THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701190077
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STORIES BY STAFF WRITERS JUNE ARNEY AND JON FRANK
LENGTH: 459 lines
In many of the rooms, on many beds, sit stuffed animals, a reminder that children live here. On some of the walls are glow-in-the-dark stars, pictures ripped from magazines and posters of sports heroes.
This is the Crawford campus of the The Pines Residential Treatment Center.
About three and one-half miles away, the Brighton campus, sprawling over 32 acres, has the feel of a prep school. One class has just finished a unit on Camelot. The students have turned their room into a castle, complete with shields and a holy grail.
Since it opened a decade ago, The Pines has developed a national reputation for treating seriously disturbed youths and, in some cases, providing an alternative to prison. It is here that deeply troubled adolescents, among them murderers and sexual molesters, are treated in hopes of ``graduating'' them into society.
When things go well at this residential treatment center, the results can be powerful tales of triumph, victories in the face of nearly insurmountable odds.
But events of recent months raise questions about this bold experiment in psychiatry, an experiment at odds with growing public demands to get tough with teen-age criminals.
April 5, 1996: Former Pines resident Daerrico Austin allegedly shoots Frank Gibson to death in a parking lot on George Washington Highway as Gibson walks home from a Norfolk Tides game.
Austin left The Pines in 1993, only to embark on a three-year crime spree that culminated with his arrest for the murder of Gibson.
Oct. 1: Timothy Gregory, a former counselor at The Pines, walks into one of The Pines' two campuses, takes two hostages and shoots himself to death at dawn the next day.
Oct. 2: Hours after Gregory kills himself, two girls who live at The Pines run away because at least one was traumatized by the hostage-taking. While they are on the run, both are sexually assaulted.
Oct. 3: Shortly after running away from The Pines, three 16-year-old boys allegedly abduct a 55-year-old shipyard worker, take his wallet and keys and force him into the back seat. They later push him out of the car while speeding along an interstate. They are charged with carjacking, abduction and robbery, and will be tried as adults.
Gibson's widow, the carjacking victim and the mother of one of the assaulted runaways say they blame The Pines. All three have talked to lawyers.
These events pose several questions:
How successful has The Pines been in helping dysfunctional youths reclaim their lives - and is there a tradeoff that has put citizens at risk?
Has The Pines, by bringing hundreds of severely troubled youths to Portsmouth from other states, imported a crime problem to a city where the violent crime rate is the highest in the region?
Are the dramatic incidents an aberration, or are they symptomatic of deeper troubles at The Pines?
The answers may lie in the pages of police and mental health reports - and in interviews with past and present Pines employees, Pines residents, public officials and people who live near the two campuses.
At first, The Pines catered mainly to local youths. Now more than two-thirds come from out of state.
Police records show that between Jan. 1, 1991, and Sept. 25, 1996, there were 520 calls to police from The Pines. They included calls for grand larceny, escape, bomb threats and sexual assault. Most are reports of juvenile runaways.
Between Jan. 1, 1994, and Oct. 31, 1996, there were 73 fire calls at the Brighton campus, said Capt. William Stublen of the Portsmouth Fire Department. Firefighters were called to the Crawford campus 13 times between Jan. 1, 1995, and Oct. 31, 1996.
In 1995, residents - some convicted of serious crimes in other states - ran away from the center at the rate of nearly one every five days.
Some residents have been found with keys to doors that are supposed to keep them inside the center, which currently houses about 265 youths.
Although mental health reports do not always identify victims, one resident told police of a forced sexual relationship with his roommate that lasted about two months. According to state mental health documents, in at least one case, lax monitoring by staff members has allowed sexual activity by residents to occur at The Pines. The documents were obtained under the Virgina Freedom of Information Act.
In a recent hour-long interview, Ronald I. Dozoretz, founder of The Pines, was asked about whether bringing troubled youths to The Pines poses a potential danger to the community.
``The question you . . . have ask is, is there nothing that anyone does that doesn't have danger to it?
``. . . Maybe we have an incident here and there, but you've got to look at the total picture. . . .
``So do we have responsibility to the community? Absolutely we do. Do we fulfill that? We absolutely do. Do we do it openly? We absolutely do. If they didn't want us there, they would throw us out of there.''
He acknowledged that ``we make some mistakes'' but said mistakes are a risk of cutting-edge psychiatry in an urban environment.
