Paris Hilton supports Utah bill to regulate centers for troubled teens

SALT LAKE CITY – Sitting in front of a panel of Utah lawmakers on Monday, Paris Hilton said she had had the same nightmare for the past 20 years – a nightmare in which she is “kidnapped in the middle of the night by two strangers, searched and locked in a facility. ”

“I wish I could tell you that this scary nightmare is just a dream,” said the celebrity. “But not that.”

Hilton and other “survivors of the troubled teen industry” gave a frightening and sometimes graphic testimony, calling for support for a bill to place more regulations on facilities for troubled teenagers.

Hilton said that when she was 16, two “transporters” woke her up “in the middle of the night with handcuffs. They asked me if I wanted to go the easy way or the hard way. They carried me out of my house while I screamed at the top of my lungs for help from my parents. I was taken to the airport and separated from everything and everyone I knew and loved. ”

She said she had no idea where they were taking her until she landed.

“This was my introduction to the state of Utah,” said Hilton, “but not to the troubled teen industry.”

Hilton went on to describe how Provo Canyon School was her third institution for troubled young people, where she said she experienced “unconstitutional, degrading and terrifying” abuse of employees who forced her to take drugs that made her feel “numb and exhausted,” he noted. to go to the bathroom and shower and threw her into “solitary confinement”.

“That little room covered in scratches and blood stains without a bathroom is one of the most vivid and traumatic memories I have ever experienced in my life,” said Hilton, calling the team “wicked and sadistic and seemed to like her being able to abuse herself. children “.

Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Hilton said the children at Provo Canyon School were “restrained, thrown against the walls, strangled and sexually abused regularly”. She said she could not report him because “all communications with my family were being monitored and censored”.

“And what is disgusting,” said Hilton, “is that the program doesn’t just censor communication with the family, but also with the outside world, so there was no way we could ask for help.”

Provo Canyon School sent a statement to Deseret News in August saying the school was originally opened in 1971, but was sold by its previous owner in 2000.

“Therefore, we cannot comment on operations or the patient’s experience before this time,” said the school’s statement, calling the school “an intensive psychiatric residential treatment center for young people between the ages of 8 and 18 who have special , and often complex, mental health and emotional needs. ”

“We offer innovative and evidence-based therapeutic interventions, academic instruction and life skills training tailored to the needs of each of our students,” continues the statement. “The leadership and staff are highly committed to providing effective treatment, compassionate care and a welcoming environment for the students and families we serve.”

Today, Hilton said Provo Canyon School “excuses their abusive behavior by saying that they now belong to a new company,” Universal Health Services.

“UHS,” said Hilton, “you can’t silence me.”

Although Provo Canyon School was sold to a new owner in 2000, after Hilton’s stay there in the 1990s, she said that through “extensive research, we found that, although this facility was actually sold after of my time, the clinics used and the employees employed have remained and remain the same today. ”

She said a team member “would boast to the other students that it was she who broke Paris Hilton. This woman worked at SUS for 20 years. She was released this October, only after my documentary premiered. “

“I tell my story not to make anyone feel bad for me,” said Hilton. “But to illuminate the reality of what happened then and is still happening now.”

Her testimony in front of the Utah Senate Judiciary, Police and Criminal Justice Committee came after she talked about the abuse she said she suffered at Provo Canyon School in her documentary “This Is Paris” released last year.

Before the documentary was released, Hilton told People magazine that her parents sent her to a series of boarding schools claiming to focus on behavioral and mental development after they got tired of “running away and going to clubs and parties” while the family lived in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.

“I am proof that money does not protect against abuse,” Hilton told Utah lawmakers. “Utah must monitor companies that receive exorbitant amounts of money from desperate people and taxpayers. People are profiting from child abuse. This is not right. This is so wrong. “

Although “Utah is supposed to be built on family values,” Hilton said, the state’s “negligence” of not regulating these facilities “brought us here today.”

The weight of the testimony of Hilton and others left lawmakers perplexed, leaving some skeptical about how this “disgusting” abuse of children persisted for decades inside these facilities for young people without accountability. Without debate, the committee voted unanimously to endorse the bill and forward it to the Senate floor for consideration.

