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Robert Lichfield, owner of WWASP

Robert Lichfield is the founder and owner of WWASP. As such, Lichfield built and then oversaw a large network  of abusive programs that literally spanned the entire world as well as  shady marketing department designed to drive fear deep into the hearts of naive and loving parents in order to bilk them out of every penny quickly and efficiently as possible. For years, Lichfield has been backpedaling. He will do anything and say anything to divorce himself from WWASP and WWASP from the programs. He and the owners of the programs have claimed repeatedly to be completely independent. Don’t  let them pull the wool over your eyes.

The programs ran on a franchise system similar to many fast food restaurants. They were independently owned, and each owner presumably had some small say over what went on, but most  of the blueprints and decisions came straight from the godfather himself, Lichfield. The same  seminars were offered, they used the same  level system, and had the same exact rules.
They used the same marketing techniques and the same jargon. And as that very jargon holds,  “If it walks like a duck, quacks  like a duck, and has webbed feet, it’s  probably a duck.” In this case, if it smells like a vast and evil corporate  empire predicated on greed and child abuse, and it’s slimy like one…yeah, definitely is  one.

Want proof? Here it is:

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WWASPSurvivors, SafeTeenSchools, the SIA Organization (Survivors of Institutional Abuse) and Shut Down Logan River have just launched the #BreakingCodeSilence Challenge, a challenge designed to bring awareness to the issues of institutional child abuse in residential treatment centers and teen behavior modification programs.

As we speak, as we live and breathe and enjoy our everyday freedoms, there are thousands of children suffering in captivity, usually involuntarily committed or incarcerated without consent or due process to “Teen Rehab” facilities that masquerade as therapeutic treatment centers and operate with impunity due to lack of government oversight. The “treatment” these children receive couldn’t be further from therapeutic and more often than not, result in abuse and torment that leaves survivors with lifelong emotional scars. Children have been systematically abused in these fraudulent programs for decades, and as long as the government allows them to continue to operate, they will suffer in silence in these programs- some will even die. Fraudulent teen programs exist all over the US and in many countries all over the world. What may look like a premiere rehab or treatment center in marketing materials may be in actuality a private for-profit teen prison that abuses kids and deceives desperate parents. For more information about the signs of an abusive teen program please see our Red Flags list.

What is “Code Silence”?

In the program, silence is not a choice, it is a requirement. “Code Silence” is a punishment meant to isolate and unnerve children until they reach to a breaking point, to the point where they feel no one believes anything they say… They are kept in this oppressive silence until they “get with the program” and say what they are expected to say. This method is so powerful that the effects often follow a survivor well after they have left the program. It effects them so much that they hold on to all the memories and unresolved feelings about their experience because they were taught that no one would believe them, and “being a victim” was shameful and showed weakness. Those lies and deceptions end today.

We will be silent no more.

The #BreakingCodeSilence Challenge was created to encourage survivors of institutional abuse to stand up and testify about the abuse in their programs, to speak today not for themselves, but for all the kids out there currently suffering with no voice and no hope of rescue. We will be strong for them and come forward to be their voice! #UnitedwithOneVoice we stand as an undeniable testament to the realities of the troubled teen industry. We hope this demonstration of empowerment and support for all survivors will take on enough headway to reach the masses, and save the lives of kids currently held in these private teen prisons.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Are you a survivor of institutional abuse? Please, take the challenge by first sharing your story. It can be as little as a paragraph or your entire life story- as much as you would like to share. Along with your story, submit your challenge photo, a “selfie” with tape over your mouth with the symbol “Ø”. This symbolizes the fact that so many kids have no voice in these programs… But we do have a voice, and we will use it to stand up for them!

In your submission, challenge 3 other people you know to share their stories of being abused or a witness to abuse in a teen program (but be sure to support them through the process if this is their first time). If sharing is too much, feel free to just support (see below).

Are you a supporter of the cause? Please just take the photo as described above and share this message: (Twitter ready) through every social media channel you have.

Take The #BreakingCodeSilence Challenge! #UnitedwithOneVoice we will #EndInstitutionalAbuse http://wwaspsurvivors.com/breakingcodesilence/

The more shares and tweets we get the further this message will travel, and the more lives will be saved by this awareness.

To submit your challenge testimony, comment below or submit your full testimony here.

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By Rep. Adam Schiff

Congressmen from California

Read full article here: Op Ed – Stop Child Abuse in Residential Treatment Programs for Teens Act 2015

This piece was co-authored by Jodi Hobbs, the founder and President of the Survivors of Institutional Abuse (SIA) organization, which provides healing services to a national network of survivors

At one Southern California boot camp designed to help at-risk youth, a 16-year-old boy had reportedly been placed “in a dark room and beaten” and a 14-year-old girl arrived home “with bruises covering her arms.” Another child had broken bones. Staff purportedly threatened children that they “would be found and get hurt badly” if they exposed the truth.

But these types of abuses at residential treatment programs are sadly nothing new.

In 1989, 17-year-old Jodi Hobbs was involuntarily admitted to Victory Christian Academy (VCA), a private therapeutic boarding school in San Diego, California. Unbeknownst to Jodi and her family at the time, a 15-year-old girl had died just one year earlier at a construction site while under the “reform” school’s care. There were few questions about the girl’s death — ruled an accident at the time — but it soon became clear that more should have been asked about activities occurring within the facility’s 12-foot gates.

Enrollment to VCA was largely fueled by word-of-mouth as parents all over Southern California fell prey to advertisements that the program could correct “troubled” girls. It was not until many years later, that dozens of individuals would come forward alleging that they were victims of physical, mental and even sexual abuse by staff at VCA, and the many other programs like it.

At VCA, Jodi witnessed young girls who were made to eat their own vomit after having been force-fed and she even recalls intervening in two suicide attempts. Instead of receiving medical attention, facility operators sent both girls to the “Get Right Room,” a locked and windowless closet where “misbehaving” children were isolated for hours, days and sometimes weeks on end, and forced to listen to taped religious sermons.

After numerous allegations of abuse, California authorities threatened to step in unless VCA went through the process to get licensed as a legitimate care facility. Eventually, the FBI raided the facility in 1991 and the program was forced to shut down due to fire code violations. Unsurprisingly, it relocated to Florida where licensing requirements were much weaker and re-opened under a new name to evade its reputation. But its past actions followed the facility to Florida, where even more reports of abuse soon surfaced. Ultimately, a series of chilling investigative reports published by the Tampa Bay Times led to low enrollment and the program shut down for good in 2013.

This deceptive practice of moving abusive facilities from state to state to dodge regulation has been replicated by many other programs across the country because of disparate state regulations. Operating in several forms — juvenile boot camps, wilderness programs and behavior modification efforts — many types of residential treatment have been the subject of serious reports of abuse at one time or another.

Some of these camps even specialize in “modifying the behavior” of LGBT youth by administering “gay conversion therapy.”

Rebecca Lopez, 18 and a California resident, was sent to a camp in Northern California in 2011 where she says she faced discrimination and alienation for being gay. David Wernsman, 26, was sent to an American-owned facility in the Dominican Republic shortly after coming out, where camp operators beat him with a leather strap for minor infractions.

In 2008, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) documented over 1,300 reports of maltreatment by staff at a variety of programs spanning across 34 states, including substantiated accounts of starvation, excessive use of physical restraints and isolation, severe verbal abuse and intimidation and neglectful medical practices. The GAO made clear that the lack of federal oversight and a loose patchwork of state regulations failed to properly license and monitor residential facilities, which put an already vulnerable population of children at higher risk for multiple forms of abuse, and even death.

Abusive facilities that operate under the guise of providing real therapy have no place in our society and families who turn to residential programs for help, often as a last resort, must know that their children are safe and in the care of professionals. That’s why legislation is needed.

To fix these problems, a bipartisan bill in Congress will be introduced today to hold residential treatment programs accountable to a set of minimum health and safety standards, including strong anti-discrimination protections for LBGT youth and youth with mental health illnesses. This legislation will also crack down on offenders who attempt to move abusive facilities across state lines by requiring all states to improve their licensing and oversight processes, and help families weed out bad programs from the good ones by requiring programs to publicly disclose their licensing status and any history of violations.

There are hundreds of good residential treatment programs that provide services which can truly help youth recover and transition from serious behavioral problems or traumatic experiences. But without stronger federal regulation and oversight, programs that engage in abusive practices will continue to slip through the cracks, leaving behind traumatized and abused children and families.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) represents the 28th District of California and is the author of the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Treatment Programs for Teens Act of 2015. Jodi Hobbs is the founder and President of the Survivors of Institutional Abuse (SIA) organization, which provides healing services to a national network of survivors.

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Image Credit: Keokuk Daily Gate

Earlier today, officials from a number of Iowa state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Iowa State Police, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, Special Enforcement Operations Bureau, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Iowa DCI Crime Lab Crime Scene Team, and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, descended on Midwest Academy in Keokuk, Iowa, and a related site in nearby Montrose, to execute a search warrant. The current owner of Midwest Academy, Ben Trane, lives on the property. It is unclear whether his home was also a target of the search.

This story is still developing, but reports from local media indicate the searches are being performed in support of an ongoing investigation regarding allegations of sexual abuse involving a staff member of Midwest Academy and a former student. This abuse apparently allegedly occurred during the student’s stay at the center. At this time, it is unclear whether that staff member is currently still employed at Midwest Academy.

The most interesting information from the search may be the second location, in Montrose. This property was not previously known to WWASP Survivors. This property is deeded to a corporation named “Iowa Trails Investment, LLC”. This company is registered in Utah and shares an address in La Verkin that has known associations to several WWASP programs and entities. Ben Trane has repeatedly attempted to distance Midwest Academy from the WWASP label, although Midwest was founded by Brian Vaifanua, the former owner and founder of which was one of WWASP’s most notorious programs, Paradise Cove, located in Samoa. Vaifanua founded Midwest Academy after Paradise Cove was shut down by the Samoan government for alleged child abuse.

This is not the first time the specter of sexual abuse allegations have surfaced around Midwest Academy. No arrests have been made or charges filed so far in this matter. As this story develops, we will continue to provide updates as they become available.

Read more about Midwest Academy here.

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Image Credit: WGEM TV, Iowa

Midwest Academy has been closed Friday after authorities raided the school in Keokuk, Iowa and a related site in nearby Montrose, while investigating into alleged sexual abuse of children at the school by staff. According to local TV station KHQA, authorities ordered the school closed and began contacting parents to come pick up their children. Parents were reportedly given 24 hours to collect their children or risk having them placed into foster care.

In the meantime, the investigating agencies are appealing to the public for any information. In an interview with KHQA reporter Michael Polarchy, Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Gabriel Poling stated,”Perhaps you thought about calling but you thought your information wasn’t important enough, we want to hear from you.” Anyone with any information about sexual abuse or any other form of abuse occurring at the school is encouraged to contact Iowa Department of Criminal Investigations Special Agent Richard Rahn to call 800-225-5324.

No charges have been filed or arrests made at this time, but officials emphasized that the investigation is continuing and is being taken very seriously by the officers and agents involved. Iowa DCI Special Agent Rahn pointed out that evidence was collected in the Thursday searches and added, “Those items are going to be analyzed by experts to conclude our DCI criminalistics laboratory as well as our ICAC unit which is the internet crimes against children.”

There is no word on whether the closure is permanent. A change.org petition started by supporters of the school to pressure the authorities to drop the investigation received lackluster support, while a petition in support of the investigation and closure quickly received over twice as many signatures. A Gofundme page was also set up soliciting donations “help MWA overcome these obstacles”, but was quickly shut down by the site after being repeatedly reported for violating the site’s terms of service, which were recently changed to prohibit funds from being used in the legal defense of those accused of criminal acts.

As this story develops, we will continue to provide updates as they become available.

Read more about Midwest Academy here.

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It has recently come to our attention that a school calling itself “Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School” has recently been opened in a South Carolina property formerly occupied by WWASP program Carolina Springs Academy. It’s natural to wonder if this is a WWASP program. We cannot answer that question, but we can offer some insights.

Location

On its Facebook page, Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School lists its address as “226 green acres ln [sic] Donalds, SC 29638”. This is the same address used by Carolina Springs Academy, then by Magnolia Christian School, and more recently, Seneca Ranch. While location isn’t everything, WWASP programs have a history of shutting down and then reopening in the same location under the same name with the same staff. It’s impossible to know if that is the case here, but it is suggestive.

Ownership

Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School does not list the names of any staff or owners on its website (link to Internet Archive in case page becomes unavailable). However, an IP whois search reveals the owner of the domain to be Narvin Lichfield, the past owner of Carolina Springs. He was also involved with Dundee Ranch, which was also reopened as Pillars of Hope. Again, this is not definitive, but it does fit with the pattern that WWASP programs generally and Narvin personally have followed in the past.Additionally, the website says that staff “at Palmetto has many years of experience working with mental behavioral health services with troubled youth. highly qualified in mental health services and truly care about the students under their care. They are real mentors and youth role models [sic, all typos appear in original]”. This seems to imply the staff has had past associations with other teen programs. One is led to wonder which programs these are and why they are not listed on the website.

Narvin Lichfield

Costa Rica Connection

When it was open, Carolina Springs had a sister school with which Narvin Lichfield was also associated, originally called Dundee Ranch. It was shut down by Costa Rican authorities and reopened as Pillars of Hope, and then shut down again. Seneca Ranch (link to Internet Archive in case page becomes unavailable) also advertised itself as having a

“Spanish Language Immersion, American Culture and History–December, January, February Christmas Mission Trip in Costa Rica: An incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience to participate in our mission service program while involved in our Spanish language immersion program. This is held at our Pillars of Hope Language Institute, at Teen Discovery Costa Rica.”

(It should be noted Teen Discovery Costa Rica appears to be another school with alleged WWASP ties.) Likewise, Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School offers the same exact “opportunity”, in almost the same words:

“Spanish Language Immersion, American Culture and History–December, January, February Christmas Mission Trip in Costa Rica: An incredible once-in-a-lifetime experience to participate in our mission service program while involved in our Spanish language immersion program. This is held at our Pillars of Hope Language Institute, at Teen Discovery Costa Rica.[sic]”

One wonders why the mention of Pillars of Hope was omitted. Interestingly, Palmetto’s site even displays a picture of Dundee Ranch.

Academics

Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School appears to offer a distance learning school program on site. This is how most WWASP programs ran their academic programs.

Conclusions

So is Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School a WWASP program? One point to note is that, from a legal standpoint, WWASP has ceased to exist as a formal corporation or organization. In this regard, Palmetto cannot technically be said to be a WWASP member. However, there are certainly troubling similarities. Not being a formal member of WWASP does not prevent some schools run by past WWASP programs owners and associates from employing a very WWASP-like scheme in their own programs. Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School does appear to have some alarming hallmarks of this copycatting.

Additionally, there are other red flags about the program in general. It’s hard to understand why parents would be willing to fork over almost $5,000 a month to send their teens to a “school” whose website is replete with obvious typos. (As a side note, on its website, Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School appears to employ a bizarre capitalization scheme in which the first letters of non-proper nouns are capitalized for emphasis. This scheme appears identical to one used in WWASP literature that was common enough to be remarked as a actual phenomenon by WWASP survivors and parents.) One wonders at the ability of a school to teach children when its administration apparently have a fairly feeble grasp of the rules of proper English usage. Is this truly money well spent?

Ultimately, the question of how WWASP-like Palmetto Therapeutic Boarding School is cannot be answered without first-hand reports of students, given once these students are free of any potential coercion. It’s hard to say when these might arrive. Until then, we caution parents to carefully research this or any other program they are considering, check our list of red flags, and consider the opinions of mental health and medical professionals such as those at A START.

We recently came to you with the story of one Palmetto Ranch, a program in South Carolina that seemed eerily similar to two other programs that had previously occupied the same location- Carolina Springs Academy and Seneca Ranch. There were also two other names this facility had been advertised under: Magnolia Christian and Second Chance Ranch.

Narvin Lichfield

Narvin, who now appears to call himself Marvin Sheffield, took issue with our characterization that all these programs appeared to be the same, expressing his displeasure through an incoherent rant that managed to be as abusive to the English language as his programs allegedly are to children.

However, he was apparently shaken that his not-very-clever ploy to distance himself from his past had been revealed, because it appears that he has decided to change the name of his program again. The new name is Southern Oaks Youth Ranch, and this time, Narvin wasn’t even clever by his own standards, which are pretty low. In fact, this little attempt was so sloppy as to render it laughably ineffectual, words that I suspect could be applied to many of Narvin’s endeavors in life.
There are a few things to cover here. However, before we do, let’s take a moment to revel in how stupid the name “Southern Oaks” is for a program. It’s like Narvin is just running out of name ideas (not surprising, given how many he’s had to come up with), and decided to borrow the name of a public golf course or a mid-range apartment complex aimed at college students.

Now on to the fun part: pointing out exactly how stupid ol’ Narv is. Let’s start with this. It’s the landing page for all of Narvin’s programs and services. You can see that it mentions a program called “Southern Oaks Youth Ranch“:

However, even as recently as March 16, 2017, a Wayback Machine archive of that same page shows it featuring Palmetto Ranch:

The description appears unchanged. In fact, the only other difference besides the substitution of the words “Southern Oaks” for the word “Palmetto” seems to be the price- Narvin has apparently decided the new name is worth an extra $1,000 a month.

If you think this is the only mistake Narv has made, though, you don’t know Narv. Because, while Narvin remembered to change the paragraph text to reflect the new name, he forgot in the footnotes below. Oops.

Never a man to screw the pooch by half-measures, however, Narvin made like Elizabeth Warren and persisted, also forgetting to change the link for the button. It still connects to the Palmetto Ranch web page, which, as of this writing, was down (probably for nonpayment).

A lesser man might have rested on his laurels at this point, content that he had totally screwed up everything that could be screwed up. When it comes to being a fuckup, however, Narvin is no lesser man. He is an innovator, a gargantuan giant of intellectual imperfections. His sheer stupidity towers above ordinary ignoramuses. So Narvin surveyed all his boners and thought, “Hold my beer.”

And what did this monumental meatball, this bulky bonehead, this colossally chunky cretin do? Why, he made a new website for Southern Oaks and registered it under his Own. Fucking. Name.

Witness, O Narvin, the IP Whois search of your destruction:

It’s almost embarrassing at this point. Aside from the questionable nature of his methods and the skeletons in his closet, one wonders if he is just too incompetent to be trusted with the care of children. We’ve already seen that even routine issues like keeping his license and insurance current and balancing a checkbook are apparently beyond him. This is a man who was once banned from the grounds of his own school. Every parent will obviously have to make up their own minds on this issue, but I know what my own decision would be. At least now if they decide to send their kids to Southern Oaks Youth Ranch, they can’t say nobody warned them.

We’re digging into Narvin’s criminal records. (More on that later, stay tuned…especially you, Narv! We know you read these!) As we were digging through the not-inconsiderable number of records, we ran across this little nugget: Narvin Lichfield has been issued 5 separate tickets by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources for illegal deer hunting.

The charges appear to have arisen from three separate incidents in 2004, 2006, and 2008. Two of the times he was charged with hunting without a license, and in all three he was charged with illegally hunting in a baited area. Baiting a deer is the practice of spreading corn or other feed to lure the deer into an area so the hunter can gain a clear shot. While baiting deer has since been legalized on private land in South Carolina (as of 2013), it remains illegal on public land and was illegal everywhere in the state all three times Narvin was arrested for it. The fines Narvin paid for these charges totaled $1,475.

Ironically, he was already running Carolina Springs before the first time he was caught, and the program seems to have been in operation every other time, too. I guess the detainees at Narvin’s little ranch aren’t the only ones breaking the rules. Luckily, their tuition paid his fines. Hypocrisy, thy name is Lichfield (and as I said, more and even juicer things to come on the subject of hypocrisy.)

