1
00:00:00,960 --> 00:00:03,960
Speaker 1: Camp Hell. Anawaki is a production of I Heart Radio.

2
00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:07,400
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressing this podcast are solely those

3
00:00:07,440 --> 00:00:10,560
Speaker 1: of the author and participants and do not necessarily represent

4
00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:13,640
Speaker 1: those of I Heart Media or its employees. Due to

5
00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:18,520
Speaker 1: discussion of traumatic, sexual and violent content, listeners, discussion is advised.

6
00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:22,680
Speaker 1: It was right around the time when I was coming

7
00:00:22,680 --> 00:00:26,400
Speaker 1: out in the news that my mom was contacted by

8
00:00:26,560 --> 00:00:30,880
Speaker 1: a student that was no longer there, that it turned eighteen,

9
00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:35,519
Speaker 1: that pulled themselves, and then his mom was sending a

10
00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:41,120
Speaker 1: lot of people in newspaper clippings and stuff, obviously before

11
00:00:41,159 --> 00:00:45,040
Speaker 1: the internet, so my mom she was aware of it.

12
00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:50,200
Speaker 1: This is Mark Barber. He attended in Awaki from four

13
00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:56,240
Speaker 1: during the criminal investigation into the organization. It was during

14
00:00:56,240 --> 00:00:58,680
Speaker 1: the end of his time there that parents were beginning

15
00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:02,880
Speaker 1: to find out about the allegations against Anawaki and Lewis Petter.

16
00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:07,559
Speaker 1: You could see a lot of changes. We had some visitors,

17
00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:11,200
Speaker 1: they built a new clinic, there was a lot of improvement.

18
00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:17,800
Speaker 1: Several staff members pretty much disappeared overnight. The staff members

19
00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:21,920
Speaker 1: that I had seen that I knew were messing around

20
00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:26,720
Speaker 1: with students. They kept their distance and they weren't on

21
00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:32,679
Speaker 1: campus nearly as much. With allegations stacking up against an Awaki,

22
00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:37,600
Speaker 1: insurance companies were beginning to refute payment. This would lead

23
00:01:37,640 --> 00:01:41,760
Speaker 1: to Mark's termination or exit from Anawaki to be rushed

24
00:01:41,800 --> 00:01:48,720
Speaker 1: through at this time. I was terminated March one, nineteen six,

25
00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:54,120
Speaker 1: and I knew about four days before I was getting

26
00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:57,680
Speaker 1: terminated they wanted me to come in put in some

27
00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:02,279
Speaker 1: paperwork what my plans were. I had already been looking

28
00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:05,640
Speaker 1: at schools and finishing up, you know, high school education,

29
00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:08,760
Speaker 1: which I was about three years behind on with some

30
00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:12,560
Speaker 1: of the testing, but they kind of rushed through it.

31
00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:16,640
Speaker 1: Later in life, I found out the insurance stopped paying

32
00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:22,799
Speaker 1: them because of all the allegations. They Champus said, we're

33
00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:25,880
Speaker 1: not paying you. They stopped paying it. They went to

34
00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:28,040
Speaker 1: my mom and dad. I think they asked him for

35
00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:31,640
Speaker 1: like seventy eight thousand dollars. So I think instead of

36
00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:33,960
Speaker 1: my mom just coming up and getting me and not

37
00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:37,600
Speaker 1: having that closure moment that you have with your group

38
00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:40,240
Speaker 1: when they pick you up by your jeans and throw

39
00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:43,120
Speaker 1: you in there and everybody gives you a hug, and

40
00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:46,160
Speaker 1: you exchange phone numbers, and you know, you get your

41
00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:48,840
Speaker 1: stuff and you have a nice send off. You know,

42
00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:50,320
Speaker 1: a lot of guys didn't get that. A lot of

43
00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:53,200
Speaker 1: guys just got cold shoulder. See you later. They left

44
00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:55,280
Speaker 1: one day, they went to the clinic and never came back.

45
00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:58,440
Speaker 1: We don't know what happened to. So, yeah, that's how

46
00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:02,480
Speaker 1: that's how my last day ended up. Scott Hole was

47
00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:06,800
Speaker 1: another attendee of Anawaki at this time. He says that

48
00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:09,600
Speaker 1: as soon as your insurance ran out in a weak

49
00:03:09,639 --> 00:03:13,760
Speaker 1: he would then terminate you. Yeah, you know, that time

50
00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:17,480
Speaker 1: during the investigation was a weird, weird time. I had

51
00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:20,720
Speaker 1: been there for quite a while and I was about

52
00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:23,120
Speaker 1: to get released, and all of a sudden, you know,

53
00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:26,239
Speaker 1: they started like giving me all these awards and stuff,

54
00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:27,919
Speaker 1: which was kind of weird. They made me a junior

55
00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:29,840
Speaker 1: staff member and gave me this thing called the Silver

56
00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:32,360
Speaker 1: Medallion that they only give to one person a year.

57
00:03:32,639 --> 00:03:34,239
Speaker 1: I don't know, it was just like they were trying

58
00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:39,000
Speaker 1: to normalize things. Actually, actually, you know when they they

59
00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,680
Speaker 1: called it terminating when you actually, I guess graduate from there,

60
00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:45,760
Speaker 1: and usually typically this I certainly found out. The w

61
00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:49,120
Speaker 1: when you graduated was when your insurance ran out. So

62
00:03:49,200 --> 00:03:51,440
Speaker 1: my insurance ran out to that man, Oh, you're cured,

63
00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:54,320
Speaker 1: now go, you know. So I was there right as

64
00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:57,160
Speaker 1: all that was going on, So I don't remember exactly

65
00:03:57,560 --> 00:04:01,080
Speaker 1: the way things were around the campus. I just remember

66
00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:06,080
Speaker 1: it being very, very weird. For other patients, like Mark Butler.

67
00:04:06,720 --> 00:04:09,280
Speaker 1: As soon as their parents were informed of the scandal,

68
00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:12,280
Speaker 1: they decided to take their kids out of the program

69
00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:15,320
Speaker 1: of their own free will. I didn't know that the

70
00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:19,479
Speaker 1: scandal broke until I got a letter from my father

71
00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:23,159
Speaker 1: or a phone call from my father saying I'm taking

72
00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:27,320
Speaker 1: you out, because inside everything was hush huhs. We didn't

73
00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:31,479
Speaker 1: know nothing. I was told that there's a big lawsuit

74
00:04:32,040 --> 00:04:37,599
Speaker 1: and criminal charges from my family. He said, we're taking

75
00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:41,400
Speaker 1: you out. The stories of what the patients did in

76
00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:44,760
Speaker 1: Awake had to endure we're beginning to leak out through

77
00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:49,880
Speaker 1: the media. He says that it was so they were

78
00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:51,800
Speaker 1: told to do it, and at the time he was

79
00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:54,760
Speaker 1: fourteen and a half fifteen years old, they didn't know

80
00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:57,640
Speaker 1: any better. They were told to take the clothes off

81
00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:01,440
Speaker 1: and they would take it. Taking the pictures hm as therapy.

82
00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:05,640
Speaker 1: As therapy. The boys have to get down in the

83
00:05:05,680 --> 00:05:11,000
Speaker 1: septic tank and bucket them out. How are they addressed?

84
00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:16,040
Speaker 1: My sentence is that he was. He was naked, uh

85
00:05:16,200 --> 00:05:18,479
Speaker 1: and after he got through doing the work, he was

86
00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:21,599
Speaker 1: given a chemical to put on his body and go

87
00:05:21,720 --> 00:05:24,120
Speaker 1: to the shower and bade with something to kill the bacteria.

