger mistakes or get caught for smoking pot or stealing CDs, then we have a really good chance of making an impression that can really change their lives,” Walls said.

Lott said that he hears good things from a lot of people involved in the program.

“I think the success stories we hear from both the parents and the students themselves tell the story,” he said.

One of the main requirements of the night is that each teen write a letter of apology to their parent or parents.

“ We want them to admit what they have done wrong,” Walls said. “ We want them to realize why they are there.”

Nothing is sugarcoated through- out the night in jail. They are roused from a troubled sleep in a solitary cell on a bench that serves as bed, table, and chair. On the A& E show one teen is shown pacing the small walking area before he finally tries to lie down and sleep the night away. A few minutes later the lights flash on and officers raid all the cells to get the boys up to once again work out.

“It’s to show that in jail, time is not your own,” Walls said. “In jail your life is not your own. You do as you’re told and when you’re told. It might seem cool to hang out with your buddies and act tough on a street corner, but I haven’t seen one yet that comes through one of these nights without breaking.”

One mother said that after her son spent the night in the READY program, he told her he never wanted to go back because that place smelled awful. When she related the story to Walls, he just smiled and looked satisfied.

“That’s what I like to hear,” he chuckled. “That’s the whole point of the program. We don’t do it to show them a good time. We do it to make them never want to see the inside of a jail again.”

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/53206 ... n.html.csp

Doctor dismissed from wilderness therapy wrongful death suit

By Aaron Falk

The Salt Lake Tribune
First published 7 hours ago
Updated 5 hours ago

A prominent Utah doctor has been dismissed from a wrongful death lawsuit involving a southwestern Colorado wilderness therapy program.

Last week, a 3rd District Judge approved a request from both sides to dismiss the claim against Keith R. Hooker, who worked for decades at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center before retiring this year, in connection with the 2007 death of 15-year-old Caleb Jensen.

An attorney for Hooker said he could not comment on the dismissal agreement, citing confidentiality issues.

"He was never called with regard to any of the symptoms that were going on in the field," attorney Dennis Ferguson said. "That became apparent through the course of discovery."

Ferguson called Hooker, who was named the state’s top physician in 2010, "a very good and very caring doctor."

"We finally just put an end to this," he said.

The now-defunct Alternative Youth Adventures of Colorado, its parent company and the program’s director are among the remaining defendants in the wrongful death suit, which seeks $45 million in damages.

The lawsuit alleges that Jensen died in southwestern Colorado, where he had been sent by Utah juvenile justice officials, from a staphylococcus infection that went untreated despite his symptoms.

In 2009, a Colorado grand jury handed down indictments against Hooker and others involved with AYA and its New Jersey-based parent Community Education Centers Inc. but all criminal matters were later dismissed.

A CEC spokesman on Friday said the company does not comment on ongoing litigation.

According to indictments, Jensen was admitted to the wilderness program in March 2007 and began showing symptoms of illness the next month.

In his journal, the teen wrote that he was "burning up, vomiting and having trouble hiking."

The boy spent his last week of life lying in his own urine and feces, the court documents alleged.

Field staff said they called officials at AYA base camp but no one responded and no medical attention was ordered, according to the indictments.

Efforts to reach Jensen’s family and their attorney this week were unsuccessful.

afalk@sltrib.com

Twitter: @aaronfalk

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/26/5_die_o ... _center_2/

5 Die Of Food Poisoning At Mexican Rehab Center


Topics:From the Wires

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Medical officials say five recovering drug addicts died and 35 others were sickened by soy sausage served for Christmas dinner at a rehabilitation center in western Mexico.

Authorities were investigating whether the poisoning at the center in the city of Guadalajara was accidental or intentional. Drug cartels have taken over rehabilitation centers in parts of Mexico, forcibly recruiting addicts as hit men and smugglers. The invasions have led to mass shootings at the centers that have left dozens dead.

Alhy Daniel Nunez is a spokesman for the Red Cross in the western state of Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located. He said Monday that 37 people remained hospitalized, three of them in serious condition.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/d ... g-n-idaho/

December 23, 2011 in City, Idaho
Missing teen found, OK in N. Idaho
The Spokesman-Review

A 16-year-old boy who walked away from a residential treatment facility Thursday night wearing only a flannel shirt and pajama bottoms was found safe today following a search.

Jacob Lee left the Innercept treatment facility on Dodd Road about 11 p.m. Thursday.

Today, Kootenai County Sheriff’s deputies were joined by 15 members of the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Volunteer Search and Rescue and a helicopter from the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office.

