Twenty-six former residents are suing Vista, a Utah teen treatment program with locations in Sandy and Magna, over abuses they say they experienced.
, Utah’s 24-hour sexual violence crisis and information hotline is available at 1-888-421-1100.
But in these “accountability circles,” M.O. said she was “totally brainwashed” into believing that the sexual and emotional abuse that she says she experienced there in 2018 and 2019 was somehow her fault. “The relationship that each of these claims have with another really paint the complete picture of what was happening at Vista,” argued Michael Young, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, “and why the behavior at Vista wasn’t OK.”
After that confession, the therapist told her on several occasions that he had an assignment for her: He would take her to the mall, and she would have to get three boys to give her their phone numbers. Multiple former residents alleged in the lawsuit that they were “shamed” for their sexuality and gender identity, and were treated in “demeaning” ways as a result.
The lawsuit alleges that one plaintiff, M.M., was forced to participate in a group activity “wherein residents voted on if other residents deserved to live or die.” Vista used a “point system,” the complaint alleges, where in certain phases of the program, “a patient could not talk or make eye contact with anyone.” Instead, they had to use their fingers to tell staff if they needed to use the bathroom, and other needs, the lawsuit states.M.O. arrived at Vista’s Dimple Dell location in Sandy, from out of state, in September 2018. Her dad remembers standing on a porch with one of program’s therapists after dropping his 17-year-old daughter off.
The first time M.O. met the staff member, “I was sitting outside alone on a porch, and I was crying because I felt like nobody there liked me,” M.O. said. That feeling had been reinforced by her own therapist, she said, who told her she was her “least favorite client,” the complaint states.“Vista left me to feel so alone that I was willing to accept love from anyone,” M.O. said.
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