88
00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:29,279
Speaker 1: Mark Barber says that while he believed many of the

89
00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:34,240
Speaker 1: staff knew about the investigation and allegations against Petter and Innawaki,

90
00:05:34,920 --> 00:05:40,320
Speaker 1: most would still not speak up other staff members. I'm

91
00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:43,080
Speaker 1: pretty sure he knew what was going on. There was

92
00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:46,560
Speaker 1: a story that a staff member told me. After I

93
00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:50,560
Speaker 1: got out of being awaken, I actually found him in

94
00:05:50,600 --> 00:05:53,240
Speaker 1: the early days of the internet, found his phone number,

95
00:05:53,360 --> 00:05:57,159
Speaker 1: called him and talked to him. We had talked about

96
00:05:57,160 --> 00:05:59,280
Speaker 1: what had happened, how in a way he got shut down,

97
00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:03,440
Speaker 1: and he said that one of the nurses went into

98
00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:06,520
Speaker 1: a staff meeting and said, what are you all gonna

99
00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:10,920
Speaker 1: do if one of these students ends up with AIDS

100
00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:15,880
Speaker 1: or HIV and he goes you could tell who the

101
00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:21,599
Speaker 1: predators were and who the predators weren't by that comment,

102
00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:24,279
Speaker 1: by the look on their faces. This is what the

103
00:06:24,279 --> 00:06:26,599
Speaker 1: staff member told me. And he was in the group.

104
00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:31,360
Speaker 1: He was in there, you know. So with that being said, yeah,

105
00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:33,360
Speaker 1: I would say I would say all of them new

106
00:06:33,480 --> 00:06:35,960
Speaker 1: I think some of them turned to blind eye, and

107
00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:38,520
Speaker 1: you would have to be very naive, and I don't

108
00:06:38,560 --> 00:06:42,599
Speaker 1: think you would have made it as a Anawaki staff member,

109
00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:47,039
Speaker 1: group leader, even kitchen help if you didn't see the

110
00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:50,920
Speaker 1: abuse going on. Everybody knew and everybody kept their mouth shut.

111
00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:58,159
Speaker 1: O would passed. Several weeks we have received number of

112
00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:01,279
Speaker 1: very serious allegations concerning both the facility out there in

113
00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:05,640
Speaker 1: a number of individuals involved with him. It was just

114
00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:08,279
Speaker 1: a form of their therapy. They were told to do it,

115
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:10,320
Speaker 1: and at the time he was fourteen and a half

116
00:07:10,360 --> 00:07:13,960
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, they didn't know any better. I asked you,

117
00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:16,720
Speaker 1: why are you letting this happen? Why are you covering

118
00:07:16,800 --> 00:07:19,280
Speaker 1: up for Louis Patterer. He had no answer to that question.

119
00:07:20,040 --> 00:07:25,960
Speaker 1: Involved having and this situation paid it little could be

120
00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:34,000
Speaker 1: such district place and to do absolutely the contrary of

121
00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:37,760
Speaker 1: what they should have done. I'm disturbed over the fact

122
00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:41,120
Speaker 1: of something it gets still going on it anyway. I'm

123
00:07:41,200 --> 00:07:48,840
Speaker 1: Josh Stein and this is Camp hell an AWAKEI. The

124
00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:52,080
Speaker 1: Aniwaki Institution has now been under investigation by Douglas County

125
00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:55,000
Speaker 1: authorities for three months. Just last week, investigators with the

126
00:07:55,000 --> 00:07:57,640
Speaker 1: Department of Human Resources began talking to the more than

127
00:07:57,680 --> 00:08:02,360
Speaker 1: one children now at the Douglas County facility. Right now today,

128
00:08:02,520 --> 00:08:05,320
Speaker 1: we do not feel or we have not found, anything

129
00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:08,760
Speaker 1: that would indicate that the children are in immediate danger.

130
00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:12,960
Speaker 1: Assistant Human Resources Director Jewel Norman says her agency has

131
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:15,880
Speaker 1: found no evidence at this point to shut down the

132
00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:21,320
Speaker 1: Douglas County facility. The investigation into an Awiki had brought

133
00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:25,280
Speaker 1: in to include local Douglas County authorities, the Georgia Bureau

134
00:08:25,320 --> 00:08:30,240
Speaker 1: of Investigations, and now the Department of Human Resources. With

135
00:08:30,360 --> 00:08:34,480
Speaker 1: multiple counts of sodomy attributed to Petter and charges against

136
00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:38,280
Speaker 1: other employees racking up, the center was still able to

137
00:08:38,320 --> 00:08:42,720
Speaker 1: stay open. Petter had been freed from jail after supporters

138
00:08:42,760 --> 00:08:45,600
Speaker 1: in the community raised the one million dollars to cover

139
00:08:45,679 --> 00:08:49,960
Speaker 1: his bond. As the investigation group, more counts were being

140
00:08:49,960 --> 00:08:54,160
Speaker 1: filed against Petter, eventually totaling up to twenty four counts

141
00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:57,920
Speaker 1: of sodomy against him. One of the other main suspects

142
00:08:58,280 --> 00:09:03,080
Speaker 1: was Head of Therapeutic Services Jim Womack, Here's former d

143
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:08,640
Speaker 1: A for Douglas County Frank Winn. James Womack was a

144
00:09:08,679 --> 00:09:11,520
Speaker 1: supervisor at it in a wake. And I don't mean

145
00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:15,440
Speaker 1: he just supervised kids. He supervised employees as well as kids,

146
00:09:15,920 --> 00:09:19,000
Speaker 1: and he was somebody that it was clear he was

147
00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:22,320
Speaker 1: somewhat close to Petter, but at the same time, it

148
00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:25,240
Speaker 1: appeared there were some kids that he would take off

149
00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:30,679
Speaker 1: in ways that didn't seem appropriate. So as we started investigating,

150
00:09:31,200 --> 00:09:33,480
Speaker 1: we were able to find out that there had been

151
00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:38,040
Speaker 1: some kids that he had isolated and had had relations with.

152
00:09:38,679 --> 00:09:41,600
Speaker 1: I don't remember him being someone that was very friendly,

153
00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:44,080
Speaker 1: you know, he was a little bit more of a

154
00:09:44,920 --> 00:09:49,160
Speaker 1: we felt like a strong arm fellow, James Walmack. I know,

155
00:09:49,360 --> 00:09:53,760
Speaker 1: when we talked about his case, his situation, we just

156
00:09:53,880 --> 00:10:00,320
Speaker 1: felt like he wasn't really Lewis Petter's partner. They weren't

157
00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:04,280
Speaker 1: partners in crime. It was like, well, that's the way

158
00:10:04,559 --> 00:10:07,480
Speaker 1: we can do stuff it and awaking, so I'm gonna

159
00:10:07,520 --> 00:10:11,600
Speaker 1: do it. That was clearly our belief as to who

160
00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:15,640
Speaker 1: James Walmack was. He might do some things for Petter

161
00:10:15,800 --> 00:10:18,679
Speaker 1: because he worked there or because he knew what Petter

162
00:10:18,880 --> 00:10:22,480
Speaker 1: was doing, but what he did seemed to be very

163
00:10:22,559 --> 00:10:27,440
Speaker 1: much on his own because he believed that's what you

164
00:10:27,440 --> 00:10:30,280
Speaker 1: could get away with out there. While trying to find

165
00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:33,040
Speaker 1: a charge that would stick for Petter and other in

166
00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:37,880
Speaker 1: a WEEKI employees, things could get complicated very quickly. Journalist

167
00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:41,880
Speaker 1: Albert Edgin says that the strongest case against Petter and

168
00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:44,839
Speaker 1: others would have been the sodomy law at the time.

