Romney campaign out of control (ii): Romney pleads with Utah committee finance co-chair Lichfield to step down

September 6, 2007 in 2008, campaign finance, campaign management, election, election 2008, gaffs and pratfalls, GOP, incompetence, mitt romney, policy, republicans, romney, stupidity, the dark soul of Mitt Romney
Tags: corruption, Justin Hart

Update: race42008.com has the full story.

“Mitt Romney has asked his Utah finance committee co-chair, Robert Lichfield, who is affiliated with a controversial network of schools for troubled teens and has been dogged by allegations of abuse and fraud, to step down,” reports the estimable Radar of RadarOnline.com in a web log post titled Romney cans golden goose over abuse, which we found by way of a bigheaddc.com post that got DIGGed.

Ken Kay, the president of the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs (WWASP), a nonprofit group co-founded by Lichfield that provides consulting services to schools specializing in “behavior modification” for wayward teens, said in an e-mail that Romney has asked Lichfield to stop participating in fundraising activities for the campaign.

Lichfield was named in a June 2007 complaint filed in federal court in Utah by the families of 133 children who have attended schools associated with WWASP, alleging that they were subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. One plaintiff, Chase Wood, claims he was fondled, forced to eat his own vomit, and locked in a dog cage at the Cross Creek Center for Boys, a school that Lichfield founded in the late 1970s.

“Gov. Romney has asked Mr. Lichfield to step down and not be involved in any more fundraising until the lawsuit is resolved in the positive, which we are confident will happen,” Kay said.

Lichfield is Utah’s largest political donor. He organized a fundraiser in February in his hometown of St. George that netted nearly $300,000 for the Romney campaign, and members of the Lichfield family have donated $17,000.

According to a class-action lawsuit filed against him in New York in 2006 for fraud, Lichfield makes $90 million a year through a complicated network of businesses based around behavior modification and has owned or operated a total of 26 schools worldwide, some of which have been closed by local authorities for mistreatment. The lawsuit claims that the Academy at Ivy Ridge, a school that sits on land owned by Lichfield and for which he has provided consulting services, admitted students for five years without any accreditation as an educational institution from the state … more

More on this theme:

• Romney campaign out of control: Romney finance co-chairman Fabian charged in 23 count indictment including charges of money laundering, mail fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice
• Romney dangerously confused on issues of deterrence and defense
• evidence of Romney corruption and incompetence continues to build; GOP needs to start thinking post-Romney

Please also see where Romney toady Justin Hart steadfastly defends Romney’s association with seriously misguided teen-reeducation-camp entreprenuers on the grounds that they are “honourable people”:

Hart answers Oliver on the issue of Romney’s despicable, indefensible treatment of former friend, Craig

Oh, but by all means, make this troubled man–Romney–our president!

yours &c.
dr. gilad dotan, a friend of Romney, only one of the few who are neither corrupt nor mercenary.

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