Ted Suhl is a health services executive who was convicted of bribing a state official to increase his Medicaid payments and sentenced to seven years in prison. His sentence was commuted by President Trump. He was the owner of Lord’s Ranch, a faith-based residential child-care facility. At least eight former residents are suing him alleging widespread, systemic physical and sexual abuse at the camp, abuse they claim Suhl was aware of and covered up.
According to the lawsuit, residents informed Suhl that a staff member was raping them and their complaints were ignored or they were retaliated against for complaining. The staff member was not disciplined or fired. Another complaint said that a different staff member raped a girl when she was 14 to 15 years old. When she became pregnant, she was forced into a marriage without parental knowledge or permission, the ceremony performed by a member of staff.
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![The former director of a faith-based juvenile behavioral facility whose seven-year sentence on federal bribery charges was commuted by former President Donald Trump was named in a civil suit filed in Arkansas federal court alleging decades of abuse at the now-defunct facility.
According to a complaint filed Monday in the Eastern District of Arkansas on behalf of eight "John Doe" plaintiffs, sexual and physical abuse of patients by staff members at the Lord's Ranch in Randolph County was covered up for decades by administrators, including its director, Ted Suhl, who went to prison in 2016 after a federal bribery and fraud conviction. The Lord's Ranch closed down after Suhl was convicted. His seven-year prison sentence was commuted in 2019 by Trump at the behest of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins.
Other defendants named in the complaint are Suhl's mother and co-founder of the Lord's Ranch, Shirley Suhl; Emmett A. Presley, the former director of social services; Alonza Jiles, a former senior administrator who is now a member of the Arkansas Board of Corrections; 10 "John Doe" defendants and 19 business entities associated with the Lord's Ranch, including Maxus, Inc. and Trinity Behavioral Health.
All plaintiffs are identified as "John Does" to protect their identities, according to a news release. The plaintiffs are represented by Martin D. Gould of Romanucci & Blandin, LLC in Chicago and Joshua D. Gillispie of the Gillispie Law Firm in North Little Rock.
Attorneys for the defendants were not listed on the court docket.
According to the complaint, juveniles housed at the ranch were regularly subjected to physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of some of the staff members and the abuse was covered up by Suhl and other members of the administration. The eight anonymous plaintiffs, who were sent to the facility in the 1990s and 2000s, accused Presley of sexually assaulting them during the time they were there, handing out rewards for compliance and punishments if they refused.
Reached by phone Tuesday night, Gillispie said more lawsuits are likely coming, including one he said he plans to file in coming weeks on behalf of a group of female plaintiffs he said were victimized by a different staff member. He said the abuse that went on for decades was never reported because of efforts orchestrated by Suhl and others to prevent any word from getting out.
"It was an unsafe environment for children and the place had an element of corruption in its everyday goings on for decades," Gillispie said. "Every one of these men we filed on behalf of reported their abuse directly to the leadership of Lord's Ranch and they intentionally covered it up. They silenced the boys either by blowing it off, acting like they were going to do something and then ignoring it, and often by intimidation or threats that ensured the boys' silence. So it was never reported, no one ever reported it. It was information that stayed sealed on the Lord's Ranch. It was a bubble where nothing got out, they made sure of it."
The complaint says that Suhl, "was expressly aware children were being physically, psychologically, and sexually abused at Lord's Ranch," and that he knew Presley was abusing his patients.
The complaint went on to say that the Suhl family "made an intentional, fully conscious decision to allow Presley to rape and sexually molest male children under their care," alleging that Jiles and other staff members did nothing to assist the children or to prevent their sexual abuse.
"Rather," the complaint said, "they did everything in their power, including the use of threats, intimidation, and physical violence, to silence the many children who spoke up and reported Presley to them over the years," which the plaintiffs said allowed the Suhl family to continue profiting from the center without outside scrutiny. The complaint went on to allege that over a period of decades until the facility was forced to close in 2016, numerous staff members "sexually and physically abused countless minor residents and in some cases other female staff."
The complaint said that in the mid-to-late-1980s, an unnamed social worker on staff repeatedly raped and abused a female resident beginning when she was about 14 or 15 years old and told her that "he was in love with her and wanted to marry her after she turned 16 years old and when her term at the Lord's Ranch was over." Although the resident reported the abuse, the complaint said, she was forced to marry the staff member "without her parents' knowledge, consent, or presence," in a ceremony officiated by Jiles.
