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[darkly intriguing music playing]
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[Katherine] It bothers me how people low
on the totem pole end up taking the fall.
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And the people at the top
seem to get away with murder.
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I knew if I really wanted
to go after these places,
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I need to follow the money.
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When I first got out,
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it was hard to track down
anyone to talk to,
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which is exactly
what the program intended.
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[Alexa] How fucking sad is this place
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{\an8}that literally everything was enacted
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{\an8}to make sure
that we never had relationships?
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{\an8}We were never allowed to be friends.
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{\an8}Well, and they did not want us
to find each other...
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{\an8}[Alexa] No, they didn't.
-...after the program.
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{\an8}Not allowed to share
contact information or phone numbers.
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When someone left, you're like, "I wonder
if I'll ever find them in the real world."
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[Katherine] When I first got out
of the program,
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Myspace was just becoming a thing.
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We were able
to find our friends from the program
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that we assumed
we'd never be able to see again.
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[Allison] So,
even among program graduates,
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{\an8}we had to stalk out
to find each other and stay in contact.
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{\an8}[Alexa] Even in our home contracts,
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we're not allowed
to be friends with program kids.
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'Cause you know why? They didn't want us
to get together and do this.
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[Allison] Right.
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[all laughing]
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[Allison] "You wanna be
in my Netflix docu?"
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[Katherine] We found out that they were
tracking our Myspace pages after we left
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and found an email from Tom Nichols
calling Myspace a "hate site."
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{\an8}So I asked Tom about it when we stopped
by his church for his Sunday sermon.
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{\an8}[Tom] My only role was to take pictures.
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{\an8}[Katherine] So you weren't tracking kids
on social media
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{\an8}after they left the program?
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{\an8}[Tom] No.
If we did that, we would've been fired.
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{\an8}[Katherine] You did do that.
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00:02:06,501 --> 00:02:09,212
{\an8}Let me just read you
an email I have from you right here.
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"We do have an opportunity to keep track
of where they are and what they're doing."
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"It gives us a chance
to keep an eye on them
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and see if lawsuits are being formulated."
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"I think we should monitor them
and track them quietly."
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This is you. You sent this email.
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[Tom] I have no idea
where that email came from.
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[Katherine] Do you want to go outside
so you're not lying in a church?
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[Katherine] Now there are dozens
of private online groups and forums
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where survivors can connect
and share information.
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{\an8}-[Juan] Look at us now!
-[Quintin] That's where it all started.
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{\an8}[Juan laughing]
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[Katherine] It would take us years
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{\an8}to go through
what we call the "waking up" process.
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When I first got out, there was
very little information out there,
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except for a few online forums.
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So I did everything I could
to find proof of what was really going on.
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-I had to turn the pen off.
-[man] Did you get some stuff?
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-[Katherine] Yes. When I first walked in.
-[man] Good. Okay, cool.
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[Katherine] I tried to find
any experts on the issue.
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That's when I came across Maia's book,
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Help at Any Cost:
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How the Troubled-Teen Industry
Cons Parents and Hurts Kids.
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I figured that would be
a good place to start.
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So I'm not a real journalist.
You're a real journalist.
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I'm like a amateur gumshoe.
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'Cause I got out and immediately
started trying to investigate to get...
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find anything that would explain
what happened to me.
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This was in 2005.
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Literally nothing out there.
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And then your book came out,
and it frickin' blew my mind!
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{\an8}-It, like... Thank you. Thank you so much.
-[laughing] You are so welcome.
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{\an8}I mean, I really, you know...
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{\an8}I was just horrified
by the fact that these places existed.
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And I was just really curious
about who came up with this awful idea.
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Like, why? Why?
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[Katherine] After years of trying
to find proof of the abuse,
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it's crazy that it was my very own program
that left all the evidence behind.
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{\an8}We could finally find
the answers we were looking for.
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Do you know how much your parents paid?
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{\an8}[Molly] Uh, not offhand, no.
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{\an8}Here we go. Cost per student.
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[Katherine] There we go.
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00:04:02,492 --> 00:04:06,996
So, this is saying
a three-month contract tuition, $3,190.
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My dad paid more because I have exactly
the contract he signed.
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So if he was paying $5,085,
and I was there 15 months...
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[incredulously]
Seventy-six thousand dollars? To...
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To give me PTSD. [laughing]
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[Katherine] One thing's for sure.
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Very little of that money
was actually going to Ivy Ridge.
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{\an8}Ogdensburg is a tiny town
along the St. Lawrence River
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{\an8}in upstate New York.
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With two prisons,
a psychiatric hospital, and Ivy Ridge,
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its main economy in 2004
seems to have been institutionalization.
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[Sean] When you see these houses,
it prompts me to want to feel bad.
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{\an8}It's hard to see suffering...
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{\an8}[chuckling]
...and not have empathy and sympathy.
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{\an8}[Katherine] I mean, I think this is
exactly why Ivy Ridge came to Ogdensburg.
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[Sean] Because it was
full of broken dreams, kind of, already.
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-And a very distressed economy.
-[dark music playing]
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[Brandy] For Ivy Ridge
to pop in here and give out jobs?
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Everybody saw that
as a great opportunity to do something.
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I had a...
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{\an8}A friend of mine called me up
and said, "We need employees."
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{\an8}Asked me if I wanted a job.
"Hmm. Okay." So I took the job.
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And I said, "I can do this.
I just have to sit in a hallway."
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Lo and behold, there was a lot more to it.
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Emotionally, there was more to it
than just sitting in a hallway
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and waitin' for the kids
to get up in the morning.
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I was watching these girls
go to bed at night.
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No moms and dads to kiss 'em good night.
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I followed the rules as best I could,
without breaking my morals.
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But I was havin' trouble
with this whole setup.
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They were being treated like prisoners.
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Things just didn't feel right.
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Now, I look back, and I think...
[laughs] "I could've done something."
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"Maybe I should've done something."
And those kids deserved better.
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[Maia] These programs, they choose places
where there's very high unemployment.
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So, suddenly,
they're the biggest employer in the place.
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And nobody wants to complain about them
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because, otherwise, the entire economy
of the town will be destroyed.
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[Katherine] This former staff member
asked not to be identified.
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And I don't blame her.
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{\an8}My friends and I remember her
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{\an8}being one of the meaner dorm parents
while we were there.
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{\an8}[woman] I mean,
I just remember being super strict.
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-I was a bitch.
-Yeah.
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[woman] I was.
I mean, it was black-and-white.
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"These are the rules."
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"This is what they can do.
They can't do anything else."
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So I kinda followed 'em to a T.
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[Katherine] What were the qualifications
for staff that worked there?
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-[woman] Quite frankly, none.
-[Katherine] Really?
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[woman] Yeah, I mean,
I was pretty much fresh out of college.
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Didn't have any other jobs.
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I don't think
I had any sort of background check
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or anything
that I would wanna know now as a parent.
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And I don't believe
there was any training.
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So, they told us,
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"If you're being mean,
if the students are complaining about you,
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you're doin' a good job."
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-Really?
-[woman] Yeah.
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I'm sure I had
a million complaints about me.
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-I feel bad for that. [laughing]
-Yeah?
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[woman] But I thought
I was doin' a good job back then.
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[Phil] The message goes out
to the local community
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{\an8}that these kids who we're shipping in
are the worst of the worst.
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{\an8}"We're not shipping in a kid
who drank a Mike's Hard Lemonade."
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"We're shipping in kids
who are out of control."
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[woman] They told us,
"These are bad kids."
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"They're either goin' to jail or juvie."
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You know? "They were into drugs."
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"They're disrespectful kids."
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-"They deserve it."
-[woman] Basically.
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[dark music continues]
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[Maia] They dehumanize the kids.
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They tell the staff that these kids
are liars and manipulators
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and that you are doing the right thing
by being cruel to them.
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And so people
who have really never had much power
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end up on a massive power trip.
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[Ken Kay] When we get accused,
or some of our programs get accused,
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{\an8}of being abusive to children,
uh, that's totally false.
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{\an8}[Katherine] Ken Kay
was the president of WWASP,
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{\an8}the umbrella organization of programs
which Ivy Ridge was a part of.
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{\an8}But prior to that,
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he was the nighttime security guard
at Brightway Adolescent Hospital.
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{\an8}[man] Okay. Where did you work just before
you came to WWASP five years ago?
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{\an8}I was, uh, the security person.
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{\an8}-Uh, eventually, I...
-[man] Security guard?
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{\an8}Um... I...
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don't think that was exactly...
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It was... We were...
What we were called is "night watch."
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[Katherine] At WWASP,
the lack of qualifications
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went all the way to the top.
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[Thomas] These guys were charging
a tremendous amount of money
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based on the claim
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that they had completely turned around
the lives of 15,000 children.
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You had parents thinking
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{\an8}that they're dealing
with child turnaround experts,
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00:09:02,917 --> 00:09:04,961
{\an8}and they're not.
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[Maia] If you actually are providing
decent psychiatric care for children,
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it's very difficult to make money
because you need incredibly trained staff,
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00:09:14,804 --> 00:09:18,432
and everybody's gotta have
a master's-level degree or above.
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00:09:18,516 --> 00:09:21,269
Now, these places convince parents that,
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because their regime is so well-designed
to modify behavior,
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00:09:26,274 --> 00:09:29,193
"We don't need any trained staff."
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00:09:29,277 --> 00:09:31,737
"We just put them
through our own training,"
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and that's all they need
to be able to fix your kid.
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[Katherine] In the files, we found out
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that they were only paying some staff
$5.50 to take care of us.
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The average tuition
at Ivy Ridge was $3,500 a month.
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So, at the height of enrollment,
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they were bringing in
more than $1.5 million a month.
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00:09:49,547 --> 00:09:52,216
But how much of that
were they really spending on us?
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00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:56,345
They only spent around four dollars
a day per kid on our meals.
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They also saved money
by using child labor.
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When you get to level three,
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00:10:00,933 --> 00:10:03,936
one of your privileges
was you're allowed to work in the kitchen.
195
00:10:04,020 --> 00:10:06,772
The kids were the ones
doing all the cleaning in the facility.
196
00:10:06,856 --> 00:10:09,775
I don't think
we ever had a real janitorial staff.
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00:10:10,776 --> 00:10:14,447
[Phil] These programs
are remarkably inexpensive to run,
198
00:10:14,530 --> 00:10:16,824
and the WWASP people figured that out.
199
00:10:17,325 --> 00:10:21,746
If you eliminate all the things
that make a school expensive,
200
00:10:21,829 --> 00:10:24,790
and you charge more than what was charged
201
00:10:24,874 --> 00:10:27,752
at the most expensive private colleges
202
00:10:27,835 --> 00:10:30,838
by calling it
"a therapeutic boarding school,"
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00:10:30,921 --> 00:10:34,425
my God, there was huge money to be made.
204
00:10:35,259 --> 00:10:41,349
And so, the entire underlying concept,
the whole approach, is a scam.
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00:10:43,017 --> 00:10:44,852
[intriguing music playing]
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00:10:44,935 --> 00:10:50,024
[John Sullivan] At Ivy Ridge,
there were 500 students, 240 staff,
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00:10:50,608 --> 00:10:53,486
{\an8}one certified teacher. One.
208
00:10:54,111 --> 00:10:59,367
{\an8}They used some type of
a Bible-based home study program to teach.
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Switched-On Schoolhouse.
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00:11:00,868 --> 00:11:03,204
[John] Yeah.
I mean, it was totally inadequate.
211
00:11:03,704 --> 00:11:09,418
And I found that out as I began to unravel
what was going on at Ivy Ridge.
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00:11:10,294 --> 00:11:12,672
{\an8}[reporter on TV] Parents pay out
$30,000 to $40,000
213
00:11:12,755 --> 00:11:14,382
{\an8}to send their kids to Ivy Ridge.
214
00:11:14,465 --> 00:11:18,094
{\an8}More than 100 diplomas have been
handed out over the past two years.
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00:11:18,177 --> 00:11:19,970
But Ivy Ridge is not licensed,
216
00:11:20,054 --> 00:11:23,349
certified, or registered
with the state Department of Education.
217
00:11:23,432 --> 00:11:25,601
The Attorney General's Office
wants to know
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00:11:25,685 --> 00:11:27,645
whether Ivy Ridge
may have been defrauding people
219
00:11:27,728 --> 00:11:30,940
by passing themselves off
as a diploma-granting boarding school,
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00:11:31,023 --> 00:11:34,777
when the diploma they were issuing may not
be worth the paper it was written on.
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00:11:35,361 --> 00:11:38,072
[John] So they were issuing diplomas
that were bogus,
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00:11:38,155 --> 00:11:40,783
and we were then able to go in
and say, "You know what?"
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00:11:40,866 --> 00:11:43,077
"You are an educational fraud."
224
00:11:43,953 --> 00:11:47,957
And it was
the largest educational fraud case
225
00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:53,421
in the history of New York State
until Trump University came up.
226
00:11:53,504 --> 00:11:55,339
{\an8}[Katherine laughing] Oh, really?
227
00:11:56,340 --> 00:12:00,344
Does a behavior modification program
have to go through
228
00:12:00,428 --> 00:12:03,597
any oversight, or regulation,
or licensing in the state of New York?
229
00:12:03,681 --> 00:12:05,933
[John] At the time? No.
230
00:12:06,016 --> 00:12:10,271
New York State actually had
more regulations governing dog kennels
231
00:12:10,354 --> 00:12:14,150
than they did programs for troubled teens.
