Doing Hard Time in Shaker Heights' blog has more information on the newest Babeu controversy:



And as if the Sheriff wasn't having a bad enough day yesterday (!!!) when all of this blew out, Mitt Romney removed the good Sheriff from his Arizona Election Committee Chairmanship.

In January 1999, " two workers at The DeSisto at Stockbridge school were arraigned in Berkshire Superior Court on a single count each for abuse or neglect of a disabled person resulting in bodily injury. These charges arose after the staff members allegedly did not make sure a patient taking the drug Lithium remained properly hydrated. This resulted in a Lithium overdose and the student's hospitalization.[15] Investigation resulted in the charges being dropped for these two staff members, and the blame affixed to higher ranking staff, and licensed medical personnel...The Cult Awareness Network, Inc. placed the DeSisto School on its list of cults it kept records on.[28][29]"

Well...the DeSisto at Stockbridge School was a private therapeutic boarding school for high school students in Stockbridge, Massachusetts that was set up by a guy named Michael DiSisto for "at risk youth". Evidently, the school had some success, but the founder was a bit of a crackpot. The schools were not accredited in the late 1980s, and they used some controversial methods. From Wikipedia we learn that:

Well, on his campaign web site, Babeu states that he was "Headmaster & Executive Director of DeSisto Private Boarding School from 1999 to 2001."

And it gets better, still! How so you ask?

In 2002, he also stepped forward to say he was a child victim of sexual abuse by a priest and sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.

A native of North Adams, Babeu was also a Berkshire County commissioner and was the headmaster at the former DeSisto School in Stockbridge from 1998 to 2001.

But, on Saturday, the Berkshires native’s conservative image took a beating as he was forced to admit publicly that he is gay and was involved in a relationship with a Mexican immigrant who claims the sheriff threatened to have him deported if he revealed their relationship.

The following is one “cornering” incident found by the OCCS: “DeSisto cornered one student, whose diagnoses included bi-polar disorder, ADHD, and impulse control disorder, for weeks on end. As a result, the student became depressed, his mood-stabilizing medication fell below therapeutic levels, and he began to defecate and urinate on himself. This student was taken from the corner to the hospital for treatment of pneumonia and was then returned from the emergency room to the corner, rather than his bed.”

“Privacy Concerns”

Former DeSisto students also described a punishment called “sheeting.” When students were “sheeted,” they were forced to strip down either naked or to their underwear and wear only a sheet.

“Student Restraint Issues”

According to OCCS reports, students were used to supervise fellow students in an inappropriate and unsafe manner. “The use of students to assist in restraints is an extremely dangerous practice, associated with a high risk of serious injury or death for the student being restrained and high risk of injury for an untrained student administrator,” records state. Using students to restrain other students does not meet state and nationally recognized standards.

According to the OCCS, incident reports at the school revealed:

-A student who had refused to stop leaning against a wall was restrained for several hours.

-A student was kept in a three-person restraint for an entire day.

-A student who had thrown a plate and got into a verbal argument was restrained for more than five hours.

Other Discipline / Human Rights Issues

The OCCS and former students said that food and drink were often withheld as punishment. In many cases, the OCCS found that students were isolated from outside contact. Records show, that students were not given mail or allowed to call and visit with family members.

In documents,

the OCCS wrote: “DeSisto staff monitor all calls for new students, disconnecting calls if the student complains about a DeSisto practice. DeSisto only allows new students one ten-minute phone call a week. If a student complains about a school practice, staff routinely informs parents that their child has fabricated the event is attempting to manipulate the parent into withdrawing the student from school. If a parent complains about a school practice, DeSisto may ‘expel’ the parent, thereby denying contact with their child or may even terminate the student from the program. DeSisto routinely censors and withholds mail from students and restricts family visits. It students frequently do not go home for the holidays or other visits.”