Original subtitles

Okay.

Okay.

Fuck.

Okay.

All right. Let's go.

Found it.

What is it?

Oh my God.

Ugh.

Jeez.

So many files.

How far back does this go?

What is this?

"Study hall log, May 2nd, 2005."

Oh, I remember her.

Didn't she die?

I can't keep up.

We don't know why all these files ended up in here.

And there's birth certificates, Social Security cards, medical records,

detailed, handwritten notes about the most insane shit.

Oh fuck. I feel like I'm in the pit of despair.

What do you do if your child gets caught

in a cycle of self-destructive or even dangerous behavior?

Some desperate parents are turning to a drastic solution.

They're having their children abducted,

taken against their will to a behavior modification program.

It sells tough love for troubled kids,

but the reality is torture of children.

This is not how I pictured my high school reunion.

But then again, this was never really a high school.

For the past decade, I've been investigating the program,

trying to make sense of what happened to me and expose those responsible.

Considering how hard we tried to get out of the building while we were there,

it's funny to think we'd be coming back.

But we needed to find proof so that people would believe us.

Because there's still kids trapped in these places.

- Fucked. - That's creepy.

I never imagined they would just leave all the evidence just sitting there.

It's so weird to find this stuff. Why did they…

Why did they keep this shit?

My friends and I have made several trips back to the building over the years.

"They tried to murder children's souls here."

It was like a time capsule.

A crime scene.

We have these handwritten, signed and dated confessions of abuse…

We were never supposed to see these.

Oh my God!

And they never wanted us to find each other.

I keep thinking, after all these years of looking into it,

you'll get to the bottom of it.

There's just more and more.

You just keep finding out more characters, more connections.

And it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

This is a story of just unbelievable greed.

So many more files.

This says, "Catherine."

Where's Kat-- Oh, "Catherine Daniel."

- You might not recognize. It's a C. - Angela. Yeah.

Okay. So this was my first share.

Yeah. I found my first share too, separate from these.

M'kay. "Catherine Daniel."

"Real mom died of breast cancer…"

Yep. That's always my introduction to people.

"…before I was two."

Oh, this is my words.

"Had a lot of nannies."

"Dad remarried at age seven."

"I was really happy, then it started turning horrible."

"In fourth grade, she yelled at me."

"Said, 'Thank God Mom is not alive to see the person you've become.'"

- Jesus. - Yep.

"I drank and smoked because I was stressed by all this."

Well, shit!

That is, uh, poetic.

I grew up in a conservative Christian family.

I was heavily involved in my church youth group.

I was on the student council. A star soccer player.

And I filmed everything.

Oh yeah! Oh, look at that cute person!

Oh, wait. That's me.

And I'm interviewing Katherine.

In other news, the man who was swallowed by a whale ran to the end

till he got pooped out.

Do not try this at home.

Here I come!

Oh my God!

Okay, cut.

But you can see the rest when it hits theaters this fall.

- There. - Cheese!

Is it on?

It's interesting to look back at my home videos

and try to pinpoint where things went wrong.

This is Daddy and his three girls saying cheese.

My dad was the original documentarian.

And here is a shot of the cameraman.

I grew up with the camera always in my face.

Daddy.

- Cheese. - We're going to--

Cheese. She was saying, "Cheese." Do you hear her?

- Yeah. Aw. - Cheese!

My mom was dying of breast cancer.

My dad wanted to make sure my sisters and I had videos to remember her by.

You see those three little tapes up there?

Someone suggested I get these cassettes and just have one for each of the girls.

Just to say things.

You know, not that things might not work out.

But just so I can have the peace of mind

that the girls have something personal for each of them.

She died a week before I turned two.

♪ Happy birthday, dear Katherine Happy birthday… ♪

So these videos are the only glimpse

into what life was like with my mother in it.

My dad got remarried when I was seven to my evil stepmother.

Katherine isn't much help.

Would you go away with your little camera?

What'll you do with your tape recorder? You gonna take it into court?

It's kind of a Cinderella story.

♪Someday my prince will come ♪

My evil stepmother has kicked me out of the house!

And now I'm here in the woods and have no place to go!

Why would she do that?

'Cause she's evil, and I hate that bitch.

Things got bad at home, and I started acting out.

Drinking, smoking, sneaking out at night.

Typical teenager stuff.

I begged my dad to let me go somewhere. Anywhere.

As long as I didn't have to stay at home with her.

In the middle of sophomore year,

I transferred to a private Christian boarding school in Long Island, New York.

I was only there for a few months

before I was forced to withdraw for having Mike's Hard Lemonade,

in violation of the school's zero-tolerance policy.

I was sitting in the principal's office.

My dad told me he was on his way to come get me.

He was gonna be driving up from DC.

But then these two people walk in, and they have handcuffs.

They said, "We're here to take you to your new school."

My parents had hired two strangers to forcibly escort me

to Academy at Ivy Ridge in the small town of Ogdensburg in Upstate New York.

I got here at 3:00 in the morning.

It was pitch-black out.

The transport car just pulled up in here.

And they sent some staff here to come greet me.

And I walk in, and I, uh… I set my bags down.

And then I turn around to go back outside

to get the rest of my stuff, and they pulled me back.

And they're like, "No. You can't go out anymore."

And I was like, "Well, I just am gonna get the rest of my stuff from the car."

And they're like, "No, you can't go outside anymore."

"We'll get it for you."

This was the first time I started realizing,

"This isn't a normal school."

Like, "What's goin' on?"

Then two staff members flanked me on either side,

linked arms with me, and…

walked me off to the dorms.

And they said I was not allowed to talk anymore at all.

And, um, yeah, that's most people's first,

uh, experience at Ivy Ridge

is just hearing these doors click locked behind them.

