Finn Richardson turned 18 some 40,000 feet in the air, between his home in Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City. In lieu of a birthday party, Richardson welcomed legal adulthood on his flight to Utah to file a civil lawsuit against Elevations RTC, a Syracuse residential treatment facility for teens where Richardson spent roughly nine months.
“It’s hard, I’m not going to lie,” Richardson said of being back in Utah.
In a complaint filed online in Utah’s 2nd District Court Sunday, Richardson and his attorney Alan Mortensen claim Elevations “kidnapped” the teen from Washington, D.C., as a 15-year-old, detained him illegally and against his mother’s wishes, and abused and neglected him once he was in Elevations’ care.
“We were condemned to days that lacked activity. Empty time where we were forced to sink deeper and deeper into the realization that we were prisoners here by the systematic betrayal of our parents,” Richardson said in a news conference Monday morning in his attorney’s Salt Lake City office. “And when we did have activity, it was always for the purpose of reminding us how much of inmates we were.”
Richardson, who is gay, alleged Monday and in the lawsuit that his father sexually abused him as punishment for his sexuality and then sent the teen to Elevations as a form of “control.” The lawsuit said Richardson reported his father’s alleged abuse to his counselor at Elevations, Ryan Faust, but Faust did not file a police report and claimed the teen was lying.
“Faust stated in his session note ... ‘we do not believe him at Elevation’ and did not report the sex abuse to authorities,” the complaint said.
The suit claims Elevations and Faust, who is named as a defendant, acted in the interest of Richardson’s father — not Richardson himself — because Richardson’s father was “sending thousands of dollars a month to Elevation.”
“[Faust] told me that to leave, I had to go out what he called the ‘front door,’” which meant earning an official release after complying with “the center’s wishes and the whims of my father,” Richardson said Monday. “So essentially, doing what my father wanted, which was to be obedient to him, and to not say anything about what he had done to me.”
Elevations has denied wrongdoing. In a statement, Executive Director Jennifer Wilde said Richardson was “placed” at the facility by his father, who had full legal custody, after “a full evaluation from medical professionals.” Faust did report Richardson’s abuse allegations, Wilde said — just not right away.
“Knowing the allegation occurred at the home of the out-of-state parent and the alleged abuser was thousands of miles away, the therapist briefly delayed reporting while he reviewed the matter, taking into account the ongoing dispute and social dynamics between the parents,” Wilde said.
According to a court document filed with the suit, Faust pled no contest in August to failing to report abuse. Richardson told police in Washington D.C. that his father had abused him, the lawsuit said, but no charges were filed.
Faust is still a counselor at Elevations, according to the facility’s website.
The suit seeks unspecified general damages, and punitive damages “sufficient to punish Elevation and deter [it] … from engaging in such conduct in the future.”
(Shannon Sollitt | The Salt Lake Tribune) Eighteen-year-old Finn Richardson stands outside his attorney's Salt Lake City office on Jan. 15, 2023. In a lawsuit, Richardson claims Elevations RTC "kidnapped" him and held him against his and his mother's wishes.
Teen treatment can be a ‘punitive’ industry
Richardson’s treatment at Elevations is not unique, said Meg Appelgate, CEO of Unsilenced, an advocacy group for former residents of teen treatment facilities.
“[Richardson’s] ordeal sheds a light on a deeply entrenched systemic problem: the troubled teen industry and how Utah has become its biggest victim,” Appelgate said.
Utah is, arguably, the epicenter for what some call the “troubled teen” industry. More teens are sent to treatment centers in Utah than any other state, and some of the earliest treatment centers started in Provo. The industry has faced heightened criticism in recent years as stories of abuse and neglect have come to light, including from celebrity Paris Hilton (Hilton says she was abused at Provo Canyon School some 20 years ago).
“It seems that the ongoing trauma that survivors suffer from as a result of these programs is the treatment,” Appelgate said.
Utah tightened regulations on teen residential treatments in 2021 for the first time in more than a decade. Within a year, three kids had died while in custody of separate Utah treatment facilities.
Richardson’s news conference, attorney Mortensen noted, fell days after the one-year anniversary of the burial of a 17-year-old girl who died at Diamond Ranch Academy. The infection that killed her should have been “easily treated,” according to a lawyer for the girl’s family. The state ordered Diamond Ranch to shut down in July 2023.
Kids in these treatment programs “come here without parents, come here without an attorney,” Mortensen said. “They come out here with people who are using protocols that are not evidence-based and not scientific. They’re punitive.”
Wilde said Elevations RTC is an accredited and essential therapeutic program for kids and families in crisis.
“We are often the last hope for families who have exhausted all other options to help their child,” Wilde said.
Richardson was released in March 2022 after a court-appointed psychiatrist determined he was being treated despite no substantial evidence that he needed treatment, according to court documents. More time at Elevations, the psychiatrist said, would be “detrimental to his psychological, emotional, social, and academic well-being.”
Richardson said Monday his lawsuit is a way to stand up for himself, but also for the friends he met at Elevations. He was lucky to get out, he said, and to find a support system in Appelgate, his mother and his attorneys.
“I’m here to say to all the survivors that this is not only my case, but for everyone at Elevations,” he said. “... It’s here for all of us.”
Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