232
00:12:14,900 --> 00:12:16,485
[Katherine] So is there anyone,
233
00:12:16,569 --> 00:12:21,198
in the entire operation
of Academy at Ivy Ridge,
234
00:12:21,282 --> 00:12:22,783
from 2001 to 2009,
235
00:12:22,867 --> 00:12:27,246
who can say that they have
a legitimate high school diploma?
236
00:12:31,500 --> 00:12:32,668
No.
237
00:12:34,795 --> 00:12:35,796
Nada.
238
00:12:36,797 --> 00:12:37,798
[Katherine] Wow.
239
00:12:38,424 --> 00:12:41,635
{\an8}And so all the pictures of Ken Kay
and different WWASP people
240
00:12:41,719 --> 00:12:46,682
handing diplomas to students on stage
in a graduation ceremony, what was that?
241
00:12:46,766 --> 00:12:50,227
They might as well have dressed up
as scarecrows and bunnies
242
00:12:50,311 --> 00:12:53,481
and handed each other carrots
or something, you know?
243
00:12:54,523 --> 00:12:56,817
[Katherine] Since I got pulled
from Ivy Ridge early,
244
00:12:56,901 --> 00:12:59,028
I never got one of their fake diplomas.
245
00:12:59,111 --> 00:13:01,530
My dad ended up issuing me
a home school diploma,
246
00:13:01,614 --> 00:13:05,451
and I was able to get into a film school
in Los Angeles for college.
247
00:13:05,534 --> 00:13:07,953
But a lot of other kids weren't so lucky.
248
00:13:11,582 --> 00:13:17,296
[Katherine] So, you have a high school
diploma from Academy at Ivy Ridge?
249
00:13:17,379 --> 00:13:19,298
-Yeah.
-[Katherine] Do you happen to have it?
250
00:13:20,007 --> 00:13:21,842
Um, no, the...
251
00:13:22,343 --> 00:13:24,428
This is the closest thing I guess I have...
252
00:13:25,095 --> 00:13:27,515
-[chuckling] Right now, um...
-[Katherine laughs]
253
00:13:27,598 --> 00:13:31,268
-So this is high school graduation.
-[Katherine] Yeah?
254
00:13:31,352 --> 00:13:35,439
Uh, 2006. July 2006. So, um...
255
00:13:38,192 --> 00:13:43,322
This is, uh, saying that I was awarded
a diploma from Ken Kay.
256
00:13:43,405 --> 00:13:45,407
[somber music playing]
257
00:13:45,491 --> 00:13:49,495
[Sean] I didn't think about it
until I wanted to apply for college.
258
00:13:49,578 --> 00:13:51,664
That's when I realized the gaping hole
259
00:13:51,747 --> 00:13:54,250
that was the lack
of my high school diploma
260
00:13:54,333 --> 00:13:56,210
and the fraud they had really committed.
261
00:13:56,794 --> 00:13:58,712
I felt slighted. I felt stupid.
262
00:13:58,796 --> 00:14:04,301
You know, "I'm gonna have to get my GED
because this place lied."
263
00:14:05,636 --> 00:14:11,225
Before the program, growing up,
I always wanted to excel and chase dreams.
264
00:14:11,308 --> 00:14:13,769
Educational, athletic.
265
00:14:13,853 --> 00:14:18,482
And I really wanted
to go to a four-year college.
266
00:14:18,566 --> 00:14:22,403
And I just lost that chance.
267
00:14:23,445 --> 00:14:27,908
I didn't even become
that "fixed son" that Ivy Ridge promised.
268
00:14:29,159 --> 00:14:34,290
The biggest post-program issue for me
really is just the disconnect of family.
269
00:14:34,790 --> 00:14:39,712
My mom, she would cry
every time I visited the house
270
00:14:39,795 --> 00:14:43,465
and just apologize for the program.
271
00:14:43,549 --> 00:14:44,508
Every time.
272
00:14:44,592 --> 00:14:45,801
All the time.
273
00:14:46,719 --> 00:14:49,471
[voice breaking] And I told her
not to feel bad and...
274
00:14:50,598 --> 00:14:51,891
that it's okay.
275
00:14:52,808 --> 00:14:55,185
But that was a lie I even told myself.
276
00:14:55,686 --> 00:14:57,021
It's not okay.
277
00:14:57,897 --> 00:15:00,107
Unfortunately, she passed away in 2014,
278
00:15:00,190 --> 00:15:04,570
and the biggest thing that hurts me
about Ivy Ridge is that,
279
00:15:04,653 --> 00:15:08,991
at the end of the day,
my mom never got her kid back.
280
00:15:10,451 --> 00:15:13,662
Ivy Ridge obliterated any chance of that.
281
00:15:18,542 --> 00:15:21,712
The nice thing about America
is there's organizations like ours,
282
00:15:21,795 --> 00:15:23,047
and there's schools like ours,
283
00:15:23,130 --> 00:15:26,967
that are tryin' to help kids
and help families get back together.
284
00:15:27,468 --> 00:15:32,556
[John] At the time, I was not empowered
to conduct an abuse review.
285
00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:34,433
We did what we could do.
286
00:15:34,516 --> 00:15:37,061
[Katherine] The New York
Attorney General's investigation
287
00:15:37,144 --> 00:15:39,605
and bad press exposed the fraud
at Ivy Ridge,
288
00:15:39,688 --> 00:15:41,440
and business began to suffer.
289
00:15:41,941 --> 00:15:45,152
Many parents opted to send their children
to other WWASP programs,
290
00:15:45,235 --> 00:15:47,529
and enrollment in Ivy Ridge declined
291
00:15:47,613 --> 00:15:50,115
until they officially shut down operations
in 2009.
292
00:15:50,866 --> 00:15:54,370
[Katherine] Ivy Ridge closed,
but every program they're opening
293
00:15:54,453 --> 00:15:56,288
in all these different states
294
00:15:56,372 --> 00:16:00,125
have the same issues of abuse
295
00:16:00,209 --> 00:16:03,128
and are doing
the same thing over and over again.
296
00:16:03,212 --> 00:16:06,674
How have they evaded any accountability?
297
00:16:06,757 --> 00:16:08,968
-I hate to say this.
-[Katherine] Mm-hmm.
298
00:16:09,635 --> 00:16:11,303
But follow the money.
299
00:16:15,057 --> 00:16:18,310
{\an8}[Katherine] I went to Montana
to meet with a lawyer who had sued WWASP.
300
00:16:18,394 --> 00:16:19,436
{\an8}[Ann Moderie] Let's see.
301
00:16:19,520 --> 00:16:21,313
{\an8}[Katherine] She was able
to get a rare glimpse
302
00:16:21,397 --> 00:16:23,816
into the inner workings
of their business operations,
303
00:16:23,899 --> 00:16:26,193
and I wanted to see
what she had uncovered.
304
00:16:26,276 --> 00:16:30,739
[Ann] Back in 2005,
a case came into our firm
305
00:16:30,823 --> 00:16:34,702
related to a death at a WWASP program.
306
00:16:34,785 --> 00:16:38,998
{\an8}And I think that I probably dedicated
90% of my practice to this case
307
00:16:39,081 --> 00:16:40,416
for two years.
308
00:16:41,208 --> 00:16:44,461
{\an8}We, at first,
just focused on this particular school,
309
00:16:44,545 --> 00:16:45,754
{\an8}Spring Creek Lodge.
310
00:16:45,838 --> 00:16:47,631
And through that investigation,
311
00:16:47,715 --> 00:16:50,801
we realized the expansive nature
of this organization
312
00:16:50,884 --> 00:16:54,972
called World Wide Association
of Specialty Programs.
313
00:16:55,055 --> 00:16:58,392
Every single one
of these binders are from our case.
314
00:16:58,475 --> 00:17:01,603
[Katherine] That's so much material
to go through.
315
00:17:01,687 --> 00:17:05,024
[Ann] I mean, we had to look
at every single program,
316
00:17:05,107 --> 00:17:06,984
one of which is Ivy Ridge.
317
00:17:07,651 --> 00:17:10,154
These boarding schools
were entering into contracts
318
00:17:10,237 --> 00:17:13,282
with out-of-state corporations or LLCs
319
00:17:13,365 --> 00:17:17,786
that were taking
a third of the profit off the top.
320
00:17:17,870 --> 00:17:23,751
I found 73 companies
that were somehow related to WWASP.
321
00:17:24,293 --> 00:17:27,212
We wanted to know
who really was making the money
322
00:17:27,296 --> 00:17:30,632
and who was profiting off these schools.
323
00:17:30,716 --> 00:17:33,177
So we started looking into
all of these other companies,
324
00:17:33,260 --> 00:17:36,555
and we found
that most of them were from Utah.
325
00:17:36,638 --> 00:17:40,768
And if you dug through
their layers of ownership,
326
00:17:40,851 --> 00:17:42,728
one name kept coming up.
327
00:17:42,811 --> 00:17:44,271
It always ends up down here.
328
00:17:44,354 --> 00:17:45,481
"Robert Lichfield."
329
00:17:45,564 --> 00:17:47,399
"Robert Lichfield. Robert Lichfield."
330
00:17:47,483 --> 00:17:48,692
[Katherine] "Robert Lichfield."
331
00:17:51,528 --> 00:17:53,197
Robert Browning Lichfield.
332
00:17:53,739 --> 00:17:57,117
{\an8}[Katherine] Robert Lichfield,
or Bob, as most people call him,
333
00:17:57,201 --> 00:17:59,453
{\an8}is the founder and owner of WWASP.
334
00:17:59,953 --> 00:18:02,289
It's a real rags-to-riches story.
335
00:18:02,372 --> 00:18:06,543
He grew up in complete poverty
to a large Mormon family in southern Utah.
336
00:18:06,627 --> 00:18:08,754
He dropped out of Dixie State University
337
00:18:08,837 --> 00:18:10,881
{\an8}and started working
at Provo Canyon School,
338
00:18:10,964 --> 00:18:13,967
which is another
unregulated teen residential program
339
00:18:14,051 --> 00:18:15,969
that has a long history of abuse.
340
00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:17,971
Robert got his start there
341
00:18:18,055 --> 00:18:21,266
and was described
as "a humorless, dictatorial figure
342
00:18:21,350 --> 00:18:23,936
who seemed to delight
in taunting students."
343
00:18:24,019 --> 00:18:27,523
{\an8}He left in 1988
and opened his first WWASP program,
344
00:18:27,606 --> 00:18:30,234
{\an8}Cross Creek Manor in La Verkin, Utah.
345
00:18:30,734 --> 00:18:33,695
{\an8}I think I'm talented, workin' with youth,
346
00:18:33,779 --> 00:18:38,033
but I don't have a quote "college degree"
in that area.
347
00:18:38,617 --> 00:18:41,870
[Katherine] He had a management contract
with Brightway Adolescent Hospital
348
00:18:41,954 --> 00:18:45,624
and funneled many of the patients
into his WWASP programs.
349
00:18:45,707 --> 00:18:48,335
He even hired the nighttime security guard
from Brightway
350
00:18:48,418 --> 00:18:52,464
to be the president of WWASP
and the public face of the organization.
351
00:18:54,049 --> 00:18:57,803
Robert has somehow managed to evade
liability for all of the fraud and abuse
352
00:18:57,886 --> 00:19:00,347
that had been running rampant
throughout his programs.
353
00:19:00,430 --> 00:19:01,765
And it's a lot.
354
00:19:01,849 --> 00:19:04,893
[Ann] You know, to the press,
he would always deny
355
00:19:04,977 --> 00:19:07,396
when we'd talk
about allegations at various schools.
356
00:19:07,479 --> 00:19:09,940
"Unsubstantiated. Unfounded."
357
00:19:10,023 --> 00:19:13,110
There is no such thing
as "physical punishment."
358
00:19:13,193 --> 00:19:14,778
There's only physical restraint.
359
00:19:15,445 --> 00:19:19,241
And he's even said,
"I don't police these programs."
360
00:19:19,324 --> 00:19:21,368
"I have been to that campus one time."
361
00:19:22,202 --> 00:19:24,788
So, his role,
362
00:19:24,872 --> 00:19:28,876
it appeared, if you just look
from the outside, pretty distant.
363
00:19:28,959 --> 00:19:34,631
But if you study his emails, he had say
in who the director was of each school.
364
00:19:34,715 --> 00:19:39,386
He approved bonuses, consulted on media.
365
00:19:39,928 --> 00:19:41,430
His fingers were everywhere.
366
00:19:41,513 --> 00:19:43,348
He was aware of the problems.
367
00:19:43,432 --> 00:19:49,271
He was aware that children were being
in seclusion for days at a time.
368
00:19:49,771 --> 00:19:51,940
And in the emails,
369
00:19:52,024 --> 00:19:54,401
they're not even referred to
as "children."
370
00:19:54,484 --> 00:19:55,777
They're "units."
371
00:19:56,445 --> 00:19:57,487
It was all about money.
372
00:19:57,571 --> 00:19:58,655
-[Katherine] Yeah.
-Units.
373
00:19:58,739 --> 00:20:03,577
This was a very sophisticated,
lucrative business.
374
00:20:05,245 --> 00:20:08,957
{\an8}Bob Lichfield referred to it
as "a McDonald's franchise."
375
00:20:09,041 --> 00:20:11,627
{\an8}WWASP is like the McDonald's name.
