In this post we will review the first half of Ben Trane’s testimony. The next post will be the cross examination. We will review the highlights in this post as we did with all the other testimony and post the link to the full testimony below that.
In his testimony, Ben Trane stated that he wanted to be a pediatrician but changed his majors after working at a residential treatment center (WWASP). We know from Ben’s history that he worked at Cross Creek Manor starting at the age of 17. It appears he always wanted to be around children.
Q. What had you been studying?
A. I initially went for pre-med. I wanted to be a doctor, pediatrics, you know, primarily. That’s kind of what I wanted to do from the beginning. But as I started working at the residential treatment center, I fell in lov e actually with that work. And it was right when the internet started coming alive, and I knew that that was going to be a large portion of this type of education and business, so I changed my emphasis to computer science and business administration.
Ben Trane did not have a college degree the entire time he ran Midwest Academy. He didn’t feel it was important to have a degree as long as he had the job he loved. What Ben doesn’t realize is that no amount of Google searches or experience in WWASP programs are substitute for real psychological training or licensing. There is a reason why licensed counselors have to train for a certain amount of hours under someone who has much more experience than them.
Q. And you would have left school in 2002?
A. Correct.
Q. With no degree?
A. No degree. My philosophy was you go to college to get a job. And when a job that I loved presented itself that was the purpose of the education.
Ben testified to his history of working in residential treatment centers. He doesn’t mention it by name but the treatment centers he’s referring to are WWASP facilities at that time. He worked at the Cross Creek programs when he was younger. His position was similar to that of Cheyenne Jerred’s.
A. During college I started –I was part of a startup company that did marketing for troubled teens, placing them in schools across the country. So I had extensive traveling. I mean, I’d been across the country to different schools and programs, treatment centers and such. And through that process –and I also worked at a treatment center –and fell in love with working with troubled teens, seeing them come in with problems and going home healthy and happy. It was something that just attracted me. I loved seeing families come back together and people being happy.
Q. And it was during your academic career that you began working in treatment centers with kids?
A. Before. I started working at a treatment center when I was 17, in 1996, and continued to work there and at marketing. I worked two jobs while I went to college.
Q. When you were working at these other treatment centers, what kinds of positions did you hold?
A. I kind of did all. I mean, so in the business there’s, like, night staff, at night they watch the halls. There’s dorm staff that work with the kids primarily during the day. So primarily that’s what I was at first. I worked with the students. Back then you worked twenty-four hours shifts. So we’d come in at 7:00 in the morning and leave the next 7:00. So I’d arrange my college schedule so I’d take classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then that would allow me to work Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. So I could work full time and still go to school. So I did that for a year –or some years. And then my senior year of college, I had to take classes five days a week, so I went to night staff. So I’d work three or four nights during the week and then go and do school during the day and then do the marketing at night.
Q. How many different treatment centers have you worked at?
A. The one I worked at had two different facilities, so I worked at both facilities.
Q. When you say treatment center, what kind of treatment centers were they?
A. So in, I guess, teen education there’s like regular schools like public high schools and private schools where kids go to school during the day and they go home at night. And then there’s residential schools, kind of like Hogwarts or Oak Hills up in Chicago where kids will go there. It’s purely education but they reside on campus. So after school is done, they can play . It’s kind of like a college dorm setting. Then you start having like either a military school where there’s an academic component and then some type of character building. And then the military is more military. And then that’s where a therapeutic boarding school comes in. So you’ll have the education, but then you’ll have some typical therapeutic program, not so much therapy like what people think in sitting down and talking to a therapist, but, you know, some type of programming and skill building that would go along with the books, you know, the education, education. And then after that, there’s like the behavior modification schools, which is kind of what Dr. Grassian was talking about as the aversive therapy, where it is purely trying to break behavior. Like, if you do something bad, you get a very bad consequence. There’s no education. I mean it’s purely trying –like a wilderness program, where it’s an instant consequence, you know, if you don’t build a fire, you’re cold. If you don’t ma ke a bed, you sleep on the ground. I mean, it’s purely behavioral, trying to change behavior. And then after that, you’ll have a residential treatment center, which instead of the focus being on education, it’s more on the therapy like with a lot of the kids we’ve been kind of talking about, like sitting with a therapist, going over emotional, mental issues, specifically on mental health, then behavior, then academics. So it’s a change in the emphasis on what you are needing and what you are wanting.
Q. And the treatment centers that you would have been working at during school was an actual residential treatment center?
A. Yes. So all the students had a therapist that they met with. There was groups that they attended every day. I mean, it was ther therapeutic first, behavior second, and then education third.
Q. And so your position would have been more like that of Cheyenne Jerred’s?
A. For the last year.
The reason why Ben chose Iowa was because he felt that the Midwest was lacking in programs. Claims to have collected data on it to see there is a gap.
Q. And you said that during that summer of 2002, you were out looking around at various schools or centers?
A. Yes. So through the marketing program and stuff that we were running, I mean there was a huge need –just today there is a huge need for mental health. There is a huge under servicing of kids, especially teenagers with mental health issues. It’s vast. I mean, very few kids are getting the help they need. And so there was a huge hole in the Midwest. So through some of the data that we collected, you know, we thought it would be a very good idea to find
something in the Midwest so parents weren’t having to send their kids out to the west coast or to the east coast.
Q. So were you looking more at a residential treatment facility or were you looking more at a therapeutic boarding school?
A. No. Just with what I prefer, is more just the therapeutic boarding school where you’re having your good education and type of programming, skill building, to help with the kids, especially because I’m not a therapist. I didn’t have a degree in that. I mean, it’s something that I could easily manage with where I was at.
Ben and his partners bought the old county mental home for Midwest Academy.
And right during that time, Dave Gudgel called me back up and said the county home is coming up for sale. You need to come take a look at it. So I came back down, looked at the county home, and it was absolutely perfect for what we wanted to do. And so over the next months, we purchased it and started making arrangements to renovate it, to open it for a school.
Ben talked about the partnership that formed the school. As he testified earlier, he went from being in a staff position similar to Cheyenne’s to starting a new WWASP facility. He started it with Brian Vaifanua who previously ran Paradise Cove – one of the most extreme and abusive WWASP facilities. Ben also testified to having two “silent partners” – one of which most likely was Robert Lichfield. This is not only likely because Midwest Academy was originally opened as a WWASP program and Ben later testifies that a company called Midwest Twister owns the property that the academy sits on. Midwest Twister is a company owned by Robert Lichfield. Ben mentions that they started getting students pretty quickly. We know that the reason for this is because students transferred from other WWASP facilities to start to fill the school. When Casa By The Sea was raided and closed by authorities, many of the students were transferred directly to Midwest Academy which quickly helped fill the school.
Q. Was anyone with you at this time?
A. We had a– I was a minority partner. Brian Vaifanua was the majority partner.
Q. When you say minority and majority partner, referring to what?
A. There was a group of four of us that put it together, two kind of silent partners, and then me and Brian came out to open and run the school.
