Nicole Barrett at Cedar Breaks Academy

This testimony was found in another blog on blogspot. All rights goes to the author Nicole Barrett

When I was 17, I was sent away against my will to a “residential treatment center/behavior modification program”. I was forcefully taken (because I did not comply) by two strangers (“transport team”) and was driven from New Jersey to Utah, only stopping a few times to use the restroom. I feel as if the majority of today’s society is unaware of all of the torture, brainwashing, and outright child abuse that occurs across the nation everyday. Outsiders to these programs are outright blinded and completely unaware of what is truly happening in these “programs”. I feel that if more public awareness existed in regards to this abuse, more lives would be salvaged from this conspiracy and mistreatment. Cedar Breaks Academy was eventually shut down. However, many more venues of torture such as CBA exist and are created under new names each and every single day.

With it being five years after this traumatic incident, I still feel the repercussions to this day as if it had occurred yesterday. The other girls I was held against my will with who I consider my sisters also feel this way. Many of us ran into more problems post CBA than we had when we went in. What CBA considered "problems" are what most people would consider normal teenage behavior such as lying, underage drinking, and promiscuity. If that were so, the majority of my high school class would be sufficient candidates to be essentially "kidnapped" and subjected to this teen torture that continues to happen every second of everyday.

The school closed in 2009.

Sources:

• The original testimoy found on Blogspot
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• Factsheet about the facility (Fornits Wiki)
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• 410. Cedar Breaks Academy (1000 places You don't want to be as a teenager)
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Freedom Village experience

This statement was made on blogspot. All rights goes to the original author who have chosen not to publish it under his own name.

My name is not important but what is important is that I at 15 years old was sent to Freedom Village by my over zealot Christian father because as he put it, I was a "troubled teen". I am now 31 years of age and still remember everything I went through at Freedom Village, USA located in Lakemont, NY. It's like this, take everything you think you know about it and multiple that by 1000 and you still have no idea what it was like being there.

I was talking to my girlfriend this eve and we got on the subject of my past and that is when I told her about my time at the "Village". When I arrived at this secluded place located deep in farm country, ( where you would find any good cult ) I was shell shocked. I did not realize that what I had done as a child warranted coming to this horrible place.

From my very first day I was made aware of what was expected of me and what would happen to me if I did not do as I was told. Mind you the location of this place is in the middle of a field that is extremely large and has/had little "guard" shacks located at either of the entrances to the "Village" and to the back past the lagoon was the train tracks that lead to Watkins Glenn and beyond the tracks was a cliff that dropped into Seneca Lake. I was told to never try and run from the property or I would be sorry. So, me being the kid I was after a few days of the crap they put me through which I will explain in a moment I tried to run. I made it about 50 yards out from the main boys dorm when I was tackled by three of the "older" boys at the dorm. One of them who's name was Kyle who told the other two that he had me and would take me back to the dorm and they could leave. The other two guys left and Kyle took me around the back of the main administration building where he stomped and beat me with a retractable club he had in his jacket. I passed out and when I woke I was in my room back in the dorm. I was unable to get up to do anything, even use the restroom, or eat. No food was brought to me until I was able to go to the mess hall myself. My roommate tried to bring me some food but he was caught and that was that.

My room had no door handle and was one room amongst two floors of other rooms within the building. There were two guys to each room. After I was able to get myself some food I was sent to the "No Level Room" which was a room dedicated to driving you literally insane. It was a white room, with white desks, and chairs. The walls were blank and once in the room the door was locked. We/ I had to sit there for eight hours a day for a week and every other time I was "bad" as they called it with Christian preaching being pumped in through speakers in the wall.

They had other punishments as well which all lasted the length of the day, eight hours. We had to carry cut wood three pieces at a time from one end of the parking lot to the other over and over again. If we dropped a piece from exhaustion the staff would make us stay out an hour extra for each piece of wood dropped without food, water, or rest. My hands and arms would be so bruised and cut from the wood it was even hard to sleep when I finally did get the chance to do it.

