🚨NO WHITE SUPREMACISTS INVOLVED🚨
🚨NO ISLAMIC JIHADISTS INVOLVED🚨
ABC15 Arizona published February 7, 2025: Lawsuit alleges ‘horrific sexual abuse’ at Arizona facility for troubled teens.
Her name is Melissa Catalano, or officially "M.C." in a recently filed lawsuit.
“It has taken a lot of time for me to understand that I didn’t deserve this,” she said. “It’s taken a lot of strength for me to come forward.”
She was 15 years old when she was sent to an all-girl behavioral health facility for troubled teens located in the mountains of Prescott Valley, according to the lawsuit.
ABC15 Arizona published January 13, 2025: ‘I just felt trapped’ Allegations of abuse at Arizona facility for troubled teens.
ABC15’s extensive investigation into Mingus Mountain Academy found the facility has a long history of fines and violations. Over the past two years, state health regulators have cited the facility more than 70 times.
ABC15 News, Arizona local
written by Jennifer Kovaleski
Friday February 7, 2025
PRESCOTT VALLEY, AZ — Her name is Melissa Catalano, or officially "M.C." in a recently filed lawsuit.
“It has taken a lot of time for me to understand that I didn’t deserve this,” she said. “It’s taken a lot of strength for me to come forward.”
She was 15 years old when she was sent to an all-girl behavioral health facility for troubled teens located in the mountains of Prescott Valley, according to the lawsuit.
“They would brag about what they would do to me,” she said.
Catalano is now one of 13 alleged victims who claim they were sexually assaulted or abused by staff at Mingus Mountain Academy, in the 55-page complaint.
“They were supposed to help me there and they didn’t,” she said while holding back tears.
The lawsuit describes what happened to the 13 alleged victims as “unspeakable horrors,” “horrific sexual abuse,” and the facility as “a venue for employee-abusers.”
“It’s hard to even talk about it,” Catalano said. “It’s been a lot of pain that I’ve had to live for a really long time.”
ABC15 has previously reported on Mingus Mountain Academy’s history of fines and violations.
Catalano’s story of alleged abuse
Catalano said she grew up in Arizona’s foster care system and bounced from home to home and family to family.
Her story at Mingus Mountain Academy began in 2017, according to the lawsuit.
“I begged my caseworker not to send me there. And they sent me anyways,” Catalano said.
And what she said happened at the facility forever changed her.
According to the lawsuit, “staff members would be assigned as ‘shadows’ to the residents.” Melissa said her shadow was one of the male employees.
“I was in his shadow most often. He would say I was his favorite,” she said.
And the lawsuit says, “Residents were required to always follow their assigned ‘shadow.'”
“When all the other girls were upstairs. He would take me down to the showers, and he’d make me undress,” she said. “And he’d rape me. And he told me that I deserve it because I was just a foster kid.”
In the lawsuit, Catalano claims she was sexually assaulted by the same staff member “approximately 80 times,” during her one-year stay at Mingus.
“He would tell me I’m worthless, that I’m never going to get out of Mingus,” she said.
And it wasn’t just one staff member. According to the lawsuit, Catalano said on multiple occasions two other staff members would join in.
“And they drove me outside. They took turns molesting me in the snow,” she said.
According to the lawsuit, staff took her “away from cameras, where they would throw her in the snow and forcefully restrain her with their body weight.”
“I kept reporting the abuse over and over,” Catalano said.
Ashley Crowell is one of the attorneys representing her and the other women in the lawsuit who say they were victims.
“The remote nature of the facility itself lends itself to keeping the secrecy of what is happening at Mingus,” Crowell said.
Crowell described the lawsuit involving the 13 alleged female victims as a case of neglect and physical and sexual abuse that has been ongoing and occurring for years.
The lawsuit alleges the sexual assaults or abuse happened at different times from 2011 to 2022.
“The individuals that are sent to Mingus are the most vulnerable of our population, and they are told repeatedly that 'no one will believe you,'” Crowell said.
According to the lawsuit, when Catalano “attempted to report the sexual assaults” to a supervisor she was told to, “‘shut up’ or she would be unable to go home.”