And you can never leave.

So…

So, they escort me back here, and then they take me into the bathroom.

The hallway was just lined with mattresses,

with kids sleeping out in the hallway,

with their arms out, their wrists out like that,

and staff at different points.

And then they brought me in here,

into the bathroom, and had me take off all my clothes

and jump up and down and cough.

Strip-searched. So…

Then they had me sleep in the hallway.

As I lay on the mattress in the brightly-lit hallway,

with my hands outstretched while a stern-looking woman monitored me

throughout the night,

I couldn't help but think, "Where the fuck am I?"

The Academy at Ivy Ridge is located in upper New York State,

along the St. Lawrence River and close to the Adirondack Mountains.

Its remote location helps minimize inappropriate distractions,

but it's still only a six-to-ten-hour drive

from many of the major cities.

In addition to academic curriculum,

students are also taught values, integrity, honor, accountability…

…and respect for authority.

The program was marketed as help for kids with "bad behavior,"

for lack of a better expression.

They sold it as "tough love."

Many of these kids are taken in the middle of the night

out of their bedrooms by these so-called "transport services,"

where these big guys come, all dressed in black with their handcuffs.

Your parents are standing there at the doorway, watching.

It's 3:00 in the morning. You get woken up out of bed.

These guys grab you. You don't know what's going on.

You're saying "help" to your parents. They're just standing there.

They take you off somewhere. You have no idea where you're going.

That alone is going to be a lifelong trauma.

When you first arrive, you're put on run watch,

where they take your shoelaces and make you sleep in the hallway.

Kids who were placed on suicide watch had to sleep with their arms outstretched

so staff could monitor that they weren't trying to hurt themselves.

They would force haircuts on all the male students

or for girls whose hairstyle they didn't like.

Every kid was strip-searched.

Alexa had a male, I believe, do her strip search.

Unbelievable.

It was this. That's all you got, you know?

- Hmm. - And then it was jumping.

I had to squat and cough.

And then I had to pee into a cup.

And at this point, you know, you're naked.

- I was naked and peeing into a cup. - That's, that's…

I'm covering my, you know, whatever, but then that's all exposed.

- Yeah. - I was 15.

Was that not illegal?

- That shouldn't be the male staff. - I mean, it has to be.

Alexa and I were friends before the program.

- Alexa! - Hi.

- Hi! - Hi.

I don't think you're gonna get that.

Are you a little camera shy?

Stop, I hate cameras.

I met you in 7th grade, and my memories of you, honestly,

was just this super bubbly,

like, outgoing, crazy, off-the-walls, larger-than-life personality.

I was really cool.

Yeah! I remember you being cool. You were the jock.

I was like the Ferris Bueller, if I may.

Well, no, but you were great. You were super, super personable.

I feel like everybody liked you.

And so it was shocking to me when I saw you in the program.

Like, shocking.

"Wait, Katherine?"

"Wait, wait, wait. Katherine Daniel?"

-Like, this super Christian… -I was a good kid!

-…drinking the Kool-Aid kid. -I was a really good kid!

-I was super Christian. -You were. You were.

So, the first day,

I remember hearing over the walkie-talkies them go,

"Upper level, Alexa Brand."

And I was like, "Hey! I know Alexa Brand! I went to school with her!"

And they were like, "Oh, you know Alexa? You can't talk to her, then."

Yeah, they really do not want close relationships forming in the program.

So, if you have a past relationship, you're not talking to them.

Well, yeah. So, it's a lot to process 'cause there are all these rules.

It's so insane.

It takes so long to learn about it that they literally…

When you first get to the program, they assign you a hope buddy

for the first three days

- to tell you all the rules. - Right.

Allison was my hope buddy at Ivy Ridge.

So she spent the next three days explaining all the rules to me.

I remember it was just so clear that you really thought

you were at a school of some variety.

And so, I just remember thinking, like,

"Oh, she's about to have her mind blown."

These are all the rule violations.

But then what's nice is it tells you what you would get them for.

There are so many rules that it's impossible to learn all of them

in those three days.

So, I'll just give you the highlights.

You can't talk.

You can't look out the window.

You can't make eye contact with other students.

You can't touch anyone.

You have to pivot around every corner

and maintain a strict, military-like structure.

You have to wear your hair in a braid.

No makeup. No shaving.

You're not allowed to look in the mirror. You're so controlled.

When you went to the bathroom,

you always had to keep the stall door open.

And so you'd have to go to the bathroom,

and the staff would just be staring at you.

You had to be fast too. You didn't have much time.

101 Rude Act, intentionally passing gas.

You're literally not allowed to fart without permission.

No joke. If you farted without asking for permission, it was a 101 Rude Act.

Minus five points.

Any nonverbal showing, like, winking or smiling, is a correction.

Yeah, our facial expressions were so controlled…

- Yeah. - We literally couldn't smile.

Or that would add two days on to your sentence.

For us, it was like a game. You have to get a certain amount of points.

So you calculated how many days it would take you to get home

if you got 15 points a day.

And you just tried to get through the day just by being emotionless.

Just dissociating and being like,

"Let me just be a robot, and pivot, and get through this day."

"And play this, like, insane video game that is not fun."

The program runs on a points and level system.

Everyone starts on level one with zero points.

You move up in levels by getting points.

You earn points by following the rules all day.

If you break a rule, you get a correction.

That removes points from your total.

On level one, you are nothing.

If you got a correction, you likely didn't have enough points to cover it.

So you'd be sent to worksheets to write meaningless essays

or copy rules for hours.

When you got to level two, you were allowed to have a candy bar twice a week.

Level three was a big deal because it meant you were finally allowed

to have a 15-minute phone call once a month with your parents.

But staff would listen in.