Lee, whose parents live in Santa Clara, Calif., was found in the 6200 block of English Point Road, about six miles from Innercept. He was cold but OK, deputies said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Program website: http://www.innercept.net/

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/12/08/42077.htm

School Webcam Took Nude Pics, Teen Says
By REUBEN KRAMER

 PHILADELPHIA (CN) - The ritzy Lower Merion School District in suburban Philadelphia was hit Wednesday with yet another lawsuit over secret webcam surveillance of students and their families through school-issued laptops.
     Deposition in another case revealed that the district has photos of the latest plaintiff, Paige Robbins, "in the bathroom, or in the nude, or partially dressed or sleeping or in her bedroom or in a compromised state," according to the complaint.
     District spokesman Doug Young told Courthouse News that the claim is "bizarre," the "epitome of an attempted money-grab and a complete waste of tax dollars."
     Robbins is the sister of the original Webcamgate plaintiff, bringing the total of Webcamgate lawsuits to at least five.
     The school district, among the nation's wealthiest, settled with minor Blake Robbins for $175,000 six months after he filed a February 2010 class action that accused school officials of spying on students by remotely activating the webcams on their school-issued laptops.
     Officials reportedly activated the cameras as a way to combat computer theft or other malfeasance.
     Paige Robbins now claims that the "indiscriminant remote [webcam] activation" while she was a minor-student at Harriton High School in Rosemont, Pa., caused her to be captured "in compromising or embarrassing positions, including, but not limited to, in various stages of dress or undress."
     But the district says that the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies found no such photos after poring over "terabytes and terabytes of data" in an "exhaustive" probe.
     Robbins says she first learned that she ended up on webcam candid camera as lawyers deposed a vice principal while litigating her brother Blake's case in April 2010.
     The district disputes Robbins' characterization of the deposition, saying the excerpts "have been edited to omit key words."
     "A thorough, exhaustive investigation - under supervision of the United States District Judge Jan DuBois, the FBI, and the United States Attorney - determined that no one ever saw a compromising image of Ms. Robbins or anyone else," Young said in a statement, referring to the judge who presided over Blake Robbins' case. "Indeed, the investigation did not recover any images of Ms. Robbins."
     "That was one of the reasons they dropped the criminal investigation," Young told Courthouse News in an interview.
     "It should also be noted that this complaint comes nearly two years after the original case was filed," according to Young's statement. "It appears Ms. Robbins simply waited to turn 18 so she could attempt to obtain a payout of her own from LMSD [Lower Merion School District] taxpayers. The district will vigorously defend its position and the taxpayers of this community."
     As of late August, the district had spent more than $1.6 million litigating the scandal, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
     Paige Robbins sued the Lower Merion School District, its board of directors and Superintendent Christopher McGinley, alleging invasion of privacy and violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, federal civil rights law and Pennsylvania wiretapping law.
     She is represented by Mary Bogan in Philadelphia. Bogan was not available for immediate comment on the lawsuit.

Links to other articles regarding the same story:

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ ... me_by_sis/

http://articles.philly.com/2011-12-08/n ... l-district

http://www.wbay.com/story/16175040/2011 ... abuse-case

School Principal Accused of Interfering in Student Abuse Case

An Appleton elementary school principal is accused of interfering with a child abuse investigation at his school.

Appleton police say Janet Berry Elementary School principal Richard Waters withheld information and altered a document in a child abuse investigation last February.

The 48-year-old faces a misdemeanor charge of obstructing an officer.

On Thursday the school district placed Waters on paid administrative leave.

The charge against Waters comes ten months after the initial investigation into former special education teacher Mary Berglund, who is accused of physically abusing six cognitively disabled students at Janet Berry Elementary.

According to the complaint, in January Waters received a phone call from another principal in the district who had received a complaint about Berglund's treatment of students.

Waters initially told investigators that the principal "did not give him any information about the nature of the concerns in even the broadest of terms, and in fact (the principal) refused to provide any details."

However, in the complaint, that principal says she did provide details, even sending him an email with specifics.

The complaint also alleges Waters doctored a letter written to him by a concerned paraprofessional. Authorities say when Waters turned over a copy of that letter, the date was on the opposite margin and the first sentence was removed.

Waters's attorney says the evidence doesn't add up to a criminal charge.

"There was no cover-up attempt regarding this what so ever by Mr. Waters," attorney Len Kachinsky said. "Anything that Mr. Waters did was not done to mislead the police in any way or deliberately provide them with false information."

It's news the alleged victims' families have been waiting for.

"They are thrilled. They have always wanted the school district to take administrative responsibility for what happened," Jeff Spitzer-Resnick, managing attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin, said.

The attorney representing the alleged victims' families said he's pleased that Waters has been charged and he hopes there's further investigation into Waters's actions.

"We will not rest until we are able to establish that he either knew, or if he did not know, that he and the district accept responsibility for having a principal in a building that failed to know," Spitzer-Resnick said.

Waters is due in court on December 14th.

Berglund is expected to plead no contest to one felony count of physical abuse of a child and five misdemeanor battery counts. Her hearing is scheduled for December 21st.