Q. And how do you spell Brian’s last name for the benefit of the court reporter?
A. V-a-i-f-a-n-u-a, I hope.
Q. That’s close anyway?
A. Close.
Q. And so you two were doing this as a mutual project together?
A. Yeah, I worked with him previously.
Q. And then there were two other silent partners?
A. Yeah.
Q. What was their purpose?
A. Finance and then they had a boarding school up in Montana. So I mean, we were going to siphon a few of their students from them to kind of get the ball rolling, because it’s really hard to start a school without some leadership. So I mean, having some students that have kind of been down the road a little longer, where you can start it and kind of get the ball rolling instead of starting from scratch.
Q. You said that you were the minority partner and Brian –I’m not even going to try to say his last name –was the majority partner. What were your positions or roles going to be in the school?
A. He was the director. I was the assistant director. But anytime you start a new business, I mean you’re kind of every position. I mean, me and Layani did night watch; we did dorm parent; we cooked; we did maintenance. With my background in IT, I built the whole network and computer system for the school. So I mean it was all hands on deck pretty much.
Q. And was that true of Brian as well?
A. Not as much.
Q. Was he more involved in just getting the program and everything up and running?
A. Yeah. And I mean, he’d come hel p with the day-to-day stuff as well.
Q. When did your first students arrive?
A. XXX came late June . So we had one student for a couple weeks. And then we got a few of the transfer students from Montana, and that I think brought us up to close to 10. And then in August we started taking new students.
Q. So XXX was your first student?
A. Yes.
Q. Was she one of these transfers from the Montana school?
A. I can’t remember where XXX came from truthfully.
Q. But she came in late June, and then soon the transfers from the school that the partners owned came in?
A. Yes.
Ben mentions that in 2007, he bought out Brian and the silent partners around the same time. Since Midwest Academy was a privately held company, it’s hard to know whether or not they were truly bought out or not. One important piece of contextual information during this time was that Robert Lichfield was assisting the Mitt Romney presidential campaign as the money man and started getting a lot of heat in the media for WWASP in 2007. It’s unknown if they were trying to remove Midwest Academy’s public ties with WWASP due to the upcoming presidential campaign or because the media had already started to focus on the founder which eventually led to Lichfield having to quit Romney’s campaign.
Q. At some point did Brian step away from Midwest Academy?
A. Yes. In 2007, I mean, his daughter was on American Idol. He was kind of wanting to retire and kind of get –stop working as much anyway. So we parted ways, and he moved back –I can’t remember if it was to Arizona or Nevada or Utah. He moved west and I took control of the company.
Q. Now, how did that work with your silent financial partners?
A. We bought them out.
Q. When you say “we,” who do you mean?
A. Well, we bought them out, and then Brian left, and then I took over his shares.
Q. So prior to 2007, you and Brian had already taken complete ownership of the school?
A. It all happened within just a few months.
Q. So you two buy out the two silent partners, and then he leaves and you buy him out?
A. Yeah. There was some other issues and stuff but, yeah, we mutually parted ways and he signed over all his interest in the company.
Q. At that point did you own the building?
A. No.
The property for Midwest Academy is owned by Midwest Twister – which we established is owned by the founder of WWASP – Robert Lichfield.
Q. Who owned the buildings that Midwest Academy was in?
A. Initially, it was a limited family partnership, and then sometime later it changed to a company called Midwest Twister.
Q. Midwest– Excuse me?
A. Midwest Twister.
Q. Like a tornado?
A. Tornado, yes.
Q. Okay. Were these companies that you were involved in?
A. No.
Q. So you leased the buildings?
A. Correct.
Q. And when I say “you,” was it you personally who leased the buildings, or was it Midwest Academy?
A. Midwest Academy did.
Q. And was it its own separate corporate structure or business structure?
A. Yes, it was an LLC.
Q. And did you continue to lease the buildings up to the time the school closed?
A. Yes. I mean, we were always in talks of wanting to purchase. I mean, there was back and forth. I mean, the ownership of the property kind of went back on some of their agreements. I mean, we were supposed to purchase the land much earlier. And when that time came, they didn’t want to. I mean, so it was a fight back and forth for a number of years until in 2015, we finally nailed it down to purchase the building so we would own the property as well.
Q. So in 2015 you bought the property?
A. On contract. I mean, it wasn’t ours. We still had to make payments. But at the end of those payments, we would own the building.
Q. So it wasn’t as though you had a mortgage?
A. We did have a mortgage every month, yes.
Q. And who did you buy it on contract from?
A. Midwest Twister.
Q. And is that who you paid your mortgage to?
A. Yes.
Q. So they were the landlord and the lender?
A. Yes.
Q. And did that property revert back to them when the school closed?
A. Yes. They evicted us after we couldn’t make payments.
Q. And you couldn’t make payments because the school closed?
A. Correct.
Ben testified that most of the students came from word-of-mouth. Partly true but initially it was due to transfers from other WWASP facilities. WWASP typically rewarded parents one month of free tuition for every person they referred to WWASP. This ensured that word-of-mouth advertisement continued.
Q. And how did students come to be at Midwest Academy?
A. Most of them came word of mouth. Somebody they knew from work or something, you know, they’d heard about us some way, or the internet. And they w ould call our admissions. We had an admissions coordinator that took care of all the admissions. They’d go through a fairly extensive interview and application. And if all that looked, you know, fairly normal and within boundaries, they’d send them a contract and we’d start making arrangements for them to come to the school.
Per Ben’s testimony, Midwest Academy did not take adjudicated children.
Q. Sometimes was placement at Midwest Academy the result of some sort of juvenile court order?
A. We didn’t take adjudicated kids. But a lot of times what would happen is if kids were involved in court services, they would just say, either you find placement or we’ll find placement. So parents would obviously want their kids not in the juvenile system because once –I mean, the percentage of kids being successful once they go into the juvenile system is fairly low, and the alternate is much higher, much better. So they would obviously try to do some type of private instead of the public.
Ben testified that he barely charged parents compared to other schools.
Q. I’m assuming that while this was your calling, you could not run the school based on good intentions alone, could you?
A. As far as financially?
Q. Yes.
A. Yeah.
Q. How did the services you provided — who paid for all of this?
A. It was private. I mean, it’s private pay. We looked — There’s grants and stuff for kids. Once they get in trouble, there’s money. And there’s money for kids that are doing exceptional. There’s nothing for kids in the middle, and there’s really no help for prevention. And so we were always trying to find some type of government funding, some type of grants, something to help parents, because it’s a lot of money. I mean, if you just look at daycare. I mean, times that by twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I mean, to have placement is an expensive venture. And most schools like what we are, are 7 to 14 thousand dollars a month. And for me that was always a bitter pill to swallow, because you’re talking about sacred money. I mean, this is parents’ retirement. It’ s kid’s college savings. And so our philosophy always at the school was, what’s the lowest we can run to survive? So we always kept our tuition down to make it manageable. I mean, I’m sure everybody knows somebody that has a kid that’s struggling. And I don’t know if some of them have died. And I mean, if you’re in a position to help somebody, it’s so hard to say no. I mean, if you have the ability to save a kid’s life, and it’s between, oh, but I need $5,000.00 a month or you save them, I mean, I hated that situation. And so we would always put, I mean, the kids first. I mean, we had to charge enough to survive, and so our tuition ranged anywhere from, like, 3,500 when we started to 4,990 when we ended, but no kids paid that. I mean, average tuition was about 2,700, 2,800 a month.