If you said anything bad about the program,

they would disconnect the call, and you would lose your phone privileges.

Levels four through six were upper levels.

And it was a completely different program.

You could talk. You could shave. You could wear your hair down.

But you can't leave the program until you get to level six.

And that takes a very long time.

They want to keep you here forever. It's impossible to get points.

The program is intentionally impossible to follow.

They make it so you're just stuck here forever.

My first few days in the program were a blur.

Like a horrible fever dream.

This was supposed to be a place for bad kids

with serious drug issues, not me.

This had to be a mistake.

Then I got my first letter from my dad.

"Dear Katherine, the reason that I had to arrange special escorts to pick you up

was that I was afraid

that if I picked you up and brought you home,

that I would go soft and just let things go."

"I had to sort of trick you

in order to help you escape from your own dangerous behavior."

"You need to plan your action around completing the entire program there."

"It really works."

"And how fast you get through it is up to you."

"But don't fake it."

"They won't let you."

"I miss you so much, and so does Jane. And don't try to blame this on Jane."

"She feels guilty for being so hard on you."

In my intake file, they said,

"Jane admits she has been borderline abusive," and that,

"Katherine will most likely relate 'evil stepmother' stories about Jane."

What was this program, and how did my dad even know about it?

If I could just hop on the phone and talk to him,

we could get this all cleared up.

But I wasn't allowed to use the phone.

When you get to Ivy Ridge,

you're cut off from all communication with the outside world.

Except for a letter we were required to write to family once a week.

My parents kept every single letter I sent from the program.

Reading through them sheds light on what daily life was like at Ivy Ridge.

"Dear family,

in your last letter, you asked me about my room and what stuff I have."

"Haha. I laughed when you asked that."

"I'm in a room with four other people."

"If I talk to them in the dorm room,

I will get a Cat 4 and lose all my points."

"The door always stays open, and the lights on."

"As to what we are allowed to have? Two pair of pajamas."

"Our uniform and toiletries. "

"And a letter box and photo album."

"Anything else is an illegal item, which is 50 points."

"But anyway, enough of rules. I hear them all day long."

The boys' and girls' side were completely separate.

We weren't allowed to make eye contact with the boys.

They did school separately, ate separately,

and stayed in a different part of the facility.

So we slept in this building. We were only here to sleep at night.

This is where all the dorms were.

During the day, every morning, they would get us up,

and we would go into the other building, dorm one, which is right over there.

But they wouldn't trust us

to walk from this building to that building.

So, we'd have to line up and get in a school bus

just to drive us from this building to that building.

Ivy Ridge was a lockdown facility, and we weren't allowed outside.

They even built these enclosed walkways

to connect the buildings so that we never walked outside.

Our whole lives were spent inside the facility.

But the marketing materials presented a different story.

The Academy at Ivy Ridge campus was formerly a junior college.

It is located on 237 acres,

with plenty of outdoor recreational space and nature trails.

If you look at pictures of Ivy Ridge,

you wouldn't think anything bad was going on.

Once a year, they allowed us to have a "fun day,"

where we could go outside, and play, and have decent food.

But the marketing materials made it seem like this was a daily occurrence.

It's very hard to find photos of what life was like

for the majority of children in the program.

I remember just staring at these walls for hours.

Probably to break me. I think that's probably what it was.

It became a game with these staff members. "Who was gonna be the one to break Diana?"

Because I had been here for so long, and I just was refusing.

I wouldn't follow the rules. I wouldn't do it.

And everybody was like, "Just fake it till you make it."

And I was like, "I can't. I won't do it."

So, at that point, they were like, "Then you're gonna go to intervention."

Intervention is where they sent students

when they were actively rebelling against the program.

You can see how small these rooms are. They're not very big at all.

A lot of times,

either I'd be facing a wall and staring at a wall for hours,

or they would have me face down.

I would have to be on my stomach, with my arms out, and my feet out,

and then with my chin on the floor.

So, up like this.

So I would just have to sit there for hours.

So a lot of staff members did a lot of things to me

because they wanted the award of being the one who broke Diana's spirit

and got her to work the program.

Staff would create special challenges

for kids who were resistant to the program.

So Diana was given quite a few.

- So, like, the box challenge. - It's called "a box of crap."

- Yeah. - And it was about this big.

- Yeah. - And it did not have handles. It wasn't…

- It was just a box. - Difficult to hold anyway.

Yup. And then it was full of reams of paper.

So, I had to hold it like this.

- So, that's heavy. - Very heavy.

I would have to carry it everywhere, all around the facility.

And I'd be trying to balance and keep in line structure.

And how long did that last for?

About two weeks.

But that's impossible to hold all day.

It was just I was sore all the time. It just really hurt.

There were bruises all over my arms from the corners.

And the staff sent out an email saying if anybody sees bruising on Diana's arms,

it's because of the box.

So you could just never set it down?

Never. They'd make me run with this in gym!

- Are you serious? How? - Yes!

Everyone would be running, and I'd be like…

But I'll never forget, I got this, like, strength,

and I took the box, and I was, like, dancing with it.

And then making eye contact with Amy.

Amy Ritchie was the director of the girls' side at Ivy Ridge.

And all of this happened under her watch.

The entire program seemed to be one of more or less constant oppression.

And I said, "Well, if this is really happening, this is troubling."

"So I should look into this."

I was writing a series of articles for United Press on this,

interviewing witnesses.

But the program did their best to keep,

you know, the truth of what was going on there from getting out.

The kids were severely restricted in terms of who they could write to.

And, you know, their letters were strictly censored.

If I said anything bad about the program or asked to go home,

I would receive a correction.

The very first correction I received in the program was a "manipulation"

for asking my dad to take me out of the program.

I'm surprised they let this letter get sent

because it shows how controlling they were.

