Former student alleges months of abuse
School leader proposes campus in Boonville.
By JOHN SULLIVAN of the Tribune's staff
Published Friday, April 15, 2005
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 |