169
00:10:46,280 --> 00:10:48,280
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to look at the criminal case

170
00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:51,640
Speaker 1: from the perspective of the prosecutors. They had a couple

171
00:10:51,640 --> 00:10:54,320
Speaker 1: of challenges, and there was sort of a hierarchy of

172
00:10:54,480 --> 00:10:58,600
Speaker 1: laws that they were dealing with, and Georgia, sodomy was illegal,

173
00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:05,160
Speaker 1: So if they had testimony about a homosexual relationship that

174
00:11:05,400 --> 00:11:10,080
Speaker 1: became physical that involved acts of what words defined in

175
00:11:10,120 --> 00:11:12,440
Speaker 1: the Georgia law as sodomy at the time, then they

176
00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:15,480
Speaker 1: had a slam dunk case. So they were very aggressive

177
00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:18,880
Speaker 1: about going after the sodomy cases. That was the easiest

178
00:11:18,920 --> 00:11:22,400
Speaker 1: thing for me. The next thing is child abuse on

179
00:11:22,559 --> 00:11:27,080
Speaker 1: Georgia's side and child abuse on Florida's side. Now, without

180
00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:30,520
Speaker 1: knowing that the details of how those cases are made

181
00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:32,840
Speaker 1: or what those laws in those two states were like,

182
00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:35,360
Speaker 1: then that means from the prosecutor's point of view that

183
00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:38,080
Speaker 1: what they had to think about was how is this

184
00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:40,320
Speaker 1: going to play out in a courtroom, and they have

185
00:11:40,800 --> 00:11:45,920
Speaker 1: I think three problems. One is they know, well, first

186
00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:50,199
Speaker 1: of all, in Florida, where there is no sodomy law,

187
00:11:50,880 --> 00:11:54,120
Speaker 1: there's no anti sodomy law. If they're dealing with a

188
00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:56,840
Speaker 1: child abuse case, or if they're dealing with a case

189
00:11:56,960 --> 00:11:59,880
Speaker 1: where there's a relationship between a child and an adult,

190
00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:03,800
Speaker 1: the defense is going to say that was a consensual relationship.

191
00:12:04,240 --> 00:12:05,960
Speaker 1: You got to think about it like a prosecutor, like,

192
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:07,960
Speaker 1: that's gonna be one thing that the defense is going

193
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:11,240
Speaker 1: to do. The bottom line on that is that the

194
00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:13,839
Speaker 1: easiest cases to make in the cases that they made

195
00:12:14,000 --> 00:12:17,840
Speaker 1: in Georgia on sodomy, and that Florida authorities went along

196
00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:19,920
Speaker 1: with that because they thought, you get this guy in jail,

197
00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:21,719
Speaker 1: we get this guy in jail. Then you have the

198
00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:26,080
Speaker 1: additional challenge of getting the victims to talk about it

199
00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:29,679
Speaker 1: because it's so embarrassing. It's a horrific experience that they

200
00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:31,720
Speaker 1: had and they don't want to talk about in the courtroom.

201
00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:35,920
Speaker 1: So it took a while for them to organize the case.

202
00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:39,560
Speaker 1: They brought their cases against the people they could bring

203
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:43,760
Speaker 1: them against. The problem that still exists is that Florida

204
00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:48,079
Speaker 1: had a list of Georgia probably did too. But Florida

205
00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:53,280
Speaker 1: had a list of abuse of counselors, which means older

206
00:12:53,320 --> 00:12:58,040
Speaker 1: people adults eighteen or older counselors who had abused kids

207
00:12:58,120 --> 00:13:00,360
Speaker 1: that they didn't prosecute and they couldn't process. Cute. Some

208
00:13:00,400 --> 00:13:02,720
Speaker 1: of them they couldn't find, but they found at least

209
00:13:02,760 --> 00:13:06,079
Speaker 1: one in Tennessee, and he was working at a psychiatric

210
00:13:06,120 --> 00:13:10,120
Speaker 1: treatment center for children. So that was then you have

211
00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:13,360
Speaker 1: to think how many of these people that they didn't

212
00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:19,920
Speaker 1: find are still working in these places now. I asked

213
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:24,360
Speaker 1: Frank Win if anyone from in Aweki South Campus in Caribelle, Florida,

214
00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:28,199
Speaker 1: or the Girls Campus in rock Mart were charged and convicted.

215
00:13:30,200 --> 00:13:34,200
Speaker 1: I did not participate in any charges. Both places were

216
00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:38,319
Speaker 1: other jurisdictions for one thing, so I wouldn't have been

217
00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:41,720
Speaker 1: involved in whether they were prosecuted or not, other than

218
00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:45,840
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything to prosecute him for in Douglas County.

219
00:13:46,480 --> 00:13:52,800
Speaker 1: I don't recall that there was anything significantly wrong that

220
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:55,880
Speaker 1: somebody had done that they had gotten prosecuted for in

221
00:13:55,920 --> 00:13:59,520
Speaker 1: either place other than what we were already prosecuting for.

222
00:13:59,559 --> 00:14:02,239
Speaker 1: I mean, Louis better, we know did stuff in Mexico

223
00:14:02,280 --> 00:14:05,760
Speaker 1: and Florida but that doesn't mean we're gonna prosecute him

224
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:08,200
Speaker 1: for what he did there. And if other people did

225
00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:11,880
Speaker 1: stuff there, those jurisdictions would have had access to whatever

226
00:14:11,920 --> 00:14:18,319
Speaker 1: we had. I do not remember anything specific about criminal

227
00:14:18,440 --> 00:14:23,640
Speaker 1: charges related to any employees at carabell or Rock Market.

228
00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:28,760
Speaker 1: Once you've prosecuted somebody, what's the value of using resources

229
00:14:28,800 --> 00:14:33,560
Speaker 1: to prosecute them again. And if there were a victim slash,

230
00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:37,680
Speaker 1: you know, someone who's been groomed, then do they deserve

231
00:14:37,760 --> 00:14:42,520
Speaker 1: to be prosecuted in another jurisdiction. That's somebody else's call.

232
00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:45,040
Speaker 1: But at the same time I could understand them decide

233
00:14:45,040 --> 00:14:48,440
Speaker 1: and know they shouldn't be prosecuted. I don't really have

234
00:14:48,520 --> 00:14:53,680
Speaker 1: an answer. I don't remember discussing are having contact with

235
00:14:54,320 --> 00:15:01,640
Speaker 1: prosecution authorities from Carabelle or Polpe County along with Petter

236
00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:06,040
Speaker 1: and Jim Wamack, administrator and Petter's son in law, James

237
00:15:06,040 --> 00:15:12,160
Speaker 1: Henry Evans, was arrested as well. Eventually, Lewis's wife, Mabel,

238
00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:16,040
Speaker 1: would also be arrested for failure to report child abuse.

239
00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:21,080
Speaker 1: A little more than two hours ago, a handcuffed Mabel Petter,

240
00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:24,680
Speaker 1: the wife of Annawakey founder Lewis Petter was escorted into

241
00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:27,880
Speaker 1: the Douglas County jail. The sixty seven year old Anawakey

242
00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:30,800
Speaker 1: nursing director has been charged with four counts of failure

243
00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:35,000
Speaker 1: to report child abuse. Tony Say mr Evans. A few

244
00:15:35,040 --> 00:15:38,400
Speaker 1: minutes later, her son in law, former Annawakey administrator and

245
00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:42,080
Speaker 1: acting director, Henry Evans, was taken in handcuffs into the jail,

246
00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:46,000
Speaker 1: charged with twenty three counts of failure to report child abuse.

247
00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:49,920
Speaker 1: Gb I agent Tony Gaily said investigators had to forcibly

248
00:15:50,120 --> 00:15:53,920
Speaker 1: enter evans residence to make the arrest. What we're saying

249
00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:57,120
Speaker 1: is that these incidents has occurred, they should have been

250
00:15:57,160 --> 00:16:00,520
Speaker 1: reported either to the Sheriff's Department of District Attorne his office,

251
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:03,840
Speaker 1: or the Department of Family and Children's Services. They were not,

252
00:16:04,440 --> 00:16:08,680
Speaker 1: and that's a violation of the law. Walmax was presented

253
00:16:08,800 --> 00:16:13,000
Speaker 1: as a trial where we settled everything except the legal

254
00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:18,520
Speaker 1: issue of the statue limitations. It was just obvious that

255
00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:22,120
Speaker 1: we were had narrowed the whole case down to he

256
00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,120
Speaker 1: did it. The question is legally could we prosecuted? And

257
00:16:26,160 --> 00:16:28,200
Speaker 1: so why not just present that to the judge with

258
00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:31,120
Speaker 1: better We had so much more and so we weren't

259
00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:35,160
Speaker 1: gonna be dealing with just one semantic. There was a

260
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:39,160
Speaker 1: lot more there, with better financially as well as abuses.