"I'm so sick of doing the same thing every day,

of not being able to talk."

"And I just wanna go home. And I wanna watch I Love Lucy,

and Andy Griffith, and talk to my sister."

"And not have to stand in line structure."

"And be able to go to the bathroom without a staff member."

"And be able to curl up in my bed when I'm sick."

"And play my guitar. And be able to look out the window."

"What is it that's still wrong with me that you want me to change?"

"Obviously, something about me isn't good enough for you yet

because you're still keeping me here."

"Please just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it."

"Give me a chance."

So many more files.

I think these are all just academic files, which are all bullshit.

I don't even give a fuck about my academic file.

It's like, "Bible class, you passed!"

Okay, wait. I wanna see if I'm in here.

Katherine Daniel!

- No! - Yeah!

- Your academic record. - There she is! My academic record!

Which is probably awful.

'Cause that was one of the other reasons I was sent here.

What did I get on the SAT? Don't look. It's probably bad.

I'm actually smart. I was just in these circumstances, so…

Yo, mine was really bad. It was 1100.

- I think I have, like, 1100… - Yeah.

It's hard to do well in school when you're being abused all the time.

So, this is where we would do all our schoolwork.

We'd spend most of our time just here in this lab, and, um…

Couldn't look out the window. This is setting you up for failure here.

Computer facing the window.

Not allowed to look out that.

And they had this homeschool program where we would do all of our work.

We spent most of the day just sitting in here

and bullshitting schoolwork.

'Cause we just had this homeschool program,

and no one would teach us, so we'd keep taking the quizzes

over and over again until we got 80 or above to pass.

And that was our high school.

They would have "teachers" they would say, that would sit at the end there.

We could raise our hand and ask 'em a question.

We could get five minutes with them, and that would be our education.

I refused to refer to them as students

because they weren't being given anything

that could be called an adequate education.

They were kept under oppressive conditions.

You know, if you're gonna market yourself as a school,

then you better show me something that looks like education.

And I'm sorry, I just wasn't seeing it.

Ivy Ridge's slogan was, "A boarding school for the future."

Maybe they meant that at some point in the future it would be a school,

because it never actually was one.

It was a behavior modification program.

We use a ver… a level program

that enables the kids to see where they've been misled

and get rewarded for good behavior or consequented for bad behavior.

Jason Finlinson was the Director of Ivy Ridge.

And he's also an idiot.

Okay, so tonight, we're gonna talk about black holes.

Black holes are, um…

They're black because as they're condensed…

They're really dense in the middle.

He couldn't spell or write a complete sentence to save his life.

When a parent emailed him

concerned about the quality of education at Ivy Ridge, he replied,

"All of our teachers are New York State Certifityed."

"All of the therapist are Certifityed as well."

I'm sure that response was reassuring.

Jason had hired his little brother, Jake Finlinson,

to be the Head of Academics at Ivy Ridge.

But even Jake said,

"Students are not here for academics,

but to work on themselves and their families."

Jake also banned several books from Ivy Ridge.

One book they didn't ban, though, was The Count of Monte Cristo.

I just found Count of Monte Cristo with my name in the checkout thing.

And I've always said that this is like Count of Monte Cristo

because I had this false imprisonment where I planned my big revenge.

I was like, "When I get out of here,

I'm gonna make a documentary about these places."

"And I'll get back at every one of you!"

This is so representative of my program journey.

If you're not familiar with the story, it's about a man

who was falsely imprisoned and used his confinement

to plot his revenge against those responsible.

I read the book while I was there and found solace in the thought

that one day I too would escape this wrongful imprisonment

and get revenge on those responsible.

So, here I am, 18 years later, to do just that.

Ogdensburg is a small town,

so there's a good chance I'd run into a familiar face.

That's Miss Siss.

What is y'all doing here?

We're just filming in Phillips

'cause I'm actually working on a documentary about Ivy Ridge.

- Oh, really? - Yeah! I'm curious.

Would you be open to being interviewed about your time there?

Sure. How about tomorrow, huh?

Yeah! I'll buy breakfast. How about that?

Florence Dedekker, or "Miss Siss" as we all called her,

was the shift supervisor for the girls' side at Ivy Ridge.

This was Siss's desk.

This was, like, the control center.

Like, the heartbeat of the girls' side.

She would sit here and she'd just keep an eye on everything.

Like, "You pick up a correction! You're lookin' the wrong way!"

"Get back! Line structure!" You know?

And she just, like, ruled the place from here.

Siss is a character. I mean, she's loud. She's unapologetic.

If she did your intake, you're doing the full squat and cough.

You know, she was just, like, notoriously inappropriate that way.

Like, "Ah, we're gonna do your strip search!"

"Get naked, girl!"

Right? The strip searches!

She was really, like, into the strip searches.

She was a very, very thorough strip searcher.

- "Who wants a strip search?" -"There's a missing pen!"

- "Why not?" -"A pen is missing!"

"Who wants a strip search?"

Never in my wildest dreams

did I think I'd be buying her breakfast one day,

but I had a lot of questions for her.

And then more coffee when you get a chance. Thank you so much.

Now, it…

Is this to help you girls with what you went through?

I'm trying to piece together a lot of stuff.

So I was hoping you could help me fill in some of the gaps.

Can you explain what your role was there? What your job title was?

What they told you when you went into it?

When I first went in it, I was a dorm parent.

Okay.

My job was to keep you on structure.

- Yeah. - Okay?

Like, couldn't talk when you wanted to talk.

You had to have permission for just about everything.

- Everything. - Everything.

So, if I was sitting at my desk,

and I seen you goin' like this, I'd say,

"Katherine, you need to get a consequence for off-task."

Yeah, which is a 25-point correction.