But Dozoretz also said Portsmouth ``is happy with us. The city, the state, our referral sources seem happy with us . . . that doesn't mean we haven't had difficulties.''
The Pines has a security staff of 14, a ratio of 1 guard to 19 residents. The staff does not carry weapons. On a recent day at Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center, a juvenile prison near Richmond, there were 104 correctional officers to 335 youths locked up, a ratio of one officer to 3 youths.
The campus-like environment is part of the philosophy of The Pines, founder Dozoretz said.
``We are not a prison,'' he said. ``We don't want to be a prison. We never will be a prison.''
Few facilities in the nation offer the treatment programs that The Pines does. Here are programs for youths ages 5 to 22, including sex offenders and those with severe emotional and bahavioral disorders.
And there have been dramatic successes. Some children who were so psychologically damaged that they could not make eye contact with staffers muster enough poise to become tour guides for campus visitors.
Treating violent and sexually aggressive youths brings in about $100,000 a year per resident, Pines officials say. The cost for some is higher.
Those fees help The Pines - part of Dozoretz's mental health care empire, First Hospital Corp. - to generate $25 million in gross revenues a year. The Pines brings in profits of about $1.5 million, or about 6 percent of total revenues.
Most often, taxpayers pick up the tab for treatment. Juvenile courts and social service agencies up and down the East Coast and from as far away as Hawaii typically refer the youths. Occasionally families and insurance companies pay.
No one would call the job The Pines is attempting an easy task.
The center is peopled by youthful pedophiles and murderers, by chronic runaways and drug addicts. It is a melange of victims and victimizers.
``This is their last chance,'' said George Boothby, administrator of The Pines. ``Until there was a place like The Pines, these kids ended up in jail or dead on the street.''
The Pines accepts about 30 percent of those who apply, Boothby said. Others are deemed too violent, too sexually active, unable to differentiate fantasy from reality, or are otherwise unsuitable for treatment.
``We take a rough crowd, but we don't take kids who are going to make it day-to-day dangerous in our environment,'' said Alan Feldberg, clinical director of The Pines' Phoenix Program, for youths with severe emotional and behavioal disorders who show aggressive behavior.
``We strive to have a balance between security, treatment and learning of skills,'' Feldberg said.
When The Pines opened in December 1986 at the old Frederick Military Academy campus, administrators described it as a place whose occupants ``mostly come from Tidewater and go home to Tidewater.''
Not any more. FROM D.C. TO PORTSMOUTH
Michael Nolan Jackson was sent to The Pines from Washington in 1990 as a teen-age drug offender. He will soon be sent to a state prison as a 23-year-old convicted robber.
Between his arrival and departure, Jackson spent almost two years - from August 1990 until July 1992 - as a resident of The Pines.
The District of Columbia Juvenile Court determined that Jackson was delinquent in 1988 and ruled that his incarcerations for drug offenses and auto theft had placed him ``beyond parental control.''
Court papers show that when he was admitted to The Pines, he was diagnosed as suffering from a host of conditions, including atypical depression, conduct disorder, substance abuse, borderline intellect and antisocial personality traits.
But when Jackson was discharged from The Pines, ``he was felt to be stable,'' according to the records. ``It was felt that he had increased control over his aggressive behavior while at The Pines.''
However, shortly before his discharge, Jackson ``was involved in an assaultive situation in which he was charged. He was later found guilty of the charge,'' according to a Department of Corrections report.
After his discharge, Jackson went on a three-year crime spree in Portsmouth and Chesapeake, where he was charged with more than a dozen offenses ranging from failure to appear in court to robbery and assault on a police officer.
He was arrested on March 20, 1995, after running from Portsmouth Police Officer J.S. Niemeyer. When searched, Jackson had three rocks of cocaine, one baggie of marijuana, a silver revolver and $508 in cash.
After his arrest, Jackson pleaded guilty to robbing a man on Dec. 28, 1994, of a cellular telephone and a pager. In July, he was sentenced to one year each for the drug and weapons violations and eight years for robbery. The judge suspended four years of the robbery sentence and ordered that the two one-year sentences run concurrently.
``I'm planning on getting out in 1997 and coming back to Portsmouth,'' Jackson said in an interview last month at the city jail. THE PROBLEM OF RUNAWAYS
Ernest Williams, 71, lives in the Brighton neighborhood, about a block from The Pines' Brighton campus on Portsmouth Boulevard. Runaways from the campus have come to his home asking for food and drink, he said.