376
00:20:11,710 --> 00:20:17,591
{\an8}And then, it provides services
to all of the associated programs.
377
00:20:17,674 --> 00:20:20,761
They provide media relations.
378
00:20:20,844 --> 00:20:23,972
They put on seminars
for the parents and the kids.
379
00:20:24,056 --> 00:20:26,225
They were kind of the governing body.
380
00:20:26,308 --> 00:20:30,854
And in exchange for that,
WWASP gets $75 per kid,
381
00:20:31,438 --> 00:20:36,235
per month for every child
that is in any of these schools.
382
00:20:37,027 --> 00:20:39,279
And we're talking worldwide.
383
00:20:40,197 --> 00:20:41,782
Thousands of kids.
384
00:20:44,660 --> 00:20:47,829
You can do the math.
That's a lot of money.
385
00:20:48,330 --> 00:20:53,377
And, unfortunately, it was
at the expense of kids and parents.
386
00:20:55,295 --> 00:20:57,005
{\an8}[Katherine] The original WWASP facility,
387
00:20:57,089 --> 00:21:01,718
{\an8}Cross Creek Manor in La Verkin, Utah,
was Robert Lichfield's testing ground.
388
00:21:02,803 --> 00:21:09,434
Okay, I'm going to FaceTime
this Cross Creek survivor I know.
389
00:21:10,769 --> 00:21:12,521
Hello!
390
00:21:12,604 --> 00:21:17,150
{\an8}Could you give me a tour?
'Cause I didn't go here, so I don't know.
391
00:21:17,234 --> 00:21:20,070
{\an8}[Emily on phone] Yeah.
So down that hall to the right,
392
00:21:20,153 --> 00:21:22,823
{\an8}if you go straight ahead,
that's where the isolation rooms were.
393
00:21:22,906 --> 00:21:24,741
-[Katherine] Oh!
-[Emily] This is... Oh my God.
394
00:21:24,825 --> 00:21:26,076
I have fuckin' chills.
395
00:21:26,159 --> 00:21:29,079
-[Katherine] Oh gosh. This is small.
-[Emily] Yeah.
396
00:21:29,663 --> 00:21:32,791
You could be in there for like a month.
397
00:21:33,792 --> 00:21:37,129
This is literally a carbon copy
of what we were living.
398
00:21:37,212 --> 00:21:38,338
Like, I just can't...
399
00:21:39,298 --> 00:21:42,009
{\an8}[Katherine] For kids
who were really resistant to the program,
400
00:21:42,092 --> 00:21:44,720
{\an8}they would send them
to High Impact in Tecate, Mexico,
401
00:21:44,803 --> 00:21:47,806
where they were forced to walk laps
for hours in outdoor dog cages.
402
00:21:48,765 --> 00:21:52,519
This behavior modification model
is like torture.
403
00:21:53,437 --> 00:21:56,481
[Katherine] Spring Creek in Montana
at least had a beautiful mountain setting,
404
00:21:56,565 --> 00:21:59,776
{\an8}but not one that kids could see
when they were kept in the Hobbit,
405
00:21:59,860 --> 00:22:03,030
{\an8}a small isolation shack
with no temperature control.
406
00:22:03,613 --> 00:22:05,782
They could be in there for days at a time.
407
00:22:05,866 --> 00:22:08,660
They were allowed
to shower every four days.
408
00:22:08,744 --> 00:22:10,537
This is the classroom.
409
00:22:10,620 --> 00:22:12,706
[Katherine] That is
the most depressing classroom.
410
00:22:12,789 --> 00:22:15,125
[Ann] It was a completely
self-taught program,
411
00:22:15,208 --> 00:22:18,628
and you would lose points
if you looked out the window.
412
00:22:19,212 --> 00:22:21,590
[Katherine] This was
the WWASP business model.
413
00:22:21,673 --> 00:22:23,967
Holding children hostage
in remote locations
414
00:22:24,051 --> 00:22:25,552
with unqualified staff,
415
00:22:25,635 --> 00:22:27,804
while they con parents
with cult-like seminars
416
00:22:27,888 --> 00:22:29,681
and collect the checks.
417
00:22:29,765 --> 00:22:32,225
So many families were destroyed,
like my own.
418
00:22:32,309 --> 00:22:35,896
You see the human casualties
of these programs.
419
00:22:35,979 --> 00:22:39,649
And then you try to look at,
"Well, what was it all for?"
420
00:22:39,733 --> 00:22:42,444
And it was just to make this guy rich.
421
00:22:43,487 --> 00:22:44,863
[Ann] It's tragic.
422
00:22:45,489 --> 00:22:48,533
[Katherine] So, why hasn't
Robert Lichfield been charged with a crime
423
00:22:48,617 --> 00:22:49,951
or held to account?
424
00:22:50,035 --> 00:22:52,537
[Ann] It was a sophisticated setup.
425
00:22:53,413 --> 00:22:56,333
[Katherine] J. Ralph Atkin
is a prominent Mormon businessman
426
00:22:56,416 --> 00:22:58,251
and founder of SkyWest Airlines.
427
00:22:58,335 --> 00:23:00,629
He co-owned one
of the first WWASP programs,
428
00:23:00,712 --> 00:23:02,756
Morava Academy in the Czech Republic.
429
00:23:02,839 --> 00:23:07,552
He was WWASP's go-to lawyer
and set up many of Lichfield's businesses.
430
00:23:07,636 --> 00:23:09,304
[Maia] WWASP was basically organized
431
00:23:09,388 --> 00:23:11,890
in a series
of limited liability corporations,
432
00:23:11,973 --> 00:23:15,394
{\an8}and it's a way to evade responsibility.
433
00:23:15,477 --> 00:23:17,521
{\an8}"This company didn't do it.
That company did."
434
00:23:17,604 --> 00:23:19,481
"This company is owned by that company."
435
00:23:19,564 --> 00:23:21,983
And, "Well, I didn't know
what those guys were doing."
436
00:23:22,067 --> 00:23:26,405
[Katherine] Bob's own sister-in-law,
Marie Peart, said in an affidavit,
437
00:23:26,488 --> 00:23:28,824
"When I questioned
why we needed so many bank accounts,
438
00:23:28,907 --> 00:23:31,034
Robert Lichfield told me
to 'keep my mouth shut'
439
00:23:31,118 --> 00:23:32,911
about what went on in the office."
440
00:23:32,994 --> 00:23:35,205
"He then reminded me
of the three monkeys."
441
00:23:35,288 --> 00:23:38,959
"Hear no evil,
see no evil, and speak no evil."
442
00:23:39,668 --> 00:23:41,211
[intriguing jingle playing]
443
00:23:41,294 --> 00:23:43,171
[Robert] When you're
the best in the business,
444
00:23:43,255 --> 00:23:48,343
you're under the most amount
of look and monitoring.
445
00:23:49,886 --> 00:23:52,264
[Katherine] Bob has been able
to shield himself from liability
446
00:23:52,347 --> 00:23:53,557
and from the public eye.
447
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:57,769
{\an8}But in every business,
and in every family, there is a weak link.
448
00:23:58,728 --> 00:24:02,649
{\an8}And that weak link
is Robert's younger brother Narvin.
449
00:24:02,732 --> 00:24:04,860
{\an8}I'm either a sinner or a saint,
450
00:24:04,943 --> 00:24:07,028
{\an8}based on whatever argument
you want to believe.
451
00:24:07,904 --> 00:24:11,575
{\an8}[Katherine] Narvin Lichfield is honestly
a great name for a villain,
452
00:24:11,658 --> 00:24:13,702
{\an8}but he's gone by many aliases.
453
00:24:13,785 --> 00:24:16,288
Though, for a guy
who's trying to hide his identity,
454
00:24:16,371 --> 00:24:18,748
he is very public on social media.
455
00:24:20,292 --> 00:24:21,960
Little tap dance for you. Here we go.
456
00:24:22,043 --> 00:24:24,379
["My Little Tina"
by Levi Brown & Junior Mintz playing]
457
00:24:24,463 --> 00:24:26,965
♪ Hey, oh! My little Tina ♪
458
00:24:27,048 --> 00:24:30,093
♪ Hey, oh! Nothing could be sweeter ♪
459
00:24:30,177 --> 00:24:32,762
♪ Hey, oh! She's my little ballerina ♪
460
00:24:32,846 --> 00:24:34,181
[music distorts and fades]
461
00:24:34,264 --> 00:24:37,392
If you're doing a study
of the WWASPs program,
462
00:24:37,893 --> 00:24:39,811
all you have to say is,
"Narvin Lichfield."
463
00:24:39,895 --> 00:24:41,354
It's a punchline on its own.
464
00:24:42,063 --> 00:24:44,107
[Ann] He was a bit of a wild card.
465
00:24:44,900 --> 00:24:47,194
[Katherine] Robert enlisted
the help of his brother Narvin
466
00:24:47,277 --> 00:24:48,653
to run some of the programs
467
00:24:48,737 --> 00:24:51,698
{\an8}and build WWASP
into an empire of troubled-teen programs.
468
00:24:51,781 --> 00:24:55,619
{\an8}I want you to know that we can truly make
a difference for your child.
469
00:24:55,702 --> 00:24:58,121
{\an8}[Katherine] One of his programs
was raided by the police,
470
00:24:58,205 --> 00:25:00,832
{\an8}and another had its license revoked
by social services.
471
00:25:00,916 --> 00:25:03,418
{\an8}But he'd just reopen them
under a new name.
472
00:25:03,919 --> 00:25:08,381
{\an8}But watch out, Narvin, Marvin, Nathan...
whatever name you're going by these days.
473
00:25:09,966 --> 00:25:11,384
We're comin' for you.
474
00:25:12,469 --> 00:25:15,055
[Katherine] This is
the results of our investigation.
475
00:25:15,555 --> 00:25:16,932
And so we've just been trying
476
00:25:17,015 --> 00:25:19,518
to piece together
all these names that kept coming up.
477
00:25:19,601 --> 00:25:21,895
What are the connections
between all of them?
478
00:25:22,395 --> 00:25:24,105
[Katherine] I met up with Thomas Houlahan
479
00:25:24,189 --> 00:25:26,024
to pick up
where his investigation left off.
480
00:25:26,107 --> 00:25:28,735
WWASP did its best to silence critics,
481
00:25:28,818 --> 00:25:31,363
and Houlahan had ruffled
a lot of feathers.
482
00:25:31,446 --> 00:25:34,157
[Thomas] They asked me,
"What business is it of mine?"
483
00:25:34,241 --> 00:25:38,495
The abuse of a child is the business
of anyone who knows about it.
484
00:25:39,621 --> 00:25:43,542
[Katherine] Here's our main villain,
Robert Lichfield.
485
00:25:43,625 --> 00:25:45,919
And then, of course, you know this idiot.
486
00:25:46,002 --> 00:25:47,337
[Katherine laughing]
487
00:25:47,420 --> 00:25:48,296
[Thomas] Yeah.
488
00:25:48,380 --> 00:25:49,839
[Katherine] For anyone who's like,
489
00:25:49,923 --> 00:25:54,928
"How did someone like Jason Finlinson
become the director of a 'school'?"
490
00:25:55,011 --> 00:25:57,806
Like, "Oh! He married MayBeth Lichfield."
491
00:25:57,889 --> 00:26:02,852
[Thomas] When someone is setting
everything up to be all in the family,
492
00:26:02,936 --> 00:26:06,398
it raises a suspicion that,
you know, they're dealing with family
493
00:26:06,481 --> 00:26:09,317
'cause that way secrets get kept.
494
00:26:09,401 --> 00:26:12,862
[Katherine] Yeah, that is definitely
a family of secrets here.
495
00:26:13,780 --> 00:26:16,908
[Katherine] For years, I've been piecing
together information about the Lichfields
496
00:26:16,992 --> 00:26:19,202
through old depositions and lawsuits.
497
00:26:19,286 --> 00:26:22,872
I even found this obscure self-published
book by one of the Lichfield brothers
498
00:26:22,956 --> 00:26:25,667
called Little Boy Lost:
Missing Retarded Brother,
499
00:26:25,750 --> 00:26:28,878
which talks about their weird
fundamentalist Mormon upbringing.
500
00:26:29,588 --> 00:26:32,757
And, yes, it is as bad as it sounds.
501
00:26:32,841 --> 00:26:35,719
So, imagine my excitement
when I saw this post pop up
502
00:26:35,802 --> 00:26:37,971
in the private WWASP Survivors
Facebook group
503
00:26:38,054 --> 00:26:40,599
on St. Patty's Day in 2021.
504
00:26:40,682 --> 00:26:43,226
"Hi, all.
I'm the son of Narvin Lichfield."
505
00:26:43,310 --> 00:26:45,812
"It has been a long time coming,
but I wanted to reach out
506
00:26:45,895 --> 00:26:48,732
to any and everyone here
who went through the programs."
507
00:26:48,815 --> 00:26:50,567
"I just want you to know
that I saw firsthand
508
00:26:50,650 --> 00:26:54,112
how awful those places were,
and that you are not alone."
509
00:26:54,195 --> 00:26:56,698
"If you ever need someone to talk to,
I am here."
510
00:26:57,282 --> 00:26:59,659
So I flew out to Utah
to meet up with him in person.
511
00:26:59,743 --> 00:27:01,786
[intriguing music playing]
512
00:27:05,498 --> 00:27:06,499
[music stops]
513
00:27:07,584 --> 00:27:12,422
{\an8}The last time I talked to my dad,
he just showed up at my sister's house.