261
00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:45,320
Speaker 1: Winds says that while the investigation into the sexual abuse

262
00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:49,600
Speaker 1: charges was ongoing with the documents seized from an Awaki,

263
00:16:50,080 --> 00:16:53,880
Speaker 1: there was now a rico a racketeering case being built

264
00:16:53,960 --> 00:16:57,800
Speaker 1: against the inn a WEEKI organization as well. A racketeering

265
00:16:57,880 --> 00:17:01,360
Speaker 1: case would involve any pattern of illegal activity that is

266
00:17:01,400 --> 00:17:04,600
Speaker 1: carried out by a business which is owned or controlled

267
00:17:04,680 --> 00:17:09,920
Speaker 1: by those engaged in such activity. When we're getting ready

268
00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:14,400
Speaker 1: for trial, my number one focus was on the sexual

269
00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:19,200
Speaker 1: abuse charges and the information related to that that that

270
00:17:19,320 --> 00:17:24,159
Speaker 1: was my focus. At the same time, we had people

271
00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:26,679
Speaker 1: from the Price Unit, Attorney's Council as well as the

272
00:17:26,720 --> 00:17:29,320
Speaker 1: gb I helping us with the case. There were a

273
00:17:29,359 --> 00:17:33,760
Speaker 1: whole lot more adept and knowledgeable about how to analyze

274
00:17:33,760 --> 00:17:37,080
Speaker 1: the financial part of and a weight when we're talking

275
00:17:37,119 --> 00:17:41,080
Speaker 1: about what other charges might have been brought as opposed

276
00:17:41,080 --> 00:17:44,199
Speaker 1: to what we're brought. While we were getting ready for

277
00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:50,560
Speaker 1: a trial, our negotiation incorporated the fact that we were

278
00:17:50,600 --> 00:17:57,040
Speaker 1: investigating other matters that were financial in nature. My memory

279
00:17:57,080 --> 00:17:59,920
Speaker 1: is there's no doubt that they knew about it, no doubt.

280
00:18:00,119 --> 00:18:05,280
Speaker 1: They knew we had a lot of documents, and they

281
00:18:05,359 --> 00:18:08,080
Speaker 1: knew what the documents were that we had. They could

282
00:18:08,080 --> 00:18:12,240
Speaker 1: have assumed that we were idiots and that we didn't

283
00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:16,399
Speaker 1: know what the documents were showing about their activities, or

284
00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:20,119
Speaker 1: they could make the correct assumption that we had people

285
00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:23,480
Speaker 1: from the g b I and from the Prosecuting Attorney's

286
00:18:23,520 --> 00:18:29,280
Speaker 1: Council that understood what they were manipulating in the financial documents.

287
00:18:30,680 --> 00:18:37,199
Speaker 1: So at some point we began crafting a rico indictment.

288
00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:40,879
Speaker 1: Some are all of the lawyers for the bet Our

289
00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:46,000
Speaker 1: family figured that out, And I remember Mr Petter's attorney

290
00:18:46,080 --> 00:18:50,240
Speaker 1: asking me, I need to know if y'all actually got

291
00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 1: a document with names on it and charges related to

292
00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:59,800
Speaker 1: other matters, And I said, we have a reco indictment

293
00:19:00,119 --> 00:19:05,520
Speaker 1: has names of other family members on it, and we

294
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:09,160
Speaker 1: intended to go forward with that document. Part of what

295
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:13,359
Speaker 1: they asked was uh, and we agreed to this was

296
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:19,919
Speaker 1: to drop that aspect of the case. Negotiations had begun

297
00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:25,320
Speaker 1: between the patter's attorneys and the prosecution. Frank explains that

298
00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:27,840
Speaker 1: this was to try and ensure as much as they

299
00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:32,560
Speaker 1: could that the organization behind in Awaki and its financial

300
00:19:32,600 --> 00:19:36,520
Speaker 1: interests would come to an end. I say they asked

301
00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:40,199
Speaker 1: We asked for a lot too. We asked that the

302
00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:46,359
Speaker 1: daughters forfeit everything. I remember thinking that, okay, they're giving

303
00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:51,560
Speaker 1: an Awaki estates completely to the nonprofit. It would look

304
00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:56,240
Speaker 1: like a huge tax donation. So part of our agreement

305
00:19:56,440 --> 00:20:01,240
Speaker 1: was you give up everything you own and end. You

306
00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:04,560
Speaker 1: can't take a tax deduction because it would have been inappropriate.

307
00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:10,480
Speaker 1: It wasn't their property. After over two years of investigation

308
00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:15,159
Speaker 1: and preliminary hearings and agreement between Petter's attorneys and the

309
00:20:15,240 --> 00:20:21,640
Speaker 1: prosecution had been made in April of Petter would enter

310
00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:25,359
Speaker 1: a guilty plea in return for the investigation to drop

311
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:30,720
Speaker 1: the RICO indictment. Petter pleaded guilty to nineteen counts of

312
00:20:30,840 --> 00:20:36,560
Speaker 1: sodomizing twelve former and a Waki patients, camps number four

313
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:51,959
Speaker 1: and five, five different different invision of the Africans camps

314
00:20:52,040 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 1: undertan and left different India when they're wanting us not

315
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:05,119
Speaker 1: to go forward with the RICO. At the same time,

316
00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:10,439
Speaker 1: we addressed all the finances. If you read through the

317
00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:16,200
Speaker 1: comprehensive plea agreement, there's a lot of financial information in there.

318
00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:18,879
Speaker 1: That has nothing to do with the sexual abuse charges.

319
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,919
Speaker 1: It had to do with us doing the best we

320
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:28,199
Speaker 1: could correct what they had stolen. As far as I

321
00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:32,640
Speaker 1: was concerned, they had taken something by manipulation and fraud

322
00:21:32,800 --> 00:21:36,720
Speaker 1: and it was equivalent to stealing. We agreed if Lewis

323
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:40,320
Speaker 1: Pedderck led guilty on the sex charges and we worked

324
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 1: out the financial restitution as best we could, then we

325
00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 1: just basically stopped writing the reco indictment. Chuck Olsen, who

326
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:54,480
Speaker 1: work is the main one that would have been involved

327
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 1: in it. He was brilliant when it came to details,

328
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 1: especially in going through finance actual documents and being able

329
00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:06,560
Speaker 1: to craft incidents that would have been part of the

330
00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:10,639
Speaker 1: reco indictment. And we were probably about halfway through with it.

331
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:14,119
Speaker 1: But it's a lot of information, and Chuck was working

332
00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:17,720
Speaker 1: his butt off trying to organize it and make sure

333
00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:20,520
Speaker 1: that he had it complete. And I don't know if

334
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 1: Truck was disappointed or not, but I think he was.

335
00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:27,479
Speaker 1: He was based on the financial restitution that we got

336
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 1: from the agreement. I think he was satisfied that we

337
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,800
Speaker 1: accomplished what needed to be accomplished with in essence stripping

338
00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:36,840
Speaker 1: the family of what everything we could find that they

339
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 1: had taken from an AWAKEI Ultimately some of the properties

340
00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:45,359
Speaker 1: the Pattern family acquired were given back to the inn

341
00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 1: Awaki Estates Foundation. For other properties in other countries such

342
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 1: as Canada and Mexico, it was just too far out

343
00:22:54,040 --> 00:23:00,360
Speaker 1: of the reach of Wind's investigation. Did they had some

344
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: cash at the place in Pachuca. Certainly finding that he

345
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 1: had gone to Mexico, that was something that we had

346
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,439
Speaker 1: wondered about. That's one of the reasons Earl sent some

347
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:18,359
Speaker 1: officers down there. Other than being able to corroborate kids

348
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: versions of how things were down there, I don't remember

349
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:26,919
Speaker 1: they were able to really get physical evidence to bring

350
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 1: back other than photographs and a little bit of real

351
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:34,399
Speaker 1: estate type of information. Douglas County had a lot of

352
00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: expenses in this investigation, as well as the State of Georgia,

353
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:42,280
Speaker 1: But it was Douglas County's case, an awaki Estates and

354
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 1: or the family members. Everything that we were we knew

355
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: about except Mexico. We we didn't want to go back

356
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 1: and mess with any property that was down in Mexico.

357
00:23:57,160 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 1: So I don't recall that we did anything with the

358
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:03,840
Speaker 1: Mexico estate, but everything else that we had was turned

359
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 1: over to annawaki Ink. As far as the real estate goes,

360
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 1: there was some stuff that was given to Douglas County.