Jury selection began Tuesday in Keokuk for Ben Trane’s criminal trial. Trane faces charges of sexual abuse of a minor, sexual exploitation of a minor, and child endangerment, all in relation to his conduct as owner and director of Midwest Academy, a now-shuttered “therapeutic boarding school” for so-called troubled teens in this small town in the southeast corner of Iowa.

Reports indicate nearly half of potential jurors were dismissed in the first day of jury selection, as the court struggles with selecting an impartial jury due to concerns over the community’s connections to the school. Unusually, the prosecution filed a change of venue motion which was opposed by the defense, a reversal of the norm. Trane’s court-appointed lawyer, Lisa Schaefer, told the court Trane would prefer the case be tried in Lee County. Before it closed, Midwest Academy was one of the largest employers in the area.

Jury selection continues Wednesday.

Image Credit: Keokuk Daily Gate

Testimony began Wednesday in Keokuk, Iowa, in the trial of former Midwest Academy owner and director Ben Trane, who has charged with offenses including sexual abuse of a minor, sexual exploitation of a minor, and child endangerment. The charges spring from Trane’s conduct at the school, including alleged grooming behavior and the forcible rape of a student.

An article in the Burlington, Iowa Hawk Eye newspaper reports the prosecution’s opening argument included a plea to the jury by the prosecution that although Trane did not personally commit all the abuse described by survivors of the school, he should be found guilty for facilitating and ordering it. Trane is alleged to have used isolation, physical abuse, sleep deprivation, and starvation as punishment at the school.

As testimony started, a 41-year old woman described what she said was an extremely traumatic experience her son suffered at the school after they sent him there for help. According to her, the student lost 32 pounds during his time at Midwest, leaving the school weighing just 90 pounds.

Testimony will continue Thursday. Trane faces up to 17 years in prison if convicted.

It pains me to have to write this article but in light of recent events, I am compelled to write about something that was called to our attention. As you may have read on our site or any number of other media outlets, Ben Trane was found guilty of all charges on December 22^nd, 2017. He was not only found guilty of several charges in relation to sexual abuse but also a charge for child endangerment for his facility’s treatment of children. Since that time, there has been a group of Ben Trane supporters who have been working around the clock to change public perception of Ben Trane by sometimes lying or victim shaming. I’m writing this article in response to an article written on the Stand With Ben page written by Jacob Franklin and hosted on that webpage by Stephanie Nordyke.

Jacob Franklin’s mugshot, May 2016 (Nauvoo Police Department).

Jacob Franklin of Nauvoo, IL claimed to many that he would have the article in question published on The Daily Caller and he boasts about being a “head writer” at The Daily Caller on his Facebook page. As far as we can tell, he’s only ever written one opinion piece for them over a year ago right before he went to jail according to his Daily Caller author page.  We will get to the part about his jail later. In Jacob’s article, he attempts to position himself as the champion of children but that he’s shocked and outraged that a jury of Ben’s peers found him guilty after he’s reviewed all the “facts.” The author positions himself as an unbiased party just reviewing facts – while completely neglecting his duty as a “journalist” to disclose that he’s been a long-time friend of Ben Trane and has some personal bias in the matter. This is important in terms of journalistic integrity and should be noted here.

Edit: It seems since the time we originally posted this article that Franklin has modified his Facebook to show himself as a “writer/content contributer” at the Daily Caller instead of “head writer.” For historical purposes, we are posting a screenshot of his original Facebook claim here:

Franklin brings up the fact that both Midwest Academy and Ben Trane’s home were raided even though Ben had no previous criminal complaints. This is misleading, since, as it’s been pointed out many times in online communities and in the trial, the children did not have access to contact authorities or child advocates. They had “earn” the right to even speak to each other. Every communication with the outside world was monitored and severe consequences were dealt if ever they spoke ill of the program. This is well reported in the coverage about the trial.

The only reason these charges came to light is because the victim was on suicide watch in the school and disclosed the incident to a staff member by the name of Cheyenne Jarred. That staff member reported it to the state and was promptly illegally fired by Ben Trane a week later. This wasn’t the only complaint, however, made about Ben Trane. The FBI got involved since they too had received complaints about the amount of time seven different students spent in isolation, per Jenny Richardson’s testimony in the trial.

Despite Franklin claiming that there has been only one accuser, there were several adult women who responded saying that they were abused by Ben Trane which you can see from the below screenshots:
Victim #1:

Victim #2:

Instead of addressing those concerns or researching the validity of them as a real journalist would,  Franklin dismissed then as trying to justify their “misspent youth” and tried to bring the attention back to the original victim as if she were the only accuser:

On top of that, for years, former students have spoken out about being abused. The Des Moines Register conducted a public records request that found that over 80 calls were made to the sheriff in 3 years in regards to Midwest Academy and of those 80 calls, 5 of those included sexual offense allegations. Many more ex-students of Midwest Academy that have come out in recent days stating that they had been physically and psychologically abused by Ben and his staff, but they couldn’t press charges because they were minors at the time and their parents still supported the program. Others say they haven’t filed made formal accusations because they were trying to move on from their traumatic experiences. (Given the conduct of Franklin and his ilk since the conclusion of the trial, who can blame them? More on that later.) Further negating Franklin’s charge that no one was uncomfortable or ever felt anything was wrong in the school, some former staff also came out to say that they did not feel comfortable with how the children were treated and stated so publicly.

Another staff member specifically stated on Facebook that he never was comfortable with the fact that Ben Trane would sometimes take the girls out alone and that he had witnessed this.

If staff in this small community are threatened with being fired for reporting suspected abuses to the authorities and students are blocked from any access to child care advocates until forensic evidence is gone, is it any surprise that there haven’t been more charges?

Another point that Franklin brings up is the accusers name and her history – specifically an event that happened when she was 15 years old.  I’ll clear the air on this one: She was a 15-year-old who ran away from home. Franklin accuses her of “faking an abduction” in his article, but had he read or watched the videos from these news pieces that he googled, he might have noticed that the police officers involved in the case themselves contradict this accusation. Instead, they stated on the news that they felt she was likely abducted because she had no history of running away or behavior like this.

Victim’s name redacted.

Franklin attempts to re-write the narrative – into something that the public facts and officials clearly dispute. Regardless of this, maybe all kids don’t run away but all kids make mistakes and bringing up the mistakes a child made 4 years ago has nothing to do with the charges against Ben Trane. As far as we can tell, she wasn’t a drug addict or convicted of any crimes. It serves no other purpose than to try to rewrite the victim of sexual abuse as a “villain.” It is, in short, victim-blaming of the highest degree.

Franklin attempts to paint a picture that the victim was a liar because another student claimed that the victim said she had a history of making similar sexual abuse accusations and that she was going to say something to “get everyone out of” Midwest Academy. Franklin claims this never came up in trial because it was inadmissible due to Iowa’s rape shield laws. This is incorrect and a blatant misunderstanding of how rape shield laws work. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled that prior false accusations could be introduced and were exempt from rape shield laws, but to introduce them as evidence, Ben Trane would have to prove there were false accusations, which would have required more than just hearsay. If there were false allegations, why was there no proof or previous victims of false sexual allegations ready to testify? Instead, Franklin tries to blame it on the rape shield law showing that he either is willfully ignoring case law or failing to sufficiently research his article prior to writing it.

Another important thing to note is that the victim had no way of knowing that the staff member would report the abuse to the authorities given that they were threatened with being fired if they did, nor could the victim have known that the authorities would raid the school once the accusation came out. Claiming the victim was going to do something to get everyone out would mean that she would have to somehow be able to tell the future and see an unlikely series of events coming together (Jerred calling the authorities, the FBI and DHS raiding the school, etc). It also still doesn’t make sense for the victim to carry it all the way to court at this point in terms of motive. She’s now a 19-year-old woman who could easily state that she doesn’t want to testify because it would be too hard. She can’t be threatened to be placed back into a school like Midwest Academy again. What would the motive be to testify at this point? To save face? That would be a silly argument considering her name was not in the news regarding the sexual abuse with Ben Trane so it would have little effect on her to walk away. Instead, this grown woman went to court, bravely stared down Ben Trane, and testified even though there was nothing he could do to her at this point, knowing full well she would suffer the kind of disgusting treatment being heaped on her by Franklin and his posse of sex abuse apologists.

Franklin also brings up that the FBI and DHS raided the school and claims they found “no evidence.” What he neglects to mention is that key surveillance videos were missing and Ben’s own testimony to the FBI was that he would turn some of them off because he kept catching employees stealing and didn’t want to deal with it anymore. One would think that if he cared so much about the students, he would want to keep them and their possessions safe from thieving employees, but it seems that Ben was more interested in firing employees if they reported him than if they were stealing. Additionally, Iowa DCI Lead Agent Joe Lestina also testified that in most cases they don’t find DNA evidence, so finding none was not out of the ordinary. However, law enforcement did find semen on the carpet in front of the security camera monitors in one of the offices; this leads to some disturbing conclusions, especially given that images of sleeping girls were also found on Trane’s phone. This is all well reported.

As far as the sexual surveys that were found and the body image class, these were found to be grooming behaviors by Ben in a court of his own peers. Ben was in no way qualified or educated to be administering therapy and these “tools” he was using were not part of any APA-approved standards, there was no reason to why he would need to know the detailed sexual history of the children there. Franklin also forgot to mention in his article that Ben would have the girls strip down in front of the mirror for body image “class” (despite the fact that he was not licensed to perform therapy or head a class). In fact, the concept of “body shape” he was using is not supported at all by scientific evidence. Numerous students have come forward stating they were asked to take off their clothes in front of Trane for these “classes”, but Franklin painted it as though Ben simply escorted them to the room with the mirror when there was no other staff and they took their clothes off on their own. One cannot help but wonder why no similar “class” was offered to male students.

In Franklin’s laughably facile article, he continues to state that the children in this school were “the worst of the worst” and that this was one step away from jail while asking the reader a couple paragraphs later to believe the glowing recommendations of previous students. This sends that message that all children who complain about the program are “bad children” and all those who speak positively are “good children” that you should believe. He uses a strawman argument of an ex-student who killed his parents later after MWA was closed as an example of the “harm” that was done because of the closure. What he forgets to mention is that Gavin Glasz was suspected of having an untreated mental illness and spent most of his time in OSS (isolation) at Midwest Academy instead of getting the mental health treatment he needed. He also neglected to mention that Gavin Glasz was 18 years old at the time of the murders which meant he couldn’t have been held at Midwest Academy against his will then anyway.

To wrap this up, I’m going to talk about Jacob Franklin a little. In his article, he brings up the victim’s unrelated past from 4+ years ago, claims without any proof she has a history of mental illness, and then goes on to say she has a history of false accusations, again without proof. However, if we are to judge someone based on their past, Jacob Franklin should be honest about his own. He is, in fact, a felon who spent quite a bit of time last year in jail and has a long history of being on the wrong side of law, as you can see from the screenshots below of his actual court records obtained from the Iowa court system website.

He pleaded guilty to 2^nd degree theft and had his identity theft charges dismissed. His 5 years prison sentence was suspended and he still has to pay restitution based on the public details:

His history with theft goes back to the 90s where he also pleaded guilty on similar charges:

He was arrested last year in a joint investigation between the Nauvoo Police Department, Keokuk Police Department and Burlington Police Department for multiple crimes reported including four counts of identity theft and a warrant for second degree theft, to which he pleaded guilty, as seen in the above pictures. His arrest was covered in this news story.

When questioned about his criminal history by another survivor of MWA, Franklin had the following to say:

Editor’s Note: The “book” he references as writing appears to be an 82 page, self-published, xenophobic and racist screed replete with typos that no self-respecting publishing house would touch. Excerpt here, TW.

While none of us on WWASP Survivors would agree with Franklin’s assertion that mental illness of the victim is cause to not believe an accusation, it bears noting that this standard is a double-edged sword. On Franklin’s own public Facebook, he states that he’s suffering from bipolar disorder and wants to speak up for mental health, the exact opposite of what he is doing in the article he wrote:

It seems he’s also no stranger to making claims that others make false accusations:

After claiming his wife had made false accusations against him, he even had their divorce invalidated in order to force her to remain legally married to him:

Stephanie Nordyke, whom we mentioned above, is the other person working with Ben Trane and Jacob Franklin to administer the website containing inflammatory accusations against the victim of sexual abuse. She currently is asking for donations for Ben Trane’s appeal and states that Midwest Academy “saved her life.” I would like to take a moment to point out that while we have no knowledge of what her life was before she went to Midwest Academy, she was far from being on a “straight and narrow” path after she was released and had her fair share of bumps.

Nordyke graduated from Midwest Academy in 2007 as noted on her public Facebook share.

Starting in 2008, her criminal problems began.

In 2014, she was bragging on social media about her lawyer “beating that case” while she took selfies.

In 2017, she has a public post about just being 3 years clean from meth which would have put her on meth sometime around 2014 when her lawyer was “beating that case.”

Later in 2017, she’s off probation and able to vote for the first time in her public life.

As you can see, Jacob Franklin and Stephanie Nordyke certainly have their share of skeletons in their closets. To be fair, almost everyone does. We are merely bringing these up because they are publicly posted and as a reference to point out the hypocrisy of attacking the victim of a sexual assault for things like running away when she was a child or claiming that someone said she had a mental illness when the author of the article was a recently convicted felon who spent part of last year in jail, admitted he has a mental illness, and has a fuzzy history of his own with women and claiming they have falsely accused him and the other person leading the campaign against the victim is someone with a fuzzy history with the law and drugs herself.  We’ll let you judge his article and its merit for yourself, but unlike Franklin or Nordyke, we were sure to link references to all the news stories, court cases and other media from where we got our facts (with the exception of the ones that mention the victim of sexual abuse by name as we will not cross that line, also unlike Franklin).

If you think Ben Trane deserves the maximum sentence for his crimes against children, please consider signing this petition. 

WWASP Survivors has a policy to allow almost every submitted comment to be posted in its unedited form, even when they are negative towards us or supportive of the program. However, we do not allow certain comments that we consider racist, personally attacking, or are otherwise out of line. Generally, those comments are discarded.

However, in the case of a recent comment made by Jacob Franklin, we are making an exception. Franklin is one of the de facto leaders of a group of people we’re calling the Traniacs who have made it their mission to defend Ben Trane, excuse his deplorable behavior, and publicly attack his victims, especially the woman who accused him of sexual assault. These Traniacs seem to have no compunction publicly siding with a man who was convicted of sex abuse, and they seem to hold no moral or ethical standards regarding their actions in pursuit of Trane’s defense.

You may recall that we recently published a blog post exposing what we view as hypocrisy and dishonesty on the part of Franklin and his groupies. He decided to reply to that article, and we’re going to present his comment. However, while we have added nothing to his words, we have censored some parts of the comment. Since he mentioned the victim of a sexual assault by name and we do no feel comfortable with publishing that, we have removed sections we felt were inappropriate.   Beyond that, we are publishing here the rest of Franklin’s comment in its entirety, along with our annotations and response. All spelling or grammatical errors in the comment appear in the original.

Author: Jacob Franklin
Email: 1exec1978@gmail.com
URL:
Comment:
WWASP Survivors Response
By Jacob Franklin

There was recently a piece posted by a WWASP Survivors group, which was a ‘hit piece’ against myself for my writing and coverage of the Ben Trane trial.  This piece was purely fiction, misleading, and meant to smear me to discredit what I have written.  I will proudly continue to write.  This will also be the only time I will respond to this organization.

There are two parts to this ‘hit piece’ article.  The first are smears against me which include flat out lies, and the second regarding misleading and false reporting on Ben Trane.  They have obviously done no research based on this particular case, and have tried to smear Ben Trane through unfounded and fact-less press reports, as well as innuendo.

By definition, Jacob, a hit piece is one that presents false or biased information. If you go back to our original article, we heavily annotated the entire article with hyperlinks to the published news articles that backed our facts. For the published comments we found on public Facebook posts, we took screenshots and posted those as well. We did blur the names of a few such as people who identified as Midwest victims as well as former staff because of the harassment we worried they would receive. The recent behavior of yourself and your compatriots seems to validate this concern. As it is, you’re naming the victim of sexual abuse on your article and public comments. You’re bringing up the only time she was in the news 4 years ago for running away. One reoccurring theme is that the Traniacs and their ilk dismiss everyone who speaks ill about the program as a “troubled teen”; a manipulator who is clearly lying or angry about their treatment at the school. Those who speak positively about the program, however, are lauded as trustworthy regardless of the actual veracity of their statements. Former employees who speak out must be “angry and disgruntled”. This mirrors practices of the program: if any student spoke ill of Midwest Academy while there, they were punished and their parents were told that they were lying and being manipulative in order to leave the program early. This adversarial framing is exactly why Midwest Academy was so rife with abuse.  Frankly, the whole gambit is a deceitful trap. Let’s continue:

First, the attacks on me. Yes, it is true that I am a felon. I have battled being bipolar my entire life. It is nothing I have hid, quite the contrary. As they pointed out, I have talked about it as well as advocated for those battling mental illness. In 2015 I had a major bipolar mental break where I, unnecessarily, wrote a lot of bad checks. After I was arrested and was medicated to get me back to normal, I waived my rights to an attorney, gave a full confession, and pled guilty to the crimes, as I was guilty. I have gone to all those I have hurt and asked for their forgiveness. I am back to working with youth organizations, as well as other felons to keep them on track and to be a good example to them, letting them know that even if you have made mistakes, your life is not over.

We didn’t bring up your past to just bring up your past. As stated in the last post, everyone has skeletons in their closet. The hypocrisy is was being called out. A man with whom you may be familiar with once said, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye but consider not the beam that is in thine own eye?”  You call out the victim for running away once when she was a kid and cite an email that you have yet to produce from several years prior to the assault that you claim calls her a liar and you therefore argue that means she must be lying about the assault. Beyond the fact that only 2 to 7 percent of all sexual assault complaints are false, if it’s true that “once a liar, always a liar”, then how can anyone believe you, a person who admits to committing a rash of crimes, some of which were driven by mental illness? Don’t you find that an interesting paradox? You and Stephanie Nordyke both have some very ugly chapters in your more recent past, but you both went out of your way to attack this girl on the grounds of her past, despite the fact that she has no criminal record, no known history of drug abuse, and no motive at this point to still testify that she was assaulted. If you want to harp on about an email that only you have seen that was sent before the crime happened, that’s your prerogative, but try to remember that your victims, probably your ex-wife, and perhaps others still might very well say similar things about you. Please also try to remember that you could very well be legally liable for any defamatory remarks you make about the victim, should you be unable to produce evidence that they are true in court.

Then this anonymous poster (more on this later), posted that I had criminal dealings in 1998. This is completely false. In 1998 I was arrested on a warrant for theft. I was later completely cleared of this. After an investigation it was found that an illegal immigrant had stolen my identity, credit, and had committed crimes under my stolen identity. It was so bad that the Burlington Iowa Social Security office changed my Social Security number, which I have a letter from them documenting this.

It’s unclear why you would lie about this when it’s so easy to check your claims, but let’s clear this right up for anyone else who might be reading this: Jacob Franklin was arrested in 1998 and found guilty of 5th degree theft. This can be confirmed easily at www.iowacourts.state.ia.us. If you would like to confirm this for yourself, click on Case Search under Trial Court and then do a search for Jacob Sterling Franklin. It’ll be case # 08561 SMSM004600. If you look under Criminal Charges/Disposition, you’ll see the verdict as guilty.

The 5th degree theft charge appears to have nothing to do with the identity theft incident nor was it dismissed as you can see from the above. According to your own self-published “book”, you discovered the identity theft while shopping for a car in 2002.

The preview of the book can be viewed here, the portion above appears on page 20. In case you go back and edit the book (much like you edited your Facebook profile after we pointed out that you weren’t, in fact, the Daily Caller Head Writer, see below), we made sure to collect screenshots and archive a copy on a third party website.