“I want any other girl out there to know. And I for myself, that you are strong. I am a survivor and there are people that do care. There are people that will help,” Catalano said.
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ABC15 News, Arizona local
‘I just felt trapped’. Allegations of abuse at Arizona facility for troubled teens
written by Jennifer Kovaleski
Monday January 13, 2025
PRESCOTT VALLEY, AZ — Nestled in the mountains of Prescott Valley and hidden behind iron gates sits a behavioral health campus known as Mingus Mountain Academy.
“It’s time for people to know what’s going on behind these closed doors,” said Elinore Hilborn, who experienced life at the all-girls facility in 2020.
Elinore was sent to Mingus Mountain at the age of 17.
“I didn’t know if I was going to make it. I was really struggling,” she said.
Mingus Mountain Youth Treatment Center is a facility exclusively for girls, licensed by the Arizona Department of Health Services to house more than 100 young women. It is in the business of helping emotionally troubled teens on their path to recovery.
“She was just a teenager having a really tough time trying to figure out life and how she can regulate herself without self-harm,” said Elinore’s stepmother Suzanne Hilborn.
Like any parent, Suzanne said she did everything she could to help her stepdaughter. They sent her to Mingus Mountain hoping to get help.
“She didn't have any of the things I was promised she would get,” said Suzanne.
The company’s website sells itself as “a true sanctuary for healing,” but Suzanne and her stepdaughter said there was no recovery.
“It makes it worse,” Suzanne said.
“I just did what I had to do to get out of there,” Elinore said.
Facility has history of violations
ABC15’s extensive investigation into Mingus Mountain Academy found the facility has a long history of fines and violations.
Since January 2022, state health regulators say they have conducted 12 surveys at Mingus Mountain Academy and cited the facility 40 times for deficiencies.
“People don’t know what’s happening in these facilities,” Elinore said.
With one of the facility's most significant responsibilities, when patients were restrained, state health regulators cited the facility for not following policies and procedures, resulting in injuries to one patient and an employee being placed on administrative leave.
“In some cases, these staff would take that way too far. Way too far. Like they would, they would get very physical. Like I’m talking elbows into the spine,” described Elinore.
During a health department survey two years ago, regulators also found administrators failed to follow policies when three students said they “had been inappropriately touched” by an employee. The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation and court records show the employee pleaded guilty to assault charges.
“There was some staff that were very inappropriate,” said Elinore.
And here was one of the most critical findings: Just last May, regulators fined Mingus Mountain $4,700 for what they called multiple repeat deficiencies including having a clinical director, “not licensed in Arizona.”
“Not surprising,” Elinore said. “Just really doesn’t seem like they’re in the business of mental health. I think it’s just about the money, ultimately.”
And records show Arizona tax dollars are funding this facility.
Congressional report highlights problems at Mingus
The private company that operates Mingus Mountain Academy is also at the center of a sweeping two-year U.S. Senate investigation.
According to the Senate Committee report, Vivant Behavioral Healthcare at one time operated 13 residential treatment facilities in five states, including Mingus Mountain Academy in Arizona. Vivant Behavioral Healthcare now says it offers support services to four residential treatment facilities including collectively operating Mingus Mountain Youth Treatment Center.
Lawmakers labeled the report, “Warehouses of Neglect: How Taxpayers Are Funding Systemic Abuse in Youth Residential Treatment Facilities.”
The 136-page report highlights abusive conditions in what members of Congress describe as a profit-hungry industry where “children suffer routine harm” including, “sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, unsafe and unsanitary conditions and inadequate provisions of behavioral health treatment.”
“It’s like kids being sentenced to child abuse by the state,” said Suzanne.
The Senate investigation mentions Mingus Mountain specifically by name and details an incident where it said staff failed to properly monitor a child who “was left unsupervised in the dorm for 14 minutes,” prior to a suicide attempt.
“They’re doing something wrong. They need to figure it out or shut it down,” said Elinore.
Elinore and her stepmother said they want the truth at Mingus Mountain exposed.
“These kinds of things can’t just stay in the dark,” said Elinore.
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