School director, Randall Hinton, gets 25 days in assault case

School director gets 25 days in assault case

By TRACY HARMON

THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

CANON CITY - A former Royal Gorge Academy director convicted of assault and false imprisonment of two students was sentenced Monday to 25 days in jail and one year on probation.

Randall Hinton, 34, was convicted by a jury Aug. 31 of third-degree assault and false imprisonment.

Hinton was found not guilty of four other assault charges and not guilty on one other false imprisonment charge.

The victims on the convictions, both boys, were attending the private, co-ed school for troubled youth during the past year. One boy sustained a bloody nose, while the other experienced vomiting while being detained in Hinton's office.

"In reading the presentence investigative report I noticed the defendant's lack of any accountability. Discipline is a necessary part of dealing with troubled youth but the defendant had crossed the line and the actions of the defendant were not justified or allowable," argued Deputy District Attorney Thom LeDoux.

When asked by the probation officer what he believed the impact was on the victims, Hinton responded, "I believe they finally realize the importance of their choices and realize if they don't change their ways they will have adults making choices for them," LeDoux read from the report.
When asked what he believed the impact of his crime on the community was, Hinton said he believed parts of the community gained from the incident such as, "the newspaper probably sold more copies."

Fremont County Court Judge Norm Cooling said he found Hinton's answer puzzling and told the defendant "You kind of gave Canon City a black eye."

LeDoux said of Hinton: "He could not have demonstrated he missed the point more so. He said, ‘I, Randall Hinton, believe I did a great job considering all the circumstances involved.’ The defendant should be held accountable and sentenced to a period of incarceration."

Defense Attorney Michael Gillick argued that Hinton has only been consistent with his story throughout the incident. He said Hinton is not a candidate for jail because of his stellar record, and the fact that he is sole provider for his family of four small children and wife, Joy.

Gillick also said Hinton has made it clear he never wants to work with troubled children again and has a job due to start Friday in Cortez as the manager of an automotive company.

Hinton told the judge only that, "It's been very educational," just before he was sentenced.
Cooling said, "The black eye is where you really stepped over the line and I believe this calls for a good balance - some jail as a condition of probation is entirely appropriate." Cooling said he could have sentenced Hinton to between a nine-month to three-year jail sentence, but he opted for 25 days jail and one year probation.

Gillick asked for a short stay of the sentence to allow Hinton time to consider whether he will appeal the case. Hinton was ordered to start the jail sentence Jan. 1.

LeDoux said he will file a request for restitution including cost of prosecution. Both attorneys were given 20 days to file the request and a response.

Gray blasts use of special ed school

Gray blasts use of special ed. school

Dec 11, 2007
By Bill Myers, The Examiner

Vincent C. Gray

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - District Council Chair Vincent C. Gray expressed anger that the city’s special education system continued to send children to a Massachusetts school that uses electric shocks as a form of discipline.

The Examiner reported Monday that city lawyers and bureaucrats referred two special education students to the Judge Rotenberg Center two weeks after schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee ordered the center cut off. Told of the referrals, Gray said, “It is an outrage.”

“This would not be tolerated in a program in the city,” Gray told The Examiner in an e-mail. “So why is this unethical and inhumane practice allowed to continue?”

At least 11 D.C. children were enrolled in Rotenberg this year. Rhee ordered her staff to stop sending students there, and to work on getting the other students out, after a series of news reports appeared in August detailing “aversive therapy,” like the electric shocks practiced at Rotenberg.

Rotenberg charges D.C. more than $227,000 per student per year for its services.

“This is yet another example of why we must bring our children home so that we know the services they are receiving and can closely monitor these programs,” Gray told The Examiner.
That might be easier said than done: Internal school e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that nine of the city’s students are still enrolled at Rotenberg because D.C. school officials haven’t been able to offer parents alternatives.

Four of the students are at least 18 years old, and most residential programs refuse to accept students that old, the e-mails show.

D.C. spends more than $210 million each year to ship about 2,400 students to “non-public” schools like Rotenberg. Critics have complained for years that the school system hasn’t bothered to check whether the schools are safe or effective.

Got a tip on special education? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or e-mail

bmyers@dcexaminer.com.