Q. So you charged significantly less a month than some of these other schools that you said were 7 to 14 thousand?
A. By far.
He testified that they never kicked children out if the family had financial problems.
Q. So you would always try to find a way to help a family who maybe couldn’t even afford the 3,500 to 5,000?
A. Yes. Any kid we never — So if kids came into the school and they ran out of money, we never kicked them out. They could stay until finis hed. Because, like I said, I mean, kicking some kid out to the curb that’s going to go overdose on drugs, that’s a hard thing to sleep at night if you’re doing that.
Ben testified that he was in charge of the academy and would try to get other staff to get involved.
Q. And as far as the, for lack of a better word, corporate structure, obviously as the owner you would have been
at the top of the structure?
A. Yes. I always thought it would be nice to be the one in control, to have that. But anybody who has been in that position, they learn very quickly that that’s a lonely and crappy seat to sit on. And so I mean, I actively tried to actually get some of the staff to become owners so they’d have a more vested interest, but never got the response or whatever we needed to make that happen.
He testified that he was the director for a long time and a micromanager/control freak.
Q. Now, for quite a period of time you were the program director; correct?
A. Correct.
Q. How long were you the program director?
A. From like 2007 to somewhere around 2012. I was a huge control freak and I would micromanage, and all the staff knew I micromanaged a lot. I was always trying to make things better. And they finally kind of sat me down, all of them, and did an intervention with me and said, if you don’t let us do our jobs and give up some of the reins, we’re going to kill you. And so I had to take a long look and started handing over some of that.
Q. Who would have taken over in 2012 as the program director?
A. Shasta Heidbreder and James Paulus.
Shasta Heidbreder – lead Traniac who is campaigning for a new trial for Ben – was a director as well
Q. How long did Shasta stay as director?
A. She always kept her –when she wasn’t the program director, she was the director over students. She’s one of the finest staff I’ve ever seen working with kids. It was probably late 2014.
Q. Who became program director after Shasta?
A. So when we started seeing that we were going take a more residential treatment approach, we split a director. So Ray Forrester, who was a clinician and was a master’s level therapist; and, then Devon Dade was the –they were kind of codirectors. And then we had a clinical director in Mike Davis.
Ben testified on why there were so many rules. He likens it to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Q. So is the purpose of all the rules that we heard the kids testifying to, the walking in a straight line, and not talking without getting permission first. Are all of those part of that mindfulness?
A. Yes. And we had a ton of rules. But the rules– You’ve got to understand what they are. If you guys ever did that
exercise in school where you write the steps of making like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. There might be 20 steps to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The same thing is true of the rules. Even though there were a lot of rules, most of the rules are strictly common sense. I mean, they’re not –it’s not like these are way -outside-the-line rules. I mean, raise your hand when you’re in the classroom. I mean, they are very basic things. But because of the students that we were working with, you had to spell out every single thing, because they would test every single thing, you know. And so we had to kind of get specific on, you know, if a student passed gas, as opposed to a student getting up and passing gas on somebody else. Is that the same thing, or is that just a little bit different? And so kids would push this. S o I mean even though there’s a huge list of these rules, they are very common sense. So I mean, it’s not like you have to remember all these things. Most of it kids did without even thinking. I mean, most of this–and that’s why when these kids testified, you can see that. They knew the rules. I mean, it was very basic in understanding. I mean, even though there was a lot of them, I mean, it was very common sense rules.
In Ben’s opinion, the point of consequences was to lose points and given immediate consequences for actions. This doesn’t touch on the point that with the lack of points, one could find themselves in OSS.
Q. What was the purpose of handing out consequences when those rules were violated?
A. So the base fundamental nature of cognitive behavioral therapy is having consequences immediately. So you don’t go weeks without saying, well, I did that and I didn’t get a consequence for it. As soon as the behavior happens, you can say, this is what happens, this is what the consequence is. Do you like that consequence? Was is positive or negative? Positive; then keep making those decisions. If it’s negative –and that’s where the little forms came in. This is what I did; this is what I’m going to do next time so it doesn’t happen again. And what it does is it starts training your brain to start thinking and getting your subconscious to work for you. So if I’m doing this and it’s not working for me, the next time stop before I do it and think, maybe I want to have a different consequence so I’m going to make a different decision.
Q. And your primary consequence was loss of points; correct?
A. Correct.
Ben testified that the point of OSS was to de-escalate the students. This is in direct contradiction to the other defense witnesses who admitted that sometimes it was used as a punishment. Ben admits there was a 24 hour rule in OSS. During this amusing exchange, Ben’s lawyer quickly asks for a break.
Q. We’ve heard a lot of testimony about the OSS rooms. What was the purpose of the OSS rooms?
A. Like the clinical team said, I mean, it’s changing environment. Changing environment is huge. By taking somebody
out of an aggressive, escalated environment, that naturally de -escalates. So a lot of what we trained the staff to do is de-escalation techniques. The CPI, Crisis Prevention Institute, the trainings that we did, that’s primarily what the training is about, is de-escalation. So when a kid is at a high escalation, how do we de-escalate them? Like Dr. Grassian said, if the person doing it is causing the inflammation, the problem, the escalation, the staff would remove themselves and fin d another staff to come in to try to de-escalate that situation. So removing them from the escalated environment is the first key thing. Getting them in a place where there’s not a lot of stimulus where they can start calming down is the key. And then supporting them with the clinical team, with peer mentoring. Peer mentoring truthfully is one of the best ways to de – escalate kids. Kids have heard it from adults a lot. When a peer is saying something to them, I mean it does carry a little more credence, especially for these newer students. So having these upper level mentors and stuff like that come in and be able to talk, calm them down, reassure them, made all the difference in the world. So I mean, that was the main focus, the first part of OSS. When we first opened, OSS really wasn’t–there were no timetables behind it. The rooms were actually carpeted, really nice, had nice chairs in them. And rooms that you can make with certain sizes, certain dimensions, all the things that are specified by the State. So we redid our rooms that way. And that’s when–there’s a twenty-four hour rule for theirs. So we adopted a twenty-four hour rule. And —
MS. SCHAEFER: Mr. Trane, I’m going to stop you there, because I think the Court thinks this is a good time to take a break.
THE COURT: Well, no. You started out with a question on the purpose of the OSS room, and then we’re talking about DHS investigations. Again, we just need to go more question and answer and stick to that. Maybe it will speed things along a bit. Why don’t we take about ten minutes then, okay?
(A recess was taken at 3:05 p.m.)
Ben admitted that the children would have to sit in structure but claimed it would only be for a few hours and just entailed sitting calmly because children would push limits if they didn’t force structure on them.
Q. Mr. Trane, when we left off before break, we were talking about the OSS rooms and their purpose. We’ve heard a lot of testimony about structure and sitting in structure. What does that mean?