You couldn't talk to the girl next to you.

You couldn't look out the window.

Upon arrival, they had to strip down.

-Okay? -Yeah!

They may have a cell phone hid somewhere in them.

-Like, and I mean, in them. -Oh, in them.

-Yeah. -Oh wow.

Like, he always had them squat.

I guess you…

I say you didn't have the privacy that you should have had.

You know?

Do you remember George Tulip?

Yes! Doesn't his wife work here?

-His wife works here. -Okay.

Wait, is she here right now?

I think she's the blonde one, right?

-I can't see who's back there. -I think she's behind. We'll see.

She was walking by you. Tell me if you see her.

What about George Tulip?

I had been hearing a lot of stories about him.

He was a tough one.

George Tulip was the director of the boys' side of the program.

This is him tackling and restraining a kid in order to forcibly shave his head.

There was a lot of kids that would try to hit you and everything.

You did have to do a restraint on some of them.

Oh yeah?

But I didn't use the restraint techniques that I was taught up there.

Oh really? What did you do?

I always just put a pressure point on their neck

and took their arm and put it behind 'em.

And then if they kept fighting, I just put 'em to the ground.

Mm-hmm.

If you put a pressure point on the back of their neck,

they're gonna go to the floor for you.

-Yeah. -Easier if you have their arm behind them.

-Oh, really? -Because they can't hit you.

So, after the first year, I said,

"This ain't no boarding school. This is fucking prison."

Yeah. I'll tell you what.

This food here is better than Ivy Ridge's food.

I don't know how youse could eat that. I never ate a lot up there.

I had a problem.

-Yeah? -I'm not afraid to tell you.

The girls that…

-The girls that were gay. -Mm-hmm.

-I had a problem-- -Oh, sorry.

I really want to know what Siss was about to say just then,

but this is when my producer came up

to tell me that we were being asked to leave the diner.

Okay. Okay.

Apparently, one of the waitresses didn't want us talking about Ivy Ridge.

I wonder why that could be?

We just found a treasure trove.

- So, we were in George Tulip's office. - Whoa! Okay.

What is it?

So, these are all restraints.

- Oh jeez. - And I'm not done.

-These are all restraints. -Jeez.

There's over 200 restraints here over the course of one and a half months.

And it… Look. Writer's signature, "George Tulip."

George Tulip. That means he's the one that did that restraint.

So, "I, George Tulip, brought him to the floor."

- Right. - Yeah! And that was his MO!

This, to me, is the most interesting things of the finds here,

is these handwritten, signed, and dated confessions of abuse by the abusers.

So George Tulip was a fucking child abuser.

Right.

And he signed and dated his own confession.

And we have so many of these.

I don't know if these are gonna be of any importance, um…

- So, these are-- - Oh shit.

My friend Sean found a bunch of archive security camera footage

in the building.

There were stacks of DVDs that were compilations of the most abusive moments.

You can hit the lights. Yeah, just flip that switch. There you go.

Oh, I can't believe there's footage…

Wow, Sean.

So, this is a…

This is gonna be a restraint that takes place.

"You're not doing it good enough," or something.

- Oh jeez. - While he went down!

While he went down--

What was the kid doing? I don't even see the reason.

- There was no reason. - There was no reason?

He was not doing fitness well enough.

Yeah.

Let's see.

Okay. So, this is upstairs of dorm one.

- Oh wow. - Jesus Christ!

That shouldn't be grounds for an instigation on his end.

Holy shit.

- Whoa! Whoa! - Oh my God. Oh my God.

- What's in there? - This is the no-camera room.

What's that mean, "no-camera"?

This is where they took you to fuck you up.

So this room did not have a camera.

This was… The big boys came in here.

And if you came in this room, it was over.

They're tossing you into the wall, slamming you onto the floor,

whatever they wanna do to you. Banging your head into the thing.

Slamming it directly into this radiator.

It didn't matter because there's no cameras here.

Jeez. Considering what we've seen staff do

in the rooms with cameras…

Yeah.

You can only imagine what happened in the no-cameras room.

They would take their hand on the back of your neck, choke you.

Whatever they could do to make you either stop moving

and just feel lifeless.

You're like, "Yo, I could die right now. I'm about to die."

Like, "These dudes is gonna kill me."

This is heavy. I don't have to play this if it's too much for people.

If you didn't go along with the program,

they had ways of breaking you.

Physical restraints, solitary confinement, food deprivation.

The thing about you, Quintin, is you never tried to work your program.

No.

You were level one the entire time?

Eight months, yes. I never made level two.

It's hard to comply with something that you know is wrong.

Quintin was at Ivy Ridge the same time as me,

but he spent most of his time in worksheets and intervention.

Here's some footage of Quintin being restrained.

That happened to him a lot.

They fed me two pieces of bread

and eight ounces of milk for two weeks straight in this room.

For two weeks.

- Hold on. Excuse me. - Yeah, no. Take your time.

You were on a chair.

Your ass had to be an inch on the chair.

Like, you had to be on there forward.

Your feet together,

knees fist-length apart, and you had to stare at the fuckin' wall.

And a lot of us, like, couldn't handle it.

So, we'd start slouchin' and this.

And they'd point at a brick. "Which brick did I just point at?"

"I don't know."

And they would…

There's another two hours.

Like, two hours.

- Wow. - Like, I'm… I'm shaking.

I'm, like…

It was August, and I just… I didn't give a fuck.

I was, like, so tired.

And I was… My head was down like this.

And all of a sudden, somebody takes my… the back of my head

and pushes my chair to where it slides back.

Like, to the point where he fucking shoved my head between my legs to where it hurt.

Like, it hurt.

So, I was like, "Oh, someone's fighting me." I pushed him.

