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April 15, 2005
Former
Student Alleges Months of Abuse: School Leader Proposes Campus in
Boonville
By JOHN SULLIVAN of the Tribune’s staff
BOONVILLE - A
former student of a behavior modification school in Jamaica alleges
that Randall Hinton, who has proposed opening a similar school on
the former Kemper Military School property, abused him and others
during his stay there.
Layne Brown, 23,
of Kanab, Utah, told the Tribune by phone last night that he met
Hinton at Tranquility Bay in Jamaica in 1997. Staff at the facility
used excessive restraining tactics, including pepper spray, duct
tape and painful holds, as punishment for not following rules, he
said.
Brown said he
was put in "observation placement," in which he and other new
students were forced to lie on their stomachs for more than eight
hours a day for days on end with only brief moments to stand and
stretch. The goal was to break the will of the teens, he said.
When Brown
resisted by standing up to stretch without permission, the staff
jumped on him, he said. At least five muscular staff members subdued
him, twisting his arms behind his back past the point where his
wrists touched his shoulders, Brown said. The staff then used the
pepper spray, he said.
Brown estimated
such attacks occurred three times a day and for as long as three or
four months. During that time, the teens were forced to defecate and
urinate in black garbage bags tied around their waists like diapers,
Brown said. Staff members dragged Brown across the cement floor
facedown, resulting in a chipped tooth and scars on his shoulders,
knees and chin, he said. One staff member used a hard-bristle toilet
brush to "scrub" his body and genitals, he said.
"It was totally
degrading," said Brown, who added that he eventually stopped
resisting and was moved to a less restrictive environment at the
school. "I couldn’t figure out why somebody would actually do
something like that."
Brown named
Hinton, as well as Tranquility Bay owner Jay Kay, as among five
people involved in the acts in an affidavit Brown’s mother, Terry
Cameron, prepared after learning about Hinton’s plan to open a
Boonville operation. Cameron sent the affidavit, as well as
videotape of Hinton admitting the use of pepper spray, to Boonville
officials and media, she said.
The video was
produced by an attorney whose child also claims to have been abused
at Tranquility Bay. It is mentioned in a Boonville police report
that recommends further investigation of Hinton, business partner
Robert Lichfield and World Wide Association of Specialty Programs
and Schools.
Tranquility
Bay’s Kay is the son of Ken Kay, the current president of World
Wide.
Founded by
Lichfield, a Utah businessman, World Wide consists of seven U.S.
schools and two others abroad. Many of the programs are facing
intense scrutiny from law enforcement, elected officials and
journalists. At least eight affiliated schools and organizations
have closed or been shut down over the past decade.
Many parents
vouch for the programs’ effectiveness, but opponents say they leave
children with deep emotional scars.
Cameron said she
was tricked into sending her son to Tranquility Bay for treatment of
a drug addiction by officials at a referral hospital known as
Brightway Adolescent Hospital in St. George, Utah. Brightway,
reported to be owned by World Wide, closed in 1998 under pressure
from Utah health department officials. Cameron said she spent about
$30,000 in tuition during the nine months Brown attended Tranquility
Bay.
Lichfield is
helping Hinton revive the former Kemper Military School and its
crumbling buildings. The Boonville City Council is considering a
contract to sell the property to Lichfield’s Golden Pond Investments
Ltd. of Utah.
Hinton would
lease the property and operate a military-style school with his
younger brother Russell Hinton. Randall Hinton denies Kemper would
be an affiliate of World Wide, although Lichfield is fronting the
money for the venture and is one of only three members on World
Wide’s governing board.
Brown’s
attorney, Henry Bushkin of Los Angeles, said the business
arrangement between Lichfield and Hinton in Boonville is typical of
other schools in World Wide’s network. Lichfield usually buys
property through a limited partnership, then leases it to the
school’s operator.
Bushkin said
Lichfield typically creates one or several more limited partnerships
that buy or invest in the company that owns the school property,
thus making it extremely difficult for any attorney to trace any
wrongdoing to him or his organization. The schools avoid criminal
convictions by opening schools in states with little regulation of
private residential treatment facilities for children or in other
countries, where U.S. law enforcement has little jurisdiction,
Bushkin said.
Ken Kay,
president of World Wide, denies any connection between World Wide
and Lichfield’s interest in private boarding schools. Lichfield’s
investments in the schools are among many business investments,
which also include grocery stores and office buildings, Kay said.
Lichfield could not be reached for comment.
Hinton on
several occasions has declined to comment on Brown’s allegations,
saying only that he believes he and the staff at Tranquility Bay
helped Brown overcome his problems.
Brown now lives
with his mother, who said he is off drugs, but he said he still has
nightmares about his experience in Jamaica. "I still have difficulty
trusting people," he said.
He warned
Boonville residents about Hinton. "He acts like a family man … but
there is something there deep inside of him that is evil," he said.
"He can pull the wool over your eyes really easy."
Reach John
Sullivan at (573) 815-1731 or jsullivan@tribmail.com |