Jacob’s original Facebook claim about being the “head writer” at The Daily Caller

Jacob’s edit after our article was published

Several years after 1998, I was a police officer and correctional officer. Both positions required investigations and deep background checks. Furthermore, going through the hiring process as a police officer, I had to pass a polygraph test, which I did. In the town where I was hired out of dozens and dozens of qualified candidates, I was the one and only officer hired because of my character.

A 5th degree theft charge is not a felony so it’s entirely possible you still could have been hired as a police or correctional officer regardless of the theft. Each state is different and hiring practices depend on the crime, the hiring pool, and a number of other factors. A non-felony wouldn’t completely rule you out of a job. It’s still a matter of public record that you were found guilty and anyone could search and find that out with the above link. Additionally, without any evidence, we have no reason to believe that there were “dozens and dozens of qualified candidates”, that you were the only one hired, or that your character was why you were hired. For all we know, you knew the person making the decision, or you were just the one willing to accept the most pitiful salary, or your utter lack of a social life made you the ideal c candidate in terms of availability. We just don’t know, and this is another instance of you making claims without providing any proof as to their veracity.

This anonymous poster also brought up my divorce from the past year and a half, claiming “[Jacob] even had their divorce invalidated in order to force [his wife] to remain legally married to him.” While I was in the middle of my legal issues, there was a default judgment of divorce issued since I was unable to be at the hearing. This default judgment was completely against my interests, and most importantly, my children’s interests. I appeared pro se in front of the judge with a 1401 motion, arguing I did not have my due process at no fault of my own. The judge agreed, threw out the default judgment, and we restarted the divorce process. The divorce process is now final, and the terms of the divorce agreed upon with my now ex-wife are much fairer, which was all I was asking for. Most importantly, I have much greater time with my children, which is the most important thing to me than anything else. This was never to “force her to remain legally married to me.” It is absurd.

Your divorce came up because you accused your wife of filing a false accusation, much like you accuse Trane’s victim of falsely accusing him. This is corroborated by your own Facebook posts which were posted in the last article. Did you have it invalidated because you were “in the middle of your legal issues” as you claim here or because she falsely accused you like you told Wileen Rogers here? It can’t be both.

This anonymous poster dove into other small things, but you get the point.The funny part about this post, is that it was some anonymous, sleezy hit piece. This individual didn’t have the intestinal fortitude (to put it kindly), to put their name on it. Probably because they have much more to hide about themselves. I have never hidden who or what I was. I put my name behind it. And I knew that going to bat for Ben after the outrageous trial and verdict, would bring this kind of nonsense, and at times would happen from individuals hiding behind a keyboard in anonymity.

The reason why I am not publishing my name is because of another online community I am involved in and to keep out cross-pollination of traffic between the two. I know you and your friends are checking in on the Facebook group and I made no secret of who I am on there. Just to save you time in your background check of me, let me give you a few facts about myself:

• I’ve never been to Midwest Academy, I went to another WWASP program
• I do not have a criminal record
• I do not have an arrest record
• I have a good relationship with my family
• I do not do drugs
• I do not have a history of mental illness
• I do not know Ben Trane or the victim in any direct way

I guess if you want to write an angry diary entry about how I must have been a bad person at some point in my life since I’m contributing to a site like this, I can’t stop you. However, bear in mind that I’m not the one who published the name of a sexual assault victim, nor trying  intimidate her or others into not testifying. Additionally, I back my claims up with evidence. It must be nice to have unwavering faith that Ben Trane did not commit any crimes, because without that unwavering faith, if you actually looked at the evidence and allowed yourself to be objective, you’d have to realize that you just harassed a sexual victim, made statements that were probably defamatory and legally actionable, and tried to make her life a living hell because it was “your friend” she accused. They say ignorance is bliss. I don’t know about bliss, since you seem really angry and butthurt, but you definitely seem to have the ignorance part covered.

As for my article and them trying to poke holes in it. This anonymous individual, only addressed a single issue with the accuser, <victim’s name redacted> and her hoax of a disappearance. Which it is lazy writing or no effort to look into it fairly. They tried saying that her faked disappearance was just her running away from an abusive family, quoting an initial report of her having no history of running away from home. However, if this poster was honest, when you look at the reporting after the girl was found and dive into it, they knew she faked her own disappearance, and the narrative changed immediately.

I did actually read into what was reported after she was found. The police officer stated she had run away and that they weren’t going to publicly disclose why she ran away since it was a private family matter. They did not say that she purposely staged it to look like an abduction. As per the article, which was already posted in a redacted form, the police assumed it was an abduction because she had no history of similar behavior. The only time that narrative changed was when the police stated it was no longer a case of an abduction.

How, in any way, does that suggest the victim was acting in a nefarious way? The police thought she was abducted since she had no prior issues, but it later became clear that she ran away. She was found safe after approaching a police officer and asking for help. The case was closed, and the police didn’t want to discuss it further out of respect for the privacy of her and her family. You bring it up repeatedly in order to smear her as an untrustworthy person, but in reality, this was four years ago. She was fifteen years old at the time, and it all occurred well before she ever crossed paths with her abuser, Ben Trane. That doen’t stop you, however, from embellishing and using it to try to harm and defame her. This is why your past and that of Stephanie Nordyke’s are relevavnt. Your actions are an example of sheer hypocrisy at its finest, and the irony of your utter lack of self-awareness is palpable.

This poster also completely ignored that <victim’s name redacted>’s own family put her in the Academy because she had made false claims of abuse against her own family and other institutions. I am in possession of those emails between her own family and the Academy, who I named in my article.

I can’t vouch for emails I have never seen and that you have never produced. However, in order for this to have been admissible during the trial, it would need to be shown there was a false accusation by proving that said accusations occurred and that they were false. It’s interesting that you and Stephanie keep waffling and flip-flopping on the actual nature of these “falsely accusations”. Both of you have stated that she was in previous schools and accused people of sexual abuse but have also claimed it was physical abuse. Now you claim it was her family that she falsely accused. Which is it? I’m no lawyer but I think proving a negative in court is going to be tough. Hopefully this expensive lawyer you’re trying to retain explains that, if he doesn’t just take the money and laugh at you over his glass of champagne.

They also failed to acknowledge that <victim’s name’s redacted> named two witnesses to the ‘alleged’ abuse in her initial complaint, and in court testimony. These two named witnesses have maintained they never witnessed any abuse, and tried reaching out to the Attorney General’s office in Iowa to testify for Ben.

Your two witnesses are saying exactly what the victim said under testimony, which is that there were often girls in the vicinity while the abuse was happening but that she did not think they directly witnessed it.

Since my initial article, I have also confirmed that after <victim’s name’s redacted> was enrolled at the Academy, she made yet another false allegation of abuse from her family since she was mad at them for putting her in the Academy. Even though the Academy staff knew it was bogus, they followed the law and company policy and immediately reported it to the State. As a part of the State’s investigation, Lee County Sheriff Stacy Weber transported <victim’s name> from the Academy to State Agencies to be interviewed. Per <victim’s name>’s own testimony, the alleged abuse against her from Ben started before this transport. She had every opportunity to tell the Sheriff of any abuse away from the Academy. She never did, because it never happened. In a case where it was her word against his, none of this was brought in to court, whether it was because of the ‘Rape Shield Law’, or because of a very bad Public Defender.

As Dr. Anna Satler testified during the trial, most children do not disclose sexual assaults immediately and only about 2.8% of all allegations of sexual assault made by children are false. Do us all a favor and read more about it by following the link above, Jacob. Maybe then you’ll understand that statistically, there’s a 97.2% chance that you’re wrong here and needlessly and viciously harassing a sexual assault victim.

The one thing I will agree with on this anonymous poster, is that Rape Shield Laws shouldn’t cover all of that coming into court, as it was never brought in for the jury to hear. My reporting and article was based on what Ben’s public defender had told him. Upon speaking with, and having legal experts at the Brooklyn School of Law, and other appellate attorneys that are going to work on Ben’s case, is that most, if not all of that information could have come in, and that his court appointed attorney performed poorly. The good news is that these appellate attorneys say that not only does this case have a great chance of being thrown out, but that it is almost certain to be, based on his court appointed attorney’s lack of either basic caselaw, or just bad effort.

I guess we’ll have to see. Until then, I’ll continue to rebuttal any outright lies stated by you and your friends.

This anonymous poster brought up Cheyenne Jarred being illegally fired. That could not be further from the truth, as she was fired for cause. If they had listened to the testimony from Jarred herself, she waited 7 days to report a case of abuse. Prior to that she had repeatedly tried giving counseling to students which she was not allowed to do. As far as reporting alleged claims of abuse, Midwest’s policy and the law requires that they must be reported immediately. Jarred did not do that. Thus she was fired. In this posters own link, the only reason she was awarded a Civil Judgment was because the Academy never answered the complaint. Why? As stated in this linked article, the Academy was closed, so there was no company or person to sue. The case was never heard on the merits. Why would Ben spend money on attorneys to answer a complaint on a company that was shut down? Also, Jarred was not the one who reported <victim’s name redacted>’s absurd abuse claim. A different employee did. The Academy never tried covering anything up.

So did she get fired for not reporting the case in time or for “counseling students”? It’s on the records that Cheyenne Jarred reported it. Make up your mind here. It’s pretty suspicious when he fires the girl a couple days after she reported him, wouldn’t you say? After she reported it, someone else also called in to report it from Midwest Academy. I assume this was to try to gloss over the fact that they didn’t initially report it, but that’s just an assumption. What isn’t an assumption is that a court found that Jerred was illegally fired and awarded her $750,000. You can also read about it in Elizabeth Webster’s testimony: “Webster testified Monday that Jerred’s call came in at 3:06 PM on Dec. 1, 2015. She said another call came in to the DHS hotline involving the same student from a Midwest Academy employee named Jane Rider. That call was made 52 minutes later at 3:58 PM.” This is corroborated by Ben own statement during the civil trial that he found out about 20 minutes after Jerred reported him. Based on all these verifiable facts, I have to ask you this, Jacob: How well did you actually research this trial?

The trial there was never any mention of missing video as the poster alleges. The only thing close to this was the prosecutor bringing up that there was a camera brought up in closing arguments by the prosecutor, that was supposedly the smoking gun as it was missing the SD card. The judge admonished the jury that it could not be considered as evidence because it wasn’t entered as evidence, and didn’t even match the description that <victim’s name redacted> gave of the camera.

Actually, it was brought up by Tom Pearson of the FBI during his testimony: “Trane said he turned off some of the video cameras in the school because he kept catching employees stealing and did not want to deal with that anymore.”

You get the point. This anonymous individual knows nothing of the trial and evidence.

I’ve repeatedly provided links to published news sources that contradict your comments and support our own. It’s clear that think one of us knows nothing about the trial… Maybe you should try actually backing up your statements with proof. Then they’d be a tad more credible.

Now let’s take a gander at this WWASP Survivors group. This information will shock you. On their Facebook page, there are two individuals who are Administrator, which leads me to believe that they are at the head of this group. These two individuals are Bill Boyles and Lily Speerbrecker.

There’s actually a lot more than two, and oddly, while Lily does help moderate our Facebook group, she has no involvement with this website, since she has her own, Safe Teen Schools. Bill doesn’t hide his involvement with this site, either. In fact, he publishes everything he writes here under his own name. That’s why even a genius super cyber sleuth of your magnitude could figure this out. I doubt anyone who is even remotely familiar with this site is “shocked” to hear your little revelation.

In their Facebook group, they had learned that supporters of Ben’s, by the droves (mainly past students who know the accusations are bogus), have been collecting money for an actual good attorney instead of this public defender, to appeal the verdict and get the verdict thrown out. They have raised over $23,000.00 in a very short time. Bill Boyles was recruiting members to get their hands on the routing and account number of the account the money is going into. This has been reported to Stephanie Nordyke’s local police department and they are investigating, as the only reason for that information is for highly illegal reasons. Stephanie Nordyke is the manager of these funds for Ben.

If the police come looking (spoiler alert: they won’t), I’m sure that Bill will be happy to provide the full context of that little exchange where he states he is worried that they will try to use these accounts evade taxes and Ben Trane’s existing fiscal obligations (such as two judgments against him in favor of Cheyenne Jerred and several former students who accused him of abuse, not to mention the almost inevitable lawsuit from his sex abuse victim/s). Beyond which, merely knowing the account number of a bank account is not illegal, and routing numbers for banks are posted online by the banks themselves. Bill asked if Stephanie was posting the account number to deposit funds into so he could report it to the authorities. He did not ask for it to be obtained in any illegal manner and he clearly stated his intention to report it to authorities. Context and intent matter.

The next individual is Lily Speerbrecker. She actually attended Ben’s Academy, Midwest Academy in Keokuk, IA. After attending Midwest Academy, it was so bad to her that she returned to Midwest Academy to work for Ben. She ended up having a baby and having a mental break and left for 4 days, abandoning her child with Ben and his wife who took care of the baby. Furthermore, Ben’s generosity continued when her car broke down, which then Ben gave her an Academy van to have to transport her and her child around. Then after she left working at the Academy in 2012, she abandoned her children and the father of the children, leaving the father to get full custody of the children and as of the time of the Academy closing (per an email from the father of the children I have obtained), she had been gone for over a year. While she was working at Midwest Academy, Ben and his wife regularly watched her children. Obviously, had Ben ever abused her she would have never left them with Ben. Lily’s Facebook has a posting of an anti-Ben Petition on Change.org. She claims “Ben Trane physically abused me in 2005. He knew full and well that’s i was in isolation for 2 months total [sic]. He is a sociopath and a monster. Please make an example out of him because if anyone deserves the max sentence, it’s him.”  … Ready for the best part of Lily’s Facebook page?  She has her employment as “Founder (company) at Safe Teen Schools.”  This website is www.SafeTeenSchools.org.  It is interesting that this person is now trying to give advice to parents on schooling for their troubled kids.

I’m not sure why you are upset at Lily except for the fact that she herself is a victim of Ben. I guess slandering victims is sort of your modus operandi. We’ll wait while you google what that means. As we noted previously, she had nothing to do with writing this article, nor the sex abuse accusations of which Ben Trane was convicted. I don’t really want to dwell too much on this since Lily has nothing to do with this, but I did tell her about your comments and she asked me to include the following message to you:

“At no point have I ever worked for Midwest Academy. The father of my children did not send Jacob Franklin any documentation of our custody agreement. My children were not taken from me due to a mental break down. Not ever have I left Ben Trane or his wife in the care of my children for 4 days. Also, obviously my website is to inform parents of child abuse that happens in boarding schools. We in no way promote boarding schools. What is being said is slanderous and untrue. I deeply hope that Mr. Franklin finds peace in his life and gets the help he clearly desperately needs.

Sincerely
Lillian Speerbrecker”

She also told me that she has a signed statement of the above facts from her children’s father.

Her Facebook page is also filled with a pentagram, drunken make-up videos, profanity laced posts, and videos that regularly look like hostage videos made by ISIS. It is pretty clear she is disturbed.

Because social media is all about the most serious and professional side of us all? Really? Makeup videos and cussing makes someone a bad person? Have you seen your own Facebook lately? I doubt the Daily Caller would approve of its own Head Writer posting in such an unprofessional manner…oh wait. But seriously: pot, meet kettle.

There are several other individuals with WWASP who have claimed to be abused by Ben at the Midwest Academy. I know who many of them are. I have emails, texts, messages, etc., where these same individuals after they graduated had sent Ben ‘thank you’s’ for changing their life for the better, and for everything he had done for them. I have been asked to sit on these names and documents, as they have been held for Ben’s Appeal to show that these claims of abuse from a handful of troubled individuals are nonsense. Now you know who WWASP Survivors are at the top of their organization. I will continue to follow and report on Ben Trane and Midwest Academy.

So there you have it… Jacob Franklin essentially saying that if you speak out, he’ll claim to have some email from your past showing what a bad person you are. If that doesn’t work, he’ll comment on how a silly video on Facebook means you’re a bad person. Slow clap. I really hope someone finds this article like the prosecutor…or your probation/parole officer…heck, even your ex-wife. That way, they can see what a great example you’re setting for your children.

For anyone else reading this, I provided links and screenshots in this article as well as the previous one. To give you a rundown of the various things discovered during the course of the investigation and trial, here’s the links to various news stories that provide the facts:

• Public records show there were 80 calls to the sheriff over a 3 year period about abuses at Midwest Academy. Of those 80 calls, 5 included sexual offense allegations. 19 were found to be founded abuse cases at the school. There is also another unspecified sex offense from 2013 that is still considered under investigation. Source: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2016/02/13/80-sheriff-calls-3-years-keokuk-boarding-school/80202780/
• 2.8% of sexual assaults reported by children are false allegations and most children do not disclose sexual assault immediately – http://www.thehawkeye.com/news/20171215/forensic-psychologist-testifies-at-trane-trial
• Ben Trane found out that the employee reported the abuse to DHS about 20 minutes after she had done so. About 52 minutes after the original reporting done by the employee, another employee called in to report it. Shortly after this, the original whistleblower was fired. You can verify that here: https://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/daily_gate/news/jerred-awarded-nearly-k-for-midwest-academy-firing/article_072970b6-b692-52b9-9061-c12dfd00788a.htmlhttps://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/daily_gate/news/jerred-awarded-nearly-k-for-midwest-academy-firing/article_072970b6-b692-52b9-9061-c12dfd00788a.html
• The FBI agent that interviewed Ben Trane stated that Ben told him he turned off the video cameras because he was tired of dealing with his employees stealing: http://tspr.org/post/state-calls-seven-witnesses-monday-ben-trane-trial
• Joe Lestina of the DCI did testified that they found seminal fluid on the carpet in front of the camera monitors in one of the offices: http://tspr.org/post/state-calls-seven-witnesses-monday-ben-trane-trial
• Jenny Richardson of the DHS stated she saw Ben Trane in Victoria’s Secret with a group of female students from the school weeks after Ben Trane had told her coworker that he would avoid instances of being alone with students: http://tspr.org/post/state-calls-seven-witnesses-monday-ben-trane-trial
• Rick Rahn of the DCI testified that he found “sexual activity surveys” from 2015 in the offices: http://tspr.org/post/state-calls-seven-witnesses-monday-ben-trane-trial
• Ben Trane’s phone had pictures of sleeping students on it. He admitted as much during  cross examination: http://www.wtad.com/ben-trane-guilty-on-all-counts.html
• Ben Trane took the victim out on her birthday and then took her shopping at Victoria’s Secret. He admitted as much on the stand: http://www.wtad.com/ben-trane-guilty-on-all-counts.html

So now that I’ve cleared that up, I’m going to respond to some other comments online.

I hope you don’t mind me answering this here, Amanda. I removed your last name because you really have nothing to do with this whole circus but I wanted to take the time to answer. There were pictures that were found on Ben’s phone of sleeping girls and he admitted as much under cross-examination. I linked the news article above. The reporter who was reporting on it also took some notes of the trial on Twitter. I think I can dig up her notes about it too on there. I tried to be as accurate as possible in both this article and the last which is why I hyperlinked the hell out of it. For the Facebook comments, I knew Stephanie and Jacob would probably delete or private a bit after I posted so I grabbed screenshots. Some of the ex-employees were a bit nervous about speaking publicly given that they still go to the local LDS church and Ben has a pretty large following there so I didn’t want to out them in their community without their consent. If the authorities contact me, I’m happy to provide the screenshots without the names/images blurred.

