A teen residential treatment facility based in Syracuse, Utah, is facing allegations of abuse and neglect.
A teen residential treatment facility based in Syracuse, Utah, is facing allegations of abuse and neglect. Finn Richardson was 15 years old when he was allegedly “kidnapped” from his home in Washington, D.C., and taken to Utah state under the care of Elevations RTC.
Richardson, alongside his attorney Alan Mortensen, claims that he was illegally detained despite his mother’s requests to bring him home. Conditions at the facility made the young teen feel helpless. In a news conference, he said this: “We were forced to sink deeper and deeper into the realization that we were prisoners here by the systematic betrayal of our parents… when we did have activity, it was always for the purpose of reminding us how much of inmates we were.”
The now 18-year-old claims that he was sexually abused by his father as punishment for being gay. After experiencing this horrific trauma, Richardson’s father sent the boy to Elevations “as a form of control.” The lawsuit states that he attempted to report the abuse to one of his counselors at Elevations, Ryan Faust. Faust stated this in his session note: “We do not believe him at Elevation,” and therefore did not file a police report.
The lawsuit claims that Elevations RTC prioritized Richardson’s father’s wishes over the teen’s safety, as he was sending “thousands of dollars a month” to the facility.
When approached, Ryan Faust told Richardson that his only option to escape the treatment facility was to comply with his father’s wishes. “So essentially, doing what my father wanted, which was to be obedient to him, and to not say anything about what he had done to me.”
Elevations RTC has denied any wrongdoing, citing a comprehensive medical evaluation as the reason for Richardson’s “placement” at the facility, by his father who had full legal custody of his son. When questioned about Faust’s failure to report the abuse, the facility’s executive director stated that “the therapist briefly delayed reporting while he reviewed the matter, taking into account the ongoing dispute and social dynamics between the parents.” Faust pled no contest in August, and is still currently a counselor at Elevations.
In March 2022, Finn Richardson was released after a court-appointed psychiatrist found that he was being treated for psychiatric conditions he was not diagnosed with. According to the psychiatrist, any additional time at Elevations would be “detrimental to his psychological, emotional, social, and academic well-being.”
Utah has begun to tighten restrictions on teen residential treatments across the state, because unfortunately, cases similar to Richardson’s are incredibly common.
“I’m here to say to all the survivors that this is not only my case, but for everyone at Elevations,” he said. “... It’s here for all of us.”
Authors: Andy Goldwasser and Alexis Kabat