``They were trying to get away from being cooped up,'' he said. ``One time when I asked them how they got out, they said they cut a hole in the gate.''
In 1995, 67 missing person/runaway reports were filed with the Portsmouth police regarding Pines residents. Through late September last year, there were 26. In 1991, there were 66; in 1992 and 1993, there were 71 each; and in 1994 there were 48.
Police say it's hard to tell if those numbers are high.
``It seems to us yes, that's a large amount,'' Portsmouth Lt. Cathy Conners said. ``We don't have statistics from another facility to compare it against.''
Pines officials acknowledge a problem with runaways.
``We have had some problems with that,'' Feldberg said. ``We are trying to address them. But I don't think we are ever going to achieve perfection.''
Portsmouth Police Chief Dennis Mook said The Pines does not represent a significant safety problem.
``We have calls for service there, but not so many that it's taxing our services,'' Mook said.
But, he added, ``I don't like the idea of people who have histories of crime walking away and staying in the community and continuing to commit crimes. That concerns me.''
Portsmouth Commonwealth's Attorney Martin Bullock agrees.
``Any entity in the city that adds to our crime problem concerns me,'' Bullock said. ``It sounds like something we need to look into.''
Timothy A. Kelly heads the state mental health department, which licenses The Pines. The agency does not monitor runaways. Kelly, when told by a reporter of the numbers of runaways at The Pines, said the matter might merit attention by his department.
Naomi Post, chairman of juvenile probation for the Philadelphia County Juvenile Court, said she has referred about 100 adolescents to The Pines, many of whom ``tend to be some of our more challenging children.''
But Post said she would never refer ``a violent rapist or someone who presents a clear danger to the community.'' The campuses are not secure enough, she said.
``For my very violent rapists and stalkers, I prefer a facility more physically secure,'' she said.
The runaway statistics, she said, are ``shocking. . . . To me, that is a very high number.'' KEYS TO FREEDOM
A continuing problem has been residents' ability to obtain keys to the treatment center, according to past and present employees and former residents. While The Pines is not a prison, all exit doors, and the doors that separate units, are kept locked.
When Daerrico Austin wanted a key, it took between one and two weeks to get one, he said in a jailhouse interview.
Pines officials admit that keys sometimes go astray.
``We've had keys that have been accidentally lost,'' Feldberg said. ``It puts us in a panic.''
In December 1995, Keith Lofton, a 17-year-old from Philadelphia, walked away from the Brighton campus, apparently after being given a key. He was later found living with a staff member.
The mental health department concluded: ``Based on The Pines' internal investigation, it is suspected that (the staff person) may have given Mr. Lofton a key.''
In a Sept. 2, 1993, letter, the state licensing worker reported on an incident in which two residents claimed a staff member gave them a key so they could leave The Pines without permission.
``It was determined the staff member did help the residents to leave by providing a key and, along with another staff person, a place to stay,'' the report said.
The employees involved were fired. THE ABDUCTION OF KEN BARBEE
Pines officials aren't sure if the three youths accused of abducting Ken Barbee picked a lock or found a missing key.
On Oct. 3, just before midnight, Barbee pulled into the parking lot of Fort Nelson Towers, where he lives. Barbee got out of his car and was confronted by three youths. One kept his hand in his pocket pretending to have a gun and demanded that the 5-foot-3 Barbee ``give it up,'' threatening to ``pop'' him.
The youths took Barbee's keys and wallet, then forced him into the back seat of his car. They drove through the Downtown Tunnel and west on Interstate 64. They pulled off at the Chesapeake exit and bought gasoline with Barbee's money. Then they headed west on I-64.
Barbee said he was sure he was going to be killed.
``You wonder what you worked all your life for, and what you raised your children for,'' he said in an interview.
Just before getting to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, the youths told Barbee to ``get out'' and pushed him out in the center lane.
Minutes later, they crashed the car in Hampton. They were arrested. All three had run away from The Pines, according to Portsmouth prosecutor David Dayton, who is handling the case. Pines officials confirm that three youths ran away from The Pines about 7 p.m. while employees were distracted by a water leak in the laundry room.
Dominic D. Williamson, David L. Brown and Anthony L. Braxton recently were certified to stand trial in adult court in Portsmouth. Carjacking is punishable by 15 years to life, robbery by 5 years to life and abduction by up to 10 years.
The experience left Barbee shaken.