I believe the reason why a lot of supporters are coming out of the woodwork now is because they’ve had blinders on for the last year and truly believed that Ben Trane was dealt a great injustice by having his school closed and there was no way he’d be found guilty. Ben Trane is that likable guy they see at church or around the neighborhood and they can never see him painted as anything else so they ignore the evidence or find ways to rationalize it but the justice system still has to look at the evidence and judge no matter how inconvenient the evidence is. You asked a Trane support here why he was allowed to take kids out after he specifically stated he would avoid them. You got a couple of different responses from Trane supports. One claimed it was his own kids and another tried to claim that he was out with the students before he was told to avoid being alone with the students. I linked to the article about the testimony of the DHS employee above. She clearly states that she saw Ben Trane with students in Victoria’s Secret – not his own children – and immediately texted her co-worker who confirmed that Ben Trane had told her he would avoid being in situations alone with the girls weeks prior. These people you’re talking to on Facebook don’t sound really sure about their side of the story but the only thing they’re sure of is that there must be a reasonable explanation that’s favorable to Ben. I sincerely doubt that the DHS employee got up on the stand and lied under oath, especially given that it could be confirmed that she was lying with a search of her text message history.

Yes, I did purposely blur those out. Unlike the Traniacs, I didn’t want to out someone who claims to be a victim in a very public manner unless she specifically gave consent. I took those screenshots from an interactions between her and Jacob on one of Stephanie Nordyke’s status updates. Stephanie ended up deleting all her comments but I grabbed screenshots before she did. Jacob and Stephanie pretty much ripped into her and called her a liar and told the other girl with the broken leg that she must have deserved the abuse. It was pretty disgusting stuff.

Very good question to ask, Amanda. This is where it all gets a bit fuzzy to be honest. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, Ben Trane cut his teeth early on in his career working at another WWASP program. Midwest Academy was originally started as a WWASP program by Brian Vaifanua, who before Midwest owned Paradise Cove, another WWASP facility. After a lot of legal and media heat came down on WWASP, it publicly closed. Around that time, Ben Trane claimed to have “bought out” his other investors and claimed that it was no longer a WWASP facility.

This may be technically true in a narrow legal sense, since WWASP no longer existed as an entity, but despite claiming to be completely disconnected from WWASP, he continued the same rules, structure, and principles of WWASP (points, level, isolation, not allowing kids to talk to each other, severely restricting all contact with the outside world, seminars, etc). On top of that, Robert Lichfield (the owner of WWASP) still owned the property and from what we understand, Trane used Lichfield’s billing company to bill the parents until the day it closed.  So was it still WWASP? You’ll have to decide for yourself.

I do find another thing strange: Midwest Academy was open for over 10 years with 300 students at its peak. Each student was paying $5,000/month to be enrolled in that school. At its peak, Midwest should have been making approximately $18,000,000 a year. At the time the school closed, there were 77 students which would be about $4,620,000 a year. That’s a lot of money, even given operational costs for staff and other business overhead, which was fairly low, since Ben wasn’t paying for therapists, doctors, nurses, and other professionals to be onsite at all times. Ben Trane also owned a number of properties and a gas station until recently.

After the school was closed, Ben claimed he didn’t have money and declared Midwest a defunct corporation. So one has to ask where all that money went if not to him? Even if the school was making less, there should have been ample savings in previous years or after he reduced operational costs from his layoffs. There has never been a satisfactory answer to this question.

Actually, Susannah, the students had all their communication monitored between their parents. Letters couldn’t be sealed and had to be read by staff before being sent out. If anything was negative about the school, it would not be sent and the student would be punished. Phone calls with parents were also monitored . The parents were also warned that if the student says anything bad about the school, they were just “manipulating” and lying. In most cases, the parents had no idea what was really going on behind the scenes or they just didn’t want to believe it.

Actually it was the DHS employee during her testimony at Trane’s trial. I linked to the news story above. In regards to whether or not we’re liars or not, I assume you were referring to when Bill Boyles sent a friendly message to the Church of Latter Day Saints Keokuk page to ask about Ben Trane and donations. Whoever responded to that page gave the information on how to donate and support Ben. Bill suspected that church resources were being used to help Ben and that dialogue confirmed that the local church leadership was helping Ben. I don’t think that investigating that is petty.

Good question again. I can’t really speak for everyone who ever worked at Midwest or read their minds. The few people who were interviewed said that they had blinders on while working there and realized that all was not alright after. A couple people said they went to church with him and there were a lot of people who looked up at him like he could do no wrong so they feared speaking out against someone who was so highly regarded. Others, I think, were probably just scared of getting fired as you can see happened with Jerred when she reported the sexual abuse.

You are 100% spot on. You can’t be strip searched or patted down by a cop or TSA agent of the opposite gender. Most schools will have same sex staff accompany students off site. This is done in almost every institution for legal reasons or to avoid the appearance of impropriety. I’m not sure what they meant by stating principals at schools reward students by taking them out but even if that was a thing at public schools, if it were a male principal and female student, one certainly hopes they would still have a female teacher or staff accompany them.

No one’s perfect, Susannah, but you have to admit that it’s pretty weird to be taking pictures of other people’s children while they are sleeping on your personal cell phone. Or taking other children out to shop at Victoria’s Secret after you’ve been accused of sexual assault and told by the authorities to avoid being alone with the children. Or asking other people’s children to fill out unscientific “sexual experience surveys.” Or asking other people’s children to take off their clothes in front of a mirror so you can tell them about how beautiful their bodies are. Or to have the sheriff called for abuse allegations 80 times over 3 years.  Or to only call in a sexual abuse allegation 32 minutes after you realize your pesky employee already reported you and to fire that employee right after. Or to lock children up for days and weeks in isolation. Or to have seminal fluid found in front of the security camera monitors like someone was watching the underage girls and doing god knows what….

I’m sure Ben Trane is a very nice man at church. By all accounts, he’s extremely charismatic and his family is probably great too. However, no one knows what he does all the time outside of church. To state that a girl you don’t even know is lying and rationalize away all the other evidence found is just burying your head in the sand. I truly hope nothing bad every happens to you. From the bottom of my heart, I truly wish nothing but the best for you. But if one day something bad happens, I hope that you aren’t attacked online by people who assume you must be lying because the person who hurt you is so very nice to them. I hope every aspect of you distant past isn’t picked apart to frame you as a liar. I hope anyone who does you harm is brought to justice and you don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night worrying that your nightmare isn’t over yet. Unfortunately. that is exactly what this victim is going through right now.

I know this was long. Thanks for sticking with me, if you did. If you did not, however, allow me to briefly summarize our response to Jacob Franklin’s comment with a quote from a classic movie:

Image Credit: Keokuk Daily Gate

Earlier today, officials from a number of Iowa state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Iowa State Police, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, Special Enforcement Operations Bureau, Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Iowa DCI Crime Lab Crime Scene Team, and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, descended on Midwest Academy in Keokuk, Iowa, and a related site in nearby Montrose, to execute a search warrant. The current owner of Midwest Academy, Ben Trane, lives on the property. It is unclear whether his home was also a target of the search.

This story is still developing, but reports from local media indicate the searches are being performed in support of an ongoing investigation regarding allegations of sexual abuse involving a staff member of Midwest Academy and a former student. This abuse apparently allegedly occurred during the student’s stay at the center. At this time, it is unclear whether that staff member is currently still employed at Midwest Academy.

The most interesting information from the search may be the second location, in Montrose. This property was not previously known to WWASP Survivors. This property is deeded to a corporation named “Iowa Trails Investment, LLC”. This company is registered in Utah and shares an address in La Verkin that has known associations to several WWASP programs and entities. Ben Trane has repeatedly attempted to distance Midwest Academy from the WWASP label, although Midwest was founded by Brian Vaifanua, the former owner and founder of which was one of WWASP’s most notorious programs, Paradise Cove, located in Samoa. Vaifanua founded Midwest Academy after Paradise Cove was shut down by the Samoan government for alleged child abuse.

This is not the first time the specter of sexual abuse allegations have surfaced around Midwest Academy. No arrests have been made or charges filed so far in this matter. As this story develops, we will continue to provide updates as they become available.

Read more about Midwest Academy here.

Jacob Franklin proves Midwest Academy sat on abuse allegations

In an ill-conceived attempt to convert WWASP Survivors to his views, Jacob Franklin shared screenshots of an email sent to Midwest Academy on November 29, 2015 by the parents of Ben Trane’s victim.The primary significance of this email – which we assume was lost on Franklin – is that it establishes that Midwest Academy was aware of the victim’s allegations against Trane as early as November 25. The victim’s mother mentions speaking to Trane on this date about allegations against him.  Trane has previously stated that he followed procedure and reported these allegations within 10 minutes of learning of them.

This was nearly a week before whistleblower Cheyenne Jerred made her report to DHS on December 1, Trane personally contacted the victim’s parents by phone to inform them of abuse allegations made against him by their daughter. Jerred was fired shortly after making her report and was later awarded a $748,000 judgment for wrongful termination. She testified in Trane’s trial that she was trained to report abuse allegations internally rather than to DHS – a policy she initially followed before blowing the whistle. In an email to the Keokuk Daily Gate City, Trane claimed opposite – that Jerred was fired not for making a report to DHS but for failing to do so a week sooner.

The “mental illness” to which the victim’s parents (and Franklin) attribute her abuse allegations does not appear to have been diagnosed by a professional. Rather, her parents speculate that she may have a personality disorder based on a list of symptoms they found online, admit their ignorance of treatment options, and wonder whether she should be evaluated by a psychiatrist. Personality disorders are rarely diagnosed in adolescence and the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria establish a minimum age of 18.The email closes with a request for an exception to policy so that the victim’s family could see her for Christmas.  Like other WWASP-connected programs, Midwest Academy required children to earn the “privilege” of calls and visits with family through sustained compliance – a process which could take months or even years. In this case, the victim’s family hasn’t seen her in almost a year and most of the information they received about their daughter was filtered through her abuser – Ben Trane.

Parents who placed their children in Midwest Academy were told to expect allegations of poor conditions, unfair treatment, and abuse. The Parent Handbook describes these as attempts by children to “manipulate” parents into bringing them home, motivated by a desire to “resist” the rigid structure of the program. Parents were instructed to ignore all complaints, refrain from discussing returning home, and place their total faith in the program and its staff in order to hasten their children’s passage through this “phase”.

Excerpt from the Midwest Academy Parent Manual

Excerpt from the Midwest Academy Parent Manual

Excerpt from the Midwest Academy Parent Manual

Excerpt from the Midwest Academy Parent Manual

Distrusted by their parents and cut off from the outside world, the only means by which a child in Midwest Academy could report abuse were through its laughable “grievance” procedure or by confiding in a sympathetic staff member.

Franklin’s response to our previous article

Jacob Franklin is a de facto leader in an emerging social group we are calling the Traniacs, whose raison d’être is defending the image and actions of Ben Trane by publicly attacking his victims. Traniacs have no compunction publicly siding with the convicted sex offender and serial child abuser, flouting moral and ethical standards in pursuit of his defense.

Franklin responded in the comments section of our recent post exposing what we view as troubling dishonesty and naked hypocrisy from Franklin and lesser Trane sycophants. WWASP Survivors’ longstanding policy is to publish comments in their unedited form on our site – even where they are critical of us or supportive of abusive programs like Midwest Academy. We are making an exception by publishing redacted portions of Franklin’s comment, which named Trane’s victim, along with our response. All spelling and grammatical errors appear as they did in the original.

Author: Jacob Franklin
Email: 1exec1978@gmail.com
URL:
Comment:
WWASP Survivors Response
By Jacob Franklin

There was recently a piece posted by a WWASP Survivors group, which was a ‘hit piece’ against myself for my writing and coverage of the Ben Trane trial.  This piece was purely fiction, misleading, and meant to smear me to discredit what I have written.  I will proudly continue to write.  This will also be the only time I will respond to this organization.

There are two parts to this ‘hit piece’ article.  The first are smears against me which include flat out lies, and the second regarding misleading and false reporting on Ben Trane.  They have obviously done no research based on this particular case, and have tried to smear Ben Trane through unfounded and fact-less press reports, as well as innuendo.

By definition, a hit piece is one that presents false or biased information. We heavily annotated our article with links to the published news stories from which we sourced our facts. We included screenshots of comments left on social media, taking care to blur the names of individuals who did not willingly enter the public fray in order to discourage harassment. The behavior of some Trane supporters – including yourself – validates our concern. Though you fancy yourself a journalist, naming minor victims of crime and victims of sexual assault, as you have repeatedly done, is a flagrant and disgusting violation of journalistic ethics.

Traniacs and their ilk dismiss every former student who speaks critically of Midwest Academy as a “troubled teen”; a “manipulator” with ulterior motives who clings to bitterness over being placed in program. Former employees who speak out are similarly derided as “angry” and “disgruntled”. Those who speak positively about the program, however, are lauded as trustworthy regardless of the veracity (or content) of their statements.  This mirrors norms and practices within the program: criticizing Midwest Academy or its staff was expressly prohibited and could lead to punishment, confrontation, and social shunning. Parents were told that such complaints were always disingenuous and proof positive that their children were bad enough to require such an extreme intervention. This adversarial framing created a serious hazard that helps explain why Midwest Academy was so rife with abuse. Let’s continue:

First, the attacks on me. Yes, it is true that I am a felon. I have battled being bipolar my entire life. It is nothing I have hid, quite the contrary. As they pointed out, I have talked about it as well as advocated for those battling mental illness. In 2015 I had a major bipolar mental break where I, unnecessarily, wrote a lot of bad checks. After I was arrested and was medicated to get me back to normal, I waived my rights to an attorney, gave a full confession, and pled guilty to the crimes, as I was guilty. I have gone to all those I have hurt and asked for their forgiveness. I am back to working with youth organizations, as well as other felons to keep them on track and to be a good example to them, letting them know that even if you have made mistakes, your life is not over.

As we previously stated, everyone has skeletons in their closet. You have attacked the credibility of a young woman based on a report of her runaway at age 15 and the existence of an email accusing her of dishonesty produced to you by her assailant. We detailed your criminal history to call attention your hypocrisy. As a man with whom you might be familiar once put it, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye but consider not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

Leaving aside that only 2 to 7 percent of sexual assault complaints are false, if it’s true that “once a liar, always a liar”, how could anyone believe you after committing serial fraud you blame on mental illness? Despite the uglier (and publicly-documented) chapters in your more recent adult lives, both you and Stephanie Nordyke have gone out of your way to attack the character of Trane’s victim for her purported behavior as a child.  You would do well to keep in mind that there are those who would make similarly unflattering statements about your character if asked, and that you could be held legally liable for any defamatory statements the veracity of which you cannot prove in court.

Then this anonymous poster (more on this later), posted that I had criminal dealings in 1998. This is completely false. In 1998 I was arrested on a warrant for theft. I was later completely cleared of this. After an investigation it was found that an illegal immigrant had stolen my identity, credit, and had committed crimes under my stolen identity. It was so bad that the Burlington Iowa Social Security office changed my Social Security number, which I have a letter from them documenting this.

We are unclear why you would dispute this portion of your criminal record, given how easy it is to verify, but we’ll clear it up for our readers:  you were arrested in 1998 and found guilty of 5th degree theft. This can be confirmed through www.iowacourts.state.ia.us by performing a Case Search under Trial Court for “Jacob Sterling Franklin”. You’ll find the guilty verdict under the Criminal Charges/Disposition section of Case #08561 SMSM004600.

As you can see, the 5th degree theft charge appears to have neither been related to your identity theft nor dismissed as you claimed. According to your self-published book, the title of which contains a grammatical error so glaring it left us questioning your native language and national origin, you discovered the identity theft while shopping for a car in 2002.

A preview of the book can be viewed here – the portion above appears on page 20. We made sure to back up this material should it ever change or disappear, as your job title at The Daily Caller did after we called attention to it in our previous article.

Jacob’s old gig as “head writer” at The Daily Caller

Jacob’s swift demotion following publication of our blog post

Several years after 1998, I was a police officer and correctional officer. Both positions required investigations and deep background checks. Furthermore, going through the hiring process as a police officer, I had to pass a polygraph test, which I did. In the town where I was hired out of dozens and dozens of qualified candidates, I was the one and only officer hired because of my character.

Since 5th degree theft charge is not a felony, it’s entirely possible you still could have been hired as a police or correctional officer regardless. Each state is different and hiring practices depend on the crime, the hiring pool, and a number of other factors. A non-felony wouldn’t completely rule you out of a job. That you were found guilty is still a matter of public record that anyone could find. Without any evidence, we have no reason to believe that there were “dozens and dozens of qualified candidates”, that you were the only one hired, or that it was due to your character. For all we know, you knew the person making the decision, were willing to accept the most pitiful salary, or your utter lack of a social life made you the ideal candidate in terms of availability. We just don’t know, or care, since this is yet another instance of you making claims without attempting to provide any proof of their veracity.

This anonymous poster also brought up my divorce from the past year and a half, claiming “[Jacob] even had their divorce invalidated in order to force [his wife] to remain legally married to him.” While I was in the middle of my legal issues, there was a default judgment of divorce issued since I was unable to be at the hearing. This default judgment was completely against my interests, and most importantly, my children’s interests. I appeared pro se in front of the judge with a 1401 motion, arguing I did not have my due process at no fault of my own. The judge agreed, threw out the default judgment, and we restarted the divorce process. The divorce process is now final, and the terms of the divorce agreed upon with my now ex-wife are much fairer, which was all I was asking for. Most importantly, I have much greater time with my children, which is the most important thing to me than anything else. This was never to “force her to remain legally married to me.” It is absurd.

Your divorce was brought up because you publicly accused your wife of filing a false police report, much as you have accused Trane’s victim. Did you have it invalidated because you were “in the middle of your legal issues” as you now claim or because she falsely accused you of a crime as you stated at the time? We suspect your ex might answer differently.

This anonymous poster dove into other small things, but you get the point.The funny part about this post, is that it was some anonymous, sleezy hit piece. This individual didn’t have the intestinal fortitude (to put it kindly), to put their name on it. Probably because they have much more to hide about themselves. I have never hidden who or what I was. I put my name behind it. And I knew that going to bat for Ben after the outrageous trial and verdict, would bring this kind of nonsense, and at times would happen from individuals hiding behind a keyboard in anonymity.

I have declined to publish my name to avoid cross-pollination of traffic with another online community I am involved in. I know that you and your friends check in on our Facebook group and I have made no secret of who I am there. To save you time, let me give you a few facts about myself:

• I’ve never been to Midwest Academy, I went to another WWASP program
• I do not have a criminal record
• I do not have an arrest record
• I have a good relationship with my family
• I do not do drugs
• I do not have a history of mental illness
• I do not know Ben Trane or the victim

If you want to write an angry diary entry about how I must have been a bad person at some point in my life since I’m contributing to a site like this, I can’t stop you. However, bear in mind that I’m not the one who published the name of a sexual assault victim, nor trying to intimidate her or others into not testifying. Additionally, I back my claims up with evidence. It must be nice to have unwavering faith that Ben Trane did not commit any crimes, because without that unwavering faith, if you actually looked at the evidence and allowed yourself to be objective, you’d have to realize that you just harassed a sexual abuse victim, made statements that were probably defamatory and legally actionable, and tried to make her life a living hell because it was “your friend” she accused. They say ignorance is bliss. I don’t know about bliss, since you seem pretty butthurt, but you definitely seem to have the ignorance part covered.

As for my article and them trying to poke holes in it. This anonymous individual, only addressed a single issue with the accuser, <victim’s name redacted> and her hoax of a disappearance. Which it is lazy writing or no effort to look into it fairly. They tried saying that her faked disappearance was just her running away from an abusive family, quoting an initial report of her having no history of running away from home. However, if this poster was honest, when you look at the reporting after the girl was found and dive into it, they knew she faked her own disappearance, and the narrative changed immediately.

I did actually read into what was reported after she was found. The police officer stated she had run away and that they weren’t going to publicly disclose why she ran away since it was a private family matter. They did not say that she purposely staged it to look like an abduction. As per the article, which was already posted in a redacted form, the police assumed it was an abduction because she had no history of similar behavior. The only time that narrative changed was when the police stated it was no longer a case of an abduction.