361
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:16,040
Speaker 1: There was some about three hundred acres in Canada and

362
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: that was I believe in Lewis Petter's name. That property

363
00:24:21,320 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: was given to Douglas County. There was a lot of

364
00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:28,360
Speaker 1: jewelry that was given to Douglas County. There was some

365
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: money out of the cash bond, and I remember that

366
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:34,919
Speaker 1: being a dispute later on as to who got what

367
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: out of the cash bond that was posted. But the

368
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:43,640
Speaker 1: intent was the cash that came from Petter, we Douglas

369
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:47,760
Speaker 1: County took some of that money to help defray costs.

370
00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 1: So part of the comprehensive Plea agreement involved them agreeing

371
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: to forfeit those funds to Douglas County. The funds that

372
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 1: were traced to Petter. My memory was we allowed a

373
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: certain amount for Mabel to keep and then a majority

374
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:09,560
Speaker 1: of it was forwarded to Douglas County. As far as

375
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 1: other stuff that was done, I believe the Carabelle property

376
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,640
Speaker 1: was turned over to an awaki Ink. All the property

377
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: in Douglas County that was not otherwise in aniwaki Ink's

378
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:24,560
Speaker 1: name was supposed to be turned over to them. The

379
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: property in Polk County I believe was an Awakia estates

380
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 1: and had to be turned over in return for giving

381
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 1: up almost all of in a week he's financial interest

382
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 1: and in turn, any control he had over the organization.

383
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: Louis Petter was then sentenced to eight years in prison,

384
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: with an additional twelve years of probation to follow. To

385
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:53,439
Speaker 1: give a comparison to a known trial from today, nixi

386
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 1: Um Secret Society founder Keith for Near, who was charged

387
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 1: with sex trafficking of children and can spiracy to commit

388
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: forced labor, was sentenced to one and twenty years in prison,

389
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:11,520
Speaker 1: essentially a life sentence. I asked Frank if he believed

390
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 1: that eight years was really enough of a punishment for

391
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: Petter being a known abuser for over two decades. Well, yes,

392
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: I think it was enough based on the information we

393
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: had at the time. This might sound a little mean,

394
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: but I wasn't sure how long he would survive in prison,

395
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: and so that factored into it also. And when I

396
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 1: say it may actually sound mean, I didn't think at

397
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: the time he entered the Blue I felt like whatever

398
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:52,280
Speaker 1: time he was he might not make it eight years.

399
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:54,679
Speaker 1: If he did make it, he would come out and be,

400
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: you know, very unhealthy. At the end, I felt like

401
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 1: he was old enough and in bad enough health to

402
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 1: where eight years was. I think I mentioned earlier it

403
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 1: was like giving someone else fifteen years. Partly because of

404
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 1: his health. I think he wound up surprising us and

405
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: living longer than we expected. That would have been his

406
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,160
Speaker 1: side of the negotiation. I guess he figured he knew

407
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 1: he was in better health than we believed. Do you

408
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: think he put a fast one? No, not necessarily. I

409
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: mean it was based on what we had. It was

410
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: still a fair sentence for the back. At that time,

411
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: sentences weren't as harsh in general as they are nowadays

412
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: when it comes to in kind of sexual abuse, and

413
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 1: eight years might have been a little bit low. But

414
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 1: we covered everything and we were able to get the

415
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: family didn't serve as much time as a whole if

416
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: you just added up everybody's sentences. But they gave up

417
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: everything financially that we felt like they should, that we

418
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: think they deserved. While the Douglas County authorities were doing

419
00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: all they could to put a stop to the n

420
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 1: Waki organization under Louis Petter. Another group of former victims

421
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: had begun to file a civil suit against Petter and

422
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: an Awake. When I was practicing law, I had some

423
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: neighbors who walked into my office or former neighbors, and

424
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 1: they had a son about Awaky treatment center and the

425
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: able suspicious of the seby nine thousand dollar bill that

426
00:28:56,000 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: they had received. So we discussed and I told them

427
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: I would look into it. But before I could really

428
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: look into it, nice food my clients for it on payment.

429
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: This is Pat Edelkind. She's one of the two main

430
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: attorneys who handled the civil suit against dan Awaki. Pat's

431
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: career is an impressive one. Aside from her involvement in

432
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: the Anna Waki case, she was the first single mother

433
00:29:25,680 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 1: to ever graduate from Harvard Law School. Not only that

434
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: I had graduatingd I was so fearful we'll not being

435
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: able to pick up after ten years that I worked

436
00:29:37,720 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: extra hard I suppose, and I graduated h well Victorian

437
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: and my class, first in my class. It seems her

438
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: story is similar to Frank Winn and Earl Lee's and

439
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: that one small issue ended up snowballing and is something

440
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: bigger than she ever could have imagined. I've heard about

441
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 1: it waking since I was looking for a place to

442
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: put my youngest son, who had learning just about with this,

443
00:30:07,360 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: to try and get a hold of that when he

444
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: was young, and he was around eleven, and stopped him

445
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: from some of the behaviors that he was exhibiting. When

446
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: I was searching for a place, I came upon an

447
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 1: Awaki which seemed to be ideal. And when I talked

448
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: to Mark, my son about him, and he wasn't happy

449
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: about it, but he wasn't unhappy either, so he tried

450
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: it and it seemed to work out fairly well initially.

451
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: Shortly after Pat entered her son into Annawaki, she began

452
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 1: to hear some things that made her question the program.

453
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: She eventually decided to remove her son. He wasn't really

454
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: making the progress that I thought he should have been making,

455
00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: and I was a little suspicious of the place. Also

456
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: of my spot had picked up grammatical error in his speech,

457
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 1: and also he he just wasn't thriving. He told me

458
00:31:10,680 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: that they will work all the time, and that they

459
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: will shortened therapy sessions with the psychiatry. In fact, the

460
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: psychiatrist was legally blond and that they had very short

461
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 1: session with Father Keim there if that usually more like

462
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: five all both the charge was for the futtle hour.

463
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: Now this really bothered me, and I didn't watch him

464
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 1: just working out in the cold and the element all

465
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: the time he was there. So I'm vocational lethy I

466
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: thought would be good, but not that much. It just

467
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 1: got to be at bit much, so I removed him.

468
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: It's around the same time that Pat decided in a

469
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: weak he was not for her son. When her neighbors

470
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: came to her with their financial complaint against the center.

471
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: What would happen to them is that they had their

472
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: child at home with them, but he was paying charged

473
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 1: for our visits when they were like five of sin

474
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: with the psychiatrist and all those kinds of things. And

475
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 1: he would tell them that things were going on, and

476
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: my son told me also, but it wasn't as a stage,

477
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: and that my son had said that they heard that

478
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: d Heater, who was ahead of the ansgestion could go

479
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 1: gay on you, and they were beating It didn't add

480
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: up to what they said it was going to be.

481
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: One of the things that really got attention of black

482
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 1: form of neighbors is the fact that they were paying

483
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: out of pocket. They didn't have a hospital or insurance

484
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: and things like that that would have picked up this bill.

485
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: So they were attuned of what was charged. Most of

486
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: the parents so has either the school system, but not

487
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: really the school system so much as individual insurance that

488
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: would pay it as a health see. Pat would soon

489
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: find out the social workers who worked for an Awaki

490
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 1: would refute any allegations from patients. The social worker, who

491
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: is person that parents talked to, would hear all the

492
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: stuff that the children would say, but then she would say, oh, no,

493
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: that wasn't so, and all of the social workers did that,

494
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: and the social workers was killed. The parents that you

495
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: can't believe what's your son tells you or order because

496
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: they are a big step to begin with, and that's

497
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: why they came here. They just want to go home

498
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: and astra a while. That just did not wash. The

499
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: social worker would say, oh, that didn't happen, or that

500
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: didn't happen. The parents might have gone said, look, he

501
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: said he didn't have the arpy, or he said that

502
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: he didn't get educated, or whenever they were supposed to do,

503
00:34:25,880 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: they were not doing. All the child was doing was

504
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:34,879
Speaker 1: laboring to build the house, whether his head was roof,

505
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: and all of the social workers would deny an abuse whatsoever,

506
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: But these children were getting abused. There was one that

507
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,120
Speaker 1: would beating so badly and knocked into the wall then

508
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: it broke his ear drum. Not with appalling. Pat would

509
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: initially foul a counter suit on behalf of her neighbors

510
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,759
Speaker 1: who had been sued by Anawaki for back payment. The

511
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 1: civil suit would soon come to cover an umbrella of

512
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 1: charges against an Awaki. I first filed on their behalf.

