|
Romney campaign says top fund
raiser with links to 'abusive schools' resigned on his own
But ... WWASPS president, Ken
Kay, stated, "Gov. Romney has asked Mr. Lichfield to step down and
not be involved in any more fundraising "
September 6, 2007
By Jason Rhyne
More
Romney / Lichfield news ...
 A
spokesman for GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney slammed an
earlier report from Radar Online that claimed the candidate's Utah
finance committee co-chair, who is the co-founder of an education
group facing allegations of child abuse and fraud, was asked to
resign his position at the urging of the campaign.
Romney spokesman Stephen Smith, in
a Thursday email to RAW STORY, said that although top fundraiser
Robert Lichfield was no longer a part of the campaign, the decision
was his alone.
"Robert Lichfield resigned on his
own accord from the Romney campaign and is not a part of any
campaign or finance activities," said Smith.
The campaign's comments
contradicted statements from the president of Lichfield's Worldwide
Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), Ken Kay, who told Radar
that Romney has asked Lichfield to stop all fundraising activities
for the candidate's campaign.
In June 2007, Lichfield was named
in Utah federal court papers filed by the families of 133 children
who have attended schools connected to WWASP--a complaint which
asserts the children "were subjected to physical, sexual, and
emotional abuse," according to Radar.
Among the allegations include
charges from one plaintiff, Chase Wood, who claims he was fondled,
locked in a dog cage and forced to eat his own vomit while a student
at the Cross Creek Center for Boys. Lichfield founded the school in
the late 1970's.
"Gov. Romney has asked Mr.
Lichfield to step down and not be involved in any more fundraising
until the lawsuit is resolved in the positive, which we are
confident will happen," Kay told Radar.
"Ken Kay is not a part of the
Romney campaign in any capacity whatsoever," Stephen Smith told RAW
STORY. "Kay has not served on the Utah finance committee and is not
a Romney donor. He has no standing to make the claim that he did."
The campaign's spokesman also
distanced Romney from Lichfield, saying "We have accepted
contributions from tens of thousands of individuals across the
country. And Lichfield has donated to numerous Republican candidates
and committees."
Previously, Lichfield has been the
target of a New York class-action lawsuit for fraud, filed against
him in 2006, claiming a school operating on Lichfield-owned
property--and for which he has provided consulting
services--admitted students even though the school was not
accredited by the state.
As Utah's biggest political donor,
Lichfield raised nearly $300,000 for the Romney campaign at a
February fundraiser and he and his family have contributed an
additional $17,000 collectively.
Todays news comes a week after
Randall Hinton, a former counselor at the Cross Creek Center and
other WWASP-affiliated schools was convicted of false imprisonment
and third degree assault for slamming a student's head into a
stairwell at Colorado's Royal Gorge Academy.
According to Reason Online,
Lichfield isn't the only member of Romney's fundraising apparatus
with a link to purported teen abuse.
Mel Sembler, the Romney campaign's
national finance co-chair and former Republican party campaign
finance chair during the 2000 election, created a network of
treatments programs for trouble young people called Straight Inc.,
in 1976.
Reason cites a 1990 article in the
Los Angeles Times which reported that California officials
investigating Straight Inc. found teens "subjected to unusual
punishment, infliction of pain, humiliation, intimidation...and
interference with living functions such as eating, sleeping and
toileting."
|