A. So the spirit of the law in it is to sit calmly. Like all of us have been sitting throughout the day, sitting calmly. What we found is that kids would test the boundaries, you know, continually. So they started kind of whittling it down to, I mean, how many ways can you actually just sit? I mean, there’s only so many ways you can sit. And the kids have demonstrated five ways that they were sitting. I mean, legs out like this (indicating), legs straight, Indian style, up against their chest, one other way like this (indicating), like they did. I mean, just sitting calmly is structure, I mean, is the principle behind it. So if you’re just sitting calmly. And if you need to move or whatever, just make it known that you’re –I mean, because kids would move — I mean, it wasn’t like this (indicating) and you couldn’t move your head or anything like that. It was just sitting calmly.
Q. And was part of the purpose of sitting calmly for what could be considered an extended period of time, was that to teach them self -control?
A. Yes. So with skill-building, if somebody is out of control, how do you get self-control? You practice. Just like if you’re out of shape, you work out, and you’re not instantly good overnight. It’s like a muscle that has to be worked, and so it takes a little time to do that. And so for the kids in there, for them to calm down and to be ab e to sit– and realistically, every hour they were up and moving, and every two hours there was breaks. I mean, it wasn’t like sitting — they talk about twenty -four hours, but you’re only really sitting for an hour, two max, if you don’t ask to walk around or get up. I mean, so it’s not these long, long extended periods of time. It’s sitting calmly, you know, getting your breaks, calmly eating your lunch, getting your breaks, you know, calmly taking your shower, you know, prep. I mean, they’d get their beds between 8 and 9 o’clock at night, and at 7 or –between usually around 8 to 8:30 the beds would be taken. I mean, so there was a 12 -hour period there where they were in their beds. And so I mean, it wasn’t like they were sitting like statues (indicating) the whole–I mean, it was every couple hours, you know, every hour they were getting up, walking around.
Q. For a period of up to twenty-four hours; correct?
A. Just because it was, like I said, building muscle. If you can stay calm, you know, for a six-or eight-hour period with breaks and stuff like that, you’re building that muscle to be able to stay calm now for eight hours during school. And so it’s just a building process of building those muscles, helping them gain control and stay in control for periods of time.
Ben testified that the children were getting 1800-2500 calories in OSS and sometimes they would give them different diets but the reason they had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches was because the children loved it.
Q. And did those meals consist primarily of some sort of sandwich and then fruit and some beverage?
A. Yeah. I mean, they were getting between 1800 and 2500 calories a day with the meals.
Q. And would you agree that they were fed different meals than what the other students had outside of OSS?
A. At different times. I mean, that was something that was very fluid. I mean, for a period of time — They loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The kids at the school love PB&Js. I mean, they would eat them ; they would ask for them for instead of the salad bar if they could make it PB&Js. They loved it. So one of the things to help with OSS, because it is a finger food, it made a lot of sense to give them something like that that, you know, high calorie, fairly filling with peanut butter and bread, and then milk and fruit. It was a good meal for OSS because they couldn’t hurt themselves, and it was a fairly healthy meal. But sometimes, you know, in OSS they would get the normal meals. I mean, that wasn’t like –that was something that changed periodically and many times over the fifteen years.
According to Ben, he didn’t usually take children as young as 12 years old and it would take the parents begging and pleading for him to make an exception.
Q. What was the average age of a Midwest Academy student?
A. Fifteen.
Q. And you did take students younger than that, didn’t you?
A. Correct.
Q. As young as 12?
A. Correct.
Q. How often did you do that?
A. Not very often. I mean, they were the exception. And typically we would deny them. I mean, it was –parents would have to beg and plead, or there was no other option usually in that situation
Ben stated that he would let the clinical team decide on whether or not to allow the children to enroll if they had many more issues or were extremely young. This directly contradicts his clinical director’s testimony that stated he had no power to deny a potential student.
Q. You testified earlier about the admissions process. Was it the same for a 12 year old?
A. The process was the same, but if they had more issues, Tara would get more feedback from either the clinical team or myself or other people to see if they were a good fit.
Q. And is that something that would have been done with Bxxxxxx and Dxxx due to their age?
A. Yeah. I don’t remember Dxxx as much, but Bxxxxxx initially was denied because of his age, some of the immaturity issues. And Ms. Tang looked around, couldn’t afford anything else, didn’t have any other options, and pleaded, begged that her son was either going to get taken away from her or he’d come to us. So we gave him like a trial basis, you know, come in and let’s try things out and see if things will work.
Q. And you don’t specifically remember having to approve Dxxx?
A. No.
Q. Did you do that with Bxxxxxx?
A. Yes.
Ben admitted that younger children would not adapt to the program as easily and were usually there for double the time of other students. According to Ben, they would spend 6 months to a year on level 1.
Q. When you would do that, were you prepared or did you — Strike that. Did you prepare the parents of those younger children that the program may initially be more difficult for someone who’s so much younger?
A. Yes. So anytime we have more immaturity issues –and we had a 15 year old that was extremely immature that this same conversation came up with. The more immature students –the program typically took–I mean, at the end it was a ten – month mean average of the stay. And so it would take right around a year to finish
the program. But students in their situation, I would always tell the parents, you’re looking at least eighteen to twenty -four months, because that first six to nine months to a year, they’re just going to struggle on Level 1 and 2. They’re not going to make tremendous progress because of the immaturity. I mean, you’re going to run into these issues where it’s going to be a little while. So we’d have to make accommodations maybe to have them come visit before they earned the privilege or phone calls. So they were made aware that exceptions would be made if that was the case.
Ben testified that he believes one of the 12 year old victims – the one who was sexually abused at the program according to his mother – could have done the program easily if he had only tried.
Q. And we’ve heard a lot of testimony that Bxxxxxx and Dxxx really struggled with the program, didn’t they?
A. Bxxxxxx more than Dxxx. Dxxx could do the program easily. I mean, as has been testified, he knew the rules inside and out. When he wanted to do it, he could easily do it. His came from more willful, like, screw you, I’m not going to do it, is where his problems came in. Bxxxxxx struggled. He was –I mean, if you could compare it to being out of shape, he was as out of shape as you could be. I mean, it took him –to be able to even get moving, it took a while.
Ben stated that the reason he didn’t send the other victim home earlier was because he improved for awhile.
Q. And he did improve for a period of time, didn’t he?
A. Bxxxxxx, especially in my opinion, started doing better. He started learning to communicate. He started using yes ma’am and, you know, manners. He started asking for things. I mean, so from where he started to where he got to was significant improvement. Even though–I mean, if he was underwater, he started out at 1,000 feet below. I mean, even if he got to 500 feet, he’s still below level, but it’s a significant improvement from how deep he was. So there was –I mean, especially in the communication. His communication started improving significantly.
Q. And he did have visits from his mom; correct?
A. Correct.
Ben testified that he would often visit both victims in OSS and spend time with them like the therapists. He stated he would go to OSS every day and spend an hour or two there a day.
