N.Y. probing Utah-based youth programs

The New York State Attorney General's Office is probing Utah-based programs for troubled youths after a teenager was allegedly assaulted last month while being transported to an affiliated school near the Canadian border.

Two men associated with La Verkin-based Teen Escort are accused of beating the boy as he was being taken to the Academy at Ivy Ridge in New York.

The academy is a member program of the World Wide Association of Speciality Programs and Schools/Teen Help (WWASP), which was founded by Robert Lichfield of Utah.

Another WWASP school director in a Utah program was charged with multiple counts of abuse in 2002, charges that were later reduced because the victim recanted. The case, however, prompted some Utah officials to call for more oversight of private youth programs, but that effort failed this past legislation session.

A New York investigator said the business operations of WWASP and Teen Escort have him concerned because of what he says is a lack of regulatory oversight and the "impropriety" of the transport services.

Officials with those programs, however, say the alleged assault was blown out of proportion, the business practices are standard and they welcome an investigation because they have nothing to hide.

New York State Police investigator James Hunt said the parents of a 17-year-old boy hired contract transporters with Teen Escort to take their son from their home in southern New York on March 22 to the school near the Canadian border.

The parents paid several thousand dollars for the service, which included having their son removed from home while he was asleep in bed, having him cuffed and then escorted to a car in his bare feet, Hunt said.

At one point, the 17-year-old boy, while on a rural stretch of road headed to the academy, grabbed the steering wheel and caused the car to crash into a guard rail, police say.

Afterward, the boy was beaten about the face while cuffed, Hunt said.

New Yorkers Leonard Faulstick and Timothy Hurd have been charged with unlawful imprisonment and assault in the incident, Hunt said.

He said the local district attorney's office is also looking at charging the father because he allegedly helped facilitate the removal from the bedroom.

Hunt said he has since learned in his probe that while Hurd was a contract employee of Teen Escort at the time of the alleged assault, Faulstick was subcontracted to help with the transport.

Neither man, he said, received any formal training to work in the youth transport service other than "informational brochures" on how to deal with problem kids.