``You don't like to come home here at night anymore,'' he said. ``It just gives you that unsafe feeling. I wake up in the morning or in the middle of the night and go through the whole scenario.
``This is something that should not happen.'' A TOLL ON EMPLOYEES
The Pines also poses hazards for some of the people who work there, several current and former employees said.
On Feb. 7, Anthony Edwards, a Philadelphia youth who was part of The Pines' Behavioral Studies Program for sex offenders, attacked counselor Dana Lauren King. The attack came after she gave Edwards a restriction for being disruptive and calling her names under his breath.
She told a Portsmouth judge that she was sitting in a lounge supervising some youths when she heard Edwards say: ``I'm going to get you, bitch.''
``By the time I turned around and looked up, his fist was in my forehead,'' she testfified at Edwards' trial in April.
She tried to block his next blow, and he hit her in the shoulder. Another counselor came to help, and the three fell to the ground. King hit her head, and her injuries required ice packs and kept her out of work for several days.
In May, a judge sentenced Edwards to eight months in jail and fined him $25 for the attack on the counselor. King has since left The Pines. A THREATENING CALL
About 10 a.m. July 24, 1993, Marthe-Anne Monagle received a frightening phone call. A male voice threatened to kill her and her baby son if she didn't go to The Pines, where she worked as a therapist, and release a particular resident.
She recognized the voice. She knew he was a rapist who had been sent to The Pines for treatment. She knew he had tried to rape a staff person at knifepoint at his last treatment center. She knew he had run away from The Pines a month or two earlier and stalked a young girl. Portsmouth police found him outside the girl's home and returned him to The Pines.
Now he was on the phone. It was a Saturday, and Monagle's husband was out of town.
``My biggest fear was that he was on the run and nearby,'' Monagle said. ``This was a boy who had not been kept contained.''
When she called The Pines, the official she reached told her she must be wrong, that this youth couldn't be to blame because he had been doing so well.
Monagle said a Pines official told her, ``Don't call police, he's a client.''
Monagle called the police anyway. But at the request of Pines officials, she said, she did not tell them the boy's name.
For about two weeks, Pines officials failed to identify the boy to authorities, Monagle said.
State mental health commissioner Kelly, although not familiar with the Monagle case, said that as a general principle, ``If it would have helped to call local police and it was not done just for P.R. reasons, I think that's inexcusable.''
The boy's unit director believed Monagle and placed the youth in seclusion, but he was released from confinement within days after his mother complained.
A few days after the incident, Monagle confronted the youth during a meeting with the staff. Later that day, he confessed to John Hunter, clinical director of the Behavioral Studies Program, which treats sexual offenders. The youth was a participant in that program, Monagle said.
She said Hunter told her the boy's plan was to rape and kill her when she came to release him. In a recent interview, Hunter said he did not recall the incident.
On July 28, at 9 p.m., the boy again called Monagle at home from the unit phone. This time, to apologize.
By Aug. 10, two and a half weeks after the first phone call, The Pines still hadn't provided police with the boy's name, Monagle said. Her last day of work was Aug. 18. She had announced plans to leave before the boy threatened her. She and her husband were moving to New England because he had taken a new job. She left on good terms with The Pines, she said.
By the time Monagle obtained a warrant for the boy's arrest, he had been discharged from The Pines and sent to a facility in Colorado, she said.
``I think the dangers to the community were very real,'' said Monagle, who worked at The Pines from January 1991 to August 1993. STORIES OF SEXUAL MISDEEDS
In February 1994, a resident of the Crawford Campus told Portsmouth police he was forced to have a two-month sexual relationship with his roommate. The 16-year-old boy was so traumatized by the abuse that, after it stopped, he kept the secret to himself for about 10 months, according to a police report.
A report filed with the Portsmouth police said the suspect had been released from The Pines and that the victim did not wish to prosecute.
There have been other allegations of sexual misconduct at The Pines.
In January 1994, a 16-year-old resident reported to Portsmouth police that he was forced to let another resident have oral sex with him under threat that he would be raped if he refused.
In May 1993, the parents of a former resident sued The Pines, alleging that their son had been sexually assaulted twice by his roommate the previous year. The suit alleged that The Pines staff was negligent in placing the boys together in the same room.
A jury decided in December 1994 that The Pines had done nothing wrong, said Lisa O'Donnell, the attorney who represented the family. The facility, the jury said, was in compliance with the standards of care required by the state, and therefore was not negligent.