How, in any way, does that suggest the victim was acting in a nefarious way? The police thought she was abducted since she had no prior issues, but it later became clear that she ran away. She was found safe after approaching a police officer and asking for help. The case was closed, and the police didn’t want to discuss it further out of respect for the privacy of her and her family. You bring it up repeatedly in order to smear her as an untrustworthy person, but in reality, this was four years ago. She was fifteen years old at the time, and it all occurred well before she ever crossed paths with her abuser, Ben Trane. That doesn’t stop you, however, from embellishing and using it to try to harm and defame her. This is why your past and that of Stephanie Nordyke’s are relevant. Your actions are an example of sheer hypocrisy at its finest, and the irony of your utter lack of self-awareness is palpable.

This poster also completely ignored that <victim’s name redacted>’s own family put her in the Academy because she had made false claims of abuse against her own family and other institutions. I am in possession of those emails between her own family and the Academy, who I named in my article.

I can’t vouch for emails I have never seen and that you have never produced. However, in order for this to have been admissible during the trial, it would need to be shown there was a false accusation by proving that said accusations occurred and that they were false. It’s interesting that you and Stephanie keep waffling and flip-flopping on the actual nature of these “false accusations”. Both of you have stated that she was in previous schools and accused people of sexual abuse but have also claimed it was physical abuse. Now you claim it was her family that she falsely accused. Which is it? I’m no lawyer but I think proving a negative in court is going to be tough. Hopefully this expensive lawyer you’re trying to retain explains that, if he doesn’t just take the money and laugh at you over his glass of champagne.

They also failed to acknowledge that <victim’s name’s redacted> named two witnesses to the ‘alleged’ abuse in her initial complaint, and in court testimony. These two named witnesses have maintained they never witnessed any abuse, and tried reaching out to the Attorney General’s office in Iowa to testify for Ben.

Your two witnesses are saying exactly what the victim said under testimony, which is that there were often girls in the vicinity while the abuse was happening but that she did not think they directly witnessed it.

Since my initial article, I have also confirmed that after <victim’s name’s redacted> was enrolled at the Academy, she made yet another false allegation of abuse from her family since she was mad at them for putting her in the Academy. Even though the Academy staff knew it was bogus, they followed the law and company policy and immediately reported it to the State. As a part of the State’s investigation, Lee County Sheriff Stacy Weber transported <victim’s name> from the Academy to State Agencies to be interviewed. Per <victim’s name>’s own testimony, the alleged abuse against her from Ben started before this transport. She had every opportunity to tell the Sheriff of any abuse away from the Academy. She never did, because it never happened. In a case where it was her word against his, none of this was brought in to court, whether it was because of the ‘Rape Shield Law’, or because of a very bad Public Defender.

As Dr. Anna Satler testified during the trial, most children do not disclose sexual assaults immediately and only about 2.8% of all allegations of sexual assault made by children are false. Do us all a favor and read more about it by following the link above, Jacob. Maybe then you’ll understand that statistically, there’s a 97.2% chance that you’re wrong here and needlessly and viciously harassing a sexual assault victim.

The one thing I will agree with on this anonymous poster, is that Rape Shield Laws shouldn’t cover all of that coming into court, as it was never brought in for the jury to hear. My reporting and article was based on what Ben’s public defender had told him. Upon speaking with, and having legal experts at the Brooklyn School of Law, and other appellate attorneys that are going to work on Ben’s case, is that most, if not all of that information could have come in, and that his court appointed attorney performed poorly. The good news is that these appellate attorneys say that not only does this case have a great chance of being thrown out, but that it is almost certain to be, based on his court appointed attorney’s lack of either basic caselaw, or just bad effort.

I guess we’ll have to see. Until then, I’ll continue to rebuttal any outright lies stated by you and your friends.

This anonymous poster brought up Cheyenne Jarred being illegally fired. That could not be further from the truth, as she was fired for cause. If they had listened to the testimony from Jarred herself, she waited 7 days to report a case of abuse. Prior to that she had repeatedly tried giving counseling to students which she was not allowed to do. As far as reporting alleged claims of abuse, Midwest’s policy and the law requires that they must be reported immediately. Jarred did not do that. Thus she was fired. In this posters own link, the only reason she was awarded a Civil Judgment was because the Academy never answered the complaint. Why? As stated in this linked article, the Academy was closed, so there was no company or person to sue. The case was never heard on the merits. Why would Ben spend money on attorneys to answer a complaint on a company that was shut down? Also, Jarred was not the one who reported <victim’s name redacted>’s absurd abuse claim. A different employee did. The Academy never tried covering anything up.

So did she get fired for not reporting the case in time or for “counseling students”? It’s on the records that Cheyenne Jarred reported it. Make up your mind here. It’s pretty suspicious when he fires the girl a couple days after she reported him, wouldn’t you say? After she reported it, someone else also called in to report it from Midwest Academy. I assume this was to try to gloss over the fact that they didn’t initially report it, but that’s just an assumption. What isn’t an assumption is that a court found that Jerred was illegally fired and awarded her $750,000. You can also read about it in Elizabeth Webster’s testimony: “Webster testified Monday that Jerred’s call came in at 3:06 PM on Dec. 1, 2015. She said another call came in to the DHS hotline involving the same student from a Midwest Academy employee named Jane Rider. That call was made 52 minutes later at 3:58 PM.” This is corroborated by Ben’s own statement during the civil trial that he found out about 20 minutes after Jerred reported him. Based on all these verifiable facts, I have to ask you this, Jacob: How well did you actually research this trial?

The trial there was never any mention of missing video as the poster alleges. The only thing close to this was the prosecutor bringing up that there was a camera brought up in closing arguments by the prosecutor, that was supposedly the smoking gun as it was missing the SD card. The judge admonished the jury that it could not be considered as evidence because it wasn’t entered as evidence, and didn’t even match the description that <victim’s name redacted> gave of the camera.

Actually, it was brought up by Tom Pearson of the FBI during his testimony: “Trane said he turned off some of the video cameras in the school because he kept catching employees stealing and did not want to deal with that anymore.”

You get the point. This anonymous individual knows nothing of the trial and evidence.

I’ve repeatedly provided links to published news sources that contradict your comments and support our own. It’s clear that one of us knows nothing about the trial… Maybe you should try actually backing up your statements with proof. Then they’d be a tad more credible.

Now let’s take a gander at this WWASP Survivors group. This information will shock you. On their Facebook page, there are two individuals who are Administrator, which leads me to believe that they are at the head of this group. These two individuals are Bill Boyles and Lily Speerbrecker.

There’s actually a lot more than two, and oddly, while Lily does help moderate our Facebook group, she has no involvement with this website, since she has her own, Safe Teen Schools. Bill doesn’t hide his involvement with this site, either. In fact, he publishes everything he writes here under his own name. That’s why even a genius super cyber sleuth of your magnitude could figure this out. I doubt anyone who is even remotely familiar with this site is “shocked” to hear your little revelation.

In their Facebook group, they had learned that supporters of Ben’s, by the droves (mainly past students who know the accusations are bogus), have been collecting money for an actual good attorney instead of this public defender, to appeal the verdict and get the verdict thrown out. They have raised over $23,000.00 in a very short time. Bill Boyles was recruiting members to get their hands on the routing and account number of the account the money is going into. This has been reported to Stephanie Nordyke’s local police department and they are investigating, as the only reason for that information is for highly illegal reasons. Stephanie Nordyke is the manager of these funds for Ben.

If the police come looking (spoiler alert: they won’t), I’m sure that Bill will be happy to provide the full context of that little exchange where he states he is worried that they will try to use these accounts to evade taxes and Ben Trane’s existing fiscal obligations (such as two judgments against him in favor of Cheyenne Jerred and several former students who accused him of abuse, not to mention the almost inevitable lawsuit from his sex abuse victim/s). Beyond which, merely knowing the account number of a bank account is not illegal, and routing numbers for banks are posted online by the banks themselves. Bill asked if Stephanie was posting the account number to deposit funds into so he could report it to the authorities. He did not ask for it to be obtained in any illegal manner and he clearly stated his intention to report it to authorities. Context and intent matter.

The next individual is Lily Speerbrecker. She actually attended Ben’s Academy, Midwest Academy in Keokuk, IA. After attending Midwest Academy, it was so bad to her that she returned to Midwest Academy to work for Ben. She ended up having a baby and having a mental break and left for 4 days, abandoning her child with Ben and his wife who took care of the baby. Furthermore, Ben’s generosity continued when her car broke down, which then Ben gave her an Academy van to have to transport her and her child around. Then after she left working at the Academy in 2012, she abandoned her children and the father of the children, leaving the father to get full custody of the children and as of the time of the Academy closing (per an email from the father of the children I have obtained), she had been gone for over a year. While she was working at Midwest Academy, Ben and his wife regularly watched her children. Obviously, had Ben ever abused her she would have never left them with Ben. Lily’s Facebook has a posting of an anti-Ben Petition on Change.org. She claims “Ben Trane physically abused me in 2005. He knew full and well that’s i was in isolation for 2 months total [sic]. He is a sociopath and a monster. Please make an example out of him because if anyone deserves the max sentence, it’s him.”  … Ready for the best part of Lily’s Facebook page?  She has her employment as “Founder (company) at Safe Teen Schools.”  This website is www.SafeTeenSchools.org.  It is interesting that this person is now trying to give advice to parents on schooling for their troubled kids.

I’m not sure why you are upset at Lily except for the fact that she herself is a victim of Ben. I guess slandering victims is sort of your modus operandi. We’ll wait while you google what that means. As we noted previously, she had nothing to do with writing this article, nor the sex abuse accusations of which Ben Trane was convicted. I don’t really want to dwell too much on this since Lily has nothing to do with this, but I did tell her about your comments and she asked me to include the following message to you:

“At no point have I ever worked for Midwest Academy. The father of my children did not send Jacob Franklin any documentation of our custody agreement. My children were not taken from me due to a mental break down. Not ever have I left my children in the care of Ben Trane or his wife for 4 days. Also, obviously my website is to inform parents of child abuse that happens in boarding schools. We in no way promote boarding schools. What is being said is defamatory and untrue. I deeply hope that Mr. Franklin finds peace in his life and gets the help he clearly desperately needs.

Sincerely
Lillian Speerbrecker”

She also told me that she has a signed statement of the above facts from her children’s father.

Her Facebook page is also filled with a pentagram, drunken make-up videos, profanity laced posts, and videos that regularly look like hostage videos made by ISIS. It is pretty clear she is disturbed.

Because social media is all about the most serious and professional side of us all? Really? Makeup videos and cussing makes someone a bad person? Have you seen your own Facebook lately? I doubt the Daily Caller would approve of its own Head Writer posting in such an unprofessional manner…oh wait. But seriously: pot, meet kettle.

There are several other individuals with WWASP who have claimed to be abused by Ben at the Midwest Academy. I know who many of them are. I have emails, texts, messages, etc., where these same individuals after they graduated had sent Ben ‘thank you’s’ for changing their life for the better, and for everything he had done for them. I have been asked to sit on these names and documents, as they have been held for Ben’s Appeal to show that these claims of abuse from a handful of troubled individuals are nonsense. Now you know who WWASP Survivors are at the top of their organization. I will continue to follow and report on Ben Trane and Midwest Academy.

So there you have it… Jacob Franklin essentially saying that if you speak out, he’ll claim to have some email from your past showing what a bad person you are. If that doesn’t work, he’ll comment on how a silly video on Facebook means you’re a bad person. Slow clap. I really hope someone finds this article like the prosecutor…or your probation/parole officer…heck, even your ex-wife. That way, they can see what a great example you’re setting for your children.

For anyone else reading this, I provided links and screenshots in this article as well as the previous one. To give you a rundown of the various things discovered during the course of the investigation and trial, here’s the links to various news stories that provide the facts:

• Public records show there were 80 calls to the sheriff over a 3 year period about abuses at Midwest Academy. Of those 80 calls, 5 included sexual offense allegations. 19 were found to be founded abuse cases at the school. There is also another unspecified sex offense from 2013 that is still considered under investigation. Source: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2016/02/13/80-sheriff-calls-3-years-keokuk-boarding-school/80202780/
• 2.8% of sexual assaults reported by children are false allegations and most children do not disclose sexual assault immediately – http://www.thehawkeye.com/news/20171215/forensic-psychologist-testifies-at-trane-trial
• Ben Trane found out that the employee reported the abuse to DHS about 20 minutes after she had done so. About 52 minutes after the original reporting done by the employee, another employee called in to report it. Shortly after this, the original whistleblower was fired. You can verify that here: https://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/daily_gate/news/jerred-awarded-nearly-k-for-midwest-academy-firing/article_072970b6-b692-52b9-9061-c12dfd00788a.htmlhttps://www.mississippivalleypublishing.com/daily_gate/news/jerred-awarded-nearly-k-for-midwest-academy-firing/article_072970b6-b692-52b9-9061-c12dfd00788a.html
• The FBI agent that interviewed Ben Trane stated that Ben told him he turned off the video cameras because he was tired of dealing with his employees stealing: http://tspr.org/post/state-calls-seven-witnesses-monday-ben-trane-trial
• Joe Lestina of the DCI did testified that they found seminal fluid on the carpet in front of the camera monitors in one of the offices: http://tspr.org/post/state-calls-seven-witnesses-monday-ben-trane-trial
• Jenny Richardson of the DHS stated she saw Ben Trane in Victoria’s Secret with a group of female students from the school weeks after Ben Trane had told her coworker that he would avoid instances of being alone with students: http://tspr.org/post/state-calls-seven-witnesses-monday-ben-trane-trial
• Rick Rahn of the DCI testified that he found “sexual activity surveys” from 2015 in the offices: http://tspr.org/post/state-calls-seven-witnesses-monday-ben-trane-trial
• Ben Trane’s phone had pictures of sleeping students on it. He admitted as much during  cross examination: http://www.wtad.com/ben-trane-guilty-on-all-counts.html
• Ben Trane took the victim out on her birthday and then took her shopping at Victoria’s Secret. He admitted as much on the stand: http://www.wtad.com/ben-trane-guilty-on-all-counts.html

So now that I’ve cleared that up, I’m going to respond to some other comments online.

I hope you don’t mind me answering this here, Amanda. I removed your last name because you really have nothing to do with this whole circus but I wanted to take the time to answer. There were pictures that were found on Ben’s phone of sleeping girls and he admitted as much under cross-examination. I linked the news article above. The reporter who was reporting on it also took some notes of the trial on Twitter. I think I can dig up her notes about it too on there. I tried to be as accurate as possible in both this article and the last which is why I hyperlinked the hell out of it. For the Facebook comments, I knew Stephanie and Jacob would probably delete or private a bit after I posted so I grabbed screenshots. Some of the ex-employees were a bit nervous about speaking publicly given that they still go to the local LDS church and Ben has a pretty large following there so I didn’t want to out them in their community without their consent. If the authorities contact me, I’m happy to provide the screenshots without the names/images blurred.

I believe the reason why a lot of supporters are coming out of the woodwork now is because they’ve had blinders on for the last year and truly believed that Ben Trane was dealt a great injustice by having his school closed and there was no way he’d be found guilty. Ben Trane is that likable guy they see at church or around the neighborhood and they can never see him painted as anything else so they ignore the evidence or find ways to rationalize it but the justice system still has to look at the evidence and judge no matter how inconvenient the evidence is. You asked a Trane support here why he was allowed to take kids out after he specifically stated he would avoid them. You got a couple of different responses from Trane supports. One claimed it was his own kids and another tried to claim that he was out with the students before he was told to avoid being alone with the students. I linked to the article about the testimony of the DHS employee above. She clearly states that she saw Ben Trane with students in Victoria’s Secret – not his own children – and immediately texted her co-worker who confirmed that Ben Trane had told her he would avoid being in situations alone with the girls weeks prior. These people you’re talking to on Facebook don’t sound really sure about their side of the story but the only thing they’re sure of is that there must be a reasonable explanation that’s favorable to Ben. I sincerely doubt that the DHS employee got up on the stand and lied under oath, especially given that it could be confirmed that she was lying with a search of her text message history.

Yes, I did purposely blur those out. Unlike the Traniacs, I didn’t want to out someone who claims to be a victim in a very public manner unless she specifically gave consent. I took those screenshots from an interactions between her and Jacob on one of Stephanie Nordyke’s status updates. Stephanie ended up deleting all her comments but I grabbed screenshots before she did. Jacob and Stephanie pretty much ripped into her and called her a liar and told the other girl with the broken leg that she must have deserved the abuse. It was pretty disgusting stuff.

Very good question to ask, Amanda. This is where it all gets a bit fuzzy to be honest. As we’ve discussed elsewhere, Ben Trane cut his teeth early on in his career working at another WWASP program. Midwest Academy was originally started as a WWASP program by Brian Vaifanua, who before Midwest owned Paradise Cove, another WWASP facility. After a lot of legal and media heat came down on WWASP, it publicly closed. Around that time, Ben Trane claimed to have “bought out” his other investors and claimed that it was no longer a WWASP facility.

This may be technically true in a narrow legal sense, since WWASP no longer existed as an entity, but despite claiming to be completely disconnected from WWASP, he continued the same rules, structure, and principles of WWASP (points, level, isolation, not allowing kids to talk to each other, severely restricting all contact with the outside world, seminars, etc). On top of that, Robert Lichfield (the owner of WWASP) still owned the property and from what we understand, Trane used Lichfield’s billing company to bill the parents until the day it closed.  So was it still WWASP? You’ll have to decide for yourself.

I do find another thing strange: Midwest Academy was open for over 10 years with 300 students at its peak. Each student was paying $5,000/month to be enrolled in that school. At its peak, Midwest should have been making approximately $18,000,000 a year. At the time the school closed, there were 77 students which would be about $4,620,000 a year. That’s a lot of money, even given operational costs for staff and other business overhead, which was fairly low, since Ben wasn’t paying for therapists, doctors, nurses, and other professionals to be onsite at all times. Ben Trane also owned a number of properties and a gas station until recently.

After the school was closed, Ben claimed he didn’t have money and declared Midwest a defunct corporation. So one has to ask where all that money went if not to him? Even if the school was making less, there should have been ample savings in previous years or after he reduced operational costs from his layoffs. There has never been a satisfactory answer to this question.

Actually, Susannah, the students had all their communication monitored between their parents. Letters couldn’t be sealed and had to be read by staff before being sent out. If anything was negative about the school, it would not be sent and the student would be punished. Phone calls with parents were also monitored . The parents were also warned that if the student says anything bad about the school, they were just “manipulating” and lying. In most cases, the parents had no idea what was really going on behind the scenes or they just didn’t want to believe it.

Actually it was the DHS employee during her testimony at Trane’s trial. I linked to the news story above. In regards to whether or not we’re liars, I assume you were referring to when Bill Boyles sent a friendly message to the Church of Latter Day Saints Keokuk page to ask about Ben Trane and donations. Whoever responded to that page gave the information on how to donate and support Ben. Bill suspected that church resources were being used to help Ben and that dialogue confirmed that the local church leadership was helping Ben. I don’t think that investigating that is petty.

Good question again. I can’t really speak for everyone who ever worked at Midwest or read their minds. The few people who were interviewed said that they had blinders on while working there and realized that all was not alright after. A couple people said they went to church with him and there were a lot of people who looked up at him like he could do no wrong so they feared speaking out against someone who was so highly regarded. Others, I think, were probably just scared of getting fired as you can see happened with Jerred when she reported the sexual abuse.

You are 100% spot on. You can’t be strip searched or patted down by a cop or TSA agent of the opposite gender. Most schools will have same sex staff accompany students off site. This is done in almost every institution for legal reasons or to avoid the appearance of impropriety. I’m not sure what they meant by stating principals at schools reward students by taking them out but even if that was a thing at public schools, if it were a male principal and female student, one certainly hopes they would still have a female teacher or staff accompany them.

