Silencing Critics and Survivors

The lawsuits the industry has brought against survivors, parents and reporters, and how it discredits the people who were there.

5 min read Updated

Contents
  1. What we found
  2. Suing the people who post warnings
  3. WWASP v. PURE (Sue Scheff and Jeff Berryman)
  4. WWASP v. Thomas Houlahan
  5. Robert Lichfield v. Shelby Earnshaw and ISAC
  6. Diamond Ranch Academy v. Chelsea Filer
  7. Narvin Lichfield v. Netflix and Katherine Kubler
  8. Discredit the witnesses, and leave no paper trail
  9. Sources

The search results a program cannot bury, it tries to discredit. For decades the industry has sued the survivors, parents and reporters who post warnings about it, called former residents unreliable, and told its members to keep problems out of writing. This article sets out the cases that are on the record.

What we found #

  • WWASP and its founder’s family sued a rival referral service, a reporter, survivors’ advocates and Netflix. Every one of those suits that reached a verdict or ruling went against them.
  • Diamond Ranch Academy sued a former student over a Facebook page. Utah later ordered it closed after a child died there.
  • Programs call former residents “unreliable narrators.” During a state investigation, NATSAP told members, “Let’s not email.”
  • A father whose son died at Alldredge Academy called, posing as a parent, and was told “the family is very happy with the result.”

Part of our series How the Troubled Teen Industry Manages Its Reputation. Every example comes from a court record, a government report, the company’s own words or published reporting, and each is linked in the sources at the end. Where something is only alleged in a lawsuit, we say so.

Suing the people who post warnings #

When the results a parent finds are critical, the industry has gone after the people who wrote them. Most of these suits failed in court. They did not need to win to do damage: a lawsuit costs a survivor, a parent or a reporter years and money they rarely have, and it teaches everyone watching to be careful what they post.

Lawsuits meant to silence critics rather than to win are called SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation), and many states now let a defendant get them thrown out early.

WWASP v. PURE (Sue Scheff and Jeff Berryman) #

WWASP sued Scheff, whose service steered families to competing schools, for defamation, conspiracy, interference and unfair competition. The court ended the claims against Berryman before trial; a jury found for Scheff on every count in 2004. The Tenth Circuit affirmed in 2006, holding that WWASP was a public figure on the subject and had to prove actual malice.

WWASP v. Thomas Houlahan #

WWASP sued a UPI reporter who was researching abuse at its schools. The suit was dismissed, and the dismissal was affirmed in 2005.

Robert Lichfield v. Shelby Earnshaw and ISAC #

WWASP’s founder sued Earnshaw and the International Survivors Action Committee, which had reported abuse at WWASP schools to state officials, for defamation, invasion of privacy and interference with his “prospective economic advantage,” the Deseret News reported in 2005. Earnshaw denied spreading untruths.

Diamond Ranch Academy v. Chelsea Filer #

Diamond Ranch Academy in Utah sued a former student over what the court called her “campaign (mostly on the Internet),” including the Facebook page “I Survived Diamond Ranch Academy.” In 2016 the court threw out part of the suit under California’s anti-SLAPP law and let other claims go forward. In 2023 Utah ordered Diamond Ranch Academy closed after a child died there.

Narvin Lichfield v. Netflix and Katherine Kubler #

In 2024 Narvin Lichfield, brother of Robert Lichfield and a figure in WWASP’s history, sued over the Netflix series The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping, in which survivors of the Academy at Ivy Ridge describe what was done to them. He asked the court for damages and for the “defamatory and disparaging” content to be removed.

The court dismissed the suit under Utah’s and California’s laws protecting public expression, and in July 2026 the Tenth Circuit affirmed: “A person who is the subject of the speech is not entitled to hold the editor’s pen or exercise a producer’s review merely because he is the subject of a given segment or article.”

The same tool was used inside the industry. Sue Scheff, the referral broker paid per enrollment described in our article on marketing, won an $11.3 million default verdict in 2006 against a mother who had called her a “con artist” on the survivor forum Fornits. The case is still cited as a warning about posting online.

Discredit the witnesses, and leave no paper trail #

Survivors are the industry’s biggest reputation problem, because their accounts are what a parent finds when they search. The standard answer is to say they cannot be believed.

In a 2022 statement quoted by NBC News, Family Help & Wellness and Elevations RTC said former clients who criticize the programs “are unreliable narrators who mischaracterize their treatment,” and that children are safer in their programs than in public schools. The people being called unreliable are the people who were there.

The trade group said the same thing years earlier. In 2006 NATSAP published an open letter to its critics, signed by its president, John Santa. Dr. Allison Pinto told Congress in 2007 that it described the abuse reports she and other researchers had presented “as ‘the noisy complaints of a few individuals.'” Rep. George Miller answered at the same hearing: “this cannot be dismissed as noise.” NATSAP’s executive director agreed.

Programs also rewrite what happened when a parent calls. A few months after the criminal case over his son Ryan’s death at Alldredge Academy ended, Paul Lewis called the program posing as a parent and said he had read about its legal problems online.

The woman who answered told him, “Well, that has all been taken [care] of, and the family is very happy with the result.” Lewis told Congress: “that could not have been further from the truth.”

NATSAP’s own strategic plans list survivor websites, Google reviews, anonymous critics and negative press among the threats its members face, and answer them with public relations; its statement on Trails Carolina and its press release on The Program have since been taken down. Our article In Its Own Words sets out the plans and the deleted statements.

The trade groups have also worked to keep problems out of writing.

In October 2020, while Utah’s Disability Law Center was investigating programs, the executive director of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP) told roughly 130 members on a call: “With the DLC being active, I would ask that if people have questions about this to call me… Let’s not email.” KUER obtained the recording. (Read more in our NATSAP investigation.)

Sources #