Q. Did you see Bxxxxxx and Dxxx in OSS?
A. Yes.
Q. And when you went into OSS, what was your goal?
A. Like the therapist, I would go down. My first question is: Are you okay? Do you need anything? You know, what needs do you have? What do you need? I’m cold. Can we get him a sweater? Or whatever. I mean, just to make sure the basic things were being met. And then I would sit and have a conversation with every one of the kids. What can we do to get you out? Why are you in here and what–you know, what’s causing this? Because what happens, typically, is people that are in escape –they’re trying to escape something, so they run to something. That’s true typically of alcohol and any type of substance as well. You’re trying to stay away from something, so this action takes place. And for those two especially, they were avoiding something, so they would go in there. What are you avoiding? Is there something we can do about it? And, like, with Bxxxxxx we gave him a peer mentor. So no staff could give him consequences. The only person that could give him consequences was XXXX, and just so he could really have one -on-one mentoring and kind of keep him moving which, in my opinion, worked. I mean, like I said, there was vast improvement, especially communication -wise with him and even following the rules to some extent.
Q. So you said you went down to OSS every day. How much time would you spend?
A. I bet I would spend on average at least an hour to an hour a nd a half to two hours every–seven days a week, every day I was at the facility that kids were in OSS.
Ben testified that he didn’t provide counseling to the students – he provided “skill building.” If Cheyenne Jerred having a couple conversations with the victim was seen as “counseling” and resulted in her being fired, how was Ben Trane’s activity any less than counseling?
Q. Did you provide counseling to the boys?
A. Skill building. I mean, all the kids that needed –they all had therapists, so they could go talk to their therapists for therapy needs and stuff like that. But I mean, I spoke at length with most kids in the program.
Ben stated that he had concerns for both victims in OSS but then states that they didn’t like school and both chose to be in there to avoid having to work.
Q. Did you have concerns about the length of time that Bxxxxxx and Dxxx were spending in OSS?
A. Absolutely. I don’t know any sane person that wouldn’t. I mean, OSS was meant to be a short stay and kind of get things moving, which it was for most kids. But like Dr. Grassian was saying with, like, incongruent behavior, where people will start making a choice that is the opposite of what you would exp ect, that became their safe zone, so that’s where they would choose to be instead of being with the family, which doesn’t make sense. I mean, when you’re looking at it, it’s like, that’s not a rational decision. But they got a lot of attention in OSS, both of which craved attention. They got to screw around and do whatever they wanted, which wasn’t the case like in the classroom having to sit and do school, both of which, both of them did not like school. Both of them thought they were very poor at school. And when you’re told you’re not smart, do you really want to be in a situation where you’re being reinforced that you’re not smart every day? And so I mean, there was some things that were driving them there because they were getting positive things in there too, and sometimes even negative attention is attention, which kids seek.
Ben admitted that he did notice the weight loss in the victims but didn’t think it was serious because he felt both boys were overweight. He claimed that most children would often gain 10-30 pounds in their first six months at the academy.
Q. Had you noticed the weight loss of Bxxxxxx and Dxxx?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you become concerned about it?
A. Not with Dxxx. Dxxx was overweight. I mean, losing weight for him was a very healthy thing. And a lot of kids came in– Stats–I mean, most teenagers now, between 60 and 70 percent of teenagers now are overweight or obese. I mean, being overweight is the norm now, not the other. So when kids would come in and they sleep, chronotherapy, they get a well -fed diet, and they exercise for a couple hours every day a good workout, you’re going to see physical improvement. So kids that were overweight would lose weight. Kids that were a little underweight typically were gaining weight. I mean, the boys typically were putting on anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds in the first, you know, three to six months. I mean, the boys were –I mean, they were amazing truthfully. I
mean, they would get in such good shape, and they took a real pride in that. So Dxxx losing a little weight and gaining some muscle wasn’t a concern at all for me.
Q. What about Bxxxxxx?
A. Bxxxxxx started–I mean, Bxxxxxx was overweight too. I mean, I don’t know if those pictures were the best pictures of that, but Bxxxxxx was overweight. I mean, I think he was like 4 foot 8, and I think the average weight for somebody that tall is, like, from 85 to 92 pounds is where he should have been on the weight scale. So I mean, he was a good, at least, 15 to 20 pounds overweight. So losing a little weight I don’t think was unhealthy for him either.
Ben testified that the reason why it took so long for one of the victims to leave is because the victim’s mother was taking so long and Michael Davis needed to write a referral. Essentially he put the blame on everyone else except himself.
Q. At what point did you decide –I know you’d had the conversation with Ms. XXX in November. At what point were you deciding Bxxxxxx really needs something more than we can give him?
A. So in December and the first part of January, there was improvement. And in January he started falling off again. And that’s when he defecated and was urinating in the room and being, you know, far more aggressive with the kids. And that’s when Mike Davis and the clinical team decided, you know, you need t o put an end to that. To get kids placed in another facility is not this process (indicating by snapping fingers) where you snap your fingers and they’re gone. Sometimes to get placement in a psychiatric facility could take three to six months. I mean, this is not something that is a quick process. And that’s why early, we were like you need to have a Plan B ready in case something happens where, you know, we need the pull the trigger or something like that. And so in February, Mike Davis –you have to have a referral. So that letter that you saw him read is part of the paper trail that you have to create to get kids admitted either into a psych ward or a mental institution, hospital stay, or into some type of residential treatment center. So Dr. St. Hill I believe was involved in that. Mike Davis, the nursing staff started putting the paperwork together to get him out, and that was in mid -February, think.
Q. And you had made Ms. XXX aware of that; correct?
A. Yes. And she promised me that she was doing her part to get placement.
Q. Were you ever able to confirm that?
A. Just what she would tell me on the phone.
Ben claimed the victim who got many small infractions to be placed in OSS was loud and belligerent. As Stephen Jansing testified, some staff would hand out consequences so often just to see the student mentally break.
A. Yes. I mean, even though Dxxx–I mean, they were saying all these little consequences. He would get so loud and belligerent that, I mean, it was a huge distraction. It wasn’t this little, minor thing. I mean, he would have meltdowns.
Q. And he would be extremely disruptive?
A. Yes.
Ben testified that the victims told him they were hungry but their bodies were just adjusting to a lower calorie count than they were getting at home. He likens it to his own time in jail where he felt hungry all the time.
Q. Did Bxxxxxx and Dxxx ever complain to you about the amount of food they were getting or not getting?
A. They would say they were hungry, but how the body works is if you’re used to eating a lot an d go down to, like, 2,000 calories initially you’re going to feel hungry, even though you’re really not. I mean, so every kid coming in that was used to eating whenever they wanted, that first thirty days there’s a transition period to where you feel hungry even though you’re really –your body is getting what it needs. When I was in jail for thirty days, that’s what it was. I went through that same process. I mean, I was hungry but I was getting the food I needed. So it takes a while for your body to adjust to the different structure and schedule.