No one’s perfect, Susannah, but you have to admit that it’s pretty weird to be taking pictures of other people’s children while they are sleeping on your personal cell phone. Or taking other children out to shop at Victoria’s Secret after you’ve been accused of sexual assault and told by the authorities to avoid being alone with the children. Or asking other people’s children to fill out unscientific “sexual experience surveys.” Or asking other people’s children to take off their clothes in front of a mirror so you can tell them about how beautiful their bodies are. Or to have the sheriff called for abuse allegations 80 times over 3 years.  Or to only call in a sexual abuse allegation 32 minutes after you realize your pesky employee already reported you and to fire that employee right after. Or to lock children up for days and weeks in isolation. Or to have seminal fluid found in front of the security camera monitors like someone was watching the underage girls and doing god knows what….

I’m sure Ben Trane is a very nice man at church. By all accounts, he’s extremely charismatic and his family is probably great too. However, no one knows what he does all the time outside of church. To state that a girl you don’t even know is lying and rationalize away all the other evidence found is just burying your head in the sand. I truly hope nothing bad ever happens to you. From the bottom of my heart, I truly wish nothing but the best for you. But if one day something bad happens, I hope that you aren’t attacked online by people who assume you must be lying because the person who hurt you is so very nice to them. I hope every aspect of your distant past isn’t picked apart to frame you as a liar. I hope anyone who does you harm is brought to justice and you don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night worrying that your nightmare isn’t over yet. Unfortunately. that is exactly what this victim is going through right now.

I know this was long. Thanks for sticking with me, if you did. If you did not, however, allow me to briefly summarize our response to Jacob Franklin’s comment with a quote from a classic movie:

Throughout the aftermath of the Ben Trane guilty verdict, there have been two former women who have been popping up everywhere on social media to defend Ben Trane’s honor: Stephanie Nordyke and Justine Sobotta. What’s interesting about both of them is that they both parrot to non-program folks how Ben Trane was nothing but a caring loving individual and that the former students claims against Ben are all lies.

If you dig down a little deeper though, you’ll actually find that they don’t disagree completely with why Ben Trane was convicted but they rationalize it with the belief that the “ends justify the means” as you can see from the below screenshots:

In this screenshot, Nordyke admits that she sent 15 months in OSS. OSS is a small locked room with no furniture and blowing cold air all the time where children often spent large amounts of time locked away in complete isolation. The court and psychologist that testified during the trial found this extremely psychologically damaging to children and it’s part of the reason why Ben Trane was found guilty of child endangerment. Note to Nordyke: Just because you weren’t sexually abused does not mean others were not.

In this stunning confession, one woman tells Justine Sobotta that she was abused by Ben and Justine simply responds with the ultimate victim-blaming question: What did you do to deserve it? It’s not that she doesn’t believe abuses occurred, it’s that she believes the victims must have deserved it somehow.

In another message private message,  Justine Sobotta admits Ben Trane is guilty of some of his crimes, she just doesn’t believe he’s a pedophile. The reason she doesn’t believe he’s a pedophile is simply for the fact that he never raped her as she stated in other public posts.

I’m not sure if Stephanie Nordyke or Justine Sobotta have provided notarized affidavits to the defense stating that they never witnessed any abuse in Midwest Academy but we are happy to provide the screenshots that show the full context of the above conversations and information to the investigators in this case.

In this post, we will be reviewing the testimony of DHS Agent Jennifer Richardson. She initially was called to Midwest Academy early in 2015 and several times after. We will post the link to the full testimony after reviewing the highlights.

The first time that DHS was called out to Midwest Academy, they were called out of concern for victim 1 and victim 2. When Richardson arrived at the facility, Ben Trane was already waiting for her and appeared to have been tipped off about their impending arrival. Ben blamed disgruntle ex-employees on the report against him.

Q. So you go out to the academy. What was your purpose of going out there on March 25, 2015?
A. The purpose was to basically ask for the seven children so that we could do interviews. We also had court orders to have the children be removed from Midwest Academy so we could conduct the interviews. We were going to conduct them at the South Lee County DHS office, and then also to gather the records of each of those children.
Q. So you had a court order in hand to take the children off site for interviews and to obtain records of those children?
A. Yes.
Q. So what happens when you go out to the academy?
A. We go out to the academy. We meet Mr. Trane shortly after we arrive. And he appears to be aware, and then he lets us know the children’s names.
Q. I want to stop you there. What do you mean he appears to be aware? Aware of what?
A. That we were coming.
Q. And why did you believe that?
A. Because he appeared prepared. He talked about a former employee that was disgruntled, and he believed that they had stolen records, confidential records, from the Midwest Academy and made this report against the academy.
Q. Did you find out at a later point that someone had tipped off the Defendant that you were coming out to the academy?
A. Yes. I believe he was told.
Q. All right. So let’s go back to when you first arrived. The Defendant met you. He seemed to be aware that you were coming?
A. Yes.
Q. Did he bring the kids out for you?
A. Yes. Mr. Trane informed us that of the seven children, only two children were still there. The other five had already left the academy an d were no longer students at the academy.
Q. So what did you do?
A. So they provided the two children that were there, which were Axxxxx and Bxxxxxx. And then we left and went back to the Department of Human Services to begin individual interviews with each child.
Q. Did you take both boys at the same time?
A. Law enforcement transported the children. They were interviewed separately.

One of the victims was asking for food over and over again. He was quiet and withdrawn. He had bruises on his face. The boy was shocked when he saw himself in the mirror since it had been so long since he looked at himself. He immediately commented about how thin he had become. The victim was very fragile and tired.

Q. How did the interview go with Bxxxxxx?
A. The interview with Bxxxxxx was somewhat difficult. He didn’t make eye contact. He looked down a lot. He had trouble focusing. He had trouble giving much detail. He was hungry, so we fed him while he was ther e.
Q. How do you know he was hungry?
A. He expressed that he was hungry. He was in OSS when we came to get him on March 25th.
Q. What did he look like to you?
A. He looked very thin. He had clothing on, and it looked like it was hanging off of him. He had some bruising to his face, his cheek. He had some bruising in the wrist area. He looked pale.
Q. You said he was hungry. What did you feed him?
A. I think he ate some Ramen noodles. We have a snack box at the office. I’m sure that–our secretary was the one actually trying to feed him and deal with that piece of it. I’m not really sure of everything he ate, but he kept asking for food.
Q. So he didn’t just ask for food once, he asked for food several times throughout the interview?
A. Several times, even going into the kitchen and opening our refrigerator to look for food.
Q. And where is the kitchen compared to where he was being interviewed at?
A. The conference room is at the back of the office, and the kitchen is right next to the conf erence room. So you have to go out of the conference room, but then you can see the kitchen easily.
Q. Did you keep giving him food?
A. We did. We continued to give him food.
Q. And he kept eating it?
A. And he kept eating it.
Q. You said he looked pale; he was thin; you saw some bruises on him. Was there a point in time that you showed him a mirror?
A. Yes. Because we asked about the bruise on his face, and he had no idea that he had a bruise on his face. So we — I got a mirror out of my office and allowed him to look in the mirror.
Q. What was his reaction?
A. He was shocked. He hadn’t seen himself in a long time. They’re not allowed to look in mirrors at certain levels. And so he said right away he looked very thin. He knew he’d lost weight.

Q. Were you able to do a full interview of Bxxxxxx?
A. I believe that we did the best interview we could. He was difficult to focus. He was tired, he said. And at some point we decided we had asked him enough questions.
Q. Was there a point that –you said he was tired. He ate a lot. Did he sleep or act as if he wanted to lay down when he was there?
A. He did. And while we were interviewing Axxxxx, I’m not sure what he did exactly. Another staff watched him.
Q. When you were done interviewing Bxxxxxx, did you have concerns?
A. Yes.
Q. That was based on what?
A. Concerns for being in the OSS room for long periods of time, concerns for his appearance, his weight; that he was on Level 1 and he had been there for quite a while. So that’s the very first level. He wasn’t progressing.

The other victim was much more talkative and outgoing. He told Richardson that he believed he had been in OSS for 180 days.

Q. Let’s talk about Axxxxx. Axxxxx’s interview was markedly different than Bxxxxxx’s; would you agree?
A. Yes.
Q. How was Axxxxx so different?
A. Axxxxx is a very talkative child. He also explains everything. He talks –he knows all the codes for the different infractions. The manual –the kids have to learn the manual, write the manual. He knew all the codes, so he would talk in codes.
Q. When you say codes, the numbers that go with each rule?
A. Yes. He would say, like, that’s a 304, something to that effect, and then we’d have to ask him, well, what does that mean?
Q. He knew the rules?
A. He did.
Q. And again, this is March 25, 2 015; correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And that’s the first time you had ever met Axxxxx?
A. Yes.
Q. So he talked quite a bit to you about his experience at the academy?
A. He did.
Q. When you were done interviewing Axxxxx, did you have any concerns?
A. I did. He had been there May 28th, and this was March 25th, so May 28th of 2014 to March 25th of 2015, and he said he thought he had been in OSS for 180 days, not straight, but overall. So it was very concerning.
Q. And this was based just on the information that these kids would give you?
A. This was only based on what information they provided.
Q. And what you observed from them as well?
A. Yes.
Q. Was Axxxxx hungry too?
A. I remember he said that he’s always hungry in OSS. I’m assuming we fed him. That doesn’t stand out as much as Bxxxxxx.

After the interviews were done, they took the children back to Midwest Academy and notified their parents.

A. After the interviews were done, the children were transported back to Midwest Academy by the Lee County Sheriff’s Department, and we continued with the assessment.
Q. Did you notify Axxxxx’s and Bxxxxxx’s parents?
A. Yes.

Richardson went out to Midwest Academy a month later after another allegation of sexual behavior among the boys had been reported. DHS was concerned about the supervision of the boys and whether they were being kept safe since this activity was happening at night. One of the boys involved was the same boy she had previously interviewed. Upon arriving at the facility, Ben Trane seemed to be more upset about how this was making his image look instead of the welfare of the boys. The previously outgoing boy that was interviewed by Richardson was now more reserved and quiet. The victim’s parents decided to remove him from Midwest Academy. The mother of this victim testified here and stated that Ben told her there was nothing he could to keep her son safe – In fact, he tried to manipulate her into keeping her son there by alleging that her son would try to take advantage of her little sister. In an interview with FBI agent Thomas Pearson here, Ben Trane also stated he didn’t believe supervising these boys was his problem to prevent sexual abuses.

Q. So when is the next time that you met with the Defendant?
A. The next time we did an actual interview, I believe, was April 23rd at the Midwest Academy.
Q. So why are you back at the academy on April 23rd of 2015?
A. We’re back at the academy because we had an additional allegation made to the Department of Human Services in April.
Q. And was that in regards — Well, when you go back out to the academy, was Axxxxx involved in this again?
A. Yes. Axxxxx was one of eight male students involved in allegations of sexual acting out behaviors.
Q. After this report of sexual behavior, did you pull Axxxxx out and speak to him again?
A. Yes. Axxxxx was interviewed the second time on April 15th of 2015.
Q. So previous to April 23rd, you had spoken to Axxxxx?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. So based on those discussions, you’re back out to the academy on April 23rd; correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Why?
A. Because we wanted to see the area where the supervision –the concern was for supervision of these children. The sexual abuse–the sexual acting out happened at night, and so the children had described where they were sleeping at and where they were at within the academy, so we wanted to see the location.
Q. And was it your understanding this was a particular family that this occurred in, the Pride Family?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. So when you go on April 23rd, were you given a tour of the facility?
A. Yes.
Q. Who gave you that tour?
A. Mr. Trane.
Q. Who were you with?
A. Leslie Boyer.
Q. And who else?
A. Just Leslie Boyer.
Q. It was just the two of you that day?
A. Yes.
Q. Did the Defendant say anything to you regarding his concern over what DHS was doing to his image?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. What did he say?
A. He expressed frustration with a former co-worker and that there was slander and there was negative information being provided to the community about Midwest Academy.
Q. He was upset about that?
A. Yes.
Q. Going back again to April 15th when you re-interviewed Dxxx, did you notify his parents again that he had been pulled out of the school?
A. Yes. We notify parents whenever an allegation is made, so his parents were notified.

Q. I want to go back to something real quick. You were there when Axxxxx was brought in the second time in regards to this sexual misconduct, or whatever it was, that was going on ; is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. Was Axxxxx different that time?
A. Yes.
Q. What was different between Axxxxx ’s behavior and demeanor as compared to when you spoke with him the first time in March?
A. He was more reserved. He wasn’t as talkative. He was quieter.

Q. What happened that day when he left the academy?
A. That was the day that we had brought in eight male students to interview them regarding the allegations.
Q. I mean in regard to what happened for him?
A. Oh, his parents were contacted, as all the parents were contacted, and they came to the office.
Q. And they themselves then took Dxxx with them?
A. They decided to remove him from Midwest Academy.

 

On her April visit, Richardson was told by Trane that there are no children that spend months in OSS. Ben admits that he has the final say on whether or not a child is admitted.

Q. All right. So April 23rd you speak with the Defendant. When is the next time you’re back out at the academy?
A. The next time we went back out was May 7, 2015.
Q. Why?
A. That was the visit that an FBI agent, Laura Pearson, accompanied us. She had never seen the academy.
Q. All right. So she wanted to see the academy?
A. Yes.
Q. Who gave you the tour that day?
A. Mr. Trane.
Q. Is he present in the courtroom, the person you’ve been calling Mr. Trane?
A. Yes.
Q. Where is he at?
A. He’s right there (indicating), over to my left sitting with his attorney.
Q. With the white shirt and gray suit?
A. Yes.
MS. TIMMINS: May the record reflect the witness has identified the Defendant.
THE COURT: It may.
Q. (By Ms. Timmins) How long did you spend at the academy that day?
A. We arrived around 10:00 in the morning, broke for a meal at 2:00, and went back and probably didn’t finish the day until around 5:00. It was a very long day.
Q. So you spent a lot of time with the Defendant that day?
A. Yes, we did. There was some times we spoke to other staff, and he wasn’t always right there, but most of the time he was.
Q. Did he say anything, the Defendant, did he say anything about the length of time that kids spend in OSS?
A. He said that no child spends months in OSS.
Q. Did you talk about who made the rules and policies of Midwest Academy?
A. Yes. Mr. Trane stated that he had worked at a former school, used some of those policies, and he developed Midwest Academy’s rules and policies.
Q. The Defendant said that he developed the rules and policies?
A. Yes.
Q. What about–did you talk about who at the academy decides what students stay there, what students leave there, what students are admitted there?
A. We did discuss that.
Q. And what did the Defendant say?
A. The Defendant said that there’s an intake process conducted by a person that’s not on site, and that that information is then provided to Midwest Academy, Mr. Trane, other persons. Ultimately, he would make the final say of whether the child was admitted.

Ben Trane claimed that there were no dietary problems and that the children eat 7,000 calories a day and most gain 30 pounds of muscle within the first 3 months. This doesn’t seem possible since even adult male athlete only need to consume 3,800 calories a day. It could harmful to force children to eat 7,000 calories a day. Both fortunately and unfortunately, it seems that the children were not being fed this many calories a day and Ben Trane was likely lying.

Q. Did you talk to the Defendant about the amount of food that the kids were allowed to eat there?
A. Yes. We had a tour of the cafeteria. That’s when we discussed that.
Q. Did you express concerns to him that they weren’t eating enough?
A. Yes.
Q. What did he say to that?
A. He said that they were feeding them too much. They were feeding them over 7,000 calories a day. He also said that in the first three months boys put on 30 pounds of muscle.
Q. Based on what you had seen and what you learned through your investigation, was that reasonable?
A. I don’t know of anybody that eats 7,000 calories a day. I don’t think that’s a normal intake.
Q. And according to the Defendant, the boys were putting a lot of weight, muscle weight?
A. Yes.

Ben Trane told Richardson that he was 100% sure that both children had been helped by their time in OSS. He insisted that Bxxxx had been helped 100% by being in there for as long as he had. Remember that Bxxxx was the victim that the clinical director identified here as not being a good fit for Midwest Academy within the first week or two and who deteriorated so much that Michael Davis had to send a blast email to many people in the facility of his concerns about the student’s health.  Bxxxx is the same victim in which Stephen Jansing references in his testimony here that he did not belong in Midwest Academy due to his mental issues. Bxxxx’s mother also testified here that she was told by Ben Trane eventually to get her son because he couldn’t be helped by Midwest Academy and who had to be hospitalized immediately after leaving due to malnutrition. Ben Trane also claimed he only knew about one boy – neither of victims – who lost weight during their time in OSS.

Q. What about Axxxxx and Bxxxxxx specifically? Did you talk to the Defendant about those two boys?
A. We did. We talked about those two boys and other children on our –that we had allegations against, yes.
Q. What did he say about Axxxxx and Bxxxxxx?
A. He said that they were helped 100 percent by OSS.
Q. Did he use that phrase, “100 percent”?
A. He said that it was a miracle from where they had started, from when they first came to when they left. Because they had both–by May 7th they both were gone from the academy. And that Bxxxxxx had been helped 100 percent by being in OSS, and that when he arrived Mr. Trane said his 3 year old had better skills than Bxxxxxx.
Q. And then followed up with, it was the OSS that helped Bxxxxxx improve supposedly?
A. That was how I took it.
Q. Did the Defendant say anything about kids losing weight there?
A. Yes. He stated that the only child that he knew of to lose weight was Lxxx and that they provided Lxxx with Ensure drinks.

Even though Ben Trane claimed that he didn’t know of the victims losing weight in OSS, Richardson was able to get their student records. Bxxxxx came to Midwest Academy in early September weighing 115 pounds. By November, he weighed 93 pounds. When he finally left Midwest Academy, he weighed 89 pounds.  Axxxx weighed 123 pounds when he started at Midwest Academy at the end of May 2014. By December, he weighed 99 pounds.

Q. All right. You and Leslie Boyer received files on Dxxx and Bxxxxxx; correct?
A. Yes.
Q. What types of documents did you have in their files?
A. Every child’s file contained similar documents: an in take form, medical request forms, Out -of-School Suspension Assessment forms, and Out-of-School Suspension logs–OSS logs, and they also contained e -mail communication between staff members. They were very thick files.
Q. Did their files have charts of their weight at the academy?
A. Yes. Each child they would weigh them monthly. So there was usually one document, one page, in each child’s file that had the starting weight, you know, and how much they weighed every month.
MS. TIMMINS: May I approach, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You may.
Q. (By Ms. Timmins) I’m handing you what has been marked as State’s Exhibits 90 and 91. Could you tell us what Exhibit 90 is?
A. Exhibit 90 is the monthly weights for Axxxxx.
Q. And Exhibit 91, what is that?
A. This is the monthly weights for Bxxxxxx.
Q. And that came to you from the file that was provided to you by Midwest Academy?
A. Yes.
MS. TIMMINS: The State would offer State’s Exhibits 90 and 91. (State’s Exhibit Nos. 90 and 91 were offered in evidence.)
THE COURT: Ms. Schaefer, do you have any objection to Exhibits 90 or 91?
MS. SCHAEFER: No objection.
THE COURT: They will be admitted. (State’s Exhibit Nos. 90 and 91 were received in evidence.)
MS. TIMMINS: Permission to publish.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
Q. (By Ms. Timmins) Well, actually, I’m just going to have you read those instead of putting them up.
A. Okay.
Q. Let’s start with Axxxxx, Exhibit 90.
A. Okay.
Q. What weight did he start out at?
A. Axxxxx started out at 123 pounds on May 29th of 2014.
Q. Can you tell from that chart, did he start losing weight?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. Why don’t you just go through each month. So start at the beginning. You said he came in May?
A. He came in May and he weighed 123. Then in June he weighed 119.8. July he weighed 115. In August he weighed 107. In September he weighed 102.2. In October he weighed 103.6. In November he weighed 100 pounds. In December he weighed 99 pounds. In January of 2015 he was at 100 pounds. In February he as at 110.2. In March he was at 108, and April he was at 112.4.
Q. So with Axxxxx you saw a marked decrease, and then he put on a little bit of weight right there at the end; is that right?
A. Correct.
Q. Look at the next exhibit, which is State’s Exhibit– Is it 91?
A. Yes.
Q. And that’s Bxxxxxx’s sheet; correct?
A. Correct.
Q. When did it start?
A. Bxxxxxx’s chart started on September 4, 2014, at 115.2 pounds. On September 9th, he was 113.6. In October he was 102.2. In November he was 93.6. In December he was 95.6. In January he was 96. In February he was 92.2, and in March he was 89 pounds, and there’s a note that says he left on 3/31 of ’15.
Q. Bxxxxxx’s weight went down, and he never bounced back from that, did he?
A. That’s correct

Richardson received the OSS records for both boys. There were some OSS records missing but from the records she had, she was able to verify one victim spent a minimum of 133 days in OSS or at least 63% of his time at Midwest Academy and the other child had spent a minimum of 163 days in OSS or about 50% of his stay at Midwest Academy. Since there were some missing OSS records, it’s entirely possible that it could have been more.