On June 15, 1993, a state licensing specialist raised questions about sexual activity at The Pines. In a letter to then-administrator Phil Barberi, state mental health department licensing specialist Lynne Helmick said that she was skeptical of claims of consensual sexual activities at The Pines.
``My concern with these incidents is although the clients state that their actions are consensual, how consensual can it be when many of them are having extreme difficulty in establishing their sexual identity and also have had traumatic experiences with sex or other physical and emotional abuse in the past?'' she said. TIMOTHY GREGORY TAKES HOSTAGES
On Oct. 1, former Pines residential counselor Timothy Gregory shot a man in a dispute over payment for car repairs near Lincoln Park, then went to The Pines, apparently to settle an old score.
He walked into the Crawford campus, went upstairs and took two hostages in the administrative offices. There, he fired warning shots while hostages were in the room.
Eventually, he released the hostages. Gregory took his life early the morning of Oct. 2.
The Pines had cut his hours, and he couldn't make a living, he had told friends and family.
After the suicide, Pines officials said they tightened security.
In the hours after the hostage-taking, two teenage girls ran away from the center. One was Heather Legacy. Before they were returned to The Pines, both were sexually assaulted.
Heather's mother, Lisa Legacy, said from her Vermont home she believes security at The Pines is inadequate.
During a recent visit, Legacy said officials told her of a new security system and provided a badge to wear during her visit. Legacy said no one asked her to return the badge, which she still has. ``I could give it to anyone,'' she said.
Gregory was not alone in his complaints of unfair treatment at The Pines, where residential counselors are required to have an undergraduate degree or direct care experience plus an associate degree or a high school diploma.
Morale problems and high staff turnover are documented in a July 17 letter to The Pines from Helmick, now regional manager of the state office of licensure.
``I remain concerned about staff morale,'' she wrote. `` . . . Staff have the sense that the residents have more power and rights than staff . . . This may result in staff inaction, fear, deterioration of positive programmatic interventions, development of a punitive program structure, increased altercations and abuse, high staff turnover, etc.''
Some Pines employees and former employees worry about the quality of care, and about their safety.
``When I go to work every night,'' said one veteran counselor, ``I pray.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
PROBLEMS AT THE PINES
Daerrico Austin left The Pines in 1993 and began a 3-year crime
spree that ended with his arrest in the murder of a Portsmouth man.
Heather Legacy, a 15-year-old native of Vermont, and a friend ran
away from The Pines one night and were sexually assaulted.
Michael Nolan Jackson was sent to The Pines as a teen-age drug
offender. He is now a convicted robber and must serve time in state
prison.
MARK MITCHELL/
The Virginian-Pilot
The Pines Residential Treatment Center runs two campuses in
Portsmouth, the Crawford campus, shown here, and the Brighton
campus, for youths from 5 to 22.
Photos
BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot
The Pines treats youths from 5 to 22 on its Crawford and Brighton
campuses.
Map
Graphic
ABOUT THE PINES
The Pines Residential Treatment Center in Portsmouth offers six
programs for youths from 5 to 22. There are two sites:
The Crawford campus, 825 Crawford Parkway, which houses the
Phoenix Program, for youths with severe emotional and behavioral
disorders who show aggressive behavior; the Child and Adolescent
Program, residential care for emotionally disturbed youths; and the
Cooperative Living Program, which treats youths diagnosed with
emotional disturbances and developmental disabilities.
The Brighton campus, 1801 Portsmouth Blvd., which houses the
Behavioral Studies Program, treating male and female sex offenders,
many convicted of sex crimes; the Cottage Program, for males
diagnosed with significant psychosexual disorders and developmental
disabilities; and the Behavioral Studies Adolescent Girls Program
for girls with severe developmental trauma.
Residents come from more than 20 states, Central America, Hawaii
and Puerto Rico. Most read at a fourth- to sixth-grade level. About
half have committed crimes; many are victims of crime. All are
receiving psychiatric treatment.
The cost of care ranges from about $210 to $310 a day, depending
on individual circumstances. The average stay for residents is about
14 months. The cost is paid by school districts, social service
agencies, courts, insurance companies and sometimes families.
The Pines is licensed to house 300. It currently has about 265.
About 1,770 residents were treated between December 1986 and October
1996.
There are about 770 employees on the two campuses. Of those,
nearly 300 are residential counselors.
KEYWORDS: RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT CENTER TEENAGERS
YOUTH OFFENDERS