Students sent to troubled Mass. school

Students sent to troubled Mass. school

Dec 10, 2007

By Bill Myers,

The Examiner

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - District of Columbia school officials continued to send students to a troubled Massachusetts special education clinic weeks after schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee ordered her agency to cut ties with the center, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

The Judge Rotenberg Center in Canton, Mass., specializes in “aversive” therapy for troubled youngsters like electric shock. It has been the home to dozens of District children for more than a decade, charging D.C. more than $227,000 per child per year.

On Aug. 31, after news reports documented allegations of abuse and neglect at Rotenberg, Rhee ordered her staff to stop referring children there. Yet, on Sept. 13, two more children were sent to the center, e-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show.

“This is crazy,” Rhee e-mailed a subordinate on being given the news. “How can we stop it?”

Rotenberg was still home to at least nine D.C. children as recently as late November, school e-mails confirmed.

The Examiner has written extensively about D.C.’s $210 million-plus special education system, which critics say warehouses children in clinics and schools around the country with little regard for their health or welfare. Rotenberg has been a key exhibit in critics’ briefs against the system. The Examiner reported in September that a 14-year-old D.C. boy had his arm broken by orderlies, another student was hooked up to an electric backpack and D.C. children were lashed to their bus seats.

The e-mails obtained by The Examiner paint a picture of a bureaucracy overwhelmed by the city’s special education crisis. On being told that children were still being packed off to Rotenberg, officials in the various city agencies struggled to explain what was happening.
“Perhaps this [was a] pending placement [that] predated all of this,” George Valentine, one of the city’s top lawyers, wrote to his underlings in the schools’ legal department. “But shouldn’t your attorneys have told you about any new or pending placements at that center?”

The lawyers weren’t the only ones who missed Rhee’s message. On Oct. 4 — more than a month after Rhee’s directive went out — Marla Oakes, the director of the schools’ special education system, told a court-appointed monitor that Rotenberg was still an “approved” vendor, e-mails show.

Neither Oakes nor schools spokeswoman Mafara Hobson responded to requests for comment.
Despite Rhee’s orders to get D.C.’s children out of Rotenberg, most remain there because school officials haven’t found new placements for them, the documents show.

On Friday, Valentine blamed breakdown on the independent school hearing officers — and on the children’s parents.

“We don’t control the placements,” Valentine said. “If a parent wants and consents to it, there’s not much we can do to block it.”

In the Aug. 31 memo that ordered the schools to cut ties with Rotenberg, Rhee said most of the placements there “came about as a result of DCPS’ failure.”

Because special education staff routinely ignored federal guidelines on addressing the children’s needs, the children’s lawyer had an easy time getting the children placed in Rotenberg, the memo states.

Got a tip on special education? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or e-mail

bmyers@dcexaminer.com.

NEWS: Charges refiled in Ozarks child abuse case

Charges refiled in Ozarks child abuse case
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
12/05/2007

PINEVILLE, Mo. — A high-profile child abuse case in an isolated Ozarks religious community took another sudden turn when the prosecutor who dropped all charges a week ahead of trial last month refiled the case against the church's leader. Court records showed Raymond Lambert, 52, was charged with four counts of second-degree child molestation, three counts of second-degree statutory sodomy and one count of sexual abuse. The charges were filed Monday with as little fanfare from the prosecutor as when similar counts were dropped a month ago. Lambert had pleaded not guilty to the original counts filed in August 2006. Lambert's attorney did not return a phone call for comment on the renewed charges. Lambert is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 17. Lambert is the pastor of Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, a commune founded by his stepfather in the 1970s. At its peak, about 100 people lived on and near the church's 100-acre farm in rural McDonald County, in southwest Missouri.
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Two women, now 20 and 29, started the case last year by alleging they were molested and abused by Raymond Lambert from the ages of 12 to 16. The case drew national attention when the original charges were filed in August 2006 alleging that Lambert, his wife, Patty Lambert, and two of her brothers abused girls from the congregation over a period of many years. Lambert's sister-in-law Laura Epling was later charged with helping abuse one girl. All pleaded not guilty, and the charges against the two brothers were dropped due to statute-of-limitation issues.