And I was like, "Oh, that's a staff."

He threw me on the ground. Boom.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

- Yeah. - It's just…

I was restrained. My shit was bleeding and everything.

The nurse would come and check on me, like, "You need anything?"

I said, "You got ibuprofen?" "No. I'm not giving that to you."

And my shit's still bleeding like…

I'm swollen, like, "All right. Cool."

"Just leave me alone then and get the fuck out of this room."

I'm still dealing with this.

'Cause I spent every night of my life blacking out for, like, five years.

Blacking out was the most important thing,

so I didn't have to think about any of that.

Like, the problems come back tenfold, you know?

But I did everything I could to chase that shit away.

Like, I don't wanna feel what I felt here.

I don't even want to be here right now.

But I'm here.

I really don't want to be here right now, but I'm here.

I'm fucking weirded out. I'm uncomfortable.

- Yeah? - I'm shaking. Like…

Fuck this place.

Yeah, fuck this place.

You know what, though? This time, you can leave.

Yeah, I know. And, yo, that's such a dope feeling.

That's such a dope feeling.

- Thank you for that. - Uh-huh.

Oh man.

I, I, I… I didn't realize that.

You can walk right out of here.

Want to do it? Let's get the fuck out of here.

- All right. - You did it, man!

Unfortunately, there were no security cameras

on the girls' side of the program.

I really wish there were.

The stuff that went on there was just as crazy.

Here's another skirt.

- Here's a ton of skirts, guys. - Oh, hell yeah.

- Hold on one second. - There's a bunch of spare vests.

Why do I-- Why am I willingly putting this back on again?

- I don't know. - A mouse chewed this.

Embrace the trauma.

What we went through is horrible,

but some of it is just so absurd, you can't help but laugh at it.

It's a coping mechanism, I guess.

Come to Ivy Ridge.

We'll fix your troubled kid.

Where's your vest? Did you get in trouble for that?

Oh my God, you're a slut! What is this?

- I am, aren't I? - I love it. I want to do that.

Just like a…

At Ivy Ridge, I rebelled pretty much in any way I could, you know?

The medication, I think, is the big one.

They were making me, like, zombified.

I don't feel good. And I was like, "I'm not taking these meds."

And I just remember sitting behind Sissy's desk.

They're like, "You're gonna take your meds."

And Siss, um, got out of her chair and stood over me.

She pushed me to the ground and then sat…

like, sat down on my chest.

Well over 100 pounds heavier than me.

And she was, like, smiling like crazy. She, like, love--

She was like, "Ah!" She was like, "I'm gonna break Diana."

"I'm gonna do it."

Like, "I'm gonna be the one who gets these meds into her."

So, they held my nose like this,

and then had their hand over my mouth.

So, either they're going like this or like this.

And so, it was literally… I was grabbing for anything I could.

I couldn't breathe. I was going like this.

And then I started blacking out.

So, I was going in and out of consciousness.

So, they got the pills in somehow, and I took 'em.

I fought for a pretty long time.

But if I had continued to, because I was blacking out,

I… I'm assuming I would have not been here today.

We found multiple eyewitness statements , signed and dated,

detailing the incident with Diana at Siss's desk,

and hundreds of other abusive incidents that took place at Ivy Ridge.

But, unfortunately, there was some abuse that was never documented.

Multiple girls have come forward

to tell me about sexual abuse by a staff member.

Other staff members corroborated this as well.

It seems to have been an open secret at Ivy Ridge.

But since no reports were ever filed, I'm not allowed to name them.

This is not only an adult,

but an adult in a position of power over these kids

who could affect everything.

Well, the way that she manipulated the girls

into wanting the attention in the first place was really fucked up.

- Yeah. - I mean, it was very strategic.

It was really strategic.

Um…

- Like, how? - Well, like, basically, um…

Once she had her sights on somebody, it was a lot of love bombing first.

- Yeah. - You know? So with me, in particular,

it was like there was so much attention paid on me,

and I was eating it up, just being so starved for love.

And then, like, things started getting very weird.

Um, so, at first, it started with, like, touching.

And, like, nonsexual touch. Very platonic, but…

And, again, in this, like…

this very, like, caring way, you know?

Where it'd be, if I'm crying, it's something where it's touching.

Then it would turn into things like this. You know? Or it would…

- But it feels like a mom. - Yeah.

And then, um, what happened, or what kind of happened after that is,

you get that love,

and you get that adoration from this person,

and then all of a sudden, you're shunned, completely shunned.

And then you see her do that to other people. Sorry.

But you see her do that to other people.

So you're like, "What did I do wrong?" Like, "How did I fuck up?" You know?

"I was just starting to be loved by this person,

and now they're looking at somebody else."

Then the next time she calls you in and wants to take it a step further,

you're like, "Please. Please!" Like, "Please touch me."

You know? Like, "Please show me this love and affection 'cause…"

"…I don't have it."

You know, you can't even smile at another human being,

and now you have somebody who is, like,

pouring so much, like, predatory love and affection on you.

But the only thing you're able to receive

or the only thing you're able to feel is, like, "I matter."

Like, "I matter to somebody."

And it was not innocent.

Um…

Like, the first time that I was in the bed with her, I, uh…

Like, to be honest, I can, like, still feel…

Sorry.

I can still feel her, like, breathing on my neck.

I can, like, still smell what she smells like.

And then I remember pretending to be asleep.

Literally just pretending to be asleep. Like, "Please don't. Please don't."

Um…

Oh fuck.

Yeah, so, um…

There was multiple times that it happened.

Multiple times.

She's a fucking pedophile.

She ruined my life in so many ways.

Any institution where there is unchecked power

will tend towards corruption and abuse over time.

