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A Lebanon business advertised as a faith-based therapy program is accused in a lawsuit of abusing several of its teenage residents, forcing them to perform extensive manual labor and depriving them of communication with loved ones outside the facility.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on behalf of nine former residents, who were residents at the home at various times between the years of 2011 and 2018.
The complaint names Indiana Teen Challenge Inc. as a defendant. The company does business as the Central Indiana Teen Challenge and is now known as The Refuge Girls Academy. The 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 Rose and Indiana Teen Challenge Inc., noted that his client has not yet been served with the complaint.
In an email to The Indiana Lawyer, he said the compliant is “deliberately outrageous, comprised of allegations that are notably unproven and unverified.”
“The lawsuit equates the Lebanon, Indiana, faith-based addiction treatment, chosen for these plaintiffs by their parents and guardians, to human trafficking and criminal ‘conspiracy,’ all to save claims that would otherwise be summarily dismissible by the court,” he said.
According to The Refuge Girls Academy website, the program is a residential home that helps girls ages 13-17 with academic and behavioral problems lead a successful and productive lifestyle through experiences such as spiritual activities, academic work and physical health.
The complaint, however, claims the business uses “sophisticated marketing and messaging” promising families that their children will receive an education and therapeutic care in a “structured and nurturing environment.”
Plaintiffs claim that the business and its leaders abuse girls throughout their experience at the home, beginning before they arrive. According to the complaint, all but one of the plaintiffs named was required to undergo a gynecological exam prior to entering the home in order to rule out pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
Some of the plaintiffs claim they were forcefully taken from their homes to the facility by men they did not know, who allegedly physically restrained them and placed them in a vehicle to be taken to the home out of state.
The complaint states that upon arriving to the home, they were subjected to a strip search, which included an inspection of their naked bodies.
The plaintiffs were then allegedly abused in various capacities, including being put in isolation as punishment, forced to eat moldy and stale food and required to perform hard physical labor, which included cutting lawns with child safety scissors.
The lawsuit claims the residents were required to maintain the personal property of defendants Dawn and Dave Rose and their friends.
Forced labor allegedly made up the majority of plaintiffs’ waking hours at the home. When they performed schoolwork, the work was elementary-level and almost entirely self-taught, according to the complaint.
No licensed teachers, mental health professionals or physicians were employed at the home, the lawsuit states.
While residents could occasionally contact their families, communication was heavily censored, according to court documents. Staff at the home allegedly listened in on calls and made residents re-write letters if the communication mentioned anything bad about the home.
The defendants allegedly told parents during the admissions process to anticipate that their children would lie about the home, as those statements demonstrated the children’s need for prolonged treatment.
Staff told the plaintiffs and other residents that their mental challenges were “simply a failed connection to God and were ultimately demonic,” according to the lawsuit.
All nine plaintiffs claim they’ve suffered various injuries because of the defendants’ conduct, including severe psychological distress, loss of faith and connection to God and their families, diagnoses for disorders such as PTSD, severe anxiety and social agoraphobias and difficulty forming and maintaining healthy relationships.
The Refuge Girls Academy “has a long history of achieving positive, life-changing, and, in many instances, life-saving results for the thousands of individuals who have participated in its treatment programs,” Roberts said.
Central Indiana Teen Challenge is part of the national organization Adult & Teen Challenge USA, which is a missionary department of the Assemblies of God U.S. Missions. Assemblies of God has a long history of abuse and covering up abuse, the lawsuit states. NBC News has an ongoing series titled “Pastors and Prey” that details alleged chronic abuse by Assemblies of God ministers, leaders and employees.
Roberts told The Lawyer Rose and RMRK won’t litigate the case in the media.
“This mission and the dedication to helping individuals recover from addiction and life-controlling behaviors will not be daunted by law firms using the media to scour the country for opportunistic claims to bring against ‘troubled teen industry’ organizations,” he said.
Plaintiffs are suing the defendants for violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The lawsuit is timely under the Eliminating Limits to Justice for Child Sex Abuse Victims Act of 2022, which eliminates the statutes of limitations for filing a civil claim for people who were minors when they were a victim of forced labor.
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