ST. GEORGE — Katherine Kubler didn’t set out to be the focal point of a documentary that has been among the top three shows on Netflix in the last two weeks.

But the reason Kubler ended up becoming the subject, and not just the director, of “The Program: Cons, Cults and Kidnapping” is because she lived it.

“I didn’t want to be in it. I just wanted to make it about the subject. I was really hesitant to include my personal story for a long time,” Kubler said. “And then I was like, ‘Oh, shoot, I’m going to have to be in this documentary now.’”

Kubler had to endure what she said is her own trauma and PTSD to document the troubled teen center industry in the series’ three one-hour episodes. She says she’s amazed to hear when people say they “binge” all three episodes in one night.

“They’re so heavy. You have to spread them out,” Kubler told St. George News in the trademark, self-confessed sarcastic style heard in the series. “I mean, you can binge all three, but woo … like, take it with some Xanax.”

The first episode starts with Kubler entering the wide-open door of the abandoned Academy at Ivy Ridge youth treatment center in upstate New York where, as a teenager in the early 2000s, she says she was forced to stay for 15 months for the “crime” of drinking a Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

In the first two episodes, she and other former residents of the facility lament their poor treatment in a program they say was ineffective and rife with abuse. By the third episode, the story shifts to the origins of her treatment center — in Southern Utah.

Kubler, who said she started filming the documentary 14 years ago when she had just finished film school, spoke about those connections and how it all led to Robert Lichfield, who founded or was affiliated with the New York school and more than 70 others in Southern Utah and across the nation.

Especially in the third episode, Kubler criticizes what she said are local and state officials looking the other way when it comes to what are referred to as “troubled teen centers.”

The documentary accuses most of the centers, both locally and worldwide today, as being either offshoots or having former staff members with the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, a defunct St. George organization founded by Lichfield known by its WWASP acronym that operated from 1998 to 2010. 

One active St. George treatment center featured in the third episode denies accusations made in the documentary. Officials with Eagle Ranch Academy say the film pulls a kind of “guilt by association” for being on the same St. George site as the WWASP-affiliated Brightway Adolescent Hospital that was closed in 1998 after repeated violations of state guidelines for abusing teens.

“To even suggest we’re similar is so far from the truth. My brother and I developed this in 2005 not even knowing what WWASP was,” Paul Arslanian, the executive director of Eagle Ranch Academy, told St. George News. He noted Eagle Ranch opened seven years after Brightway closed, and a real estate developer and a state alcohol treatment program occupied the buildings before they did. 

Arslanian, who also founded the Coral Sands Academy private school in St. George, and his brother David coached in Division I college football, the Canadian Football League and the XFL and are the sons of Sark Arslanian, who was the first football coach at what was then Dixie Junior College and later Utah Tech University.

“Our whole background was in coaching. We brought a lot of the concepts we were bringing out to players in football,” said Arslanian, who added that while there are “bad” teen centers, they are not one of them. “The behavior model is not the answer. Most are behavior modification. We wanted to have one of the first and few choice-based programs.” 

Staff at Eagle Ranch say the documentary is one-sided. So does Kubler, who repeated an assertion she makes in the documentary that she’s not a journalist. 

“Some people get mad that I’m too snarky in the documentary,” Kubler said. “I don’t know why this all fell on me to do all of it, but I’d love for some real journalists to step in and fact check all of this.”

St. George News has reached out to several other Southern Utah teen centers mentioned in the documentary that have, according to health department documentation, more direct links to people who were involved in WWASP programs. None have responded. 

St. George News has obtained court records and documentation from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services — some of which are also seen in the documentary — that confirm some of the assertions made in the documentary.

“Critical” sanctions for centers currently open in Southern Utah or closed in the last year fall into one of three categories: Abuse either physically or mentally of “clients,” neglect and lack of supervision of patients that has resulted in harm or even death, or lack of protection for staff who have been attacked by patients. 

In the case of Eagle Ranch, it has been marked by the state for some critical violations and received at least three unannounced inspections in the last year, the most recent in January. Some of the violations in the last two years were for cleanliness and lack of supervision, but none pertained to the abuse of residents.

“The Program” describes WWASP’s franchising business model, in which they dictate treatment methods with an independent operator. St. George News has seen court affidavits linking Lichfield and/or WWASP to more than 70 limited liability companies running teen centers in Southern Utah and around the nation as well as in Latin America and Europe. 

While there have been arrests and convictions, as well as several abuse lawsuits settled out of court, the documentary says there is a lack of accountability for those involved in wrongdoing at the centers. 

The documentary accuses staffing at most facilities of being untrained and unaccredited to save on costs for the for-profit schools, which charge parents tens of thousands of dollars to enroll their children.