And, unfortunately, if you're a pedophile, these places are like heaven

because you can abuse kids as much as you like

in public,

without any repercussions, because, "Oh, those kids are liars."

"They're manipulators." You know, "You can't believe them."

When I was researching this, it was just, like, painful

because so many people had just never been believed before.

And the kids are alienated because they were abused,

and their parents don't believe they were abused.

And if you're not believed, it's really, really difficult to recover.

I think for years and years you tell yourself,

"Maybe it wasn't that bad," or, "Maybe it wasn't wrong."

And when you reconnect with people,

and you see just how fucked up everybody got for the same reasons,

that's when you're like, "Wow, that… That was real."

- Yeah. - "That really was bad."

Or, "That was illegal." Or, "That was rape." Um…

Yeah.

And then I numbed it with alcohol for years and years.

But haven't we all, you know?

- How do you open this? Is it twist-off? - Twisty.

- Here we go. This is… - I was getting ready to get the…

What if…

You do the crime, you do the time. This is what got me in here.

Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Got expelled from the Stony Brook School with their zero-tolerance policy.

-So I was incarcerated for 15 months. -Huh!

- Mmm! Forgot to cheers. - To freedom.

- To freedom! Cheers. - Cheers.

Ah!

Ooh!

It was worth it. It tastes so good.

This will be the darkest Mike's Hard Lemonade ad.

I think the most difficult part of this for the kids is being entrapped.

Basically, being imprisoned.

We always thought about running away.

Ivy Ridge, it's right on the St. Lawrence River,

on the Canadian border.

Our plan always was,

"If we just swim across the river and get into Canada, we'll be safe."

But they would tell us that,

"Oh, if you ran, the neighbors were allowed to shoot you."

I heard, "The current's too strong."

- "You'll make it halfway and then drown." -Yeah.

All the windows here were covered with this mesh, metal grate.

And there were motion sensors out there.

So, you just… There's just no way you could run away.

Even if you did manage to get out of the building

and run off into those woods, it's just miles and miles of nothing,

of marshland, of trees.

I mean, imagine for a minute

spending months and sometimes years like that.

You cannot get out. You know you can't leave.

And you're in this incredibly hostile environment.

What does that do to you? What does that do to your psyche?

You know, to your mental health, to your emotional health?

"Dear family, I hate being in a program for the holidays."

"The thing that upsets me the most is sitting here in Ogdensburg

and wondering if my parents are even thinking about me."

"If they even remember that I'm here

or if they're having a better time without me there."

"I hope you'll remember me this Christmas."

"Tell me what I am still doing wrong."

"Why am I not good enough to come home yet?"

Oh, I remember every night.

This was when I'd be like, "Well, I'm here another night,

'cause my dad doesn't want me."

"Well, he could come get me at any point,

but I'm here 'cause he thinks I need to be here."

And you had to have your eyes closed 'cause staff would come by and watch you.

So, you'd just lay here like this.

All the time.

And then-- Until the super loud alarm comes on,

and then up you go. And then it's another day in hell.

Yeah.

This mattress is probably gross, isn't it?

♪ Because a vision softly creeping… ♪

That is one of the worst parts of the psychological torture here,

is you don't know when you're going home.

So you kind of have this hope that you could be pulled out any minute.

You're like, "My parents will miss me."

"My parents will want me home for Christmas."

"My parents will want me for summer vacation."

"My parents will want me."

And then you realize, "Oh, my parents don't want me."

For them to be isolated like that, in captivity…

and told that their parents put them there…

and told that their parents don't care about them,

it's really setting them up for some real disaster.

You know, I want to use an expletive here.

- Go ahead, please. - Probably. It's a mindfuck.

Oh fuck.

I thought Ivy Ridge was the only one of its kind.

But one day, a bunch of new kids started showing up.

We were told they're from our sister school,

Casa by the Sea in Mexico.

This was the first I heard that we had a sister school.

"There are more of these places? What the fuck?"

Nikki!

- It's yours. - What?

- What? - Your poem.

Oh my God.

Oh…

When I was 17, I was in the psych hospital.

And my stepmom and my grandparents come to visit me,

and they hand me this brochure of Casa by the Sea.

And it's all this fun stuff of riding horseback on the beach

and doing all these fun activities.

So, I was like, "All right, I need help."

My thought process was, um, you know… I've been addicted to heroin.

I've been addicted to pretty much everything.

I've tried to kill myself multiple times.

Now, I needed help.

Were they able to help you with this issue?

No.

I got a phone call from a parent

for a child I'd been working with for about a year

in twice-a-week psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

The parent told me that they decided

they were going to send this child to a therapeutic boarding school.

And what I learned was that they would not be involved at all,

that the child had to earn the right to talk with them,

which raised a lot of red flags for me.

So, that caused me to begin to look into this place called Casa by the Sea

in Ensenada, Mexico.

It's got a lovely name, but it's a horrible place.

When I was coming off of heroin, they just, um…

They stuck me into solitary, whatever.

And just, like, let me sit there and, like, detox from this.

And, like, I had myself… shit myself and, like…

Already, like, within the first few days,

the loss of dignity that you have…

I've been abandoned by my family and have been put into this place,

obviously, purposely.

Because they gave me this brochure

that said I was gonna be okay.

And I needed help.

And instead…

One of the things about it is that I…

At the time I learned of this, I tried to alert every legislator I could

what this was.

And this was, at the time…

Casa by the Sea was shut down by the Mexican government.

Like, all these federales just come bustin' in

with their assault weapons.

And they ended up telling us that it was being shut down.

So a shit ton of us came to Ivy Ridge.

Apparently, Ivy Ridge was just one program

under an umbrella organization called WWASP,

the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs.

So, when Casa was shut down,

WWASP offered to relocate the kids to other WWASP programs,

including Ivy Ridge.