513
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: I filed accountter plane and spent awake to hit sis them.

514
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: I could see them back, and I did, and I

515
00:35:20,560 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: alleged frog moult practice violations of RICO and also physical abuse.

516
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: That's suxual abuse. And of course an't wait to deny that.

517
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: But as a matter of fact, other hear I started

518
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: coming to me because they did word well. And then

519
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: I associated with Randall Blackwood that he would handle trial

520
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 1: work and I would take care of all the plain

521
00:35:57,640 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: of some of the depositions that those kind of thing,

522
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: which it was a lot of things that handled because

523
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:08,320
Speaker 1: eventually we had one underd and thirty one wanted in

524
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 1: separate lawses. These were individual lawsses. However, they were tried

525
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 1: in multip pursuits. I think we had about eight. PAD

526
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: would work side by side with well known attorney Randall

527
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: Blackwood and his wife Florence, assisting in handling all of

528
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:32,879
Speaker 1: the documents as well. With such a large case, PAD

529
00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:39,280
Speaker 1: would need reinforcements. Randall Blackwood was a renowned trial lawyer

530
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: and I was just one person, so I needed someone

531
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 1: who was really excellent exact so I associated with him

532
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 1: and we ended up splitting the sea. I did a

533
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 1: lot of the paper work, most of it, but Randy

534
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 1: did the trials and I helped, of course, but he

535
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:07,399
Speaker 1: was the presence in the courtroom. And we had one

536
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: judge assigned to ostin Hooly, Judge Jack Frich And he

537
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 1: was actually very good too, because there was such a

538
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: massive paper that we did one dedicated judge just to

539
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: keep it straight. Here's Judge Jack Etheridge remembering the circumstances

540
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:31,280
Speaker 1: involving the trial. This is taken from a video clip

541
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:34,720
Speaker 1: thanks to the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research

542
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: and Studies at the University of Georgia. Another case I

543
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 1: remember quite well was called the Anawaki case. One lawyer

544
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: essentially took over the claims of all of these people,

545
00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: and there was more than guess and it was just

546
00:37:54,200 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: too complex a case to ask any sitting judge to handle,

547
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: and so I was asked to take own aces and

548
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: did and we took maybe a year or two to

549
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: deal with all the preliminary motion a lot at stake

550
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 1: and uh at the end, I was able to segregate

551
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:20,719
Speaker 1: about ten young men as the plaintiffs against a few

552
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: of the defendants, and then we were gonna try the

553
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 1: other cases incrementally as we've been along. We set up

554
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: a separate courtroom. We built courtroom for that trial and

555
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:36,800
Speaker 1: it was tried over a period of I think ten weeks.

556
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: In order to be able to go into trial at

557
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 1: any time, they used a former Riches department store to

558
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: make an ad hoc courtroom. Yeah, Riches department store had closed,

559
00:38:50,920 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: but in the part department store we had a courtroom

560
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: built so that the much would litigate the cases. We

561
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: could adate the cases and get them thuttled and have

562
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 1: the access. It is the time, So that's what Judge

563
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: jack Etheridge healthy hearings. After we had putting the money

564
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: into making a court room and we uh tried the

565
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 1: one case that went to trial. Papled work in tandem

566
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 1: with Frank Wynn and Douglas County authorities by sharing their findings.

567
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: They would help each other with their cases. The District

568
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 1: Attorney of Douglas County where the institutions were it was

569
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 1: Fright wyn And at the time there has been a

570
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 1: case of cases where people had gone to Mr Wynn

571
00:39:55,280 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 1: that have complained about sexual abuse and battering and those

572
00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: kinds of things, and so he's looking into it. So

573
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 1: I shared my knowledge with him, and he kept other

574
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: placest to me and that's how it got so many.

575
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:21,879
Speaker 1: But something needed to be done about. Sarah Tillis would

576
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: also have a hand in making sure these civil proceedings

577
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 1: did all they could to take Petter down. Journalist Albert

578
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 1: Egen says that her diligent notes kept during her last

579
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: few years as a board member greatly helped the case.

580
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: Four people involved in developing the narrative of the civil case,

581
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 1: which dealt with an awakes management and the deterioration of

582
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 1: Lewis Petter's control. Those four people were Sarah Tillis, patal Kind,

583
00:40:55,200 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: Randy Blackwood, and Randy's wife Florence and those documentations that

584
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: shows how Sarah Tillis went through weeks and weeks and

585
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:09,479
Speaker 1: weeks of recounting what she had experienced day to day,

586
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 1: keeping notes, collating notes, and finally what emerged was a

587
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:17,720
Speaker 1: narrative of the way the place fell apart, and Sarah

588
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 1: was at the core of that. Sarah Tillis's experience with that,

589
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 1: Sarah Tillis's determination and uh fortitude was what really really,

590
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: in the end of the day, exposed everything. Randy Blackwood

591
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:36,439
Speaker 1: was just a bulldog of a lawyer, A really nice guy,

592
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: a little guy, kind of slightly built, but man, he

593
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:44,759
Speaker 1: was tough and he was pissed. He took this personally.

594
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 1: Randy was meticulous in his research, but Randy was screwed

595
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: and manipulative. Randy told me a lot of things through

596
00:41:55,640 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 1: the course and working on the story. There was a

597
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: point in time when I was pulling all those documents

598
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 1: from the state archives that showed the hospital licensure manipulation

599
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: between Parmam and Petro and also showed the long term

600
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: relationship between Parma and Petro. Albert says that he too,

601
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 1: would share documents from his covering of the Nawaki story.

602
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: All of these factors would help paint the picture of

603
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 1: how bad in Awaki had gotten. Randy had a good case.

604
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:29,800
Speaker 1: But when I brought that material to him and showed

605
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 1: him what I had found and asked him about it,

606
00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:35,600
Speaker 1: then he and Florence decided that Florence would go back

607
00:42:35,640 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 1: and do the same research I had done, so they

608
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: would have it independently of me. But at the same time,

609
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: Randy and I developed a I would call it a partnership,

610
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:47,719
Speaker 1: even because I was working on the story and he

611
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: was working on the case, and at the end of

612
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: the day we were working on the same thing, so

613
00:42:52,040 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: we became friends. And um, you know. He was very

614
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: helpful to me in that he would leak things to me,

615
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 1: he would give me in formation, he would guide me

616
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 1: towards things that he was working on. But at the

617
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,839
Speaker 1: same time, his goal was to do two things. One

618
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 1: was too in the public's eye to turn Petter into

619
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: into a demon, which was not difficult to do, but

620
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:17,279
Speaker 1: Randy was determined to do it. That's what he was

621
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: doing with a whole range of reporters and people in

622
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:24,520
Speaker 1: the public eye. So his goal was not just to

623
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,920
Speaker 1: to collect the information and to help the you know,

624
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: the children that had been abused. But from a strategic,

625
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: from a tactical point of view, his goal was to

626
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: make sure that by the time he got this litigation

627
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,120
Speaker 1: to court that there was going to be a very

628
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:41,320
Speaker 1: very negative view of Anawaki and Petter in the public's eye,

629
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:47,239
Speaker 1: and he succeeded. Taking on a year's long case can

630
00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 1: often be personally and financially taxing to the council's involved.

631
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:56,800
Speaker 1: This was especially true for Randall Blackwood and Pat edel Kind.

632
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:01,960
Speaker 1: My understanding is that Sarah Tillison her husband, helped fund

633
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 1: the litigation. Randy and Florence I know they had to

634
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,280
Speaker 1: borrow money along the way. At the end of the day,

635
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 1: they were so certain of the outcome that they were

636
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: willing to financially risk what they had to risk. All

637
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: of the lawsuits from financed by myself and Randy Berkley.

