Related
Translate
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- Australian senator tells Parliament of widespread criminal conduct within the Church of Scientology
- World’s oldest ocean-going passenger ship, ministry ship Doulos, to stop sailing
- When a child dies, faith is no defense
- Israel Charges Extremist With Attempted Murder Of Messianic Family
- Scientology’s feet held to the fire in Australia: Struggle between a church and the state
- 1-year prison term for man who participated in cyber attack on Church of Scientology Web sites
- Australian police take up complaints about Scientology
Two Kansans accused of enslaving mentally ill
More articles on this topic: Arlan and Linda KaufmanWICHITA, Kan. – A couple who run a mental health facility forced mentally ill adults to labor on their Kansas farm in the nude and subjected them to other forms of physical abuse, a criminal federal complaint charges.
Arlan Kaufman, 68, and his wife, Linda, 61, were charged with involuntary servitude in the 1999 incident at their farm home, according to the complaint unsealed Wednesday. They remained jailed Wednesday after making an initial appearance before a federal magistrate.
Authorities also said the couple’s mental health facility in Newton failed to provide any treatment to its residents for 15 years.
An attorney for the couple, James Fletcher, who is also Linda Kaufman’s brother, said the couple is not guilty.
“A lot of it (is) made up, a lot of false allegations,” Fletcher said.
According to an affidavit filed by Ryan Filson, an agent with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, authorities found two nude people working in the yard of Arlan Kaufman’s Potwin home on Nov. 8, 1999. Neighbors told Butler County Sheriff’s deputies that the Kaufmans on several occasions brought people to the home to perform carpentry and other manual labor in the nude.
FBI agents removed six adults from the couple’s care on Tuesday, FBI spokesman Jeff Lanza said.
The Kaufmans are charged under a law that makes it illegal to hold or sell another person into “any condition of involuntary servitude,” which is prohibited by the 13th Amendment banning slavery. Violators can be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison.
The affidavit alleged the Kaufmans used a stun gun to shock one resident on his stomach, testicles and feet in front of other residents and punished residents by taking away their clothes. The couple also allegedly took the residents to the farm and directed them to work in the nude.
The affidavit also alleged deputies discovered in 1999 that Arlan Kaufman not only did not pay the residents for the work, but took the Social Security payments of one of the residents.
The Kaufmans have operated the Kaufman Treatment Center, also known as the Kaufman House Residential Group Treatment Center, since 1985. Some 14 residents stayed at the center during that time.
The affidavit said investigators think no doctors or other mental health professionals provided any treatment to the mentally ill residents at the home during the past 15 years.
Rocky Nichols, executive director of Kansas Advocacy and Protective Services, a federally funded protection and advocacy organization, said the agency received a report in May from a mentally disabled woman in her 50s who claimed her guardian and therapist had sexually abused her for more than 20 years.
The agency got an emergency order the same day to suspending the Kaufman’s guardianship authority and removed the woman from the home, Nichols said.
The agency then worked with federal authorities to get the rest of the adults out of the home, Nichols said.
Asked why it took so long for authorities to remove the mentally disabled adults from the home, Nichols said, “It is a good question. We just recently found out about it. As soon as we found out we started taking steps.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Kansas would not comment.
“I understand you’re asking why these charges are being filed now when some of the events cited in the charges occurred in 1999 and 2001,” spokesman Jim Cross said. “I can’t comment on that. But I can tell you that this is an ongoing investigation.”
Documents obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press indicated some state officials knew about problems at the home as early as 2001.
The state’s Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board suspected Arlan Kaufman’s clinical social worker license in an emergency order dated Aug. 9, 2001. The order includes allegations of sexual exploitation by Kaufman of dependent adults who had been paying room and board to the couple for years.
Phyllis Gilmore, executive director of the Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board, said Wednesday she wasn’t sure why it took officials so long to shut down the Kaufman’s home after the 2001 license suspension.
“I know that we worked in conjunction with (the Kansas Social and Rehabilitative Services department), and I know that we worked in conjunction with some federal authorities,” she said.
Gilmore said that after her agency suspended Arlan Kaufman’s license, it lost jurisdiction in the matter.
A message for comment left at the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services offices in Topeka was not returned. There was no answer when SRS Secretary Janet Schalansky was called at home; her spokesman Mike Deines did not return a message left at his home.
The Kansas State Board of Nursing suspended Linda Kaufman’s nursing license on Feb. 18. That emergency order says 30 videotapes recording what the couple called “nude therapy” were seized from Linda Kaufman’s bedroom.
In the sessions, Arlan Kaufman is shown encouraging adults to masturbate before the group and shave each other’s pubic hair, among other acts. The videotapes also depict instances in which he touches the genitals of both male and female patients, the order states.
The emergency order suspending Arlan Kaufman’s license also details similar incidents, based on videos dated to 1998 and 2001.
Wally Ballou, an administrative officer at the Kansas Board of Nursing, said Wednesday he could not discuss the case.
A detention hearing for the Kaufmans was scheduled for Wednesday, to be followed by a preliminary hearing on Nov. 10.
Gordon Smith, pastor of Faith Mennonite Church, which the Kaufmans attend, was at their hearing Wednesday to lend “spiritual support.”
“It has been a shock to everybody,” Smith said.
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
 Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
 Previous entry: ‘You’ve got to believe’ Next entry: Forgiveness for Uganda’s former rebels
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