514
00:27:12,505 --> 00:27:14,507
{\an8}That was four years ago.
515
00:27:15,425 --> 00:27:18,428
{\an8}Before that, it'd been
another three or four years.
516
00:27:19,387 --> 00:27:21,973
[Katherine] It's a big deal
to cut off your dad.
517
00:27:22,057 --> 00:27:26,311
I cut off my dad for a bit,
and that was tough.
518
00:27:27,270 --> 00:27:29,272
What was it that made you do that?
519
00:27:29,773 --> 00:27:32,692
[Nathaniel] It was
a combination of things, for sure.
520
00:27:33,193 --> 00:27:37,238
You know, I had made
a lot of excuses for him over the years.
521
00:27:38,239 --> 00:27:39,407
And...
522
00:27:40,617 --> 00:27:44,454
I just felt incredibly... guilty.
523
00:27:44,537 --> 00:27:47,165
You know?
I felt like we had destroyed lives.
524
00:27:48,375 --> 00:27:51,961
[Katherine] How would you describe
your dad to people?
525
00:27:52,462 --> 00:27:55,048
-Uh, he's an asshole.
-[both laughing]
526
00:27:55,131 --> 00:27:58,885
[Nathaniel] Uh,
he was a man with two faces, right?
527
00:27:58,968 --> 00:28:00,178
A funny guy.
528
00:28:00,261 --> 00:28:02,681
A very charming person.
529
00:28:02,764 --> 00:28:05,433
And then he had a much darker side.
530
00:28:06,059 --> 00:28:08,895
But he saw himself as, like,
a Biblical scholar.
531
00:28:09,688 --> 00:28:14,150
And my understanding of WWASP, as a child,
532
00:28:14,234 --> 00:28:19,197
was that these were places
where we were doing God's work.
533
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:24,994
So, Narvin was one
of the younger sons of 12 kids.
534
00:28:25,495 --> 00:28:28,998
They had started basically living
in dirt poverty.
535
00:28:29,624 --> 00:28:33,253
But Robert Lichfield is the one
that sort of got the ball rolling
536
00:28:33,336 --> 00:28:34,754
with everybody in the family.
537
00:28:34,838 --> 00:28:38,633
He was sort of the provider
for all of us, you know?
538
00:28:38,717 --> 00:28:42,554
Considering how impoverished
the family was.
539
00:28:42,637 --> 00:28:47,559
He started WWASP
and kinda enticed everybody in.
540
00:28:47,642 --> 00:28:49,519
Got everybody involved.
541
00:28:50,019 --> 00:28:53,106
Narvin had been a used car salesman.
542
00:28:53,189 --> 00:28:56,276
So he could say things
with a straight face to people.
543
00:28:56,359 --> 00:28:58,820
And that's what Robert saw in him.
544
00:28:58,903 --> 00:29:03,074
And he initially got involved
with Teen Help,
545
00:29:03,158 --> 00:29:06,911
{\an8}the marketing and admissions arm of WWASP.
546
00:29:06,995 --> 00:29:09,205
{\an8}[announcer on TV] Teen Help
is a free referral service
547
00:29:09,289 --> 00:29:10,957
{\an8}for parents of struggling teens
548
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,544
{\an8}and can help direct parents
to both short and long-term options
549
00:29:14,627 --> 00:29:16,546
{\an8}to assist their family.
550
00:29:16,629 --> 00:29:20,258
[Nathaniel] The money started coming in
when I was about five or six.
551
00:29:20,341 --> 00:29:22,927
You know,
started living that yuppie lifestyle.
552
00:29:23,011 --> 00:29:27,265
He got himself this pretty expensive house
out in St. George, Utah.
553
00:29:27,348 --> 00:29:29,184
All of a sudden, we had computers.
554
00:29:29,267 --> 00:29:32,771
And my dad kinda saw
a future of everything being online.
555
00:29:33,897 --> 00:29:37,734
[Katherine] Narvin pioneered early SEO,
search engine optimization.
556
00:29:37,817 --> 00:29:39,652
It made use of cheap internet marketing,
557
00:29:39,736 --> 00:29:42,572
so any time parents searched
for help with their teenagers,
558
00:29:42,655 --> 00:29:44,741
they would be referred
to a Lichfield program
559
00:29:44,824 --> 00:29:46,159
or a referral service.
560
00:29:46,242 --> 00:29:48,870
He created all of
the marketing materials for WWASP,
561
00:29:48,953 --> 00:29:50,747
and there are some real gems in there.
562
00:29:50,830 --> 00:29:54,584
[Nathaniel] I mean, you could see
the original marketing materials...
563
00:29:54,667 --> 00:29:57,670
-They were... pretty bad. [laughs]
-[Katherine] Yeah.
564
00:29:58,546 --> 00:30:01,466
[Nathaniel] But my dad was demanding
more and more involvement with WWASP.
565
00:30:01,549 --> 00:30:03,468
More and more responsibility.
566
00:30:03,551 --> 00:30:05,595
And it only skyrocketed from there
567
00:30:05,678 --> 00:30:07,639
when we went
and moved out to South Carolina.
568
00:30:07,722 --> 00:30:09,933
{\an8}[uplifting jingle playing on TV]
569
00:30:10,016 --> 00:30:12,811
{\an8}[announcer on TV] Nestled in the upstate
farmland of South Carolina,
570
00:30:12,894 --> 00:30:14,938
not far from Augusta, Georgia,
571
00:30:15,021 --> 00:30:18,983
you will find the beautiful country campus
of Carolina Springs Academy.
572
00:30:19,067 --> 00:30:20,401
[music distorts and fades]
573
00:30:20,485 --> 00:30:24,489
[Nathaniel] When I was probably
about 10 or 11, he sat us all down
574
00:30:24,572 --> 00:30:27,158
and said, "God has come to me,
575
00:30:27,242 --> 00:30:31,329
and we are now going to go
open up a school in South Carolina."
576
00:30:31,830 --> 00:30:35,667
{\an8}And then, from there, he went on
to open up Dundee in Costa Rica.
577
00:30:36,167 --> 00:30:40,088
{\an8}[Katherine] Dundee was only open 19 months
before authorities were alerted to abuse,
578
00:30:40,171 --> 00:30:42,382
{\an8}raided the facility,
and Narvin was arrested.
579
00:30:42,465 --> 00:30:44,843
{\an8}[reporter on TV] Costa Rican officials
raided Dundee,
580
00:30:44,926 --> 00:30:46,219
{\an8}and the school was shut down.
581
00:30:46,302 --> 00:30:47,887
{\an8}Students tasting freedom ran wild.
582
00:30:47,971 --> 00:30:51,140
{\an8}Some fled into the jungle,
and others started trashing the place.
583
00:30:51,224 --> 00:30:53,226
{\an8}We haven't done anything
but try to run a school.
584
00:30:54,185 --> 00:30:57,272
{\an8}[Katherine] Narvin didn't waste any time
in rebuilding his Costa Rican facility
585
00:30:57,355 --> 00:30:59,607
into a new program called Pillars of Hope,
586
00:30:59,691 --> 00:31:03,027
only seven months
after his previous program was raided.
587
00:31:03,111 --> 00:31:04,320
My name is Narvin Lichfield,
588
00:31:04,404 --> 00:31:07,657
and I'm the founder
of Pilares de Esperanza,
589
00:31:07,740 --> 00:31:10,577
or Pillars of Hope, in Costa Rica.
590
00:31:10,660 --> 00:31:14,247
And I want you to know that your children
become our children here.
591
00:31:14,747 --> 00:31:18,459
And that we treat 'em just like
as if it was our children, literally.
592
00:31:18,543 --> 00:31:21,754
God fuckin' forbid
he treat them like his own children.
593
00:31:21,838 --> 00:31:23,965
'Cause he treated us like shit.
[chuckling]
594
00:31:24,549 --> 00:31:28,219
It's wild that anybody
could watch this and trust him.
595
00:31:28,303 --> 00:31:31,598
We believe in this process so strongly
that I sent my own son here.
596
00:31:31,681 --> 00:31:36,060
I had a son who was 17 years old,
who was not doing well in school,
597
00:31:36,144 --> 00:31:38,354
who was not progressing well.
598
00:31:38,855 --> 00:31:41,900
[Nathaniel] After my junior year
of high school,
599
00:31:41,983 --> 00:31:45,069
{\an8}I went and stayed at Dundee
for a few months.
600
00:31:45,153 --> 00:31:48,323
{\an8}And then I was "enrolled," so to speak,
601
00:31:48,406 --> 00:31:52,243
{\an8}as a "student" at CSA.
602
00:31:52,327 --> 00:31:56,372
Definitely not to the degree of any
of the poor kids that had to go there.
603
00:31:56,456 --> 00:31:58,416
And then when my dad opened up Gulf Coast,
604
00:31:58,499 --> 00:32:00,543
I went out
and worked there for the summer.
605
00:32:00,627 --> 00:32:03,421
The place was in total disarray.
606
00:32:03,504 --> 00:32:07,258
The head of the school side
of the program,
607
00:32:07,759 --> 00:32:10,428
the first thing he said to me was,
608
00:32:10,511 --> 00:32:14,015
"Fuck your dad.
I'm leaving in three days."
609
00:32:14,098 --> 00:32:16,351
"Guess who's
the new principal of the school?"
610
00:32:16,434 --> 00:32:17,727
"You, buddy." [laughing]
611
00:32:17,810 --> 00:32:20,813
So you became the principal
of Gulf Coast Academy?
612
00:32:20,897 --> 00:32:23,608
Without a degree,
without any qualifications,
613
00:32:23,691 --> 00:32:25,652
without any licensing, nothing.
614
00:32:27,028 --> 00:32:29,989
[Katherine] When did you
first start realizing
615
00:32:30,907 --> 00:32:33,576
what was really going on
with these programs?
616
00:32:33,660 --> 00:32:37,789
[Nathaniel] In my 20s, I think,
after I had cut him out of my life,
617
00:32:37,872 --> 00:32:41,960
and I was able to just take a breather
from all the chaos.
618
00:32:43,878 --> 00:32:46,547
That's when I was able
to kinda look at the bigger picture
619
00:32:46,631 --> 00:32:48,925
and say, "There is a big problem here."
620
00:32:49,008 --> 00:32:50,051
[dramatic music playing]
621
00:32:51,260 --> 00:32:58,017
Do you think Narvin actually believed
that the programs were helpful to kids?
622
00:32:58,101 --> 00:32:59,102
No.
623
00:33:00,061 --> 00:33:01,813
The programs
were a means to an end to him.
624
00:33:02,397 --> 00:33:05,358
And that end being lots, and lots,
and lots of money.
625
00:33:06,693 --> 00:33:08,695
He wanted to live lavishly.
626
00:33:08,778 --> 00:33:10,613
He wanted to spend lavishly.
627
00:33:11,114 --> 00:33:13,950
He had more money
than he knew what to do with.
628
00:33:14,033 --> 00:33:18,871
Bought horses, properties,
just constant vacations.
629
00:33:18,955 --> 00:33:23,334
And it's all just riding
on these poor parents' credit cards.
630
00:33:24,627 --> 00:33:29,966
To think all the allegations of abuse,
and torture, and death,
631
00:33:30,049 --> 00:33:34,387
all these kids being robbed
of normal childhoods...
632
00:33:35,304 --> 00:33:38,975
That's where our vacation funds
were coming from.
633
00:33:40,393 --> 00:33:42,145
I remember, at the time,
634
00:33:42,228 --> 00:33:45,732
we were always going out
to visit Bob's property.
635
00:33:45,815 --> 00:33:47,984
-It was just insane.
-[dramatic music building]
636
00:33:54,115 --> 00:33:55,116
{\an8}[music stops]
637
00:33:57,035 --> 00:33:59,996
{\an8}[Nathaniel] They called this
the "Millionaire's Junkyard."
638
00:34:00,079 --> 00:34:03,249
This is where
all that parent money went to die.
639
00:34:03,833 --> 00:34:06,335
It all went into this. Just one man's...
640
00:34:07,628 --> 00:34:09,756
ego project.
641
00:34:10,882 --> 00:34:14,385
If any other Lichfields see this,
if anybody else in the family sees this,
642
00:34:14,469 --> 00:34:18,097
like, it's not too late to say, like,
"All of this is fuckin' wrong."
643
00:34:18,181 --> 00:34:20,475
Like, why?
644
00:34:20,558 --> 00:34:23,186
[Katherine] Yeah. Was it worth it, Bob?
645
00:34:23,811 --> 00:34:25,646
[Nathaniel] Only he
can answer that question.
646
00:34:25,730 --> 00:34:28,107
Well, even he's abandoned this.
He's not even here anymore.
647
00:34:28,191 --> 00:34:29,650
[Nathaniel] Yeah, he's not even here.
648
00:34:29,734 --> 00:34:32,070
[Katherine] Apparently,
Robert hasn't lived there for years.
649
00:34:32,153 --> 00:34:35,573
He's moved on to bigger and better
properties, buying up lots of real estate.
650
00:34:35,656 --> 00:34:40,453
But his nephew Tyler Olson is living there
and running a new program on the property
651
00:34:40,536 --> 00:34:44,373
{\an8}called Soulegria, which targets
mentally challenged young adults.