Then there was the times in the spring and summer months where they would make us go out into the fields and pick all the dandy lions because pastor Brothers hated looking at them. They had to be picked at their base and had to be at least four inches in length. If we were caught picking smaller flowers or not picking them at all they would make us sit in the no level room for hours on end.

The showers in the building were almost like jail showers except there was no soap on a rope. We were forced to get into the shower fifteen guys at a time and we were only allowed 6 minutes per shower.

There were girls there and we were not allowed to talk, look, listen, know that they existed. Which was messed up because they lived in dorms over the other side of the yard and ate with us in the same mess hall. If we were caught talking or looking at them we would get punished and a few of us myself included who seemed to get the brunt of the punishments were on different occasions forced into the lagoon to wash the sin from our bodies.

The lagoon was where all the excess water from the "Village" drained to. It was also were backed up toilet water was drained from the dorms. On at least twenty occasions I was forced into the water of the lagoon because I was full of sin and sinned aginst God and the "Village".

Six different times I was beaten within inches of my life and then punished and was not allowed to get even remotely close to a phone to call for help.

I was once caught talking to a girl and was beaten for it. I talked to her again in the stable and was beaten and put in the "no level room" for three days. I still talked to her and made the mistake of telling the staff that they could not keep me and this girl apart. I was wrong and in fact they took the girl and locked her away for almost two weeks. When I saw her again she told me they had done terrible things to her while she was locked away.

Her and I were caught one day in the stable as we were supposed to be doing our runs on taking care of the horses. They found us laying next to each other talking in the hay. Her name was Jess. I was grabbed by Kyle the staff member and slammed into the wall. He took Jess by her hair and litterally threw her and she busted her arm. She was crying out and I had no way to help her. Moments later two other guys came in and one of them punched me in the side of the neck and head so many times I did not know where I was. I was lying on my side on the floor in a pile of horse dung while Kyle and the other guy beat and raped Jess right in fron of me.

After that we did not see Jess anymore and I was put in the no level room for almost a month. Jess wrote me a letter that was given to me by one of the other girls at the stable. In the letter Jess told me that she was tired of the bullshit that this place had put her through and did not know what to do. I tried to get to her but was unable to. two days later she killed herself by slashing her wrists and bleeding out in the shower of the girls dorm while all the girls were out on a day trip.

After her suicide we went to a service which we had to do everyday anyways but this service was about her even though they NEVER mentioned her name. The pastor did a sermon on sin and what that can do to you and if you commit suicide you will burn forever in HELL. No one ever mentioned her again and that is when my trouble really started. All the stuff that had happened to me before was childs play. I was beaten and belittled every single day after that all in the name of God. I was forced to endure things that no one should EVER have to go through in the name of God or anything for that matter.

It came to a point when I tried everything I could think of to get out of there and nothing seemed to ever work. Until the day I carved Hail Satan in my leg and almost bled to death in the process. I dragged myself to the paster private residence and bled all over his side walk and front door. Never once did he open the door to talk to me. he yelled through it and called me all sorts of vile names. He called his "people" to come deal with me. They beat my ass one took me into the kitchen of the mess hall. One of the guards smeared rock salt into my fresh razor woulds and told me the pain I felt was nothing compaired to the pain I was about to feel in HELL. After they beat me for a while I was taken to the nurse who was a nice lady I guess, she fixed me up and after a few days I was put on a bus and sent back to my father without even an explanation about anything that happened there.

I have tried to call them and talk about everything they did to me but no one will talk to me and no one has ever returned my calls.

Sources:

• The original statement on Blogspot
• Factsheet of the facility (Fornits Wiki)

Grandparents feedback on Carolina Springs Academy

This testimony was found on Blogspot.com. It has been written by grandparents to a troubled teenager. All rights go to the original authors.

If you child is in this place you need to rescue them immediately. Let me tell you my story. Two weeks ago our precious grandaughter was acting out and we found this place on the internet that showed horses, rolling hills, and happy kids with smiling faces. What a crock.

