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SYRACUSE — A Washington D.C. man who attended a residential treatment center in Utah as a teenager has filed a lawsuit against the Davis County company. The lawsuit claims administrators there should have reported abuse from his father and did not.
The lawsuit was filed Sunday against Syracuse RTC, which does business as Elevation RTC, and the teen's therapist at the treatment center, Ryan Faust. It accuses both the company and the therapist of false imprisonment, negligence and participation in child abuse.
The plaintiff said he was 15 years old when he was raped with an object by his father because his father was frustrated that he was gay; and his father had threatened to kill him if he reported the abuse. Afterwards, the man said his father "had (him) kidnapped from his home" and forced him to go to Elevation RTC.
The man said he had been "incarcerated ... with no due process" at the treatment center while his father paid the company $25,000 a month. The lawsuit says the plaintiff "desperately wanted to leave."
While at the facility, he told his roommate and his counselor that his father had raped him with an object, but the counselor passed the report only to his father, who denied it, the lawsuit said. The man reported that his counselor told him they should work through things in counseling before reporting the abuse.
According to the lawsuit, the counselor wrote, "We do not believe him," in a November 2021 session note.
The lawsuit says the man was eventually able to speak with his mother, who filed a complaint against his father in Washington. It says arrangements were made for a rabbi and an attorney to visit him at the treatment center but the father was told of the visits and did not allow them to occur.
The man said in the lawsuit he was "emotionally, parentally and legally alone, far away from home." It also says Faust "torture(d)" him by taking his personal effects "so that he would feel even more powerless."
The lawsuit says when the man was 16, a court-appointed psychiatrist found his involuntary participation at a residential treatment center would be detrimental to his well-being. The therapist said his preferences for a living situation should have more weight than his parents' preferences.
The man was eventually released to his mother by the courts. Later, Faust pleaded guilty to failing to report the abuse in the Syracuse City Justice Court.
In the lawsuit, filed by Mortensen and Milne, a Salt Lake City law firm, the man claims the incident lowered his GPA, casting doubt on whether he will be admitted to Princeton or Stanford.