These people had facility after facility after facility.

There was the one in Jamaica, Tranquility Bay facility.

There was one in Samoa.

There was one that was in the Czech Republic at one time.

There was the one in Mexico.

There was one in Costa Rica called Dundee Ranch

that was closed at one point.

Three countries, Mexico, Costa Rica, and the Czech Republic

have shut down WWASP operations, citing their repeated abuse of teenagers.

When the Casa kids arrived, we were overcrowded.

Six kids were crammed into each dorm room.

Since there were not enough bunk beds,

kids would sleep on mattresses on the floor and in the hallway.

Conditions were deplorable.

Foot fungus, pink eye, and viruses spread throughout the facility.

Medical neglect was rampant.

But there was nothing we could do to escape.

The things that would get you expelled at a normal school

would just get you sent to intervention.

We were trapped.

Something had to give.

But if Casa was able to get shut down,

maybe we could get Ivy Ridge shut down too.

It was the boys' side that planned the riot.

We were just talkin' about a riot, and it actually ended up happening.

♪ Little boy The world just wants to trick you… ♪

The goal with the riot was to get everybody home.

It was to shut this motherfucker down.

♪ Don't you know That pain can make you stronger? ♪

- Now, this is where it starts. You ready? - Yeah.

♪ You don't have to buy into their lies… ♪

Riot!

This is upstairs in the beginning, when he's yelling, "Riot, riot, riot!"

- Yeah. Wow. - He's on the phone, bam!

So that one staff ran down 'cause there is altercation.

But as soon as that happened, I pulled this fire alarm.

And the second I pulled it, I can hear the doors downstairs unlocking.

The alarm is going off.

You saw the bright flash.

So, the sound in there right now is the alarm we all know. It's deafening.

So, I had a wooden bed,

where I kicked the fuckin', uh, piece of wood underneath.

And I pulled it out.

And I came out here and I just started poppin' light bulbs.

Like, these were all light bulbs. And I just, "Pam!"

And I just popped it. Popped it.

I started hearing the windows breaking, left and right.

And I just remember going, like,

"Come on, come on, come on! Let's go! Let's go!"

Like, "Get up! Let's go! Let's go!"

I remember someone wrappin' a T-shirt around their face,

like, "We're gonna do this!"

That is Quintin, I believe.

- Shut up. - What? That's Quintin!

- That totally is Quintin. - That very well could be.

It took one staff to kind of hold us back for the longest time.

But then we realized…

there's numbers.

And somebody pushed through.

And I don't know who went through, but once that happened,

the whole hallway went downstairs.

I saw the overpowering of the staff and the doors open.

I'm watching the runners.

It just got a lot darker

and a lot more screaming, a lot more chanting.

- What was the chanting? - Um…

"Fuck Ivy Ridge! Fuck Ivy Ridge! Fuck Ivy Ridge!"

My homies and myself have planned this riot,

so we had ideas.

I figured if we destroyed all the computers and everything,

it would be done.

So, the original plan was to go down there and fuck shit up.

But everybody beelined through here.

Why'd they do that?

Because they were hungry.

Everybody's ripping pots and pans off this shit,

just trashing the kitchen.

I'm like, "Let's go, let's go, let's go!" And there's nobody behind me.

'Cause they're all in the kitchen.

And then we all get put into the gymnasium.

- The gym? - Yeah.

Man, it's so cool to know what was going on.

I mean, I was in the dorms the whole time.

We heard the alarms go off.

We weren't sure what was going on, you know?

They weren't like, "There's a riot." Otherwise, we'd join in.

But, yeah, they tried to villainize to make us scared of you guys,

so we wouldn't join in.

♪ Can't you hear The whispers in the hall? ♪

So, they take us into here, right?

My boy was like, "Should I turn the lights out?"

I said, "Do it." He turns the lights out, and it's a full-on riot after that.

It's like a pitch-black mosh pit.

I just remember hittin' people. Like, hittin' people.

It's like, you remember tears and the chanting.

Just, "Fuck Ivy Ridge. Fuck Ivy Ridge!"

Fuck Ivy Ridge! Fuck Ivy Ridge!

You got the police and the fucking border patrol outside

and everybody ready to shut us down.

They threw a smoke bomb in here.

I remember that because that's when they started escorting us outside.

Students at the Academy at Ivy Ridge smashed windows

and attacked staff members on Monday evening.

About 30 of the school's 450 students fled the campus,

located in heavily-wooded land five miles west of Ogdensburg.

All the students were located and returned to the facility.

Twelve students were charged with rioting, assault, and disorderly conduct.

The teenage students are being held here in the county jail

on $5,000 cash bail and will face criminal charges.

Let's talk about when you got sent to jail.

How was jail in comparison to the program?

Like a five-star Hilton Hotel.

I loved jail. Jail was freedom to me.

Like, it was freedom compared to what we were going through here.

So the riot, you were hoping, would shut down Ivy Ridge.

Yes.

But I was wrong.

Spokesman Tom Nichols says

the school will be reviewing the latest incident

and looking at procedures to prevent a similar occurrence in the future.

Since the riot didn't work,

our only other option was to complete the program.

Does this sound crazy to you?

I haven't even told you about the seminars yet.

Palms up, palms down, palms together, palms apart, palms up…

Seminars are the backbone of the whole program.

If you want to get the hell out of there, you have to "do the program."

It is behavior modification. It is literal brainwashing.

The people that the program most wants to influence is the parents,

not the kids.

And it was basically a cult.

Parents buy into it. They get duped into it.

"It's gonna change your life!"

It was the worst thing that happened to me.

What concerned me most about the program

wasn't the kids that got broken, it was the kids who were successful.

Palms up, palms down, palms together, palms apart.