Sessions’ Successor May Have Turned Blind Eye To Child Abuse (VIDEO)

When Alabama’s junior Senator, Jeff Sessions, was appointed as Attorney General, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley appointed his state’s attorney general, Luther Strange, to fill the seat until a special election in 2018. Strange has announced he will run in that special election. It was only natural for those outside of Alabama to wonder if Strange would be an improvement over Sessions. Granted, Sessions had a lifetime rating of 94 from the American Conservative Union, so the bar isn’t that high to clear.

Well, we may have gotten part of our answer in this week’s edition of Newsweek. A policeman who fought to blow the whistle on a horribly abusive and nominally Christian home for troubled teens says that when he tried to sound the alarm about what was happening, Strange merely kicked the can down the road.

Charles Kennedy, a retired police captain in Pritchard, north of Mobile, started investigating Restoration Youth Academy after hearing troubling reports from several parents of the kids, or “cadets,” who lived there. As grizzled as he was, what he found there knocked him for a loop. Watch him discuss this more here.

The kids with whom he spoke told him about being beaten, kicked, and body-slammed while exercising. One boy, “Robert,” spent several days in solitary confinement before boys’ program director William Knott and school founder John Young, Jr. dragged him to Knott’s bedroom, handed him a pistol, and suggested that he kill himself.

Realizing that he was dealing with “crazy people,” Kennedy took his findings to Mobile County district attorney Ashley Rich. However, Rich declined to prosecute. Kennedy next went to the county child protective services agency, to no avail. The state Department of Human Resources conducted its own investigation, and was actually ready to shut RYA down. However, they opted not to do so. According to Kennedy, DHR reversed course because–wait for it–it didn’t want the logistical nightmare of relocating the kids.

Kennedy next turned to Strange. He spent most of 2012 bombarding Strange and other state officials with letters about the horrifying abuse at this supposedly “Christian” institution. In February 2012, Kennedy says that Strange’s chief investigator, Tim Fuhrman, told him that Strange didn’t think the case was worth pursuing.

According to Kennedy, Fuhrman told him that Strange wasn’t willing to help because most of the victims were from out of state, and was also afraid of backlash from the churches. For those who don’t know, Alabama allows church-affiliated schools to operate without any oversight–a situation Strange denies this account. But what is beyond dispute is that Fuhrman didn’t even bother to talk to the victims.

Young shut RYA down later in 2012. He then moved it to Mobile, closer to his church, Solid Rock Ministries, and reopened it as Saving Youth Foundation. In 2015, an out-of-state mom was so horrified at what she heard from her daughter about the facility that she called the Mobile police. That March, the police raided Saving Youth and shut it down. In January 2017, Young, Knott, and girls’ counselor Aleshia Moffett were convicted of aggravated child abuse and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

But did it have to take this long? Kennedy, who is now the Alabama state coordinator for human rights organization HEAL, doesn’t think so. He was appalled that Strange was appointed to Sessions’ seat, accusing him of “throwing the children under the bus” to further his political career. For his part, Strange claims that he was reluctant to act because Knott claimed Kennedy forced male cadets to strip naked. Other state and local officials say those allegations made them skittish about looking more into RYA and Saving Youth sooner. However, an RYA cadet is on record as stating that Knott actually had them strip–and tried to frame Kennedy for it.

But even if Knott is telling the truth, there is no excuse for the slipshod manner in which Strange and Fuhrman investigated RYA. Unless Strange can explain why Fuhrman didn’t even bother to interview the victims in 2012, he should do Alabama and the nation a favor and end his campaign.

(featured image courtesy Strange’s Facebook)

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.