Kids as young as their preteens are seemingly kidnapped by paid “transporters” who take them either from their homes or workplaces. It also says such facilities use stress, humiliation, torture, isolation and overexercising as punishment for punitive rule violations.

Kubler recounts rules that she wasn’t able to look out of a window, cross her legs, have close friends or talk. In one incident revealed to St. George News that was not mentioned in the documentary, Kubler said there was a rule concerning condiments.

“When you were lower level, you could have condiments, but you couldn’t mix condiments. So you couldn’t mix ketchup and mustard. You had to choose one or the other,” Kubler said. “My ‘hope buddy’ in the documentary, Alison, that was her first correction she got for mixing mustard and ketchup.” 

A “correction,” Kubler said, was usually at least a 24-hour stay in an isolation room not much different from a solitary confinement cell in a prison.

In the documentary, Kubler visits the Hotel Zion Inn in LaVerkin, which from 1988 to 2012, was the Lichfield-founded Cross Creek Academy and then — for a year — Youth Foundation Success Academy.

St. George News has examined documentation of one incident at Cross Creek where one female student had sores in her mouth after having to keep a wooden stick in her mouth for two weeks and was also forced to walk around the campus with a 30-pound sandbag in that time.

In one scene of the Netflix documentary, a former Cross Creek “client” recognizes a room next to what is now a conference hall at the hotel as an isolation room and is seen traumatized after remembering being left bound in the room for days. 

Utah increases regulations; Cox speaks out

The Utah Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for regulating facilities they classify as “congregate care residential treatment.” The state health department does one inspection a year and those inspections are announced in advance, unless the department feels a surprise inspection is warranted after what is deemed a “critical” incident.

The documentary accuses Utah of being lax in the past and looking the other way as far as teen residential facilities go. It also notes Lichfield’s political connections, including his work as the Utah co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign before he resigned after one of the lawsuits related to his centers.

During the 2021 session of the state Legislature, Utah tightened some regulations on the teen centers in a bill sponsored by Sen. Michael McKell, R-Spanish Fork, who is featured in the documentary and Kubler said is “the only person doing a damn thing about this in the state as far as I can tell.”

The legislation puts rules on when congregate care programs can use restraints or seclusion, requires them to maintain suicide prevention policies and prohibits them from engaging in gender-based discrimination. It was signed by Gov. Spencer Cox and was noted for committee testimony by celebrity Paris Hilton, who testified that she was kept in a Provo stay-in teen facility for nearly a year as a teen and was physically and mentally abused.

When asked by St. George News, Cox said Thursday that he had not seen “The Program” on Netflix, citing his work on recently passed legislative bills.

“What I can tell you is that we’ve passed significant legislation. Senator McKell has been at the forefront of this over the past two years of directly dealing with these troubled teen centers and some of the accusations of abuse that are out there,” Cox said to a question posed during the Thursday taping of the monthly PBS Utah Monthly Governor’s Press Conference program. “I am at a disadvantage for not having watched the documentary, but I feel much more confident about the legislation that we have in place now to protect against abuses than I would have two years ago.”

But Molly Rose, who was a fellow student with Kubler at Ivy Ridge and was the main researcher on “The Program,” said not enough is being done in Utah. She said while programs are being suspended for abuses, they’re not being permanently closed. 

“Even though we’re seeing more regulation, we’re seeing more reports of abuse,” Rose said. “Every program’s just being told to correct these things. Nothing’s getting shut down. Even when you see like the most horrific things happening in the programs. No government body is closing programs. Programs are only closing because their enrollment is dropping because people are speaking out.”

Lichfield gone, but still felt

The last time Lichfield spoke publicly about his facilities was in 2013 in an email to the New York Times where he said, “I wasn’t there, I didn’t abuse or mistreat students, nor did I encourage or direct someone else to do so. I provided business services that were non-supervision, care, or treatment services to schools that were independently owned and operated.”

Lichfield no longer lives at the sprawling estate he built in Toquerville, just north of LaVerkin, once known as Lichfield Ponds and now the Shangri-La Event Center. It’s unclear where he lives now. According to records, he currently has properties around the country, including a few in Tennessee and Las Vegas. 

Officials in Hurricane, which plan to hold a ribbon-cutting for the “Bob Lichfield Gymnasium” on April 29, say they aren’t sure of his current address but that he “travels a lot.” 

Along with continuing to hold weddings and events, the Shangri-La center also serves as the Soulegria residential treatment facility for young men and women ages 18-28 with mental health issues or autism. It is run by Lichfield’s nephew, Tyler Olsen.

Near a picturesque gazebo and lake, signs warn it is “dangerous property.” Near wading ducks and grazing goats, another sign says, “You can’t buy happiness but you can buy goats, and that’s the same kind of thing.” 

Soulegria patients maintain the event center as part of their paid curriculum that Soulegria says on its website is so “students develop both practical skills and inner confidence, simply by doing their part to contribute to day-to-day life.”