Q. And you had no reason to believe that they weren’t being adequately fed?
A. They had the diet. I mean, they were eating.
Ben’s excuse for why he did body image therapy was because a student was being bullied for being large and he wanted to make her feel better about her body. He testified that he didn’t enjoy doing it and thought it was annoying because he had better things to do. If it were as annoying as he thought it was, one would think he could have had another female staff attend to it. Ben testified that he only conducted this class 3-4 times over a two month period and he never told anyone they had to get undressed. He attempts to sound like it was hard for him to say no to the children and that’s why he did it.
Q. I want to move on to some of the other issues that have been testified to. We’ve heard a lot about this body image exercise that the girls had testified to. What was –what prompted you to do that exercise?
A. Okay, because this has been blown so far out of proportion. What happened was I was walking down the hall, and there was a girl crying, sobbing in the hall. Gxxxx, what’s wrong? And it took her a minute to compose herself. And one of the girls had been fat shaming her, telling her that she was fat, she was ugly; no matter how much weight she lost, she was never going to be pretty; she was never going to be skinny, and statements like that. It was very, very –I mean, the student who did it was very, very vindictive and mean. And this girl came in and she was very overweight, and she’d lost, I think like 50 pounds, and she was very proud of losing weight. She was very proud about, you know, the progress she was making. So to get punched like that verbally crushed her. I mean, I think that would with most girls that age. And so I just asked just some basic questions of what was happening, what was going on. And she just says, I’m never going to look like her. And I was just like, Gxxxx, you’ll never look like her even if you lost “X” amount of weight. And she said, what do you mean? And I’m like, people have different body types. I was like, all boys don’t have the same body types. I mean, some are big and broad and thick; some are super -small and skinny; some are in between. I mean, girls are the same way. Some girls are very stringy and tall; some are short and a little more portly. I mean, there’s different body types. And she’s, like, I don’t understand what you’re saying. So I said, let me go print off body types and I’ll give you some papers, and you can kind of see where you sit. So I don’t know if it was within a few days. I can’t remember what website had a little diagram of different body types, and then I just copied and pasted in people who have that body type from that same website; foods that you could eat, like some diet stuff; an d, especially exercise. These are the exercises that, you know, go along with where you’re at for these body types. I went and handed them to Gxxxx, and that was it. A couple days later, because at the school if somebody gets something, everybody hears about it, you know, a couple other girls are like, hey, could I get those same papers you gave Gxxxx? That’s fine. So I printed off a couple more and gave them to them. The next day or some days after that, some lower levels were, like, can we have those same papers ? That’s fine. So I gave them the papers. And then they said, well, there’s no mirrors on the wing. How are we supposed to look at ourselves? So I thought that’s a fair enough question. So the uniform room has mirrors in it, and it’s really the only place lower levels could go to where it was a safe environment where they could have a mirror. So I let them go up to the mirror–to the uniform room. They went in, looked at themselves real quickly and came out. And then one of th e lower levels said–because I don’t know if you saw pictures of their uniforms. I mean, they’re very modest. They’re big, heavy sweaters, pants and stuff like that. And one of the girls said, is it all right if I take my sweater off? And I’m, like, you’re in a private room. If that’s what you choose to do, so be it. So the next–you know, a couple days later all the girls ’ hands went up. Can I do that same thing? And so that happened three or four times where kids would ask for these papers, and I gave them to them, and then allowed them to go to the uniform room to look in the mirror.
Q. How often did it happen?
A. Like I said, it was three or four times over maybe a two -month period or something like that.
Q. So it wasn’t something that you had ever done before?
A. I’ve never done that before, no.
Q. And the girls went up as a group?
A. Yes.
Q. And the girls went into the uniform room individually?
A. Correct.
Q. The girls went in individually alone?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever go into the room?
A. No.
Q. Any time when you were doing this exercise with these students, were you doing that in any way to meet some sort of gratification on your part?
A. No. I mean, truthfully it was very annoying. I mean, it’s not something I was, like, I am so excited to go do, you know, give these kids these things. Because, I mean, it took about fifteen to twenty minutes to get the group through. I mean, I did have better things to be doing, but when kids are asking specifically and, you know, really asking for something, I mean, if it means a lot to them, fifteen, twenty minute, I can easily fit that in.
Q. And it was purely on a voluntary basis?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever tell them that they had to get naked?
A. No. I don’t know where that came from. That word in all of this has just come up in the courtroom. I had never heard that before.
Q. Did you tell them that they could take off clothing if they chose to?
A. Yes. One of the lower levels just said, can I remove some of the clothing to see? And because you’re in a private room and the door is closed, there’s total privacy, I said yes.
In hindsight, he would not do it again if he could have another chance. He realized it “sounds bad.” Yes it does. Especially when it’s psychologically unfounded and he didn’t tell any of his therapists or clinical staff that he was doing it.
Q. In hindsight, would you continue to do that exercise?
A. No. I mean, it sounds bad. I mean, all this stuff has been –I mean, it sounds horrible. They make it sound horrible when it was just this simple — started out as just giving some kids some information to kind of help them see who they are and maybe to help them get over some of these body issues that they were having.
Q. Because you never had any female staff assist you, did you?
A. No, because it was a common area and people were constantly coming and going.
Q. If you had to do it all over again, would you?
A. No.
Ben testified about the sexual surveys. He claimed he used the data for marriage and family class. He attempted to rationalize why the masturbation and porn questions were added. Ben stated that he was trying to find out the desires behind them. He claimed the surveys were handed to his secretary for processing. He stated that it was weird that the surveys were found where they were. He also testified that both boys and girls were given the surveys. In our time covering this case and in our survivor community, we’ve yet to find a boy from Midwest Academy who stated he took a sexual survey. Ben’s excuses and rationalizations also don’t help shed light on why he would ask questions about what people enjoy during sex, how often they masturbate, what they think about, etc.
Q. We also heard testimony about this sexual survey that was passe d out that the kids were asked to complete. What was the purpose in that survey?
A. So once a year I would teach a marriage and family class in February. So I think I started doing it in 2010 of keeping stats, when kids became sexually active, how many partners and stuff like that. Because part of the conversation we would have in the class with the parents and the kids is, especially for teenagers, when you start engaging in sexual acts, there’s a possibility of getting pregnant. And so when teenagers are bringing kids, it affects the child and it affects the parents, because now all of a sudden they’re grandparents and they have to start taking care of it. So the conversation is about, you know, some of these sexual decisions, even though it’s a personal choice, it affects generations. It affects the top generation and the generation below you, and truthfully it affects two generations below them because of, you know, sometimes parents aren’t good parents as teenagers. So not only does it affect the child, it affects how the children raise their children. And so gathering information on this to kind of see what’s happening, why it’s happening, is there something we can do differently to kind of help educate the kids in a more effective manner to k eep it from happening, was –is the purpose of that survey. In the last two years before that, we added some of the questions about the masturbation because we started seeing some of these younger kids that wereprepubescent getting involved in pornography at 8 to 10. And when you start having prepubescent kids getting involved with pornography, you have to ask the question why? Typically, pornography is a self – stimulation or it’s a stimulation –you know, something that stimulates sexual desire. So kids that are prepubescent that don’t have those desires, why are they getting into that? Why are they, you know–is it just–you know, are they experimenting? Are they curious? So trying to figure out what is causing this different trend, because there’s a lot of studies out there that talk about the earlier kids get into pornography, not only is there sexual deviancy and issues, there’s increased violence. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of issues that start coming that they’re seeing are starting to come from that , so just to get some information to start addressing this change in the teenage dynamic.
