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More than two dozen girls have joined the lawsuit against a Lebanon faith-based therapy programc under the federal anti-trafficking laws.
Indianapolis-based law firm CohenMalad LLP originally filed the lawsuit on behalf of nine former program residents in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana in April. But on Tuesday, the firm announced it had amended its complaint, adding 26 more girls and expounding on the allegations that Indiana Teen Challenge Inc., a residential home that caters to assisting girls ages 13-17 with academic and behavioral problems, systematically abused and exploited its minor residents.
CohenMalad spokesperson Barbara Bates said the firm has interviewed more than 100 former residents, staff and family members – the majority of whom reached out after the original complaint was filed. Some former residents who reached out after the initial lawsuit was filed were unable to join in the amended complaint due to the statute of limitations, Bates said, while others contacted the firm solely to serve as witnesses or share their support, not wishing to participate publicly as plaintiffs.
She said some of the newly included girls contacted the firm after their mothers discovered the lawsuit and urged them to do so.
“Those moms still live with guilt over what happened to their daughters – they had no idea the terrible conditions their daughters were enduring,” Bates said.
The lawsuit names Indiana Teen Challenge Inc., which does business as the Central Indiana Teen Challenge and is now known as The Refuge Girls Academy, as a defendant.
The plaintiffs say the program and its leaders forced them to perform hours of unpaid, hard, and sometimes dangerous manual labor under threats of punishment.
The girls also say they were subjected to extreme methods of coercion and control, such as prohibitions on speaking, constant surveillance, loss of necessities and public shaming.
The CohenMalad lawsuit also names Dave Rose, CEO of Indiana Adult & Teen Challenge Inc., and Dawn Rose, director of the Central Indiana Teen Challenge, as defendants.
Jeffrey Roberts, founding partner at Carmel-based RMRK Law, which is defending Dave and Dawn Rose and Indiana Teen Challenge Inc., told The Lawyer in a written statement on Wednesday that the fact that new plaintiffs decided to join the “cash pursuit” does not make the accusations any more “tenable or legally viable.”
“We were preparing a motion to dismiss the first lawsuit when it was amended in an effort to cure its legal vulnerabilities along with adding the new plaintiffs,” Roberts said. “While our clients certainly deny any allegation of wrongdoing, we have not fully reviewed and analyzed the new pleading and suspect it will be amended again. Once the plaintiffs settle on an operative pleading, we expect to continue vigorously defending our clients through the proper channels.”
Roberts added that, in the meantime, it would not be appropriate for his legal team to comment on the specifics of the allegations, the facts, legal claims or their expected defenses.
Roberts previously told The Lawyer the lawsuit was “deliberately outrageous” and “comprised of allegations that are notably unproven and unverified.”
Central Indiana Teen Challenge is a part of a broader organization, Adult & Teen Challenge USA, which is a Christian-centered addiction and mental health recovery network.
The program is a missionary arm of the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination.
According to the lawsuit, Assemblies of God pastor David Wilkerson founded Teen Challenge USA around 1958 and opened his first residential facility in 1962.
Several lawsuits and investigations by NBC News in recent years report decades-long patterns of sexual abuse and subsequent cover-ups within the Assemblies of God.
The plaintiffs also alleged Central Indiana Teen Challenge regularly placed them in isolation in a “safe room” or “prayer room” for extended periods of time without bedding, proper food or access to restrooms.
Most of the plaintiffs say they and other residents were subjected to individual prayer encounters, in which staff and other residents encircled them, prayed and spoke in tongues to bring the “demons” out of them.
During one such “deliverance” ritual, newly added plaintiff Breanna Wombaker, who attended the program from 2021 to 2022, suffered from a panic attack while another resident lay beside her writhing in convulsions, according to the lawsuit.
The amended lawsuit also now alleges that Central Indiana Teen Challenge chose not to seek Indiana state licensure as a residential facility.
The lawsuit states that local police departments received “hundreds” of emergency calls from the program and its residents for numerous crises, such as residents running away and calling for help. It also states that the Indiana Department of Child Services received numerous reports of abuse and neglect at the facility.
The case is Dupuis et al. v. Indiana Teen Challenge, Inc., et al. (1:26-cv-00700-MPB-MKK)
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