652
00:34:44,457 --> 00:34:48,002
Tyler used to be a teen transporter,
one of those people that kidnaps kids
653
00:34:48,086 --> 00:34:50,421
in the middle of the night
to take them to these programs.
654
00:34:50,505 --> 00:34:54,425
{\an8}He even posted a picture of himself
in a convertible on Facebook and said,
655
00:34:54,509 --> 00:34:57,929
{\an8}"Sometimes we get to go kidnapping
in luxury, LOL."
656
00:34:58,429 --> 00:35:01,808
He couldn't even spell "kidnapping" right,
or "luxury."
657
00:35:02,391 --> 00:35:05,520
[Nathaniel] Bob's gonna die someday,
and this will all just pass on.
658
00:35:05,603 --> 00:35:09,649
-And what was the point of any of it?
-[Katherine] And where is he now?
659
00:35:09,732 --> 00:35:10,942
-Do you know?
-No.
660
00:35:11,025 --> 00:35:15,321
Like, he set up WWASP in a way
that shielded him from any liability.
661
00:35:15,404 --> 00:35:18,199
And it's not fair
that he gets away with that.
662
00:35:20,159 --> 00:35:21,369
[Thomas] The extent to which
663
00:35:21,452 --> 00:35:24,497
Robert Lichfield
has never paid any price for this,
664
00:35:25,373 --> 00:35:29,418
has never been held to account
for any of this,
665
00:35:29,502 --> 00:35:30,670
bothers me.
666
00:35:30,753 --> 00:35:34,757
The guy who created it all
and he's just gotten away scot-free.
667
00:35:34,841 --> 00:35:36,342
{\an8}[Thomas] Free as a bird.
668
00:35:36,425 --> 00:35:38,553
{\an8}[Katherine] Never a day in jail,
I don't think.
669
00:35:40,555 --> 00:35:43,766
[reporter] There's a question
of political influence in all of this.
670
00:35:43,850 --> 00:35:47,353
According to public records
with the Federal Election Commission,
671
00:35:47,436 --> 00:35:50,940
the owners and directors of
World Wide Schools and related companies,
672
00:35:51,023 --> 00:35:54,569
and their families,
have given candidate donations,
673
00:35:54,652 --> 00:35:58,072
mostly to Republicans, since 2001.
674
00:35:58,156 --> 00:36:01,534
[Katherine] Robert Lichfield
was Mitt Romney's Utah finance co-chair
675
00:36:01,617 --> 00:36:05,163
and fundraised hundreds
of thousands of dollars for the campaign.
676
00:36:05,246 --> 00:36:07,748
[Rep. George Miller] You worry
that this industry is kind of
677
00:36:07,832 --> 00:36:10,835
{\an8}infiltrating the political system
at the highest levels
678
00:36:10,918 --> 00:36:14,088
{\an8}to keep action
from being taken to protect the kids.
679
00:36:14,839 --> 00:36:17,758
{\an8}[Katherine] In 2003,
the year before I was sent to Ivy Ridge,
680
00:36:17,842 --> 00:36:20,261
{\an8}Congressman George Miller
had already started investigating
681
00:36:20,344 --> 00:36:22,180
the abuses in these programs.
682
00:36:22,263 --> 00:36:25,558
[reporter] Congressman Miller
saved some of his harshest criticism
683
00:36:25,641 --> 00:36:28,519
for one particular group
of alternative programs
684
00:36:28,603 --> 00:36:32,523
known as the World Wide Association
of Specialty Programs.
685
00:36:33,524 --> 00:36:36,194
[Thomas] Congressman Miller had asked
the United States government
686
00:36:36,277 --> 00:36:41,699
to look into the program,
and they just sidestepped this issue.
687
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:46,120
I look back at how many people
were completely gutless
688
00:36:46,204 --> 00:36:48,497
and sort of allowed this to happen.
689
00:36:48,581 --> 00:36:54,545
What did you think of the GAO hearings,
congressional hearings in 2008?
690
00:36:54,629 --> 00:36:56,422
[Miller] The Government
Accountability Office
691
00:36:56,505 --> 00:36:58,716
{\an8}found thousands of allegations
of abuse and neglect
692
00:36:58,799 --> 00:37:03,846
{\an8}in private residential homes for teens
between 1990 and 2007.
693
00:37:04,639 --> 00:37:09,518
Examples of abuse include
youth being forced to eat their own vomit,
694
00:37:10,561 --> 00:37:12,480
denied adequate food,
695
00:37:12,563 --> 00:37:15,900
being forced to lie in urine or feces,
696
00:37:15,983 --> 00:37:19,570
being kicked, beaten,
and thrown to the ground,
697
00:37:19,654 --> 00:37:22,740
and being forced
to use a toothbrush to clean a toilet
698
00:37:22,823 --> 00:37:26,369
and then forced
to use that toothbrush on their teeth.
699
00:37:27,203 --> 00:37:30,623
[Maia] It's astonishing,
the range of punishments
700
00:37:30,706 --> 00:37:34,126
and the types of things
that these programs get away with.
701
00:37:34,210 --> 00:37:37,046
Virtually everything
short of waterboarding.
702
00:37:37,129 --> 00:37:41,300
{\an8}I strongly believe that the instances
of neglect, abuse, and death
703
00:37:41,384 --> 00:37:43,928
at these facilities
are totally unacceptable
704
00:37:44,011 --> 00:37:45,388
and must be stopped.
705
00:37:45,972 --> 00:37:50,142
It was just disappointing
because we saw these hearings happen,
706
00:37:50,226 --> 00:37:53,312
and they turn up just
so many bombshell moments.
707
00:37:53,396 --> 00:37:57,483
And you're like, "Oh my gosh.
All this horrific stuff is being exposed."
708
00:37:57,566 --> 00:37:59,735
But then nothing happens.
709
00:38:00,319 --> 00:38:02,530
{\an8}This issue has been so neglected.
710
00:38:02,613 --> 00:38:04,448
{\an8}It came out in 2008.
711
00:38:04,532 --> 00:38:07,952
I mean, that congressional investigation
revealed a lot.
712
00:38:08,452 --> 00:38:13,624
And still, despite all of that,
there's been no meaningful change.
713
00:38:14,375 --> 00:38:16,836
[Katherine] Caroline was at Ivy Ridge
at the same time as me.
714
00:38:16,919 --> 00:38:18,546
-[Katherine] Caroline!
-[Alexa] Yeah.
715
00:38:18,629 --> 00:38:20,548
[Katherine] Wait.
I'm gonna bring this to her.
716
00:38:20,631 --> 00:38:22,883
[Katherine] And she's been
heavily involved in activism
717
00:38:22,967 --> 00:38:25,928
to get federal legislation passed
to regulate the industry.
718
00:38:26,012 --> 00:38:29,015
{\an8}I actually went to a program called
the Academy at Ivy Ridge
719
00:38:29,098 --> 00:38:30,391
{\an8}in upstate New York.
720
00:38:30,474 --> 00:38:33,978
{\an8}I was there for 29 months,
two and a half years of my life,
721
00:38:34,061 --> 00:38:38,107
{\an8}from when I was 14 years old,
uh, until almost 17.
722
00:38:38,816 --> 00:38:41,193
[Katherine] WWASP eventually
unraveled after the bad press
723
00:38:41,277 --> 00:38:43,321
and lawsuits became insurmountable.
724
00:38:43,404 --> 00:38:45,406
But these programs are like Whac-A-Mole.
725
00:38:45,489 --> 00:38:49,285
As soon as one gets shut down,
a new one opens up under a different name.
726
00:38:49,994 --> 00:38:52,371
Eagle Ranch Academy is currently operating
727
00:38:52,455 --> 00:38:55,666
out of the original Brightway facility
in St. George.
728
00:38:55,750 --> 00:38:57,960
I happened to stumble upon
a seminar they were running
729
00:38:58,044 --> 00:39:00,755
out of the hotel
I was staying at while I was in town.
730
00:39:01,297 --> 00:39:04,342
[Katherine] Okay.
So, we're staying at the Hyatt,
731
00:39:04,925 --> 00:39:08,971
and there was a trash bag
full of the big, white posters.
732
00:39:09,055 --> 00:39:11,307
"Based on..."
Holy shit. Is this what you saw?
733
00:39:11,390 --> 00:39:14,185
[Molly] "Based on your results,
you have exactly what you intended!"
734
00:39:14,268 --> 00:39:17,021
{\an8}[Katherine] I cannot believe it!
735
00:39:17,104 --> 00:39:18,356
Oh my God!
736
00:39:18,439 --> 00:39:20,358
Are you kidding me?
737
00:39:20,441 --> 00:39:21,776
It's a seminar!
738
00:39:22,276 --> 00:39:24,945
[Molly laughing] "There are no accidents!"
739
00:39:25,029 --> 00:39:27,823
[Katherine laughing]
740
00:39:28,699 --> 00:39:30,993
I can't believe this is real!
741
00:39:31,744 --> 00:39:35,122
[Katherine] This stuff is still going on
to this day, at this very moment.
742
00:39:36,165 --> 00:39:39,251
[Katherine] Oh my gosh.
Look what business card I just found.
743
00:39:39,335 --> 00:39:40,586
Norm Thibault.
744
00:39:41,087 --> 00:39:43,798
[Katherine] Norm Thibault
was the therapist at Cross Creek.
745
00:39:43,881 --> 00:39:46,258
He then left to open his own program
746
00:39:46,342 --> 00:39:50,763
{\an8}called Three Points Center
that works exclusively with adopted kids.
747
00:39:50,846 --> 00:39:52,098
I decided to give them a call
748
00:39:52,181 --> 00:39:54,850
and pretended to be
the parent of a troubled teenager.
749
00:39:55,351 --> 00:39:58,062
[woman on phone] Happy to share
information, tell you whatever.
750
00:39:58,145 --> 00:40:02,066
[Katherine] Yeah, so our daughter
has had some behavioral issues.
751
00:40:02,149 --> 00:40:08,614
I guess our main concern
is that she will not go willingly.
752
00:40:08,697 --> 00:40:11,951
-[woman] Yes.
-I'm not sure we can convince her to go.
753
00:40:12,451 --> 00:40:13,744
-Uh...
-[woman] You don't have to.
754
00:40:13,828 --> 00:40:16,789
Like, she doesn't have to choose
to be with us.
755
00:40:16,872 --> 00:40:18,916
Utah's an involuntary state.
756
00:40:18,999 --> 00:40:21,377
So that means
you have the right to sign her in.
757
00:40:21,460 --> 00:40:23,963
And she can't leave
just because she doesn't want to be here.
758
00:40:24,713 --> 00:40:26,257
And then as far as getting her here,
759
00:40:26,340 --> 00:40:28,968
if you feel like
you couldn't transport her yourself,
760
00:40:29,635 --> 00:40:32,012
you can hire a transport company
to come to you,
761
00:40:32,096 --> 00:40:34,974
and pick her up from your home,
and bring her to the program.
762
00:40:35,057 --> 00:40:35,891
Um...
763
00:40:35,975 --> 00:40:38,602
-Is she adopted through foster care?
-[Katherine] Yeah.
764
00:40:38,686 --> 00:40:40,938
[woman] Do you have
some post-adoption funding
765
00:40:41,021 --> 00:40:43,149
through the state or the county?
766
00:40:43,232 --> 00:40:45,192
Oh! I don't know.
767
00:40:45,276 --> 00:40:48,362
I don't think so.
Is that something I should look into?
768
00:40:48,446 --> 00:40:49,822
[woman] Uh, yeah, for sure.
769
00:40:49,905 --> 00:40:54,660
So, we have agreements
with several counties in California.
770
00:40:54,743 --> 00:40:55,619
Oh, really?
771
00:40:55,703 --> 00:40:58,122
[woman] They fund
the full amount of the program.
772
00:40:58,998 --> 00:41:01,375
-[Katherine] Okay.
-[woman] We have a contracted rate.
773
00:41:01,459 --> 00:41:03,502
So your out-of-pocket is 200 bucks.
774
00:41:03,586 --> 00:41:05,004
[Katherine] Oh, wow. Okay.
775
00:41:05,546 --> 00:41:08,048
[Katherine] The troubled-teen industry
as a whole has evolved
776
00:41:08,132 --> 00:41:09,925
and become more resilient over the years.
777
00:41:10,009 --> 00:41:13,762
They've now pivoted from private payment
to government contracts.
778
00:41:13,846 --> 00:41:17,933
[Katherine] So, they'll come and kidnap
my adopted child across state lines.
779
00:41:18,434 --> 00:41:22,438
And they'll take, uh, county...
government money for it.
780
00:41:22,938 --> 00:41:26,192
[Katherine] Programs now enter contracts
with a variety of public agencies
781
00:41:26,275 --> 00:41:28,486
responsible for the care of children.
782
00:41:28,569 --> 00:41:30,321
[Janja] It's a billion-dollar industry.
783
00:41:30,404 --> 00:41:34,492
{\an8}I mean, so much money
is being made off the abuse of these kids.
784
00:41:34,575 --> 00:41:39,538
{\an8}You know, several hundred thousand kids
are in one program or another every year.
785
00:41:42,041 --> 00:41:43,501
[Mike McKell] It is a big industry.
786
00:41:43,584 --> 00:41:46,003
If you look at the data in Utah,
it's an industry
787
00:41:46,086 --> 00:41:49,298
{\an8}that now exceeds
a half a billion dollars in revenue.