Kubler filmed scenes for the third episode at Shangri-La and Soulegria after she says they obtained permission from Olsen but admitted they didn’t disclose what kind of film they were filming.

“I call it pulling an ‘Argo,’ Kubler said, referring to a 2012 true story movie where hostage rescuers posed as a filmmaking crew.

In another moment not shown in the documentary, Kubler said she witnessed a “red flag” firsthand when she talked to one of the Soulegria students working as a farmhand on the grounds.

“I asked, ‘Well, how do you like it here?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, I’d be happy to interview,’” said Kubler, who added she then asked for his phone number. “And he was like, ‘Oh, they took my phone. I don’t have my phone.’ Well, that’s a red flag.”

Olsen did not respond to a request for comment by St. George News. 

Since being founded in 2022, Soulegria has been inspected twice by the state health department, both visits announced in advance, with the most recent in January, and no violations were noted.

Are all troubled teen centers bad?

Kubler said there are a number of red flags to look for when it comes to residential treatment programs.

“Do they limit communication with the family? Do you have to earn the privilege to talk to your parents? That’s a red flag,” Kubler said.

Arslanian said there are no such limits currently at Eagle Ranch.

“Our students are allowed a weekly confidential phone call,” he said. “Parents can come anytime … We encourage our parents to be involved. We don’t try to keep parents from having their children complete their program. If a student wants to talk to a parent about leaving the program, they’re more than welcome to do that.”

At the same time, Kubler insists long-term and live-in treatment isn’t necessary.

“Long-term residential treatment is rarely ever needed. Ask any psychologist, psychiatrist, anyone,” Kubler said. “Any program that regularly admits children for long-term residential treatment like Eagle Ranch Academy, that’s going to be a red flag.” 

In the series itself, Kubler notes to the camera that she doesn’t know the actual solution to the dilemma of a troubled teen whose parents have exhausted everything they can think of to help their teen.

That’s something also noted by Eagle Ranch’s Arslanian.

“Treatment is the last-stop shop. They tried to go to other care. They’ve asked the question never answered in the documentary: ‘Where can they go?’” he said. “My answer to that is we’ve had an increase in criminal population and homeless teens. They didn’t talk to teens who went through the program and were successful.”

Workshop or brainwashing?

During one day of filming in St. George, Kubler and her crew said they had just returned to their hotel “spent” from a long day filming around Eagle Ranch Academy for it being the previous site of Brightway Adolescent Hospital, when they happened to see a seminar taking place for a stay-in teen treatment facility taking place at their hotel. 

It was for Eagle Ranch Academy. 

As seen in the third episode of the series, Kubler, Rose and the rest of the crew found the seminar using the same wordings, posters and slogans as the ones they had witnessed at Ivy Ridge and other WWASP programs. 

“It’s the same white poster boards that we had in our seminars. And Molly and I immediately just start cracking up because we can’t believe this,” Kubler said. “I was like, no one’s going to believe us because this is just too much of a coincidence. It’s the exact same words that we used in our seminars. Like there are no accidents.”

Kubler said that both students and their parents had to go through the same seminars during their time at Ivy Ridge and said the jargon was “brainwashing.”

Mel Hawkins, the director of business operations for Eagle Ranch Academy, told St. George News the similarities to WWASP programs are a coincidence because some of the concepts predate all of them.

“These concepts were first introduced in Texas in the 1970s. WWASP didn’t become an organization until the 1990s,” Hawkins said, adding they were “workshops” and not seminars. “I have no doubt that this workshop we’re using has a few of those elements. I know it does. But it has nothing to do with us being a WWASP program.”

Other Southern Utah connections

In the series, Kubler is seen working with an investigation board usually reserved for detectives or characters on television, trying to piece together a conspiracy with the different pieces of yarn leading to different names and pictures. And besides Lichfield, WWASP and Cross Creek, yarn strands lead to other names in Southern Utah. 

Among them is St. George resident Dace Goulding, the founder and independent operator of the Casa by the Sea youth facility in Ensenada, Mexico, in the late 1990s. The Netflix documentary shows it being raided and closed in 2004 by Mexican police and the American FBI over accusations of the physical abuse of teenagers at the facility.

Immediately after, according to records, Goulding joined a fellow Hurricane native and childhood friend, Richard Darrington, and opened another teen residential facility called Darrington Academy in Blue Ridge, Georgia. That school was raided and closed by police there in 2009, according to media reports. Darrington was arrested and accused of abusing two teens, though the charges never went to trial.

According to records, Darrington moved to northern Nevada to become dean of a private school, but the state revoked his teaching license in late 2009, citing the charges in Georgia. He has since returned to Southern Utah and now lives in Washington City.