SB127, sponsored by Senator Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, seeks to place more government oversight in Utah’s youth residential treatment centers. This would require treatment centers to document cases of physical restrictions and involuntary confinement and submit monthly reports to the Utah Licensing Office. It would also prohibit chemical sedation and mechanical restrictions, unless authorized.

Hilton said that when she was first admitted to Provo Canyon School, she was given a number.

“I was no longer Paris. I was just number 127, ”she said.

McKell, in his final comments to lawmakers before passing the time for a vote, said his bill would give that number a new meaning.

“Today, we are going to reshape the industry,” he said. “We are going to put protection bars with SB127.”

But some lawmakers said the bill should be stronger.

Senator Derek Kitchen, D-Salt Lake City, thanked Hilton for “shedding light”.

“We will take care of it,” he promised, but questioned whether the SB127 would go far enough. “I don’t know. It looks like we have more work to do.”

“We need to start somewhere,” said Senator Luz Escamilla, from D-Salt Lake City, emotionally. “But it is not enough. We are so late. Of all the things we do to protect children … And this is happening in front of us and we are not doing enough, it is really embarrassing. I’m so sorry.”

“I have so many, so many questions,” said Sen. Daniel Thatcher, of R-West Valley City, talking about a video he watched of a young man “being knocked off his chair” in one of these facilities. “All this physical abuse … how have there never been criminal charges?”

Thatcher came up with ideas for strength, including regulations on transporters bringing teenagers to the facility. He also urged McKell to adopt an immediate effective date, which McKell said he would do.

A Utah man, Jeff Netto, who is now a businessman in Draper, said he was 13 when he was first admitted to a series of youth centers. In one, called Heritage Schools near Provo Canyon School, he said he was tied to a bed several times with a “five-point restraint system”. His first time, he said, was in 24 hours. The next time was for three days. Next time: seven days. The fourth time was, again, seven days. And the last time, he said, was in two days.

“You couldn’t go to the bathroom,” said Netto, his voice tense as he contained his tears, noting that the bed had “plastic sheets”. He said he was sometimes drugged with Thorazine, an antipsychotic used for schizophrenia. He said he was not diagnosed with schizophrenia, but with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Netto said he was also thrown into solitary confinement behind metal doors for days on end for “speaking ill” or fighting with other students. He said the longest time spent in solitary confinement at age 13 was two months.

He said he depended on the team member, but some would “go into your room and beat you up”. And all the time, he said, his parents never knew. He said there are no records of any incidents. He stayed there for 10 months. He said his parents paid $ 60,000 for their time there.

“I’m not here to tell you how to do your job,” said Netto to the committee. “How to regulate this. What to do. But I will tell you as a local Utah boy, it happened. And it happened to hundreds of us. ”

The abuse happened 29 years ago, but Netto has friends from the institutions that still suffer from the time they spent there.

“I survived, but I don’t know anyone who survived where I was,” he said, telling how everyone is now homeless, others are in prison, others are in a madhouse.

“I have nothing to gain by being here. I didn’t want that exposed. I didn’t want to tell anyone about these things, ”he said as he held back his tears, explaining that after Hilton first came to Utah to demand changes, his parents started asking questions.

“It is happening in this state,” he said. “This is not Utah. … This is not how we treat our children. ”

Hilton, in an interview with reporters after the committee’s vote, said she was “thrilled” and “proud”, thanking Utah lawmakers.

“It will really make a big difference in the lives of children,” she said.

McKell said he expects his bill to pass the full Senate, the House of Utah, and be signed by Governor Spencer Cox. He doubted the bill would have the same broad support without Hilton.

“This is something we should have resolved as a state a long time ago,” said McKell, noting that he has a family member who “was badly injured in one of these facilities.”

Hilton said she was “delighted” with all the support for the project, but that her fight is not over.

“This is just the first step,” she said, noting that she is lobbying for regulations to extend across the country. “Obviously, there is more work to be done and I will not stop until the change happens.”

Hilton said he decided to tell his story last year because he “couldn’t sleep at night knowing” that other children were suffering.

“Now that we have the whole world looking at this, there is no way they can escape any more,” she said. “A child should not enter a place and leave with more problems than those he entered.”