Q. And was this the only kind of survey that you would ask students to do?
A. No. There’s–we did anger managements surveys, drug surveys, dynamics of the home, if you come from a divorced home. I mean, we gathered information on everything. And like with this survey, when I get–so I would give it to the staff, the staff would hand them out. It was anonymous. I’d get the information back. I would take it up. My secretary usually would record it, and then I would dispose of it and get rid of it. And the surveys that they found were actually just thrown in the trash a year before, and two days before the raid at the school they showed up in the seminar room. And when the staff were cleaning it, they said, what are these? They brought them to the front and I’m, like, those are the surveys from a year ago that were thrown in the trash. And I just took them up in the office and put them with the rest of the surveys. But we have–I mean, we have stacks of surveys of education: where did kids go to school afterwards; did they complete high school; did they complete college. I mean, we kept data on about every aspect of kids pre, post, and while they were at the school.
Q. And again, those surveys just in general were a way to help you continue to evolve the program to meet student needs?
A. Yeah. It’s purely just data driven to see what are kids dealing with today as opposed– Like, when I first started the surveys, girls were losing their virginity at 15 and a half, boys at 15. The last year it was 12 and a half and 12. So over, you know, a five – or six-year period you’re seeing these huge shifts in the dynamics of teenagers. So I mean, having to adjust the program, the therapy part, I mean, there’s a lot of adjustments that need to be made to start working with those issues that are arising.
Q. I lost my train of thought. I’m sorry. And specifically, with the sexual survey, you wanted that information for this particular class that you taught to parents and children?
A. Yeah. Because it went over STIs, sexually– It used to be STDs –STIs now. It went over a lot of the physical part of relationships, but also the other, like, social part of relationships, the emotional parts of relationships. It was about building, like, a collective of a family and then how do you have appropriate relationships, you know, between partners or husband and wife. So having all that dat a helped show, like, if you’re very promiscuous, the odds of you getting an STI are this, and some of these STIs will affect you, like herpes you’ll have the rest of your life. So if you’re making these high -risk decisions now, it will affect not only you, but your partner and possibly your children.
Q. And all of these surveys were anonymous?
A. Correct.
Q. Did both boys and girls fill them out?
A. Correct.
Ben claimed that he only took girls to Victoria’s Secret twice. Admitted that he was the one who paid.
Q. And on some of those occasions, some of the young ladies that you would take shopping would go into Victoria’s Secret?
A. Well, you’d go to the mall like — kids went to Victoria’s Secret — So in the fifteen years, and the thousands of trips that I’ve done, I think twice did kids go to Victoria’s Secret. And so we were at the mall. They went to the jewelry –Claire’s, or the jewelry store. They went to three or four other different stores looking at stuff. And then they would ask, is there –I mean, could I go get a bra from here instead of one from Target or Walmart or something like that? And we were at the mall and — I mean, at the time I didn’t see a real big difference between buying a bra at Walmart as buying a bra at Victoria’s Secret. So I would say, yes, go get what you need.
Q. And were you assisting them in picking any of that out?
A. No. That was purely on them.
Q. You needed to just keep them within eyesight?
A. Yes.
Q. And then who paid?
A. So some of the home interns had money. But most of them, like, from Levels, basically, 1 to 6, I was the money. So when they were ready to pay, I would go pay and we’d walk out.
Q. So they would just tell you, hey, we’re ready to go, and you would go in and pay?
A. Yes.
Must like body image therapy, Ben admitted that he wishes he hadn’t have done it and that it looked bad.
Q. Again, looking in hindsight, do you see how people could construe that as a bit peculiar?
A. Yes. I mean, doing –buying stuff like that all the time, I mean, I think I grew numb, because I bought tons of bras and tons of other stuff like that at Walmart on a weekly basis. I mean, I was continually buying stuff like that for the school and the students. So I think you kind of get numb to the fact. But, yeah, looking from an outsider looking in, I mean it looks horrible.
Q. And again, if that was a decision that you could make again, would you do it differently?
A. Yeah. I mean, I would definitely arrange for a female to go do those.
Ben testified that he did remember one shopping trip where he took the sexual abuse victim out.
Q. And on any of those shopping trips, was [sexual abuse victim] a part?
A. Yeah. The first time that ever happened was on her birthday. We went down–she wanted sushi, and the only sushi place that’s close is in Quincy. And I had made trips to Sam’s Club, so we just integrated a trip for the school. And I can’t remember who she took, but she picked a friend to go. We went down, ate, went and got the stuff at Sam’s. They needed some stuff at the mall. We went to the mall. And I’m trying to remember if she even went into the store because she was on the phone with her sister, I mean, for a good portion of after lunch.
Ben claimed that became the sexual abuse victim’s family rep because she had already had multiple family reps and no one else wanted her. Instead of kicking her out of the school, he decided to be her family rep.
Q. Why was Callie removed as her family rep?
A. So therapists have client privilege, so there’s information that — like, if a student is in a therapy session, there’s information that cannot be passed on to parents. And so in the process of that —
MS. TIMMINS: Objection. Your Honor, can we approach? (A side-bar conference was held off the record.)
Q. (By Ms. Schaefer) You were saying that Callie–you were discussing why Callie was removed as [sexual abuse victims]’s rep. Was there a specific reason why?
A. So because of that we decided to separate the family rep from any type of counseling, so she could feel comfortable talking to a therapist privately about private matters or whatever just like any other student in the school. But the program aspect of it, she could talk to the family rep about all the program stuff, which would allow the family rep to communicate back with the aunt. So there was no conflict of interest in information being passed to the aunt.
Q. And so you were just trying to avoid issues where–of really putting Callie in the middle of something?
A. Yes, because that’s what was happening. There was –Layani used the word triangulation. There was kind of a pitting between the family rep and the counselor causing friction to the Mom. So to avoid that, we just made a change.
Q. And that would have been at some point around late spring where all this other stuff was going on with [sexual abuse victim]?
A. Correct.
A. So Mike Holker sometime in July was offered another –like a job that he felt was better for his family, and so we started transitioning his caseload. And through the meetings and stuff with the caseworkers, trying to place all his students on other people’s caseload, two students kind of came up that really nobody wanted, Mxxxx and [sexual abuse victim] . And so we were kind of at an impasse on what to do. And instead of, I guess, kicking them out of the school or finding something else out, I mean eventually they got put on my caseload.
Ben also claimed that the girls on his caseload didn’t get the same amount of attention as normal family reps gave their kids since he was so busy with all his other duties.
A. They didn’t get the same attention. Like, I could not give the same attention that other family reps did. So a lot of my, like, work with them was based around my schedule. So it was a little more erratic. It wasn’t as, like, sit down. I mean, it wasn’t as scheduled. I’d come grab them in between, like, seminars or I’d come and grab them in between things, or if we needed to talk I’d take them to Aldi to get milk and try to kill two birds with one stone. So it was different that way. But at first, yes, Bxxxxx and [sexual abuse victim] for probably the first month I would take them two together.
