WCBV TV
December 18, 2007
BOSTON -- State officials are investigating complaints that staff at the Judge Rotenberg Education Center gave three people -- including two teens -- unnecessary electric shock treatments after receiving a prank phone call from someone pretending to be from the office of the school's founder.
Initial investigations showed that a former student at the school allegedly called in orders for electric shock treatments on Aug. 26 and the Rotenberg center self-reported the prank call and unnecessary treatments the day after they occurred, Cindy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Early Education and Care, said Monday.
Nancy Alterio, executive director of the state's Disabled Persons Protection Committee, confirmed that her agency is investigating a complaint that an adult at the a residential facility in Stoughton run by the Rotenberg center received unnecessary shock treatments after the phone call.
The complaints have also been referred to the state police and the Norfolk District Attorney's Office, Alterio said.
"The so-called prank call ... was an isolated, unprecedented incident that occurred more than three months ago," the school's senior counsel, Ernest Corrigan, said in a statement released Monday. "We immediately reported it to the appropriate state agencies and the local police."
The state Department of Early Education and Care said it investigated a complaint about two youths -- ages 16 and 19 - who were given unnecessary shock treatments on Aug. 26 after someone claiming to be on the staff of Dr. Matthew Israel -- the psychologist who founded the school -- called the residential facility and ordered the treatments.
"We found that there were breaches of internal control procedures that happened in this particular case," Campbell said. "We take this very seriously."
Two state legislators called on Gov. Deval Patrick to take quick action to put strict regulations in place for the use of shock therapy.
"In a word, this incident is horrifying and it would be immoral for the Legislature and the executive branch not to react strongly and swiftly," said Sen. Brian A. Joyce, who has previously sponsored legislation to ban electric shock therapy.
"This incident has already been addressed and resolved through changes made to JRC's security and operating procedures. Those changes were reported to JRC's state licensing agency as part of their investigation," Corrigan said. "We have modified procedures to assure that an incident of this type cannot occur ever again."
Campbell said the school has submitted a corrective action plan that is now being reviewed by the agency.
Kenneth Mollins, a New York attorney who has filed several lawsuits against the Rotenberg center alleging the mistreatment of children at the Canton-based school, sent a letter Monday to Patrick and various state agencies, calling on the state to investigate the complaints, which were first reported by The Examiner newspaper, of Washington.
"The governor needs to take a look and see what's happening here. There is nobody overseeing the store. If somebody can just call and ask that somebody be shocked, there is a significant problem," Mollins said.
The center, believed to be the only school in the nation that uses skin-shock punishments to stop violent behavior, is no stranger to controversy. It has survived two attempts by the state to close it amid allegations that its unorthodox methods amount to abuse.
Massachusetts was required to pay the center $580,000 after it unsuccessfully sought to close the school following the 1985 death of a 22-year-old student who suffered a seizure while restrained and forced to listen to static noise.
More recently an investigation was ordered to determine if a shock device malfunctioned, causing burns to one student. The center also agreed to stop referring to staff members as psychologists if they have not been licensed with the state.
On Monday, the center defended its use of the intensive treatment methods.
The procedures are applied "only after obtaining prior parental, medical, psychiatric, human rights, peer review and individual approval from a Massachusetts Probate Court," Corrigan said.