638
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: So there came a time when a very heavy load

639
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: to carry, but we did. However, I came close to bankruptcy,

640
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: and I believe Randy did also. I was fearful of

641
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:42,319
Speaker 1: losing my house. We were, although we plowed plenty of

642
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 1: money in it and took out roans, it got to

643
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: be pretty frightening. When it came trying to pay the piper,

644
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: I just despised them. I have been personally moved, but

645
00:44:56,000 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: also legally it was for render. We thought, having in

646
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 1: this stitution paid it a hospital, to be such shut

647
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:13,399
Speaker 1: desticable place and to do absolutely the contrary of what

648
00:45:13,440 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: they should have done. The supern holes should have been

649
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 1: talked to the NAT school. They weren't being taught either.

650
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: They were there to be helped, and they weren't. That's

651
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: the sad truth of it. In fact, they were harmed.

652
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 1: Pattel Kind was attempting to take down a million dollar operation,

653
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:42,239
Speaker 1: one involving political figures, a board of trustees, and the

654
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,320
Speaker 1: whole staff of upper management. Handling a suit like this

655
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: is something that can certainly make you a target. Pat

656
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 1: says it is during her involvement in the civil suit

657
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:57,799
Speaker 1: that she believes someone from the Anawaki organization may have

658
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 1: tried to harm or even kill her. I was leaving

659
00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: warning sized Virginia Higla's area and I was on I

660
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: eighty five going north and my car suddling when I

661
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 1: was controlled and hit the divide a wall and rolled

662
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 1: in front of three lanes of traffic, which I luckily survived.

663
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:29,720
Speaker 1: I broke in my hid in the crash. She believed

664
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 1: that this was no accident, but that someone had knowingly

665
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 1: tampered with her car in an attempt to hurt her. Well,

666
00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: my car, which had been parked on the street at

667
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 1: that occasion, was tampered with, and when our control on

668
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:52,120
Speaker 1: I five rolled across three lanes of traffic, I was

669
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 1: fortunate to survive, and it was a new car, so

670
00:46:56,719 --> 00:47:00,120
Speaker 1: I thought, what on earth? And then I received us

671
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:05,399
Speaker 1: to call from a psychologist formerly went that awaking, who

672
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:07,839
Speaker 1: didn't get me his name, but what he said, I'll

673
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:12,319
Speaker 1: never forget it was chilly. He said, this is what

674
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:20,279
Speaker 1: Louis Petter raise his lackeys to do, is to do

675
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 1: go the tricks on people, to try and hilpe them.

676
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 1: She thinks they're hurrying him. By November seven, nine women

677
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,320
Speaker 1: had to come forward to sue in Awaki on counts

678
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:58,240
Speaker 1: of racketeering, conspiring to abuse them, and attempting to defraud

679
00:47:58,320 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 1: them financially. Just a few weeks later, the case would

680
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 1: grow to twenty two former patients suing the center, naming Petter,

681
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 1: Jim Parham and other board members as defendants. Once again,

682
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:16,800
Speaker 1: one of the hardest things was attempting to get victims

683
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: to come forward to speak in court. Mark Barber remembers

684
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: his reaction when first finding out about the suit. We

685
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 1: first heard about the lawsuit, and I guess it was

686
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: a class action lawsuit. My mom got some paperwork in

687
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: the mail and I want to say eight somewhere around there,

688
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: and my mom asking me, do you want to talk

689
00:48:42,800 --> 00:48:46,520
Speaker 1: to anybody about this? And at this time I had

690
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 1: my film full of counselors and therapists and psychologists, and

691
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 1: I really didn't want to speak to anybody about anything anymore. Um.

692
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: But I got to a point where I just kind

693
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 1: of shoveled it real eep and just told my mom

694
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything to say. Nothing really happened to me.

695
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about it. Pat Edelkind says

696
00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 1: that trying to get the younger patients to admit to

697
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:17,480
Speaker 1: the sexual abuse was very challenging. Fortunately, some older former

698
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 1: patients would be willing to come forward well. The other

699
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: ones would admit to the battery and physical abuse, never

700
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 1: the sexual abuse. But we eventually learned to put on

701
00:49:37,440 --> 00:49:41,840
Speaker 1: the older ones that were more comfortable with talking about

702
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: what happened. Even though the satural limitations has asked, they

703
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:49,560
Speaker 1: were able to tell what happened in the sexual abuse

704
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:55,400
Speaker 1: and it was pretty astalding. One key witness that agreed

705
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 1: to come forward in the civil suit was one of

706
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:03,239
Speaker 1: the earliest instances of Petter's abuse. Bob Camp. Camp had

707
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:07,920
Speaker 1: been one of Petter's victims during the trial, actually living

708
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: with him while the trial happened. Journalist Albert Edgin was

709
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:15,760
Speaker 1: able to speak with Camp at length during his time

710
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:23,919
Speaker 1: covering the Antawakey story. Bob Camp was a troubled young

711
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 1: man who was treated at anawakey whom Petter lured into

712
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: a sexual relationship. Petter had him stay in his home.

713
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 1: Petter went to Mexico with him. Petter made him into

714
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 1: a counselor. Petter uh detigrated Bob Camp's father, who was

715
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: an alcoholic, and brought Bob's mother into his confidence. Bob

716
00:50:52,680 --> 00:51:01,319
Speaker 1: Camp was a vulnerable person whom Petter exploited. Bob was

717
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 1: a really a brilliant man, but severely troubled in his youth.

718
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 1: But he was smart about dealing with his troubles. He

719
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:16,680
Speaker 1: knew he was troubled. His behavior would range from being

720
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 1: emotionally out of control to being very, very determined to

721
00:51:22,080 --> 00:51:25,279
Speaker 1: analyze his own behavior into and to deal with it.

722
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 1: Randy Blackwood told me about Bob Camp and said that

723
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 1: his story was the clearest case of abuse that Randy

724
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 1: intended to use in his litigation, but Bob understandably was

725
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:43,920
Speaker 1: hesitant to talk. Uh. Randy Blackwood's first job was to

726
00:51:44,239 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: persuade Bob to talk in a courtroom, but before that,

727
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:52,240
Speaker 1: because as I said, part of randy strategy was public

728
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 1: vilification and getting this story out before the case came

729
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:59,399
Speaker 1: to trial, Randy wanted me to talk to Bob. Bob

730
00:51:59,400 --> 00:52:03,239
Speaker 1: wouldn't talk to me, but finally Randy persuaded him too,

731
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:06,759
Speaker 1: and I had a long conversation with Bob Camp, who

732
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: told me his whole life story, including the abuse by

733
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:14,560
Speaker 1: Louis Petter, sitting in a truck in the parking lot

734
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: outside the Decab County Courthouse in Decatur, Georgia. And among

735
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: the things he told me was that he was so

736
00:52:20,719 --> 00:52:23,640
Speaker 1: troubled at the time he was in his thirties, that

737
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 1: he had had such a rough time that he didn't

738
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: have any male friends his age. He was a basketball fan,

739
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:34,880
Speaker 1: and he didn't even have somebody that he could go

740
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:39,319
Speaker 1: to see an Atlanta Hawks game with. And it was

741
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: an emotional moment for me, certainly for him to hear

742
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 1: that that was the depths to which Louis Petter had

743
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 1: driven some of the children that he should have been helping.

744
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:54,239
Speaker 1: At that point, I decided that I was going to

745
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:58,359
Speaker 1: do everything I could to take Louis Petter's story, make

746
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 1: it public, and take him out. You'd have to have

747
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:04,839
Speaker 1: been sitting in that truck and listen to that man,

748
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:08,120
Speaker 1: this thirty year old man whose life had been destroyed,

749
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:11,640
Speaker 1: who had been manipulated, and he knew it. He The

750
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:14,799
Speaker 1: thing about Bob Campus that he's so damned smart and

751
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:18,360
Speaker 1: so analytical that he knew what had happened to him.