Goulding also returned to Southern Utah and became a track coach at Desert Hills High School and then Utah Tech, but he no longer holds either position. Goulding is now a geography teacher at Crimson Cliffs Middle School, according to the Washington County School District. 

Neither Goulding nor Darrington responded to requests for comment from St. George News.

‘Under their noses’

There are other aspects of what is called the troubled teen industry in Southern Utah that have been of concern to state licensers and local authorities. However, those concerns aren’t just the treatment of the young people under their care, but also their neglect.

One school of note that has never been linked to WWASP is Diamond Ranch Academy in Hurricane. Last August, the state closed the facility down and revoked its license after the death of a student there. 

A new residential facility, called RAFA Academy, is now slated to go on the same site in Hurricane, according to documentation from the Utah health department, where RAFA is seeking a new license. While a different owner is listed, some of the names of those on staff are identical to those of Diamond Ranch. 

St. George News has also discovered police and state health department documents that show Vive Adolescent Care in St. George was placed on a suspended, conditional license last July after a 17-year-old resident died. The license was fully reinstated in November. 

Kubler said the industry is fully entrenched in Southern Utah. She says many people know people who either worked at WWASP facilities before or work at a live-in troubled teen facility now. And she says from the outside, all may seem well.

“What’s so scary about these programs is that this can be going on right under people’s noses and no one thinks of it. From the outside, it presents as something great,” Kubler said. “But because we were on the inside, we know what’s actually going on. So I’m just trying to be what I wish someone was to us when we were stuck in that building.

“No one’s going to actively put up a sign being like, ‘Hey, we’re abusing children here.’ But you have to read the signs of how these places work and know how they operate. And that was really my intent with this docuseries, was to expose the methodology.”

Hurricane proceeding with Lichfield naming

On 200 West in Hurricane, near the baseball fields and city swimming pool and behind the American Legion lodge sits a large metal building that was once owned by Lichfield and used for his youth facilities.

On April 29, the city of Hurricane says it will hold a party and ribbon-cutting for the grand opening of the Bob Lichfield Gymnasium. Lichfield donated the building to the city, which is renovating it into a recreation facility.

The lot itself is still dirt with the makings of a parking lot. On the inside, new climate control ducting is in. But other than some exposed metal frames and wiring, it’s still mostly an empty shell with a concrete floor. The wiring is yet to be hooked up.

The cement on some outside sidewalks was still drying Friday, and new windows had just been installed. But city officials say in a few weeks, the building will house two basketball gyms under the same roof and is seeking sponsorship donations for scoreboards that will be installed inside. 

There is an online petition that has been active for months urging the city to reconsider naming the facility for Lichfield. But Hurricane Mayor Nanette Billings said the city is still committed to the name. 

In a phone conversation with St. George News, Billings said she would not provide an explanation for why the city is continuing with the name until the grand opening on April 29.

“We decided as a city that we were not going to make comments until later just so we could have an opportunity to explain. And so on April 29, we’re going to go through with that,” Billings said. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you; it’s just I want the story to be right. If I tell you one thing, then sometimes it just is more banter. And so we are trying not to cause that, and we’re trying to be very cautious of people and make sure that we take care of people.”

When asked if she’d seen the Netflix documentary, Billings hung up the phone and later reiterated in a text that she would comment on April 29.

Kubler said she is astounded that Hurricane is proceeding to name the recreation center for Lichfield.

“It’s just so stupid. And it’s an easy-to-fix mistake,” Kubler said. “You could say, ‘Oh, they weren’t aware.’ Now they’re aware. People have been reaching out and informing them, ‘Hey, this man ran an international child abuse ring. Why would you name a children’s rec center after him?’ That’s absolutely bonkers. But if that’s how the city of Hurricane would like to be, those are the people they like to celebrate, then that’s how the city of Hurricane is.”

Kubler says in the weeks since the documentary overtook the live-action “Avatar: The Last Airbender” in Netflix’s viewership ratings, she’s heard from many people expressing remorse from the city of Ogdenberg. However, she said she has heard no remorse from people in Southern Utah.

“I mean, Ogdensburg is doing their part to say, ‘We don’t stand by this. We didn’t know what was going on and we wanna fix it now.’ So many wonderful people in that town reaching out,” Kubler said. “Why is that not happening in St. George and Hurricane and LaVerkin where Cross Creek Manor held the start of it? I mean, are people not ashamed of this? Are they OK with this?”

Kubler continued to ponder.

“I mean, if you watch the doc and you don’t feel compelled to act, then let that be a reflection of yourself, as the program would say,” Kubler said. “That last line of the doc should resonate with people where it says, ‘The abuse of a child is the business of anyone who knows about it.’”

St. George News reporters Haven Scott and Bridger Palmer contributed to this report.

Photo Gallery

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2024, all rights reserved.