788
00:41:49,381 --> 00:41:53,511
{\an8}And we have about 100 facilities
in the state of Utah today.
789
00:41:54,303 --> 00:41:57,348
{\an8}[Katherine] Utah's the epicenter
of the troubled-teen industry.
790
00:41:57,431 --> 00:41:59,767
And its idyllic setting
and access to nature
791
00:41:59,850 --> 00:42:02,978
have made it a hot spot
for wilderness programs.
792
00:42:03,062 --> 00:42:06,106
[Maia] Wilderness programs
are an especially clever advance
793
00:42:06,190 --> 00:42:08,400
because when you're talking
about reducing costs,
794
00:42:08,484 --> 00:42:11,195
now you don't even need a facility.
795
00:42:11,278 --> 00:42:14,365
You can just take
the untrained staff that you have
796
00:42:14,448 --> 00:42:17,159
and take the kids out into the wilderness.
797
00:42:17,243 --> 00:42:19,119
And you don't even need
to buy very much food
798
00:42:19,203 --> 00:42:20,663
'cause they can eat lizards.
799
00:42:20,746 --> 00:42:23,832
And you can sell it
for thousands of dollars a day.
800
00:42:25,626 --> 00:42:28,587
There is no FDA for behavioral health.
801
00:42:28,671 --> 00:42:30,422
If I want to introduce a therapy,
802
00:42:30,506 --> 00:42:33,926
I can just say, "Standing on your head
will cure addiction."
803
00:42:34,009 --> 00:42:37,179
And, "Come to my treatment center
and pay me $1,000 a day."
804
00:42:37,263 --> 00:42:39,640
And there is nothing to stop me.
805
00:42:40,975 --> 00:42:45,104
{\an8}Do you believe the troubled-teen industry
has cleaned up its act?
806
00:42:45,187 --> 00:42:46,355
{\an8}Not at all.
807
00:42:46,438 --> 00:42:52,528
{\an8}I mean, we have reports of horrific abuse
still coming out of these facilities.
808
00:42:53,696 --> 00:42:55,489
{\an8}As of a week ago.
809
00:42:55,573 --> 00:42:58,325
{\an8}As of yesterday.
810
00:42:58,909 --> 00:43:03,622
{\an8}Last April, a child in Michigan,
Cornelius Frederick,
811
00:43:04,790 --> 00:43:06,667
threw a piece of bread,
812
00:43:06,750 --> 00:43:12,631
and as a result, was violently restrained
by numerous staff and died.
813
00:43:14,383 --> 00:43:16,051
[Sara Gelser Blouin]
There's video of this.
814
00:43:16,135 --> 00:43:18,220
Literally, all he was doing
was throwing bread.
815
00:43:18,304 --> 00:43:22,641
He was not a threat,
but he's restrained for about 12 minutes.
816
00:43:22,725 --> 00:43:26,895
{\an8}And what happened
to Cornelius wasn't unusual.
817
00:43:26,979 --> 00:43:30,149
{\an8}We know it wasn't unusual because
of the reaction of the kids and the staff
818
00:43:30,232 --> 00:43:31,984
in that room.
819
00:43:32,067 --> 00:43:35,904
People eating lunch,
scraping things, walking by, looking.
820
00:43:36,405 --> 00:43:39,617
[Katherine] The only reason
Cornelius was in the program to begin with
821
00:43:39,700 --> 00:43:41,410
was because his mother died.
822
00:43:41,493 --> 00:43:43,579
{\an8}So he was put in foster care,
823
00:43:43,662 --> 00:43:47,041
{\an8}which contracted him out
to Sequel Youth and Family Services.
824
00:43:47,625 --> 00:43:51,003
{\an8}Cornelius died,
and there are thousands of other kids
825
00:43:51,086 --> 00:43:54,757
that experience these restraints
multiple times a week
826
00:43:54,840 --> 00:43:57,676
or witness these restraints
multiple times a week,
827
00:43:57,760 --> 00:43:58,844
which is very traumatic.
828
00:43:58,927 --> 00:44:02,014
And we call this "treatment."
It is not treatment.
829
00:44:02,097 --> 00:44:05,142
There is absolutely nothing
that is therapeutic
830
00:44:05,225 --> 00:44:07,978
about a physical restraint or a seclusion.
831
00:44:08,062 --> 00:44:12,399
It is a management technique
to manage kids in a very violent way.
832
00:44:12,900 --> 00:44:18,072
How many more deaths do we need
to decide that now is the time to act?
833
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,492
[McKell] I wanna see
a federal bill passed.
834
00:44:21,575 --> 00:44:23,994
I think if you bring in
some federal regulation,
835
00:44:24,078 --> 00:44:26,038
you're gonna get to ask the question,
836
00:44:26,121 --> 00:44:29,541
"What treatment is appropriate?
What protocol is appropriate?"
837
00:44:30,125 --> 00:44:33,003
[Katherine] Any time federal legislation
has been brought to the table,
838
00:44:33,087 --> 00:44:36,215
it's been met
with intense opposition by the industry.
839
00:44:36,298 --> 00:44:40,427
We found an email that Ken Kay sent
to program directors ranting about
840
00:44:40,511 --> 00:44:45,057
the End Institutionalized Abuse
Against Children Act of 2005.
841
00:44:45,140 --> 00:44:49,728
{\an8}[Katherine] "Utah has approximately
1,500 teens in private youth programs."
842
00:44:49,812 --> 00:44:53,691
{\an8}"That's pristine money
coming into this little state...
843
00:44:53,774 --> 00:44:56,235
those out-of-state dollars."
844
00:44:56,318 --> 00:45:02,491
"Our state or counties should be
the only regulatory agencies involved."
845
00:45:02,574 --> 00:45:04,535
That sentence, right there.
846
00:45:04,618 --> 00:45:08,247
"Pristine money...
those out-of-state dollars."
847
00:45:09,748 --> 00:45:13,043
[Blouin] The kids are just...
they're tokens in this economy.
848
00:45:13,127 --> 00:45:16,588
And everybody is making a lot of money.
It is human trafficking.
849
00:45:16,672 --> 00:45:20,718
It is...
It is human trafficking of children.
850
00:45:21,468 --> 00:45:23,512
There has to be
somebody looking over that,
851
00:45:23,595 --> 00:45:26,515
and there has to be protection
for the rights of these kids,
852
00:45:26,598 --> 00:45:30,519
because their liberty is taken away
without any court hearing, nothing.
853
00:45:31,562 --> 00:45:33,355
[woman on video]
I noticed you're struggling
854
00:45:33,439 --> 00:45:35,315
with an out-of-control teenager.
855
00:45:35,399 --> 00:45:36,608
Let's talk about it.
856
00:45:37,776 --> 00:45:40,195
[Katherine] Survivors have been
speaking out on social media
857
00:45:40,279 --> 00:45:43,323
and organizing their efforts to expose
the abuse that still runs rampant
858
00:45:43,407 --> 00:45:44,575
throughout the industry.
859
00:45:44,658 --> 00:45:46,201
[on video] There's nothing more to fear.
860
00:45:46,285 --> 00:45:49,329
We will fix your child for you
for 36 a year.
861
00:45:50,414 --> 00:45:53,500
{\an8}[Janja] Kids who were
in these programs, now adults,
862
00:45:53,584 --> 00:45:57,379
are speaking out, are trying to get people
to understand what happened to them.
863
00:45:57,921 --> 00:46:01,467
{\an8}The survivors are the experts.
The survivors have been telling us
864
00:46:01,550 --> 00:46:04,553
what's wrong for a long time.
They've been telling us what's needed.
865
00:46:04,636 --> 00:46:08,849
[Caroline] These experiences of abuse
are not just reserved to a few bad actors.
866
00:46:08,932 --> 00:46:11,393
It truly is institutional.
867
00:46:11,477 --> 00:46:13,187
It is systemic.
868
00:46:13,270 --> 00:46:16,815
It affects every state
and every community.
869
00:46:16,899 --> 00:46:19,026
[Janja] They are
shutting some places down.
870
00:46:19,109 --> 00:46:23,030
They are causing
some state investigations.
871
00:46:23,113 --> 00:46:26,158
[McKell] Facilities, historically,
have shut down, then start up again.
872
00:46:26,241 --> 00:46:27,451
Bad employees bounce around.
873
00:46:27,534 --> 00:46:30,120
I think that's still...
I think that's still happening.
874
00:46:30,204 --> 00:46:33,540
But we are trying to limit that
as much as we possibly can here.
875
00:46:34,333 --> 00:46:37,044
Yeah, I mean,
I'm not gonna give you any pointers.
876
00:46:37,127 --> 00:46:38,879
-You're the professional here.
-[laughs]
877
00:46:38,962 --> 00:46:43,383
But I'm just saying,
if there's a guy like Robert Lichfield...
878
00:46:43,467 --> 00:46:44,343
Right.
879
00:46:44,426 --> 00:46:47,221
...who has been opening
all these programs all over,
880
00:46:47,304 --> 00:46:49,473
-and they've all had abuse...
-Right.
881
00:46:49,556 --> 00:46:52,893
Can Robert Lichfield be put
on some sort of blacklist or something?
882
00:46:52,976 --> 00:46:55,395
Being like, "Yo, buddy. Enough's enough."
883
00:46:55,479 --> 00:46:57,856
I would think so.
I don't know Robert Lichfield, but...
884
00:46:57,940 --> 00:46:59,358
You will! Soon enough.
885
00:46:59,441 --> 00:47:02,903
I will watch the documentary,
and I will take notes of Robert Lichfield.
886
00:47:02,986 --> 00:47:04,446
Okay. Keep an eye out.
887
00:47:05,781 --> 00:47:08,951
[Katherine] The Lichfields and their
protégés are still running programs,
888
00:47:09,034 --> 00:47:11,119
just not under the WWASP name.
889
00:47:12,037 --> 00:47:15,040
[Katherine] So,
what is Narvin doing these days?
890
00:47:15,123 --> 00:47:18,585
He is... still operating.
891
00:47:20,128 --> 00:47:21,505
-That's insane.
-Yeah.
892
00:47:21,588 --> 00:47:24,842
All you have to do is type
"Narvin Lichfield" into Google,
893
00:47:24,925 --> 00:47:27,511
and you'll find tons of stuff on the guy.
894
00:47:27,594 --> 00:47:30,722
And, yet, people still send him kids.
895
00:47:32,057 --> 00:47:35,060
[Katherine] While I was in Utah,
Narvin posted on social,
896
00:47:35,143 --> 00:47:39,064
inviting people to do karaoke
on Wednesday nights at Club 90 in Ogden.
897
00:47:39,731 --> 00:47:42,109
So I thought I'd drop by
while I was in town.
898
00:47:42,609 --> 00:47:45,153
Thanks for the invite, Narvin.
See you there.
899
00:47:45,237 --> 00:47:48,282
[man on mic] All right, we got Narvin
comin' up for his first one.
900
00:47:48,365 --> 00:47:51,785
-[crowd cheering and clapping]
-["Witchcraft" by Frank Sinatra playing]
901
00:47:51,869 --> 00:47:55,706
♪ And I've got no defense for it ♪
902
00:47:56,206 --> 00:47:59,668
♪ The heat is too intense for it ♪
903
00:48:00,168 --> 00:48:04,882
♪ What good
Would common sense for it do? ♪
904
00:48:05,382 --> 00:48:07,759
[Katherine] It was surreal
to see Narvin in person.
905
00:48:08,260 --> 00:48:10,762
Knowing everything I know about this guy,
906
00:48:10,846 --> 00:48:14,057
the children he abused,
the parents he conned,
907
00:48:14,141 --> 00:48:16,518
all of the crimes he's gotten away with...
908
00:48:17,269 --> 00:48:20,022
Yet, here he is, free as a bird,
909
00:48:20,772 --> 00:48:23,233
singing Frank Sinatra at a club in Utah.
910
00:48:24,651 --> 00:48:27,487
I didn't talk to him
because I didn't want to blow my cover,
911
00:48:27,571 --> 00:48:30,616
and I don't like giving abusers
a platform to spew their bullshit.
912
00:48:30,699 --> 00:48:32,409
-[crowd clapping]
-[man on mic] All right!
913
00:48:32,492 --> 00:48:34,953
That was Narvin Sinatra!
914
00:48:35,829 --> 00:48:38,415
[grimacing] Ooh! All right. Let's do it.
915
00:48:38,498 --> 00:48:42,210
-["One Way Or Another" by Blondie playing]
-[crowd cheering]
916
00:48:42,294 --> 00:48:44,254
[Katherine] Unlike the Justice Department
or FBI,
917
00:48:44,838 --> 00:48:48,926
there's nothing I can really do
to the Lichfields except this.
918
00:48:49,927 --> 00:48:52,512
But don't get too comfortable, Narvin.
919
00:48:52,596 --> 00:48:55,515
'Cause one way or another,
I'm gonna get ya.
920
00:48:56,224 --> 00:48:58,518
♪ One way or another ♪
921
00:48:58,602 --> 00:48:59,937
♪ I'm gonna find ya ♪
922
00:49:00,020 --> 00:49:02,105
♪ I'm gonna get ya, get ya, get ya ♪
923
00:49:02,189 --> 00:49:04,232
♪ One way or another ♪
924
00:49:04,316 --> 00:49:05,817
♪ I'm gonna win ya ♪
925
00:49:05,901 --> 00:49:07,736
♪ I'm gonna get ya, get ya, get ya ♪
926
00:49:07,819 --> 00:49:10,781
[Katherine] All these people,
they've gotten away with this for so long.