Other attempts to report abuse, the complaint said, were met with assurances the complaints would be addressed that went nowhere, indifference, or even more physical or psychological abuse.
The Lord's Ranch was founded in 1976 by Bud and Shirley Suhl, Ted Suhl's parents, and was licensed by the Arkansas Department of Human Services in the late 1980s. Allegations of mistreatment and falsification of records began to circulate as early as 1990 when the Arkansas Child Care Facilities Board voted to revoke the center's license. In February 1995, an escapee from the center, 17-year-old Robert Westerhoff of Cedar Lake, Ind., was killed and another boy injured when a stolen van Westerhoff was driving crashed near Greenville, Mo.
In 2006, Ted Suhl was grilled by state legislators about discipline methods used at the Lord's Ranch, an airplane provided to Huckabee for a trip to a Republican Party event in North Carolina, and why Suhl's business received about $8.5 million in state Medicaid funds in fiscal 2006 - a 60-fold increase from 2000 when its contract with the state was about $140,000 for behavioral health services. In 2014, Suhl was accused of bribing a deputy director of the Arkansas Department of Human Services and in July 2016, he was convicted of bribery and was later sentenced to seven years in federal prison. He was released in 2019 after he received a commutation from Trump.
Plaintiffs in the case are asking for unspecified damages "in an amount which will adequately compensate Plaintiffs for the severe and permanent injuries and damages they sustained due to the Defendants' wrongful conduct, as well as award punitive damages against Defendants in order to punish their horrific misconduct and to deter future misconduct and abuse of children."
This lawsuit against Suhl and the Lord's Ranch was enabled by a state law passed in 2021 that extends the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases, giving those who say they were victimized at Lord's Ranch until January 2024 to file complaints. The law provided for a two-year window for minor victims of sexual abuse who turned 18 prior to the law's passage. Sexual abuse victims who were minors at the time the law went into effect have until they turn 55 years old to seek redress.
"Technically, the window [for Lord's Ranch victims] opened at the end of January 2022 and it will close at the end of January 2024," Gillispie said. "We anticipate there will be multiple lawsuits filed. In fact, we'll be filing another on behalf of some female victims of another perpetrator in coming weeks."](https://goppredator.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-68-1.png?w=732)
![The former director of a faith-based juvenile behavioral facility whose seven-year sentence on federal bribery charges was commuted by former President Donald Trump was named in a civil suit filed in Arkansas federal court alleging decades of abuse at the now-defunct facility.
According to a complaint filed Monday in the Eastern District of Arkansas on behalf of eight "John Doe" plaintiffs, sexual and physical abuse of patients by staff members at the Lord's Ranch in Randolph County was covered up for decades by administrators, including its director, Ted Suhl, who went to prison in 2016 after a federal bribery and fraud conviction. The Lord's Ranch closed down after Suhl was convicted. His seven-year prison sentence was commuted in 2019 by Trump at the behest of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins.
Other defendants named in the complaint are Suhl's mother and co-founder of the Lord's Ranch, Shirley Suhl; Emmett A. Presley, the former director of social services; Alonza Jiles, a former senior administrator who is now a member of the Arkansas Board of Corrections; 10 "John Doe" defendants and 19 business entities associated with the Lord's Ranch, including Maxus, Inc. and Trinity Behavioral Health.
All plaintiffs are identified as "John Does" to protect their identities, according to a news release. The plaintiffs are represented by Martin D. Gould of Romanucci & Blandin, LLC in Chicago and Joshua D. Gillispie of the Gillispie Law Firm in North Little Rock.
Attorneys for the defendants were not listed on the court docket.
According to the complaint, juveniles housed at the ranch were regularly subjected to physical, psychological and sexual abuse at the hands of some of the staff members and the abuse was covered up by Suhl and other members of the administration. The eight anonymous plaintiffs, who were sent to the facility in the 1990s and 2000s, accused Presley of sexually assaulting them during the time they were there, handing out rewards for compliance and punishments if they refused.
Reached by phone Tuesday night, Gillispie said more lawsuits are likely coming, including one he said he plans to file in coming weeks on behalf of a group of female plaintiffs he said were victimized by a different staff member. He said the abuse that went on for decades was never reported because of efforts orchestrated by Suhl and others to prevent any word from getting out.
"It was an unsafe environment for children and the place had an element of corruption in its everyday goings on for decades," Gillispie said. "Every one of these men we filed on behalf of reported their abuse directly to the leadership of Lord's Ranch and they intentionally covered it up. They silenced the boys either by blowing it off, acting like they were going to do something and then ignoring it, and often by intimidation or threats that ensured the boys' silence. So it was never reported, no one ever reported it. It was information that stayed sealed on the Lord's Ranch. It was a bubble where nothing got out, they made sure of it."
The complaint says that Suhl, "was expressly aware children were being physically, psychologically, and sexually abused at Lord's Ranch," and that he knew Presley was abusing his patients.
The complaint went on to say that the Suhl family "made an intentional, fully conscious decision to allow Presley to rape and sexually molest male children under their care," alleging that Jiles and other staff members did nothing to assist the children or to prevent their sexual abuse.
"Rather," the complaint said, "they did everything in their power, including the use of threats, intimidation, and physical violence, to silence the many children who spoke up and reported Presley to them over the years," which the plaintiffs said allowed the Suhl family to continue profiting from the center without outside scrutiny. The complaint went on to allege that over a period of decades until the facility was forced to close in 2016, numerous staff members "sexually and physically abused countless minor residents and in some cases other female staff."
The complaint said that in the mid-to-late-1980s, an unnamed social worker on staff repeatedly raped and abused a female resident beginning when she was about 14 or 15 years old and told her that "he was in love with her and wanted to marry her after she turned 16 years old and when her term at the Lord's Ranch was over." Although the resident reported the abuse, the complaint said, she was forced to marry the staff member "without her parents' knowledge, consent, or presence," in a ceremony officiated by Jiles.
Other attempts to report abuse, the complaint said, were met with assurances the complaints would be addressed that went nowhere, indifference, or even more physical or psychological abuse.
The Lord's Ranch was founded in 1976 by Bud and Shirley Suhl, Ted Suhl's parents, and was licensed by the Arkansas Department of Human Services in the late 1980s. Allegations of mistreatment and falsification of records began to circulate as early as 1990 when the Arkansas Child Care Facilities Board voted to revoke the center's license. In February 1995, an escapee from the center, 17-year-old Robert Westerhoff of Cedar Lake, Ind., was killed and another boy injured when a stolen van Westerhoff was driving crashed near Greenville, Mo.
In 2006, Ted Suhl was grilled by state legislators about discipline methods used at the Lord's Ranch, an airplane provided to Huckabee for a trip to a Republican Party event in North Carolina, and why Suhl's business received about $8.5 million in state Medicaid funds in fiscal 2006 - a 60-fold increase from 2000 when its contract with the state was about $140,000 for behavioral health services. In 2014, Suhl was accused of bribing a deputy director of the Arkansas Department of Human Services and in July 2016, he was convicted of bribery and was later sentenced to seven years in federal prison. He was released in 2019 after he received a commutation from Trump.
Plaintiffs in the case are asking for unspecified damages "in an amount which will adequately compensate Plaintiffs for the severe and permanent injuries and damages they sustained due to the Defendants' wrongful conduct, as well as award punitive damages against Defendants in order to punish their horrific misconduct and to deter future misconduct and abuse of children."
This lawsuit against Suhl and the Lord's Ranch was enabled by a state law passed in 2021 that extends the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases, giving those who say they were victimized at Lord's Ranch until January 2024 to file complaints. The law provided for a two-year window for minor victims of sexual abuse who turned 18 prior to the law's passage. Sexual abuse victims who were minors at the time the law went into effect have until they turn 55 years old to seek redress.
"Technically, the window [for Lord's Ranch victims] opened at the end of January 2022 and it will close at the end of January 2024," Gillispie said. "We anticipate there will be multiple lawsuits filed. In fact, we'll be filing another on behalf of some female victims of another perpetrator in coming weeks."](https://goppredator.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/image-69-1.png?w=1024)