Q. You said in the records that you also had received the OSS records for Dxxx and Bxxxxxx?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you go through all of those, you and Leslie Boyer?
A. Yes. We went through all seven children’s entire records.
Q. And we’re just talkin g about Dxxx’s and Bxxxxxx’s. For the most part were those complete?
A. They had some missing OSS logs. And the logs were –when they’re in OSS, every fifteen minutes is documented. So there was some missing but fairly complete.
Q. And it covered basic ally the day that they arrived there to the day that they left?
A. Correct. The Out-of-School Suspension form tells why they were put in OSS, and then the logs just go through their behaviors in OSS; if they’re sitting in structure; if they stopped sitti ng in structure, or break structure; their behaviors, what they do.
Q. Did you and Leslie Boyer put together a formula in order to calculate the amount of time that both of those children spent in OSS?
A. Yes, we did.
Q. And did you go through and calculate that time for both boys?
A. Yes, that was calculated.
Q. All right. Let’s talk about Bxxxxxx. How many days was he at Midwest Academy?
A. Bxxxxxx was there for 210 days.
Q. And I think you said earlier it was September 3, 2014, through March 31, 2015?
A. Yes. That was the time period he was at Midwest Academy.
Q. And how many of those days did he spend in the OSS room?
A. He spent 133 minimum, and then there was logs missing, so we could only validate 133 days.
Q. Did you figure out wh at percentage of his time that he spent in the OSS room?
A. Well, based on what we knew for certain, it would be 63 percent amount of the time.
Q. In OSS?
A. In OSS, yes, while he was at Midwest Academy.
Q. How about Dxxx? What dates was he there?
A. Dxxx came on May 28, 2014, and then he left April 15, 2015, so he was there for 323 days.
Q. How many of those days were spent in the OSS room?
A. He had some missing logs, too, but a minimum of 163.
Q. Which came up to what type of percentage?
A. 50 percent of the time spent in OSS while at Midwest Academy.
Q. Now, you said Dxxx left on April 15, 2015. Isn’t that the same day that you interviewed him and pulled him out that second time?
A. Yes.

Even though Ben Trane advertise the school as a therapeutic boarding school, he felt only 50% of the children needed therapy.  Richardson was concerned about this.

Q. Did you have discussions with the Defendant about the therapy that the kids were or were not receiving?
A. Yes. We discussed therapy, different types of therapy used.
Q. What did he say about that?
A. He said only about 50 percent of the children at the academy need therapy.
Q. Did you express concerns to him that these kids did need some therapy?
A. Yes. And it’s called a therapeutic boarding school.

After the sexual abuse allegation, Richardson knew from her coworker that Ben Trane was not supposed to be around the female students. Richardson was doing some shopping at Coral Ridge Mall – which is approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes to 1 hour and 45 minutes away from Midwest Academy and further away from Keokuk than Quincy Mall – the mall that Ben Trane used to take girls Victoria’s Secret shopping. While she was shopping in Victoria’s Secret at Coral Ridge Mall, she spotted Ben Trane in the store with what looked like multiple students. There did not appear to be any other adults accompanying them. It seems like Ben Trane went to a store that was further away because it was a larger Victoria’s Secret to take his students shopping at or because he was hoping to avoid anyone catching him there since he knew he was under investigation for a sexual allegation. Pictures dated on December 22nd of Victoria’s Secret purchases were found on Ben’s phone and submitted to evidence to confirm Richardson’s account. You can read about it here.

Q. Was there a point in time that you were made aware that a complaint was made regarding sexual abuse at the academy?
A. Yes.
Q. When was that?
A. That was December 1st of 2015.
Q. And your colleague, Beth Webster, had testified about that she was the investigating DHS worker on that particular case; correct?
A. Yes. She was assigned to that report.
Q. You were aware of the situation
though?
A. Yes, when it was received.
Q. After that complaint came in on December 1st, was there a time that you saw the Defendant out in the community?
A. Yes.
Q. When was that?
A. I saw him on December 22nd.
Q. And where did you see him at?
A. I saw him at Victoria’s Secret in the Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville, Iowa.
Q. And who was he with?
A. He was with a number of fem ales. I believed them to be students of the academy.
Q. How did you come across — Tell us how this all came about? What were you doing?
A. Well, it was the Tuesday before Christmas, and one of my friends asked me if I would take the day off work and go shopping, last minute Christmas shopping. So I said yes, and we went to the Coral Ridge Mall. And we arrived there close to lunchtime, and that was one of the first stores I went into at the mall. And I was looking around, and I heard Mr. Trane’s voice. That’s how I first knew he was in there.
Q. You heard his voice in the store?
A. Yes.
Q. And you’ve spoken with him many times prior to this?
A. Yes, I have.
Q. So what did you do?
A. I stayed in the store, and I watched to see if there was stu dents there or what he was doing. And I saw females that I believed to be from the academy. I texted my co-workers, Beth Webster and Leslie Boyer, that I was at Victoria’s Secret and Ben Trane was in the store with females. I watched him direct the youn g women to the cash register to pay and leave.
Q. Did it appear that there was any other adult with him?
A. I didn’t recognize any. I didn’t see any other adult with them, and I do know other staff members. I didn’t see anybody that I recognized.
Q. Why did this stand out to you? What did this matter?
A. Well, it stood out because of Beth Webster’s assessment. And I know that Mr. Trane had stated he wouldn’t put himself in a position where he would be alone with female students because of the allegations. So that’s why it stood out.
Q. And how far is the Coral Ridge Mall from–that’s in Coralville?
A. It’s in Coralville.
Q. How far is that from here, from this community?
A. It takes about an hour and a half to an hour and forty-five minutes po sibly to get there from Keokuk.
Q. Is it farther away than the Quincy Mall?
A. Oh, yes.
Q. Would you say that more people from this area shop at the Quincy Mall as compared to going to Coralville?
A. I don’t know. I mean, I go to both malls.
Q. So you notified Beth Webster of what you saw?
A. Yes, I did.

The school was unlicensed and therefore unregulated. The only way that DHS could inspect was when a report was filed.

Q. When you were doing these investigations, because the Midwest Academy was a private boarding school, were you aware if there was any State regulation of the boarding school?
A. No.
Q. Is that because it was a private school?
A. Yes.
Q. Could you as DHS just go out there any time and do what you wanted there?
A. No.
Q. What’s the only way that you were able to go out to the academy?
A. The only way we would go out to the academy is if we rec eived an allegation of abuse on a student that was at the academy, or if another state requested that we interview a student at the academy.
Q. So basically if you received a tip on the hotline that something was going on, then you could go out with court approval and things to talk to kids; correct?
A. Correct.
Q. During this investigation that started in March, did you at some point and some of your co -workers make suggestions to the Defendant about, you know, here is what facilities who are licensed and who are regulated, here’s what they have to follow? Did you suggest that maybe Midwest Academy should be doing that?
A. We did speak to him about the licensing process. We did provide him with an Iowa Code for Children’s Centers, which we believe tha t Midwest Academy fell into because they had more than seven children there. It’s just like a guideline.
Q. But the bottom line is because they chose not to be licensed and they are private, there really was nobody that could tell them that you can’t do this, or that could walk in and regulate what was going on?
A. There’s no agency in Iowa that had many authority to go into the academy and regulate their policies.

Pictures of the victim were submitted to evidence showing bruises of the child. The boy didn’t know how he got the bruises but he was restrained and taken to OSS. A picture of the child wearing older used uniforms was also submitted to evidence – the reason for this is because parents paid a uniform fee during admission but it appeared that Ben was just giving children recycled clothing.

Q. State’s Exhibit 78. Why did you take this photograph?
A. Well, there are a couple reasons we took photographs of both kids, but also he’s got the injury on the right side of his face, a bruise.
Q. State’s Exhibit 79. What do we see there?
A. That’s Bxxxxxx. It’s a side view of his injury.
Q. When you say injury, you’re talking about what appears to be a bruise on his face that’s a round red circle?
A. Yes.
Q. State’s Exhibit 80. What w ere you taking pictures of there?
A. Marks on his hands –on his arms, excuse me.
Q. State’s Exhibit 81?
A. Again, trying to photograph the injuries to the arms.
Q. Did he also have some scabbing that was on his wrists as well?
A. Yes.
Q. State’s Exhibit 82. What is that a picture of?
A. That is a picture of a shirt of Bxxxxxx’s that he received from Midwest
Academy.
Q. And why did you take a picture of that?
A. The different children that have had this shirt before. It looks like it has been passed down.
Q. Did that matter to you, or it was just to take a picture?
A. Well, we knew that the parents purchased the clothing when they arrive at Midwest Academy so —
Q. They purchased the uniforms?
A. They have a fee for the clothing. And it appear t hat they’re just — They’re recycled is what I was documenting.

Q. And with regard to the bruises or the marks that you claim were injuries on Mr. xxxx, could those also be the result of self-harm?
A. In regards to the injury on his face, he didn’t know how that happened. He didn’t know he had the mark. The injuries on his arms, he talked about being restrained and taken to the OSS.
Q. And as far as you knew, kids were restrained when their behavior was physically aggressive toward either staff or other students?
A. That’s my understanding.
Q. Now, you indicated that when you were reviewing the records for OSS for Mr. xxxx and Mr. xxxxxx, that there were some missing for both of them?
A. Yes.

Full Jennifer Richardson Testimony

In this post, we will review the testimony by Officer Richard Rahn who found the sexual surveys during a search of Ben Trane’s office. The link to the full transcript will be under the highlights.

Q. So we’re up to February 11, 2016. This would actually be the third time that people have been out to the academy; is that right?
A. Well, I can’t speak to that. I know two for sure because I participated, or I at least assisted, on the first search warrant on the 28th of January as well as February 11th.
Q. Okay. You assisted with the search. Did you get assigned to search the Defendant’s office?
A. I was asked to search various rooms, one of which ended being the Defendant’s office. I was told that he had basically two offices. One was on the main level kind of near the administrative section of the building, and then also one on the second floor. And I assisted in searching the office on the second floor is what I did.

The officer found the sexual surveys during his search and became troubled by what was asked. He immediately contacted Agent Lestina about it.

Q. Now, I know sometimes people get the impression that when police go in to do a search, you just throw things wherever you want and make a complete mess. Do you do that when you conduct a search?
A. No. We try to be as organized as we possibly can. We don’t try to destroy anything or mess things up, per se. Now, certainly we move things around, and we have to lift things up and we try to be as orderly as we can. But what you’re seeing here is what we walked into. It’s not as if we, law enforcement, threw things around within the office.
MS. TIMMINS: May I approach, Your Honor.
THE COURT: You may.
Q. (By Ms. Timmins) When you were searching that office — Well, I’m handing you State’s Exhibit 51. Did you find State’s Exhibit 51 when you were searching the Defendant’s office?
A. Well, the best I can testify to this is it’s a survey or questionnaire that was found within the office. And to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t know if I was the one that found it or others searching within the office found it, but it was certainly found within the office that I was in assisting, and I certainly read the questionnaires while within the office. That’s the best way I can describe it.
Q. Sure. They were found in that office that day, and you were present when they were found?
A. Yes.
MS. TIMMINS: At this time I’d ask to enter State’s Exhibit–
Q. (By Ms. Timmins) Is that 51?
A. Yes, ma’am.
MS. TIMMINS: State’s Exhibit 51. (State’s Exhibit No. 51 was offered in evidence.)
THE COURT: Ms. Schaefer, any objection to 51 for the State?
MS. SCHAEFER: No objection.
THE COURT: 51 is admitted. (State’s Exhibit No. 51 was received in evidence.)
Q. (By Ms. Timmins) What does that say at the top of State’s Exhibit 51? A. It states at the top that it’s a Sexual Activity Survey 2015, and then it has either an individual can circle whether they are a male or a female.
Q. And there’s a packet of those; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. And that packet or that bunch of those were found within the office?
A. Yes. After reading through some of them–I didn’t read through all of them — but after taking a look at it, seeing what was being asked, I found it a little bit concerning or problematic. And then I contacted the case agent, Joe Lestina, and informed him of the survey and then provided him the survey.

Full Richard Rahn Testimony

In this post we will review Dr Stuart Grassian’s testimony. Dr. Grassian is an expert witness specializing in the area of solitary confinement. He has an extensive work history including a history of being a director of two psychiatric hospitals for troubled adults and adolescents.

The doctor’s strongest area of expertise was the psychiatric effects of solitary confinement. He explains how he got started in the that particular subject and the history of solitary confinement.

Q. What are your strongest areas of expertise in the forensic field?
A. My strongest area that I’m pretty well known in is the psychiatric effects of solitary confinement. I’ve also been pretty actively involved in evaluation of people who have been sexually abused and victims of sexual trauma.
Q. All right. Let’s talk about the psychiatric effects of solitary confinement with your work. How did you become interested in that field?
A. I think like most things in life, pretty randomly. A friend of mine from college had become head of the Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services and was involved in a class action lawsuit at the maximum security institution in Massachusetts at Walpole. And the class action lawsuit was against the use of solitary confinement strictly. He asked me to evaluate inmates. And I was actually pretty skeptical. And he said, don’t worry. I’ll pay for the day, and you see what you find. And I said, okay, under those circumstances. Well, I evaluated inmates for one day and I was absolutely shocked. First of all, they weren’t exaggerating. These guys were scared. They were so sick. They were scared of it. And the other thing about it is, they were all sick in a similar kind of way that was different from what you see
in ordinary clinical practice. So I just–I was amazed. And what I did then is I went to the Harvard Countway Library and did some medical literature review and discovered there’s this huge body of literature on this issue. It goes all the way back to the beginning of the 1800s.

A. So I discovered this huge body of literature. I mean, a description ofbthousands of cases of solitary confinement psychosis. And they all had, quote, unquote, a particular stamp, which is exactly the same thing I had seen. It turned out that doing this literature review, it’s amazing history. Solitary confinement was introduced to the world in modern times by the Americans, and it was by the Quakers, by Ben Franklin and the Quakers.

Q. (By Ms. Timmins) Based on your research when you first initially stepped into this subject, you found that there was a long history of solitary confinement in America?
A. There was a long history of it, but more importantly there was an extensive body of literature describing the effects. And the system was widely used in the early 1800s and was a catastrophe. People were dying. People were becomingpsychotic. And it even led to the United States Supreme Court in 1890 absolutely condemning it in a case I had mentioned to you, the case of Mr. Medley.

Q. So how long have you spent working in this field of the psychiatric effects of solitary confinement?
A. My initial day at Walpole was, I think, in 1979. The publication was in, I think, 1983, and since then I’ve been involved and evaluated many hundreds of people in conditions of solitary confinement, juvenile detention facilities, immigration detention facilities, a whole host of situations.

The doctor was given some of the background of the case and offered general effects of solitary confinement in his testimony.

Q. In this particular case, you were asked to offer an opinion, a general opinion, about the psychiatric effects of confinement on juveniles; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. You’ve been provided some general background of the case, but your testimony here today is generally the effects of solitary confinement; correct?
A. That’s my understanding
Q. All right. Can you tell us just in a succinct manner what is solitary confinement?
A. Well, solitary confinement is the confinement of an individual generally alone in a relatively small cell. Now, typically the cell is about 80 or 90 square feet. Typically, it has a window to the outside world, which is very often a vertical window. That’s most typical. Several inches wide but high. It sometimes looks out on pleasant things. It often looks out on kind of really not much of anything. There’s also a door which is usually a sliding metal door with a window in it to the tier. Inside the cell the person generally will have some sort of bedframe, which is either metal or a concrete platform on which they place a bed or mattress, and they of course have bedding. And they have a sink and toilet combination. Very often they’ll have a little shelf desk kind of thing, pretty small, but you can use it as a desk, and some kind of stool, which can be as bad as like a concrete stool. There’re sometimes a little bit more pleasant than that. Usually–and things vary–usually the individual will have at least some access to a little bit of radio or TV, or at least the audio of TV, not a lot but some. They have books. Often that also is restricted but not entirely prohibited. They still have contact with family by phone and by visit, but it’s restricted. Like, with family visits, they are usually non-contact, so you can’t really hug your dad or whatever. So you’re just talking through a wire mesh or actually even Plexiglas. And as I said, they have phone privileges as well, but they’re restricted equally. People are allowed out of their cells usually for an hour a day for some sort of exercise yard. In a good place there will be both an indoor and outdoor one because, obviously, there are times when the weather is too inclement to go outdoors. Usually the exercise yard–when they’re in the exercise yard, usually by themselves. But some of these exercise yards are like chain link, sort of dog-run looking things. So you can talk to the inmate adjacent to you pretty easily, you know, through the chain link fence. Again, all of this can vary from place to place.
Q. What you’ve just described, is that typically what you see when you are looking at solitary confinement in a prison system?
A. That’s what you generally see in an adult prison system. And again, I mean, there are variations in all of this. I’m giving you sort of a typical example.
Q. I think sometimes as a layperson when we hear the term solitary confinement
that means that they’re locked in a little dark cell and never have contact with
anyone. There are no stimuli. There’s nothing else. That’s not the real world of that?
A. It’s not. No, that’s not realistic. Usually–and again, this varies–but usually the inmates can communicate with each other. Sometimes they have to press their mouth against the gap in the sliding steel door. Sometimes they talk through the vents to each other. They also, if you happen to see this on TV, they have this kiting where they actually can slip something out, and another guy can catch it like catching a fishing line and pull in paper or whatever. So they have very ingenious ways to communicate with each other. That’s not to say that this is ordinary levels of
communication. It’s still difficult. But you find–you know, people do find ways to play a game of chess with somebody they can’t see, you know, but they can call out the numbers, or whatever, the place on the board. But you know, it’s very isolated. It’s not entirely isolated. And of course, in these facilities you also have somebody make rounds. You have a staff person bringing them meals three times a day. So there are those kinds of contacts as well. And as I said, they have visits with attorneys, with families, and with counselors who generally will bring them out of their cells for some of the time.

The difference between solitary confinement in detention facilities or jail and quiet rooms in psychiatric hospitals. Reading through this, remember this one fact: Children in OSS were not spoken to for hours and would often have to wait for someone to notice them on camera to even shift positions.

A. Well, the term quiet room is a term that my understanding is used in psychiatric hospitals. I mean, I’ve used a quiet room with patients. So I’m not aware aware of it being used in any sort of more punitive type of setting. But a quiet room is a place where– you know, if you have a patient who is really agitated and out of control, sometimes you’ll use actually a physical restraint to hold the person down, try to talk to them, try to calm them down. Sometimes they need some time just to–you know, some space. So you put them in a quiet room by themselves, but there’s somebody right outside trying to connect with them, trying to talk to them, trying to calm them down. And, you know, the expectation is that they’ll be there for– until they can calm down, like fifteen minutes or a half hour, couple hours at the most. You know, it’s all an attempt at helping the person gain control of himself. So there’s a real therapeutic feel to it.