927
00:49:10,864 --> 00:49:13,450
So I think a lot of them
really do think they got away with it.
928
00:49:13,533 --> 00:49:18,956
I think Narvin, I think Robert,
they've gotten away with it for so long.
929
00:49:19,039 --> 00:49:21,375
And so if the smallest thing
that can come out of this
930
00:49:21,458 --> 00:49:26,338
is just to expose it publicly,
they're getting off easy.
931
00:49:26,421 --> 00:49:28,465
Very, very, very easy.
932
00:49:28,548 --> 00:49:30,550
[somber music playing]
933
00:49:34,763 --> 00:49:38,892
[Katherine] There's revenge I could do,
but I'm not gonna do it.
934
00:49:39,643 --> 00:49:42,437
I'm not... being malicious.
935
00:49:42,521 --> 00:49:44,439
I'm setting the record straight.
936
00:49:45,023 --> 00:49:47,067
Who knows what will happen legally
937
00:49:47,150 --> 00:49:49,611
if any law enforcement organization
938
00:49:49,695 --> 00:49:52,739
will actually get their shit together
and investigate?
939
00:49:53,573 --> 00:49:56,284
Like, you know,
if they actually serve time in prison,
940
00:49:56,368 --> 00:50:00,038
if they actually get
whatever punishment is due
941
00:50:00,122 --> 00:50:01,707
for people who abuse children,
942
00:50:01,790 --> 00:50:03,750
knowingly abuse children...
943
00:50:04,334 --> 00:50:07,504
There are punishments for that,
and I'm not a law enforcement agency.
944
00:50:07,587 --> 00:50:10,382
I'm just a kid trying to expose the truth.
945
00:50:11,425 --> 00:50:13,093
And it really just started out...
946
00:50:16,013 --> 00:50:17,848
[crying] It was just to show my dad.
947
00:50:19,057 --> 00:50:20,809
Because they didn't believe me.
948
00:50:21,309 --> 00:50:23,895
They didn't believe any of us
about this shit.
949
00:50:23,979 --> 00:50:25,731
[dark music playing]
950
00:50:26,982 --> 00:50:29,401
[Katherine] I thought
it was just Ivy Ridge when I...
951
00:50:29,484 --> 00:50:31,278
when I started looking into this.
952
00:50:33,572 --> 00:50:35,907
And Ivy Ridge is bad.
It gets worse and worse and worse.
953
00:50:35,991 --> 00:50:38,118
And then you realize,
"Oh, it's not just Ivy Ridge."
954
00:50:40,370 --> 00:50:42,581
It's multiple programs.
955
00:50:42,664 --> 00:50:47,044
Multiple states, multiple countries,
multiple families, multiple children.
956
00:50:47,544 --> 00:50:52,424
So, if I'm bringing that to light...
[laughs] That's justice.
957
00:50:52,924 --> 00:50:54,593
That's accountability.
958
00:50:56,928 --> 00:50:59,056
{\an8}[Robert Donat on TV]
I am exposing criminals.
959
00:50:59,139 --> 00:51:04,227
{\an8}Not for their sins against myself,
but for their black injustices to others.
960
00:51:04,853 --> 00:51:09,107
{\an8}Not only for what they have done,
but for what they continue to do.
961
00:51:09,941 --> 00:51:12,152
{\an8}They are the ones devoid of all humanity.
962
00:51:12,235 --> 00:51:15,489
{\an8}The ones that profited
by the sufferings of others.
963
00:51:19,159 --> 00:51:21,411
-[Katherine] This is what I've been up to.
-[Ken] Wow.
964
00:51:21,495 --> 00:51:24,790
That looks like a, uh,
crime-solvers type of thing.
965
00:51:24,873 --> 00:51:27,834
{\an8}[Katherine] Well, there's been
a lot of crime going on.
966
00:51:27,918 --> 00:51:29,920
{\an8}You look like Carrie in Homeland.
967
00:51:30,003 --> 00:51:33,715
I feel like Carrie in Homeland,
with all the mental breakdowns.
968
00:51:33,799 --> 00:51:35,717
Well, you've done a good job.
969
00:51:36,968 --> 00:51:39,721
[Katherine] My dad's always been
supportive of my filmmaking.
970
00:51:39,805 --> 00:51:42,599
-[Ken] Can I take a picture of this board?
-Sure.
971
00:51:42,682 --> 00:51:44,851
In fact, why don't you
stand over by it, Katherine?
972
00:51:44,935 --> 00:51:47,562
[Katherine] So, part of me
feels really bad making a documentary
973
00:51:47,646 --> 00:51:49,689
that will make him seem
like a horrible parent.
974
00:51:49,773 --> 00:51:52,984
Lean towards 'em and gesture towards 'em.
Yes. There you go.
975
00:51:53,068 --> 00:51:55,695
[Katherine] Because he was
a really good dad.
976
00:51:56,905 --> 00:52:01,618
{\an8}[Ken on video] And here we are
with baby Katherine, and she just woke up.
977
00:52:01,701 --> 00:52:05,038
{\an8}-It is Katherine's birthday.
-[girl] There's the birthday girl.
978
00:52:05,122 --> 00:52:08,625
{\an8}-Right there.
-[Ken] December 5th, 1989.
979
00:52:08,708 --> 00:52:10,418
Katherine, what do you have?
980
00:52:10,502 --> 00:52:11,711
Can you make it play?
981
00:52:11,795 --> 00:52:14,464
[discordant music on video]
982
00:52:14,965 --> 00:52:18,635
[Katherine] Here he is helping me
with my first documentary about Mars.
983
00:52:18,718 --> 00:52:22,639
I'm interviewing Katherine
about her planet report.
984
00:52:22,722 --> 00:52:26,017
Now, exactly what planet are you doing?
985
00:52:26,101 --> 00:52:27,853
Oh, I am doing Mars.
986
00:52:28,353 --> 00:52:31,606
Here is a picture that I made about Mars.
987
00:52:31,690 --> 00:52:33,733
-[Ken] Hold it straight.
-[Katherine] What? Oh.
988
00:52:33,817 --> 00:52:35,443
[Ken whispers] Tell us about it.
989
00:52:35,527 --> 00:52:40,407
And if you weigh 100 pounds on Mars,
you'd weight about, like...
990
00:52:40,907 --> 00:52:42,868
[whispers] Dad, put the camera up.
991
00:52:42,951 --> 00:52:44,619
The camera up!
992
00:52:44,703 --> 00:52:45,871
Up! Up!
993
00:52:47,455 --> 00:52:50,584
And, well, that's it that I have.
994
00:52:53,712 --> 00:52:55,922
[Katherine] Let's see
what some of these are.
995
00:52:56,006 --> 00:52:59,092
Every day, they would make us
write reflections.
996
00:52:59,176 --> 00:53:01,178
-[laughs] So...
-[Julie] Oh, that's interesting.
997
00:53:01,261 --> 00:53:04,014
[Katherine] Yeah, so here's a few things.
"Reflections."
998
00:53:04,097 --> 00:53:06,975
{\an8}Look, my quote of the day is,
"'I love Daddy.' By me."
999
00:53:08,518 --> 00:53:09,519
[Ken] Aw.
1000
00:53:10,687 --> 00:53:12,564
-[Ken exhales]
-[Katherine] Yeah.
1001
00:53:13,565 --> 00:53:15,650
So, here's a note on 3/28.
1002
00:53:15,734 --> 00:53:17,402
"Katherine went to worksheets
1003
00:53:17,485 --> 00:53:20,947
because she got a major mischief
for looking at the boys in the hall."
1004
00:53:21,031 --> 00:53:22,282
[laughing] "A major mischief."
1005
00:53:22,365 --> 00:53:24,993
"A major mischief
for looking at the boys in the hall."
1006
00:53:25,076 --> 00:53:27,204
So, when the boys
are crossing you in the hall,
1007
00:53:27,287 --> 00:53:31,917
they have these dorm parents
looking at your eyes to see if you...
1008
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:34,377
Oh, yeah. You are not allowed to look.
1009
00:53:34,461 --> 00:53:37,422
If your eyeballs look out of line,
then you get in trouble.
1010
00:53:37,505 --> 00:53:39,299
So they got somebody staring at everybody?
1011
00:53:39,382 --> 00:53:43,511
{\an8}Yeah, you're being...
Your entire body is being scrutinized.
1012
00:53:43,595 --> 00:53:46,806
{\an8}-[Claire] See, to me that's sort of...
-[Ken] That's the worst abuse.
1013
00:53:46,890 --> 00:53:48,391
{\an8}-[Claire] ...kind of the worst.
-Yeah.
1014
00:53:48,475 --> 00:53:50,852
{\an8}That control.
You don't have any physical autonomy.
1015
00:53:50,936 --> 00:53:52,520
{\an8}[Ken] Turning you into a robot.
1016
00:53:52,604 --> 00:53:56,608
See, that's one of the things the parents
have no clue that it's at that level.
1017
00:53:56,691 --> 00:53:57,984
You have no way of knowing.
1018
00:53:58,068 --> 00:53:59,653
-[Katherine] I thought you knew.
-No.
1019
00:53:59,736 --> 00:54:01,446
For the longest time,
I was like, "You knew."
1020
00:54:01,529 --> 00:54:03,490
'Cause you were like,
"Try this program. It works."
1021
00:54:03,573 --> 00:54:05,450
How could you not know
we're not allowed to talk?
1022
00:54:05,533 --> 00:54:07,827
That's the most fundamental thing
about the program.
1023
00:54:07,911 --> 00:54:09,162
[Ken] They never tell you.
1024
00:54:09,246 --> 00:54:11,206
So you had no idea
we were not allowed to talk?
1025
00:54:11,289 --> 00:54:12,999
-[Ken] No.
-[Claire] Not allowed to smile.
1026
00:54:13,083 --> 00:54:15,752
[Katherine] I write in letters,
"We're not allowed to talk."
1027
00:54:15,835 --> 00:54:17,545
Somehow or another, that doesn't connect.
1028
00:54:17,629 --> 00:54:21,549
Maybe you think it's so absurd
or you assume that means study hall.
1029
00:54:21,633 --> 00:54:24,177
-[Claire] Like, "Don't speak in school."
-Something like that.
1030
00:54:24,261 --> 00:54:26,888
You don't assume it's 24/7.
1031
00:54:27,597 --> 00:54:30,141
[Katherine] I think the thing
I've been realizing the most
1032
00:54:30,225 --> 00:54:32,644
as I've been going through these files
1033
00:54:32,727 --> 00:54:35,230
and seeing the program
for what it really is,
1034
00:54:35,313 --> 00:54:39,359
is just how manipulated you were
and how lied to you were.
1035
00:54:39,442 --> 00:54:41,444
[Ken] Yeah, it's sort of shaming
1036
00:54:42,028 --> 00:54:46,199
to realize you've been manipulated
when you consider you're pretty smart.
1037
00:54:46,283 --> 00:54:47,284
[Katherine] Mmm.
1038
00:54:48,201 --> 00:54:50,036
-Yeah.
-Particularly by...
1039
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:51,788
-Idiots.
-[Ken] Yeah!
1040
00:54:51,871 --> 00:54:53,290
Wish we could do it over.
1041
00:54:53,873 --> 00:54:54,874
Mm-hmm.
1042
00:54:55,583 --> 00:54:57,711
-I'm glad we're talking.
-[Katherine] Mm-hmm.
1043
00:54:57,794 --> 00:55:00,422
And I'm really supportive of this effort.
1044
00:55:00,922 --> 00:55:04,092
You're doing a great job
and I'm very proud of you.
1045
00:55:04,676 --> 00:55:08,430
Obviously, I'd love
to see Robert Lichfield in jail
1046
00:55:08,513 --> 00:55:12,183
for what he's done, but I can't do that.
1047
00:55:12,267 --> 00:55:13,518
But what I can do
1048
00:55:13,601 --> 00:55:16,146
is expose the methodology
of these places in this documentary.
1049
00:55:16,229 --> 00:55:17,063
Yeah.
1050
00:55:17,147 --> 00:55:19,899
So that other parents
don't get manipulated
1051
00:55:19,983 --> 00:55:23,111
and sucked up into this scheme.
1052
00:55:23,611 --> 00:55:27,073
Somebody needs to come up
with a alternative.
1053
00:55:27,157 --> 00:55:29,534
If you're even being tempted to...
1054
00:55:30,702 --> 00:55:36,124
put your kid in some program like this,
well, what's the alternative?
1055
00:55:36,207 --> 00:55:38,293
There is no easy answer to that.
1056
00:55:41,212 --> 00:55:44,007
[Phil] A lot of times, people ask me,
"What should parents do instead?"
1057
00:55:44,591 --> 00:55:46,760
{\an8}And most of the time,
I say, "I'm not that smart."
1058
00:55:46,843 --> 00:55:49,095
{\an8}I just know they shouldn't do this.
1059
00:55:49,179 --> 00:55:52,265
That this is absolutely clearly wrong.
1060
00:55:55,352 --> 00:55:57,395
[Maia] The fundamental flaw
with these places
1061
00:55:57,479 --> 00:56:00,023
is that "troubled teen"
is not a diagnosis.
1062
00:56:01,232 --> 00:56:04,527
Adolescence is a crazy time
for a lot of people.
1063
00:56:05,028 --> 00:56:07,947
{\an8}And part of the point of it
is to get away from your parents.
