Teen Sues North Idaho Therapy Camps Family Says Boy Was Abused

Charging he was physically and emotionally abused, a California teenager and his family are suing two North Idaho programs designed to help troubled teens.

John C. D’Abreo claims he was taunted by untrained counselors, deprived of medicine, forced to sleep among dead rats and made to sit outdoors in January for days at a time.

The suit was filed June 27 in the Superior Court of Monterey County, Calif., headquarters of the CEDU Family of Services.

CEDU’s programs include Ascent and neighboring Northwest Academy in Boundary County, which D’Abreo attended from December 1994, to May 1995.

CEDU spokesman Jim Baker and Ascent marketing director Matt Fitzgerald would not comment Wednesday on the case, saying the company had not yet received the complaint.

Fitzgerald said he had never before heard complaints of ill treatment from families whose children attended Ascent. That six-week program is designed to “turn around” teens with difficult behavioral problems.

Northwest Academy is a longer-term residential program. CEDU also operates Rocky Mountain and Boulder Creek academies in Boundary County.

In recent interviews regarding Ascent, Fitzgerald emphasized that physical and emotional safety of the teenagers was a priority.

Staff members have solid academic credentials, he said. He showed facilities in the mountaintop campus that were rustic but clean.

A different scene is portrayed in the suit, which accuses CEDU of such things as negligence, false imprisonment and fraud.

It claims that Dr. John E. D’Abreo and his wife, Sophia, were misled by CEDU president Mel Wasserman, who told them the CEDU programs would provide a wholesome educational experience and build their child’s self-esteem.

The suit claims their son, also named John, was housed in filthy tents at Ascent. He was deprived of medication for asthma and a spastic colon, the suit says, then punished for slowing down during two-mile runs and for losing control of his bowels.

His letters home about his plight were burned in front of him, the suit says.

“Staffers punished minor infractions by forcing the offender to sleep outside in the snow, or by using the offender’s head … as a battering ram to open closed doors … “

The D’Abreos say CEDU charged the couple “more than $60,000 for the privilege of abusing their son.”

The couple’s attorney, Thomas Burton, said he has represented the families of several children who died or were allegedly abused in wilderness-therapy camps in the Southwest. Those cases resulted in out-of-court cash settlements, he said.

, DataTimes