According to Ben, he couldn’t have gone down to the basement of his house with the sexual abuse victim because it was flooded.
Q. Would you have went to the basement with her?
A. No. And truthfully at that time our basement had flooded, and it was a disaster down there. So I mean, it definitely wouldn’t have been a place anyway.
Q. So nobody really went down there?
A. No.
Q. So you are saying you don’t remember her going to the basement?
A. No.
Q. Did you go to the basement?
A. No.
Ben’s laughable excuse for why the sexual abuse victim made the accusations against him is because she was not allowed an off-grounds visit with her sister. He stated that because it was changed to an on-grounds visit, she declined the visit entirely and wanted nothing to do with him. According to Ben, the victim took off multiple days of works at her two jobs, flew across the country, and testified him because of a visit that didn’t happen 2 years earlier.
Q. At some point did you advise [sexual abuse victim] that she would not be going off
site?
A. No. What happened first is once we made arrangements and everybody confirmed they were coming, [sexual abuse victim] started having second thoughts and saying , I don’t want my bio-parents to come and I don’t want my grandpa to come; I only want my sister to come. So we started having a discussion, being like, well they’ve already been invited, you’ve already –I mean, things are already rolling. I mean, it’s not real good now that you cancel. I mean, that doesn’t help the relationship. And so there started to be some friction because of that issue.And after that the aunt told me that she did not want her going off grounds, period. If they wanted to com e on grounds, fine, where there was some support, but no off grounds. And she said that–whether she’d heard or whatever, that her and [sexual abuse victim] were maybe making plans to run away. So there was some concern on putting them in a position to make that easie r for them to do.
Q. And so again, you couldn’t allow [sexual abuse victim] to go off site unless her aunt approved?
A. Yes.
Q. And so after hearing this from the aunt, did you advise [sexual abuse victim] she was not going off site?
A. Yes. I told her that she would not be going off grounds, and she just said, well, then cancel the whole visit. I don’t want them coming at all. And I said, before you make a rash decision like that, take a day or so to think about it. And I don’t know if it was the next day or the day after, she sa id I do not want the visit. So I called and canceled the visit.
Q. Was [sexual abuse victim] pretty angry?
A. [sexual abuse victim]’s anger wasn’t like an explosive anger. It was more of like an inner rage.
Q. So was it clear to you that she was upset?
A. Yeah. She didn’t want to have anything to do with me after that.
Q. Did she appear to be angry at you?
A. Oh, she was very angry at me.
He complained about the sexual abuse victim texting him after she was removed from the school. We know from Joe Lestina’s testimony that he asked her to text Ben to bait him into admitting what he did.
Q. And then after the allegations were made, obviously she was removed from the school?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever have any other contact from her?
A. No. In January I started receiving text messages and voice mails saying I need you to call me right now; I’m having problems; please, you’re the only person that can help me; please talk to me, something like that. And I called the Sheriff’s department and DHS and said, she’s reaching out, would you please do something about it? And then I got text messages, threatening text messages, that if I didn’t call her back she’d do something — I can’t remember what she said –she’d do something to me, or something along those lines. And, again, I made another call.
Q. And at the time did you have any idea that she was working with law enforcement?
A. No.
Ben laughable stated that the FBI and DHS told the children to riot when they were raiding the school. We know from Thomas Pearson and Joe Lestina’s testimonies that agents put the children in the gym and watched them. They later decided to interview the children and spent all night doing so. Ben’s testimony is the first time we heard of any riots in any of the testimony of any former staff or students.
A. Well, we– It was a mess. The kids rioted after this raid. They rioted and tore the school apart. They were told not to listen to the staff. I mean the kids — I mean, it was pandemonium. And the kids weren’t all taken out. So we had to keep staff on for another four or five days afterwards trying to get these kids placed and get them to their homes. I mean, it was an absolute nightmare. And then we had to clean the building up. We had to do all the paperwork. We had to get all the transcripts ready. I mean, it was — You can’t shut down a business like that without– I mean, there’s a whole pile of other stuff, paperwork and stuff that had to be done.
Ben Trane mentioned data and statistics multiple times throughout his testimony in an attempt to reinforce that the sexual surveys were all part of normal information gathering.
Mention 1 –
We started seeing all the data. We’d collect mass amounts of data. I mean, in this business, I mean, you’d collect data in everything , dynamics of family, where they’re from, you know, from the kids and the issues that they’re having. We’d collect massive amounts of data, so we knew kind of where things were coming from and what was going on.
Mention 2 –
So through some of the data that we collected, you know, we thought….
Mention 3-
I mean, we kept data on about every aspect of kids…
Mention 4 –
It’s purely just data driven to see what are kids dealing with today as opposed…
Mention 5 –
But if it was, like, data that we needed….
Mention 6 –
And what we found through just some of the statistics….
Mention 7 –
So I think I started doing it in 2010 of keeping stats, when kids became sexually active, how many partners and stuff like that….
In an amusing attempt at manipulating the jury, Ben Trane mentioned the prosecutor’s expert witness, Dr. Grassian, multiple times as if they are in complete agreement in how Midwest Academy was run.
Mention 1 –
And then after that, there’s like the behavior modification schools, which is kind of what Dr. Grassian was talking about as the aversive therapy, where it is purely trying to break behavior. Like, if you do something bad, you get a very bad consequence. There’s no education. I mean it’s purely trying –like a wilderness program, where it’s an instant consequence, you know, if you don’t build a fire, you’re cold. If you don’t make a bed, you sleep on the ground. I mean, it’s purely behavioral, trying to change behavior.
Mention 2 –
Correct. And what Dr. Grassian was saying with those therapeutic techniques, especially the cognitive behavioral theory, where how you think affects your actions. So if kids think they’re d umb, typically their actions follow suit. And when they start feeling smart, their actions start following that line and they start doing better in school, not only behaviorally but academically.
Mention 3 –
So when a kid is at a high escalation, how do we de -escalate them? Like Dr. Grassian said, if the person doing it is causing the inflammation, the problem, the escalation, the staff would remove themselves and fin d another staff to come in to try to de -escalate that situation. So removing them from the escalated environment is the first key thing.
Mention 4 –
Absolutely. I don’t know any sane person that wouldn’t. I mean, OSS was meant to be a short stay and kind of get things moving, which it was for most kids. But like Dr. Grassian was saying with, like, incongruent behavior, where people will start making a choice that is the opposite of what you would expect, that became their safe zone, so that’s where they would choose to be instead of being with the family, which doesn’t make sense.
Mention 5 –
I mean, we tried everything possible to help accommodate academics. If they choose not to do it, as Dr. Grassian would say, this is the problem, but there’s a behavioral thing that’s causing this problem. So you can’t solve the academic problem until you solve the behavioral problem, and that sometimes takes a while. But once kids typically would get doing better with their behavior, the academic would take care of itself.
Ben Trane Testimony Part 1