On whether “quiet rooms” are ever used as a punishment.

Q. In your training and experience, are those types of rooms used as punitive measures?
A. Never.
Q. As a punishment?
A. No, no. You never use that as punishment

Dr Grassian had experience with quiet rooms and felt an obligation sa a psychiatrist to stay there and try to just keep talking to the patient.

A. But, you know, if the person was in the quiet room, I usually felt it was my obligation for myself as the psychiatrist to stay there and just to keep trying to talk to the patient.

On whether people are ever put into these quiet rooms in hospitals for days, weeks or months.

Q. And when would they get out?
A. I mean, typically you get–most typically within a half hour, a couple hours at most.
Q. Are these quiet rooms within your field, within your profession, are these quiet rooms to be used for days, weeks, months?
A. Oh, no. That would never happen.

 

Per Dr Grassian, children are particularly vulnerable in connection to solitary confinement and he explains why. Children’s brains are not able to handle solitary confinement and they see functional changes to the brain. This is something that is not disputed at this point in the medical field

Q. Do children have particularn vulnerabilities in connection with solitary confinement?
A. Yes.
Q. What is that?
A. One of the things that happens in solitary confinement is that the person becomes less capable of processing their emotions. They’re under a lot of stress, so their emotions become exaggerated,nintensified, the negative emotions: fear, anger, you know, whatever, agitation. And because of the lack of adequate levels of stimulation, they’re not fully alert. And you know what happens when people aren’t fully alert? They’re just wild and impulsive. They can’t think. They’re thinking at all. So you put a person in that condition, and if they started out being kind of out of control, they’re going to get more out of control. That’s pretty predictable. Adolescents are exceptionally vulnerable to this. As anyone who has been an adolescent or has had a kid who’s an adolscent knows, adolescence is a time when emotions are super-intense. These kids are superexcitable, super–their emotions are over the top, and yet their ability to manage emotions, to think, to quiet, to choose behaviors, is very limited. The emotional intensity of the limbic system, it gets to its height maybe around early adolescence, like 13, 14, that kind of thing. And yet the frontal lobes, the ability to modulate all of that doesn’t really fully develop until you’re about 25, and that’s under good circumstances. Imagine a kid who is all stressed out, a kid who comes from a very stressful environment, a kid who’s placed in solitary confinement in a very stressful environment. They’re just not going to be able to develop those controls, that frontal lobe inhibition of the more primitive, you know, emotional centers of the brain, the limbic system, the amygdala, whatever.
Q. What you’re saying, is this based on your experience? Is this based on research? Where does this come from?
A. At this point, it’s based on so many things. It’s kind of–no one can really argue it. You can’t really argue it any longer. I mean, of course it’s based on my clinical experience, whether as a clinician in a psychiatric hospital or in forensic work. But there has been a lot of brain research recently. As many of you may be aware, there has been a lot of new technologies that have allowed people to actually look at the functioning of the brain. Not just at structures, but its actual functioning. It has demonstrated the effects ofn stress. It has demonstrated how the brain actually continues developing. You know, they actually have pictures of brains as they develop over the years and shows how the frontal lobes develop late, and these deeper centers, the more primitive centers develop early. I mean, they’re tremendous colored pictures. I can’t tell you I could explain the technology that’s used but it’s called functional MRI.
Q. Are you saying if someone is–if a juvenile, especially, is placed in solitary confinement for an extended period of time that can cause actual, physical changes to their brain?
A. Well, a functional MRI shows functional changes. But there have also been studies that have demonstrated structural changes. During this period of development, during any development of the brain, any development period, especially adolescence which is huge, the brain is plastic. I mean, neural connections form, they break off, they die, there’s pruning, making things work better. And when that process goes awry, you actually can see overt structural changes in the brain, especially in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is involved in the processing of memory, of emotion. And the hippocampus actually shrivels, it shrinks over time, and adolescent brains are particularly vulnerable.

The emotional effects of juveniles who are kept in solitary confinement are more intense than those of an adult. You could potentially impair a child’s ability to ever function normally since they are so

Q. What kind of emotional effects do you see from juveniles who are kept in solitary confinement for extended periods of time?
A. Well, what you see in juveniles you also see, though, of course to a less dramatic extent, with adults. And maybe the best description was one that– I’ve always been impressed by what somebody said about this phenomenon. The person was Elaine Ward who was the warden of an adult maximum security institution for females in New York State. And what she noticed and couldn’t understand was this phenomenon she described as maxing out. Once a person–the person might have been doing okay, but then they get into solitary for something and they never get out, because their behavior worsens over time while they’re in solitary And I mean, you give her all the credit in the world because she was upset about it; she was worried about it. She didn’t understand it. She didn’t know what to do with it. But she saw it. And that’s what you see in all levels. You see it with adults, and you see it tremendously in juveniles. The incidence of mental illness, the incidence of trauma in juveniles is so high. So you have this vulnerable population because of their histories, and then you have the vulnerable population because of their age. And you put them in these conditions that are going to make it worse. And, I mean, their tremendous fear is that you’re going to impair that kid’s ability to ever function normally as an adult.

The doctor goes over confinement rooms in juvenile facilities.

Q. Now, you had brought up a lot of these juveniles in these types of facilities that do have confinement rooms or something like that have mental health histories or traumatic backgrounds. That increases the effect that solitary confinement has?
A. Oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean, that has been demonstrated over and over in research studies. Moreover, as you can well imagine, it’s those kids who are the most traumatized, kids with histories of mental illness, kids also with histories of cognitive impairment, these are the kids who are least capable of controlling their behavior and are most likely to end up in solitary confinement. So you know, you’re just taking the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable, and you put them in conditions which are going to make it worse.
Q. How quickly can you see the effects occur on someone in solitary confinement?
A. Well, first of all I think the effects are–I mean, the beginning of the effect is almost immeidate because there’s fear. There’s fear and rage, you know, when a person is placed in solitary. One of the more dramatic ones I saw was a person who developed a florid, overt delirium and attempted suicide within hours of being in solitary. And this was an adult. So I mean, it can take you very quickly.

The rate of suicide attempts and self-harm in facilities that use solitary confinement are pretty high. Much higher than adult facilities.

Q. You had brought up before the suicide attempts and things like that. Do you see through the research and your training and experience, do you see that there are higher rates of self-harming–
A. Yes.
Q. –in situations like this?
A. Yes. I mean, that has been studied both in juvenile facilities and in adult facilities. And the statistics are pretty horrendous. They’re worse in juvenile facilities. I don’t remember the statistic, but I do know what it is in adults. In the adult prisons, 5 percent of population is in solitary. 50 percent of the suicides are in solitary. And self-mutilations are roughly the same percentage. And of course, you have about 5 percent in solitary and I think it’s like 50-odd percent of all self-mutilations occur among that 5 percent. So it’s horrendous, and it’s worse in juveniles but I don’t remember the statistic on that.

In dealing with out of control people, Dr Grassian has experience with troubled people in psychiatric hospitals and while they might have to use restraints, they found that they never really had much trouble by being caring and respectful. The effects of when children are in an over-control facility and how that affects their behavior.

A. If a juvenile or anyone is out of control, it is critically important that the situation become safe, and that the person, the inmate, the child, feel safe. So like when I talk about physical restraint, you know, where I’m actually holding somebody down, and not by myself Of course, you know, you’ll have four people doing it. The only thing you’re always careful to do is you never hurt the person. You just have enough power that you can just keep them down, and then you talk to them calmly. It’s the same thing when you put them in a quiet room. You never let that person experience it as something frightening or evil. You let them know that you care about them, that you’re trying to help them. And that’s what works. I mean, it does work. I’ve had patients, kids, who been in juvenile detention in solitary confinement, and they come to my psychiatric hospital and I don’t have security. I don’t have any big, strong people to hold them down. All I have is respect and concern. We never have
trouble, never. You know, I’ve been to prisons where they say, oh, you can’t see this person in the same room; they’re much too dangerous; they’re going to kill you, or whatever. And we just say, we’ll take that risk and, literally, never have we
had a problem, never. And that’s hundreds of cases.
Q. Are you saying then a lot of times the–when we’re talking about juveniles, the way that the adults are acting or reacting to the juvenile is also what can exacerbate the situation?
A. That is correct. In adult facilities for adults, but it’s so much more correct for juveniles.
Q. What is an over-control facility?
A. Well, an over-control facility is one where– It becomes a real problem when you really see your job as: I’m going to be in control of this situation. Because what you end up doing is you end up humiliating, enraging, and frightening the person you’re doing this to. And what do you think is going to happen? The person is going to get more out of control. He’s going to become more enraged, more terrified, more agitated. That’s what happens.

When dealing with children, it’s better to approach the feelings behind the behavior and not try to focus on the behavior itself. That’s what Dr Grassian found usually works best.

Q. Now, doctor, you’re not saying that we should just allow children to do
whatever they please?
A.Well, as I said, you know, you might be surprised that in a locked psychiatric unit for adolescents, you are seeing a lot of the same kids who might end up in juvenile detention or whatever. You’re seeing the–you’re really seeing the same population but you’re dealing with it very differently. And it’s really dramatic, it’s really striking, to see how much better they do in the psychiatric hospital, you know. It’s just that whole different attiude, an attitude based on trying to understand what’s going on. After all, whatever the behavior is that’s troubling, there’s something behing it. There are feelings. There’s something leading to it. And if you care about that, and you try to figure it out with the kid, that kid is going to feel safe. He may hopefully gain some insight into what’s setting him off. You know, it’s not that hard once you have that concept that it’s not all: I’m going to be in control. But rather, I care about you.

A strictly controlled environment will probably decreases the likelihood of successful adjustment after the person leaves that environment. This has been demonstrated in research.

Q. In a facility where environment is strictly controlled, will it increase the likelihood of disruptive behavior?
A. It does increase the likelihood of disruptive behavior, and probably even more importantly, it decreases the likelihood of a successful adjustment after the person leaves that environment. That has been demonstrated also in research.

Someone who claims to be using cognitive behavioral therapy in connection to control rooms doesn’t have an understanding of what cognitive behavioral therapy is. If you read the previous transcripts, Ben Trane told authorities that was what he was doing with OSS.

Q. How does the use of cognitive behavioral therapy in connection with control rooms, quiet rooms, how do those two interplay, or do they?
A. Well, first of all, a person who says that they’re using cognitive behavioral therapy with someone who is out of control in a quiet room, it doesn’t- I mean, that sort of demonstrates a lack of understanding of what cognitive behavioral therapy is. There’s a difference in– Let me Just as a background say there’s a difference between cognitive behavioral therapy and another form of therapy, another form of behavioral therapy called aversive conditioning. Cognitive behavioral therapy is based on the notion that a person is thinking, and they have a lot of negative thoughts about themselves or about their situation, and their negative thoughts are irrational, they may come from childhood or earlier experience, traumatic experience. And because they have those negative, not pertinent thoughts they act upon them in counterproductive ways. To give you an example, I have a patient who is an adolescent, and she avoids doing her homework. She doesn’t study for her tests. She has gotten better. I mean, I’ve been with her for a long time. But you know, why does she engage in this negative behavior? She does because as we’ve come to understand, she’s super-anxious, she has a lot of self-doubt. And you know, if you never try then you can’t fail kind of thing, you know? So she just never tried. And we explored some of the origins of that. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but there was some family stuff that was contributing to that feeling of not being good enough. And as she was able to identify the negative thinking, it helped her to change the behavior. But this is a girl who thinks. She spends a lot of time thinking. She’s actually a wonderful–you know, I met her when she was 13, and she was a wonderful conversationalist with adults. She was terrible with kids. But, you know, with adults because she was such a thinker, an internalized kind of person. You could really have that conversation. Now, for her, you know, if you look at what was needed, you had cognitive behavioral therapy, understanding the negative cognitions. You had expressive therapy, which is understanding the origins. Where do these bad cognitions come from? And there’s also medication to help quiet her anxiety. And the combination of the three has–I mean, it has been years, but she’s doing so much better. So that’s cognitive behavioral therapy. It has no relevance to people who are acting out of control. It doesn’t apply. I mean, people who are out of control, they’re not thinking. They don’t have a lot of negative cognitions to deal with. I mean, it’s silly. It’s a misrepresentation of what cognitive behavioral therapy is.

The doctor explains that using a control room – like OSS – as punishment would be aversion therapy which is no longer used for ethical reasons. The idea of putting someone in solitary confinement to punish them is unethical.

Q. So what is the aversive therapy?
A. Well, what they’re really doing is something called aversive conditioning. And first of all, aversive conditioning is very controversial, and I think it’s basically no longer being used whatsoever. But aversive conditioning, the paradigm is this: you take a very specific negative behavior, very specific, not like, oh, you didn’t follow the rules today. No, its got to be really very specific, and you punish it almost immediately. And the punishment should last no more than a few seconds. So the typical thing would be like a shock. You know, the kid would wear something, or an adult, and they’d get shocked, and so somebody is watching. So you have the behavior leading to punishment like that (indicating by snapping fingers), and you have lots and lots of opportunities to change that specific behavior. So it’s very specific, very short-lived punishment,very immediate. So putting somebody in solitary confinement has nothing to do with any of that. Even the people who are advocates for aversive conditioning would never attempt to justify using aversive–calling that aversive conditioning. It’s not. And it’s not going to be useful. So a person who says, oh, I’m a strict behaviorist and, you know, I do this. They don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t want to be disrespectful, but they don’t know what they are talking about. That’s not what its about.

The doctor has been the director of two inpatient psychiatric units for adults and adolescents. He goes over what happens if staff members are not properly trained. According to him, sadism and sadistic behaviors naturally develop on the part of the staff without training.

Q. And what is seen in facilities that do have locked rooms? What is seen in those types of facilities when they don’t have trained staff or educated staff, or people who know how to work with others with emotional issues?
A. Well, I mean, there’s a lot of sadism that occurs in those facilities. I use to falsely condemn the individuals who worked in the facilities, you know, thinking they were sadistic. But I don’t believe that anymore. I think that the environment creates this sadistic response, because you have behavior that’ s out of control and irrational, and if the only thing you’re supposed to do is control it–but you can’t, because the more you try to control it, the more out of control it gets. You know, you as a staff member are going to feel humiliated. You’re going to feel afraid, and you’re going to feelrage because of the humiliation. And so your tendency is to become over-controlling and sadistic. So I think the sadism that one sees in these situations is really a product of the system itself. And it’s not that there aren’t decent people who go into these places and work. I mean, and actually I’ve treated officers who’ve working in these types of facilities and seen the enormous pressure that they’re under that leads them to sadistic responses. And, you know, it’s sad to see that.

The doctor have never seen a place where the other patients or students were policing each other like they were expected to do in Midwest Academy.

Q. Have you ever come across a facility where it’s the juveniles or the other patients or students who are assisting in policing their own peers?
A. I know you had mentioned this to me when we spoke last night. And I told you, I’ve never in my entire professional life ever heard of that. I just cannot imagine any justification for it.

Dr Grassian cannot describe students being expected to hold physical positions as nothing short of sadism.

Q. In your experience, have you seen situations where there were expectations of physical positions to be held while sitting in a control room or quiet room?
A. In all of my experience, including evaluating people who are in the notorious Tehran prison, Evin Prison, I have never seen that at all, zero, never. I mean, to me I can’t think of how to describe that except as sadism.

Being locked in a room without books, school, or stimuli is worse than a supermax facility for adults. Having the lights on at all times and speakers blaring music or noise would be sensory deprivation in a way – it’s deprivation of meaningful stmuli. It adds to the toxicity of the solitary confinement.

Q. What about if there’s no stimuli provided to a juvenile while they’re in one of these locked rooms, no books, no school, nothing like that? What does that do?
A. Again, I mean, first of all, you’re describing a situation that is more onerous, harsher, more toxic than what you would typically see in a maximum security, or even a supermax facility for adults. It’s just–it’s beyond. I mean, there’s nothing to maintain a child’s alertness. There’s nothing to distract him from negative thoughts. I mean, it’s an enormously toxic situation, as is, by the way, keeping lights on in a cell for twenty-three hours or twenty-four hours a day. I mean, that’s been condemned widely. What you do is you have a light on during the day so that the person can read or whatever, write letters, whatever they’re doing, and then there should be a separate night light, because you need to be able to look inside to make sure everything is okay, but you also need to let the person sleep. So you know, something like an orange-colored night light type thing.
Q. Would that be considered more of a forced stimuli, to have lights on all the time, if you have speakers blaring music or some type of annoying noise, something like that?
A. Yes. That’s a very good question. We used to call this thing sensory deprivation. But it’s not actually sensory deprivation. It’s deprivation of meaningful, anchoring perceptual stimuli. If you have white noise, if you have lights on all day long, you have noxious stimulation. And it has been well known that if you add noxious stimulation to a situation of stimulus deprivation, things will get worse. In fact, this has been done by folks like the British in trying to break down suspected IRA terrorists. It was actually done at Guantanamo, using superair- conditioning where it was very cold in the cells. It was done using very, very loud fans, all these things as ways of adding to the toxicity of the solitary confinement.

Food isn’t used to incentivize people to behave in solitary confinement. According to Dr Grassian, if they were going to respond to cause and effect, they wouldn’t be in solitary in the first place.

Q. Now, you understand, and I’m sure you hear sometimes, that if you make conditions miserable enough for someone,they may just change their behavior and not do what it was that got them in there in the first place?
A. In general, a person who is able to respond to cause and effect so well is a person who will probably never need to be in solitary in the first place. You know, the reality is that adults and the children, the juveniles, you see in these situations are people who aren’t that calm and calculating. Their behavior is not based on an anticipation of its likely consequences. It’s based upon what they’re feeling right there now, which often leads to very negative consequences in a lot of different ways.

Children who are prescibed medication for ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, etc are the most vulnerable and should not be exposed to solitary confinement.

Q. And how do children on prescription medications for depression, ADHD, bipolar, those kinds of things, how is that effective if a child like that is in solitary confinement?
A. As I said–or I’d don’t know if I actually said this–if you look at the incidence of mental illness in the population in general, and then you compare it with the incidence of mental illness in adult prisons, it’s higher in adult prisons, and it’s much higher still in solitary confinement in adult prisons than it is in the adult prison general population. And this is even much more true in juvenile detention facilities where–and, again, I just don’t have the stastic right in front of me. But we’re talking about histories of mental illness and/or traumatic background and/or cognitive impairment–significant cognitive impairment. If I remember correctly, I think it’s in the range of 65 to 70 percent of all the kids have those kind of histories. I mean, it’s huge. It’s huge. And, of course, the fact that they have these mental disorders will, in fact, be reflected hopefully in their being on some medication to try to quiet it down. Those individuals are the most vulnerable of all.

The general consensus of psychological and psychiatric associations as well as the United Nations is to condemn solitary confinement – especially in juveniles. The reason why the medical profession in particular have condemned it is because it’s harmful to children.

Q. What is the general consensus of the medical profession on the use of solitary confinement with juveniles?
A. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, even the–I forget what it’s called –the Committee of Correctional Physicians, all condemn solitary confinement, and especially with juveniles. It has been condemned by the United Nations. It has been eliminated–well, solitary confinement itself has been eliminated in many European countries but certainly with juveniles that has been eliminated. It has been condemned.

Q. And with the medical profession in particular, they have come out with these positions because, in your opinion and in the profession’s opinion, it’s harmful to the physical, mental, and emotional states of juveniles; correct?

A. Yes. And as I said, there has been such an influx, so much more research that has been done on these issues, especially as technologies have evolved, that at this point you really can’t argue against it. I mean, there is no argument against those propositions.

Full Dr. Stuart Grassian Testimony