Six former students have filed a lawsuit against an Iowa Boarding School located in Keokuk. The students have accused the owner, Benjamin Trane and the now-closed Midwest Academy of sexual harassment and various kinds of abuse.
As Yahoo reported, the students claimed that they were kept in isolation boxes and were provided with insufficient medical care and improper living conditions. The lawsuit against the Iowa Boarding School alleged that the expensive therapeutic school for struggling teens failed in their mission to provide appropriate and quality education, medical and therapeutic services. Several parents have joined the students in their fight against the Iowa boarding school.
"My role here is to try to use the law to bring some fairness and justice to this horrible situation," said one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, David Ferleger, of Pennsylvania.
According to ABC News, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Human Services (DHS) investigated Trane and the Iowa Boarding School for a series of offenses. There were reports claiming Trane assaulted a female student. Another claim tells that students were kept in a small and concrete isolation room and they were not fed properly as a punishment. The school officials were also accused of forcing students to listen to 24-hour pumped-in noise. A former student claimed that Trane offered him lunch and books after he was interviewed by the investigators.
"This was an effort by Benjamin Trane to interfere with the FBI and State of Iowa investigation," the lawsuit alleges.
According to Desmoines Register, the Iowa Boarding School was charged with negligent hiring and violations of Iowa's Consumer Fraud Act, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, educational malpractice, battery, assault, false imprisonment, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit names Trane, Midwest Academy, Midwest Academy Treatment, Midwest Twister, and the Midwest Academy Scholarship Fund as the defendants. The plaintiffs include former students, Grace Ferguson Hunt, Roger Palinsky, Kodi Dick, Radhi Choukaier, Elijah Meyer, and a minor identified as Z.D.
Trane nor his lawyer, George Jones, haven't commented publicly on the charges against him and the Iowa Boarding School. He was placed under the state's central child abuse registry after DHS' probe.