1064
00:56:08,031 --> 00:56:11,117
{\an8}So you may be rebelling,
or doing things that they don't like,
1065
00:56:11,201 --> 00:56:12,410
{\an8}or just experimenting,
1066
00:56:12,494 --> 00:56:15,080
or just figuring out
ways to piss them off.
1067
00:56:15,705 --> 00:56:17,999
It's the job of the adult to be like,
1068
00:56:18,083 --> 00:56:20,085
"I get that. That's a teenager."
1069
00:56:20,168 --> 00:56:22,962
[laughs] Um...
You know, "I'm trying to keep them safe."
1070
00:56:23,046 --> 00:56:28,593
But when you do things
to break their image of themselves,
1071
00:56:29,177 --> 00:56:32,472
it's just harmful. It's just not...
There's no way to help somebody like that.
1072
00:56:32,555 --> 00:56:36,267
And it also makes it really difficult
for them to function when they come out.
1073
00:56:36,851 --> 00:56:42,190
When somebody gets out of a confinement,
they get into survival mode.
1074
00:56:42,273 --> 00:56:46,194
And surviving right now at this moment
means not looking at that.
1075
00:56:46,778 --> 00:56:49,697
[Katherine] For me, it was workaholism.
That kind of worked out for me.
1076
00:56:49,781 --> 00:56:51,908
I kept myself busy
so I wouldn't have to think.
1077
00:56:51,991 --> 00:56:54,494
And then, eventually,
when I was forced to confront it,
1078
00:56:54,577 --> 00:56:59,040
I started just having really bad,
debilitating kind of PTSD things.
1079
00:56:59,124 --> 00:57:01,876
-C-PTSD.
-[Katherine] C-PTSD. Yeah, there we go.
1080
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:06,464
[Katherine] C-PTSD,
or complex post-traumatic stress disorder,
1081
00:57:06,548 --> 00:57:08,508
is caused by long-term abuse or trauma
1082
00:57:08,591 --> 00:57:12,011
in which the individual perceives
little or no chance of escape.
1083
00:57:12,512 --> 00:57:16,808
[Janja] Complex PTSD, it colors
all your relationships afterwards,
1084
00:57:16,891 --> 00:57:19,144
because of the mistrust, and the paranoia,
1085
00:57:19,227 --> 00:57:21,938
and the fear,
and the betrayals, and all of that.
1086
00:57:22,021 --> 00:57:28,111
You have flashbacks, you have nightmares,
but you also have huge issues of trust,
1087
00:57:28,194 --> 00:57:33,491
loss of sense of self,
not knowing how to relate to people.
1088
00:57:34,117 --> 00:57:36,244
[Roderick] They're probably never
gonna go into therapy.
1089
00:57:36,327 --> 00:57:38,496
There are probably
some that will go into therapy,
1090
00:57:38,580 --> 00:57:40,790
{\an8}but that's gonna be rare,
1091
00:57:40,874 --> 00:57:44,252
{\an8}because they were abused
in the name of therapy.
1092
00:57:44,752 --> 00:57:46,004
[Katherine] It's rough.
1093
00:57:46,087 --> 00:57:49,549
Like, there are nights
I'll be in the fetal position, crying.
1094
00:57:49,632 --> 00:57:53,553
And it's heavy,
and I don't know how to describe
1095
00:57:53,636 --> 00:57:56,514
how debilitating it can be.
1096
00:57:56,598 --> 00:57:59,934
"They tried to murder
children's souls here."
1097
00:58:00,018 --> 00:58:01,019
Fuck WWASP.
1098
00:58:01,686 --> 00:58:05,565
[Katherine] And, unfortunately,
for a lot of program kids,
1099
00:58:05,648 --> 00:58:09,360
that's ended in suicide or overdose.
1100
00:58:09,444 --> 00:58:12,197
Oh, yeah. The suicides. Um...
1101
00:58:12,697 --> 00:58:15,408
One of the really,
really most difficult aspects
1102
00:58:15,492 --> 00:58:20,288
of even being aware
of this whole situation is the suicides.
1103
00:58:20,371 --> 00:58:22,957
So many come out of these programs.
1104
00:58:23,458 --> 00:58:28,046
[Maia] These programs do real damage,
lasting damage to children and families.
1105
00:58:28,129 --> 00:58:32,509
And some of that cannot be fixed.
1106
00:58:32,592 --> 00:58:33,968
[somber music playing]
1107
00:58:34,052 --> 00:58:38,890
There's a lot of times,
from 2006 to 2022, that I...
1108
00:58:39,891 --> 00:58:41,726
have not wanted to live.
1109
00:58:43,144 --> 00:58:49,526
And, unfortunately, it's beyond my fingers
to count people that I spent time with
1110
00:58:49,609 --> 00:58:52,695
in my program experience
that are not here.
1111
00:58:52,779 --> 00:58:54,906
[somber music continues]
1112
00:58:54,989 --> 00:58:57,700
[Katherine] We've been keeping a list
of people we know from Ivy Ridge
1113
00:58:57,784 --> 00:59:00,203
who have killed themselves
or overdosed since their time there.
1114
00:59:01,329 --> 00:59:02,705
It's at about 40.
1115
00:59:12,257 --> 00:59:13,841
[fire crackling]
1116
00:59:13,925 --> 00:59:16,261
{\an8}[Katherine] Oh, this is nice. Here we go.
1117
00:59:16,970 --> 00:59:18,846
{\an8}That's a good fire, Quintin.
1118
00:59:18,930 --> 00:59:21,516
{\an8}Did you guys ever watch
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
1119
00:59:21,599 --> 00:59:24,185
[Quintin] Hell yeah.
Do you know it's full-blown Canadian?
1120
00:59:24,269 --> 00:59:26,437
-Is it? Wow.
-[Quintin] Yeah. Listen to 'em talk now.
1121
00:59:26,521 --> 00:59:28,690
It'll blow your mind.
It freaked me out when I heard it.
1122
00:59:28,773 --> 00:59:30,942
[imitates Canadian accent]
"What are you talking about?"
1123
00:59:31,025 --> 00:59:32,902
[in comical accent]
"Are You Afraid of the Dark?"
1124
00:59:32,986 --> 00:59:34,821
[Quintin] Pretty much. It is strong.
1125
00:59:34,904 --> 00:59:37,031
Wait. Do you have any files to burn?
1126
00:59:37,699 --> 00:59:40,910
Yeah, I have a whole box I haven't
yet burned that they want destroyed.
1127
00:59:40,994 --> 00:59:42,787
-[Katherine] They asked you to burn 'em?
-Yeah.
1128
00:59:42,870 --> 00:59:44,872
-[Katherine] Let's burn 'em.
-Want to burn 'em now?
1129
00:59:44,956 --> 00:59:46,666
[Molly] Yeah, let's do it.
Get it over with.
1130
00:59:46,749 --> 00:59:48,960
[Katie] All right. It should be...
1131
00:59:50,795 --> 00:59:52,046
this one right here.
1132
00:59:55,883 --> 00:59:58,970
[Katherine] What are these we're burning?
People that said they don't want them?
1133
00:59:59,053 --> 01:00:01,681
-[Katie] Yep. They're over it.
-[Katherine] Burn it.
1134
01:00:01,764 --> 01:00:03,891
[Quintin] They found
some way to get through it.
1135
01:00:06,978 --> 01:00:08,771
This shit right here burns good.
1136
01:00:08,855 --> 01:00:13,192
[Katie] For the most part,
I mean, people want their files back.
1137
01:00:13,276 --> 01:00:16,446
Just out of pure curiosity, I would say.
1138
01:00:17,030 --> 01:00:18,323
But these people just...
1139
01:00:19,032 --> 01:00:21,784
they don't want to revisit
that time in their life whatsoever.
1140
01:00:22,994 --> 01:00:24,037
So...
1141
01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:29,083
-[fire crackling]
-[pensive music playing]
1142
01:00:31,919 --> 01:00:33,880
-[Quintin] Therapeutic, ain't it?
-[Katie] Yeah.
1143
01:00:33,963 --> 01:00:35,882
-[Quintin laughing]
-Yeah, this is therapy.
1144
01:00:36,633 --> 01:00:37,467
[Quintin] Hell yeah.
1145
01:00:40,803 --> 01:00:44,932
[Katherine] Every file, you know,
is just someone's destroyed life.
1146
01:00:46,142 --> 01:00:48,978
Oh my gosh. Another frickin' huge one.
1147
01:00:49,562 --> 01:00:51,814
[Quintin] Separate 'em a little bit.
They'll burn better.
1148
01:00:52,565 --> 01:00:54,400
[Katie] Ooh, that's smart.
1149
01:00:55,610 --> 01:00:58,988
[Quintin] Feel that heat?
[laughing] That is hellfire, right there.
1150
01:00:59,572 --> 01:01:00,615
All right.
1151
01:01:00,698 --> 01:01:03,993
[Alexa playing
"Girls Just Want To Have Fun" on keyboard]
1152
01:01:04,077 --> 01:01:08,039
[Alexa] ♪ I come home
In the morning light ♪
1153
01:01:08,122 --> 01:01:13,252
♪ My mother says,
"When you gonna live your life right?" ♪
1154
01:01:13,753 --> 01:01:17,548
♪ Oh, Daddy, dear
You know you're still number one ♪
1155
01:01:17,632 --> 01:01:22,303
♪ But, girls, they wanna have fun ♪
1156
01:01:22,387 --> 01:01:27,058
♪ Oh, girls, they wanna have fun ♪
1157
01:01:28,518 --> 01:01:31,604
[Katherine] This story
does not have a happy ending.
1158
01:01:31,688 --> 01:01:33,523
And the story is far from over.
1159
01:01:33,606 --> 01:01:36,567
The troubled-teen industry
is still alive and thriving.
1160
01:01:37,485 --> 01:01:39,862
They're still out there,
institutionalizing children
1161
01:01:39,946 --> 01:01:42,448
with little to no oversight or regulation.
1162
01:01:42,532 --> 01:01:44,826
[Janja] People need to know
that these programs exist,
1163
01:01:44,909 --> 01:01:49,080
and that they're unregulated,
and that the harm is monumental.
1164
01:01:49,580 --> 01:01:52,083
And something needs to be done about it.
1165
01:01:52,166 --> 01:01:56,713
♪ That's all they really want ♪
1166
01:01:56,796 --> 01:02:00,758
♪ Some fun ♪
1167
01:02:00,842 --> 01:02:04,887
♪ When the working day is done ♪
1168
01:02:04,971 --> 01:02:10,101
-♪ Oh, girls, they wanna have fun ♪
-[inaudible]
1169
01:02:10,685 --> 01:02:15,398
[Alexa] ♪ Oh, girls, they wanna have fun ♪
1170
01:02:16,232 --> 01:02:19,652
[Katherine] I often think of
what Maia said in the intro to her book.
1171
01:02:20,403 --> 01:02:23,573
"Creative, difficult,
challenging teenagers,
1172
01:02:23,656 --> 01:02:26,909
the ones most likely
to become our artists, our writers,
1173
01:02:26,993 --> 01:02:30,955
our social critics, and our scientists,
are at risk in this climate."
1174
01:02:31,456 --> 01:02:34,834
"Tough-love programs,
no matter how well-intended,
1175
01:02:34,917 --> 01:02:38,421
often wind up destroying these kids
in their attempts to save them."
1176
01:02:38,504 --> 01:02:42,216
"If there were good research that showed
that such programs are effective,
1177
01:02:42,300 --> 01:02:45,011
there might be an ethical dilemma
over their use."
1178
01:02:45,094 --> 01:02:48,681
"But in the absence of such data,
and in the presence of much
1179
01:02:48,765 --> 01:02:51,809
that suggests they produce damage,
not improvement,
1180
01:02:51,893 --> 01:02:54,896
we should stick with the first principle
of medical ethics,
1181
01:02:54,979 --> 01:02:56,814
'first, do no harm.'"
1182
01:02:57,899 --> 01:03:04,489
♪ Some boys take a beautiful girl
And hide her away ♪
1183
01:03:04,572 --> 01:03:07,408
♪ From the rest of the world ♪
1184
01:03:07,492 --> 01:03:12,079
♪ I wanna be the one to walk in the sun ♪
1185
01:03:12,163 --> 01:03:16,834
♪ Oh, girls, they wanna have fun ♪
1186
01:03:17,627 --> 01:03:21,839
♪ Oh, girls just wanna have fun ♪
1187
01:03:23,132 --> 01:03:26,052
[Katie] There needs to be people
that keep up with the cause, you know?
1188
01:03:26,135 --> 01:03:27,136
And that...
1189
01:03:28,805 --> 01:03:30,473
stick with it to see it through
1190
01:03:30,556 --> 01:03:34,393
till the very end,
till the program is in that fire pit.
1191
01:03:35,228 --> 01:03:36,979
[Katherine] There are thousands
of children
1192
01:03:37,063 --> 01:03:39,148
still trapped in these programs.
1193
01:03:39,232 --> 01:03:41,025
Like Thomas Houlahan said,
1194
01:03:41,108 --> 01:03:44,654
"The abuse of a child is the business
of anyone who knows about it."
1195
01:03:46,864 --> 01:03:47,990
Now you know.
1196
01:03:54,872 --> 01:03:56,082
[song ends]
1197
01:04:08,344 --> 01:04:10,346
[pensive music playing]
108195
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