After we put her in this place (Carolina Springs Academy) we starting researching and found out a lot of bad things. We went to the place (in the daytime) for a tour. There was no one in the front building so we opened the door and went into the library area which on their website shows a whole lot different library than we seen. The floor was actually falling in and we about froze while we were in there (no heat). The lady that met us starting reciting this speech and talked about our granddaughter. Near the end of the speech we realized that she was not talking about her, she did not even know who she was. The girls had just came from lunch so I asked her what they ate. She told me, fried chicken, rice and gravy, green beans and a choice of two desserts. Later I found out that they ate red beans and boiled noodles with no seasoning and they only drink water. We also found out that the three antiquated dinsaur computers in the library are the only ones on the premises. We did pick our granddaughter up after two weeks.

We found out that the kids are not allowed in the library, that the women would get them a book from the library. My granddaughter had to look at the ground with her head turned to the right and if she looked up she lost points. She was not allowed to speak. They got her out of bed at 4am to go and wash up the dishes from the night before which was close to 100 bowls. They do not eat out of plates, only bowls. They loose points if they cry. We brought her some pictures of the family (4) that day and because she cried, they took them away from her. A lot of her discipline came from the older kids. One of them hit her and she could not respond or she would get in trouble. One of them stole some stuff of hers. They are allowed three towels and can only wash them (and her clothes) once per month plus they are damp so they put them in a plastic bag until the next day.

When we picked her up, her three towels were wet and smelly. She said that four girls in the building have staf infections and one girl had a big sore on her mouth that was herpes. In this dorm (like a double wide trailer) was 68 girls with 3 showers and 3 sinks. She said they have three minutes to take a shower and that is all. She said that they never got to leave this building except to go eat. They exercised in this building, watch films in this building (which is supposedly their school work) and everything else in this building. All the windows are boarded up so they cannot look outside. We had to pay around $500 for uniforms. When we picked her up we saw that she got used uniforms that did not even fit. The dress shirt that she got had four names in the collar and each one marked out for the next girl. When we picked her up she was dirty and in only two weeks they had broken her spirit. She said that the equestrian program (horses) was a big joke among the kids. They just wanted money for that program but since you can't talk to your child, you don't know what they are doing.

They read their incoming and outgoing mail and decide if they want it sent/received or not. It's up to them. When she came out of the back door of the dining hall, she looked down at the ground all the way to us because they are not allowed to look up. When she finally saw us she started crying and hugging us. On the way home she told us some horror stories. She also started talking about how if you "secret" something and believe it in your heart and write it down everyday that eventually the universe with align with your heart and it will come true. We still don't know what all that is about but if they had her talking like this in two weeks I wonder what they would have done to her mind on a year or two. She said that a lot of the girls had been their years. She said that she saw her family rep only once per week and that she had to stand in front of her, look to the right and to the ground. The rep would ask her if she is ready for her feedback and she would say yes. The rep would then tell her what she thought about her and tell her what she thought she should do (remember all along looking at the ground and to the right). They strip them of their dignity and self worth. Nothing a child can do is bad enough to deserve this. Everything this school told us is a lie.

One particular sheet in her application that gave them permission to move the child across state lines was not signed. They said that we did not have to sign it. Just send the paperwork without it. They said that that sheet was only for the children that were wards of the state. When our granddaughter was admitted, they wanted that paper signed. We refused. Then in a few days, the same paper was sent to the home to be signed and a return envelope was inside. Again, the paper was not signed. One of the women told her that if she did not straighten up that she would be sent to another program in Jamacia and one of the girls had already been there and showed off a big scar on her leg from that place. All the pictures on the web site are a joke.

I will continue this blog at a later time but I really want you to know that your child is in danger in this place. I am not with an organization or anything like that just a concerned grandparent. Get your child out, now. I know that all boarding schools are not like this---but this one is.

Carolina Springs Academy functioned like many other boarding schools. The school closed around 2009. They tried to open it under a new name but it has not been successful.


Sources:

• Boarding School Facts (Original testimony on blogspot)
• Factsheet about the boarding school (Fornits Wiki)