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September 2006

Sky View Academy - Nevada

A student has been injured in a freak accident at Sky View Academy in Nevada.

Details on the accident are sketchy at this point, however the child's injuries were serious enough to require surgery.

Sky View Academy is affiliated with the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS), whether they admit it or not.

Sky View's Director, Orval Hagerman, was a long-time administrator at WWASPS's Spring Creek Lodge Academy in Montana and operated his own teen-kidnapping (aka teen escort) service.

Curiously, Hagerman doesn't mention working at Spring Creek Lodge Academy on his bio page at the Sky View Academy web site.

Discovery Academy - Utah

The family of a boy who reported being sexually assaulted at Discovery Academy has filed a lawsuit against the behavior mod center in Utah.

According to the victim, 2 boys held him down as another assaulted him with a broomstick.

In the lawsuit the family says that after receiving medical attention, the victim was returned to the facility and housed with the same teens who assaulted him.

Gregory Sanders, the attorney for Discovery Academy, said the incident was "horseplay," not a sexual assault.

Academy at Ivy Ridge - New York

A 14 year-old was hospitalized after being attacked by four 17 year-olds at Academy at Ivy Ridge in Ogdensburg, New York.

Academy at Ivy Ridge is part of the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASPS).

Director Jason Finlinson is the brother-in-law of WWASPS founder and money-man, Robert Lichfield.

According to news reports, the four students involved in the attack were "expelled."

Anyone who knows anything about WWASPS knows what that means - those boys are probably at Tranquility Bay right now, where they can be held until they're 21.

Ivy Ridge is a huge, hairy WART on the face of WWASPS.

In August 2005, the New York Attorney General's Office ruled that the detention center was doling out fake diplomas and ordered the facility to pay nearly $2 million in fines and tuition refunds.

In July 2006, a class action lawsuit was filed against Ivy Ridge, Jason Finlinson, Robert Lichfield, WWASPS, etc., asking for $100 million in damages.

Click here to read more about it.

Hidden Lake Academy - Georgia

Pay back is a bitch, isn't it?

After years of allegedly creating legal problems for parents and staff members who complained about the center, Hidden Lake Academy is now on the receiving end of a lawsuit.

Several families have filed a class action suit claiming that the unlicensed teen-help program employed unqualified staff, lacked real counselors and nurses, allowed secretaries to dispense medication, and enrolled violent children contrary to their contract.

The fact that Clayton Erickson, the "addiction specialist" at Hidden Lake Academy, lost his license to practice medicine in 1999 probably won't help HLA's case.

More info on Erickson, and the lawsuit, can found at ISAC.

Whitmore Academy - Utah

Apparently, neighbors of proposed nuclear power plants and halfway houses aren't the only ones with a "not in my backyard" mentality.

Juab County D.A. Jared Eldridge feels the same way towards troubled-teen program owners who throw kids down stairs.

Cheryl Sudweeks, owner of Whitmore Academy, received a nice plea agreement this week. In exchange for pleading no contest to 7 charges of child abuse and hazing, Sudweeks will pay a little fine and do 50 hours of community service. In a year, she'll have a clean record.

That's where the second part of the plea deal comes in.

Cheryl also had to agree to never run another program in the county.

So with her squeaky-clean criminal record, Cheryl will be free to open another abusive program anywhere she and her "horse whisperer" hubby choose to, so long as it's not Juab County, Utah.

According to the Sudweeks' lawyer, James Merrell, Cheryl's life has been "destroyed" by kids "with a long history of lying and manipulating."

In case you're wondering why that sounds so familiar, that's the SAME defense WWASPS uses when they're accused of abuse.

Like really does breed like, it seems.