752
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 1: And Bob has written and really a very clear headed

753
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:29,439
Speaker 1: and honest account of the whole deteriorating relationship between him

754
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:33,440
Speaker 1: and Petter, and which he documents that he documents how

755
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:36,880
Speaker 1: Petter did it. But the thing about the documentation is

756
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 1: not that what's stunning is not the narrative. What stunning

757
00:53:42,480 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 1: is Bob Camp's analysis of the narrative, which is built

758
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:49,360
Speaker 1: into that piece that he wrote. He actually knows what

759
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:52,800
Speaker 1: happened to him. He's able to analyze it as it's happening,

760
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 1: and he can't do anything about it because he is

761
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:59,400
Speaker 1: so troubled. Because the reason he's in an awake he

762
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:05,520
Speaker 1: is to take care of that, but instead that is

763
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 1: is exponentially made worse by this guy who is a

764
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:20,320
Speaker 1: real estate salesman. Bob Camp would write a sixty seven

765
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:24,959
Speaker 1: page essay detailing his abuse by Petter's hands. It would

766
00:54:24,960 --> 00:54:28,720
Speaker 1: trace his first instance of moles station during his first

767
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 1: interview with Petter, to living in Petter's house for years,

768
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:38,680
Speaker 1: to eventually committing himself to psychotherapy and realizing the manipulation

769
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:42,960
Speaker 1: he had been subjected to for so many years. The

770
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:45,959
Speaker 1: analysis is the most amazing part of it because Bob says,

771
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:47,840
Speaker 1: and this is in retrospect, but he had to have

772
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:50,880
Speaker 1: been than having these thoughts along the way. One of

773
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: the things that comes through is Bob has stunned at

774
00:54:53,640 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 1: how much control Petter has over him. But he's able

775
00:54:56,719 --> 00:55:00,080
Speaker 1: to say, here's how he got it. He knows how

776
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:04,120
Speaker 1: Petter controlled him, but he can't stop it. When Petter

777
00:55:04,320 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 1: was going through this investigation that Ren and Dagostino precipitated,

778
00:55:11,400 --> 00:55:14,640
Speaker 1: Bob Camp was living with Petter in his home. Petter

779
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 1: had such control over Bob Camp at the time that

780
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 1: the person that probably could have been the best witness

781
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: for the Dagastino ren accusations was under Louis Petter's thumb,

782
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 1: and it took him another fifteen years to get out

783
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,719
Speaker 1: from under his thumb. He was a child at the time,

784
00:55:35,760 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 1: he was a teenager. Bob was such an honest guy

785
00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 1: and so determined to get better that he checked himself

786
00:55:43,040 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: into Georgia Regional Hospital for six months voluntarily because he

787
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 1: wanted to help himself. He had had a downturn and

788
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: he wanted to help himself. Now significantly, he didn't check

789
00:55:53,719 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: himself into an awaking He goes to Georgia Regional and

790
00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:00,360
Speaker 1: he gets good treatment there. He gets he's got good people,

791
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 1: professionals who are dealing with his troubles, and he tells

792
00:56:03,280 --> 00:56:05,320
Speaker 1: them all about it, and there's a blow by blow

793
00:56:05,360 --> 00:56:07,320
Speaker 1: account of what happened to him there, and one of

794
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:10,080
Speaker 1: the things that happens. Of course, as the counselors there

795
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:13,799
Speaker 1: began to learn about his relationship with Louis Patter, so

796
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 1: they bring Patter in and Petter admits all of this

797
00:56:17,719 --> 00:56:21,560
Speaker 1: to Bob and yet in his meeting with Bob and

798
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:26,680
Speaker 1: Bob's mother, he tries to manipulate Bob. Still at that point,

799
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,480
Speaker 1: in a document from Bob Camp's therapy, he had managed

800
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:35,520
Speaker 1: to get Louis Petter to admit to his years of abuse.

801
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:39,399
Speaker 1: Petter had been so certain that this document would never

802
00:56:39,440 --> 00:56:42,239
Speaker 1: see the light of day that he spoke openly of

803
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 1: his manipulation and sexual acts with the then minor. Bob

804
00:56:47,120 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 1: Camp managed to get copies of his records and shared

805
00:56:50,600 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 1: those with Albert years later. Lewis Petter at that time

806
00:56:54,640 --> 00:56:59,800
Speaker 1: apparently reassured himself that because this was a confidential meeting

807
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:06,279
Speaker 1: in a psychiatric treatment program facility, that this will never

808
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: come up. So he was, for once in his life,

809
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:14,440
Speaker 1: he was honest and forthright, although still manipulative. He was

810
00:57:14,480 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: honest to the degree that he admitted that he had

811
00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:20,520
Speaker 1: had this relationship with with Bob Camp. When he didn't

812
00:57:20,520 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: count on it was that eventually Bob would get well

813
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 1: enough to make it public, that he would be able

814
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:30,160
Speaker 1: to be strong enough to handle that pet Her underestimated

815
00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 1: Bob Camp. Bob eventually became probably the the headliner litigant.

816
00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:40,000
Speaker 1: He was the guy that Randy and Pat used as

817
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 1: the example of the whole Earth manipulation. Bob Camp was

818
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: important to the litigation because his story was the clearest,

819
00:57:49,200 --> 00:57:54,320
Speaker 1: the oldest, the most persistent, and really the most horrible

820
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:57,800
Speaker 1: of all, and he was willing to talk about it.

821
00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 1: He had the courage to stand up and say this

822
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: happened to me. He had a lot of support and

823
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:05,320
Speaker 1: I never met his wife, but man, I have a

824
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,960
Speaker 1: good impression of her because one of the things that

825
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:13,040
Speaker 1: he told me repeatedly was that she was supportive, and

826
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 1: she didn't have to be supportive. You know, that was

827
00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:20,200
Speaker 1: a horrific situation that she found herself in and she's

828
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:27,040
Speaker 1: stuck with that guy. The civil suit against Petter had

829
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:30,720
Speaker 1: ballooned to involve over one and ten patients from Anna

830
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:35,280
Speaker 1: Waki due to Bob Camp's testimony. Had edel Kind and

831
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:39,640
Speaker 1: Randy Blackwood would have basically a spoken confession by Petter

832
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:43,520
Speaker 1: in one case of his abuse. With the civil trial

833
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 1: going on upboards of three years or more, Blackwood and

834
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:50,720
Speaker 1: edel Kind were struggling financially to try and keep the

835
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:54,720
Speaker 1: trial going an attempt to bring some type of justice

836
00:58:55,040 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: to the victims of Lewis Petter and Company. Next time

837
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 1: on the conclusion to Camp Help in Awaking. It gave

838
00:59:09,000 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: him something to start on, move to recuperate, but haven't

839
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 1: lived what I lived through. No one will trade money

840
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:21,640
Speaker 1: for that. I still live with survivors guilt. I don't

841
00:59:21,640 --> 00:59:25,240
Speaker 1: know if that'll ever leave me. It has absolutely changed

842
00:59:25,320 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: my life. It changed my body. I'm hoping that by

843
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 1: doing this podcast that it will bring me some closer.

844
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:38,360
Speaker 1: The most troubling thing to me is that there are

845
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:42,840
Speaker 1: still people who were abusing Patience in any way. He

846
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 1: who are in the health care systems around the site.

847
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:54,840
Speaker 1: He hurts so many people. I felt like the balance

848
00:59:54,960 --> 01:00:04,040
Speaker 1: between good and evil on this planet shifted. M Camp

849
01:00:04,080 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 1: Hell an Awake was created and hosted by Josh Thane,

850
01:00:07,560 --> 01:00:11,560
Speaker 1: with producer Miranda Hawkins and executive producers Alex Williams and

851
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:15,280
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. The soundtrack was written and performed by Josh

852
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:19,520
Speaker 1: Thane and Adrian Barry. Archival footage provided by ws B

853
01:00:19,840 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: and CBS News. Find us on Instagram at Camp Hell Pod.

854
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:28,360
Speaker 1: That's c A M p h E l l p O. D.

855
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:32,160
Speaker 1: Educate yourself about the issue of child abuse and things

856
01:00:32,160 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 1: that you should look for at the Darkness to Light website.

857
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 1: D two well dot org. That's d the number two

858
01:00:39,200 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 1: l dot org camp hell an Awake is a production

859
01:00:43,280 --> 01:00:46,360
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

860
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:49,920
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

861
01:00:50,040 --> 01:01:02,880
Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts.