LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Eight former residents of a youth treatment center that was run by an Arkansas man whose bribery conviction wasby former President Donald Trump have filed a lawsuit claiming they were victims of “systematic and widespread” abuse at the now-shuttered facility.
“Men and women who owned, operated, and staffed the facility preyed on and abused the children housed on the remote facility in Warm Springs, Arkansas routinely and systematically,” the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court said. The ranch — later named Trinity Behavioral Health — opened in 1976 and was licensed in 1987 by the state as a residential child care facility.
A federal jury in 2016 found Suhl guilty of charges related to paying up to $20,000 in cash bribes over four years to a state health official in hopes of receiving inside information to benefit his businesses. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released after Trump commuted his sentence to time served.