I urge everyone, particularly former Elan School students, to first scan this entire

document first from beginning to end before you read it. Bold, red and larger characters have
been added to illustrate major points and points of interest.

Wikileaks is not currently accepting submissions. So I am posting this here. (39 pages of
corruption)

An Unauthorized History of the Elan School, excerpts from 1991 book of a

different name whose title will be withheld.

This is the testimony of a former employee of Joseph Ricci (creator of the Elan School)
…………

Joe Ricci moved to Maine in the early 70's to open Elan, a for-profit treatment center for troubled
adolescents that soon made him, and his psychiatrist partner, Dr. Gerald Davidson, very wealthy
men. The two entrepreneurs branched out into real estate, and other interests. In 1979 they
formed another company, Davric Maine, and purchased Scarborough Downs, a harness racetrack
for $1.2 million.
……

"Becoming rich was definitely an obsession that seemed to drive Joe," recalls an early staff
member at Elan. "Money was extremely important to him when he was earning $10,000 a year,
and driving an old Oldsmobile. It represented the power to really be somebody important, who
would be accepted by everyone around him, and that meant a lot."

Elan was not very lucrative at first and most of the money made was put back into the business.
But gradually it started reaping a big profit, attracting troubled teens from wealthy families who
were charged $1,200 a month for treatment.
……..
On January 8, 1974 a fire totally destroyed the former schoolhouse in Sebago
that Elan had rented from a local doctor. Joe and Gerry were in Chicago recruiting potential
residents when the fire erupted in the early hours of a frigid morning. Fire departments from the
surrounding towns of Gorham, Standish, Steep Falls, Sebago Lake, and Baldwin responded to
help put out the blaze. But efforts in getting water to fight the fire were hampered by the 1,500
foot distance to the nearest brook, and by the extreme cold. Temperatures hovered around 12
degrees, and the water would have frozen in the hoses if it had not been kept moving by pumps.
The building's owner, Dr. Barnes told the press that he didn't have much insurance to cover the
building, though Elan itself was "adequately insured." Joe explained to members of the press
that the residents had done extensive remodeling to the building, making substantial
improvements, and it was hard to see all the work that they had done destroyed. The cause of the
fire was not determined.

Sherry [Ricci’s wife], who was pregnant with their first child at the time of the fire, doesn't recall
how much they got for an insurance settlement, but observes that the blaze seemed to be a
turning point for Elan. She says that afterwards the business seemed much more lucrative,
and moved to its present location in Poland Spring. Money started pouring in, and the staff
grew.
Joe and Sherry were millionaires before they celebrated their 30th
birthday.
……..

After Joe and Sherry made their fortune, they began indulging more in leisure activities like
going out to eat, but they had no friends or associates outside the sphere of Elan.
………..

Though they had a large staff, Joe and Sherry both continued to work at Elan, but it was clear that
it was Joe who ran the show. He was in the words of one former employee "a sort of cult figure."
He says "It
was like he was Jim Jones...He was our reality. It's hard to
explain, but Joe had a way of defining things as if his definition
was the only one. We all would have swallowed Cyanide for him
if he'd asked..."
Another former staff member recalls Joe had a knack for creating intimacy with people, for
making them believe they were important to him, and to his projects. They felt that they had a
special relationship with him and he worked at preserving these relationships by being generous.
Occasionally he would financially assist poorer kids who had gone through the program.
They didn't have a college education and weren't trained for any special
work other than working at Elan, so Joe would employ them as staff
therapists and give them more money than they'd ever get in the real
world. Sometimes he'd help them buy a house. But Joe ended up owning these people. They'd
be petrified of upsetting him, destroying their economic security. Then when they didn't act
exactly as he wanted them to act, he'd fire them or discredit them, saying they were back on
drugs. "It was like he was their pimp...pathetic," she recalls
…….

In his marriage Joe began employing some of the 'techniques' he used at Elan. If Sherry
annoyed or angered him, she'd be punished. One punishment was embarrassment
and humiliation in the presence of other staff members. According to one former staffer
he'd 'shoot her down' (an Elan term to describe the taking of authority away from someone who
had misused it) by humiliating her at staff meetings, or he'd purposely exclude her from decision-
making, instructing people not to tell her something. "At first we were led to believe that theirs
was the perfect marriage," a former resident recalls, "...but after a while it was apparent to some
of us that it was far from it."
……

Joe would insist on having female residents at Elan babysit their sons.
….

One time a girl who had babysat at their house returned to Elan, and 'copped to guilt' (Elan term
meaning admitting bad behavior) She confessed that she had taunted their year old baby
pretending he was a kitty. When he wanted to get off her lap she wouldn't let him, and
that she burnt him with her cigarette. Sherry became hysterical but Joe reacted with
disgust directed toward her. He said she'd changed, and there was nothing wrong with the Elan
residents babysitting their children,
Sherry became more and more isolated from Joe, and had no friends, other than her contacts at
Elan. And at Elan Joe was in charge. Everybody took orders from him, even if it meant
violating her rights.

One day she was at home when she heard noise coming from her bedroom. It was a secretary
from Elan going through her drawers and closets. Joe had given her a key to the house, with
instructions to pack him a bag so he could take a trip. Despite objections from her, the secretary
refused to leave until she had done what Joe sent her to do.

Living with Joe became too much, and Sherry

finally suffered a nervous
breakdown for which she was hospitalized in 1976.
……

"That scene at the hospital was vintage Joe..." confirms a former associate. "...Everything was for
show. He'd always need a group around him, and act out a role, usually one that made him look
great to people who didn't do any serious scrutinizing."

After her breakdown Sherry went to therapy sessions three or four times a week, despite Joe's
initial objection. Slowly she began to repair her self-esteem, and became stronger. But she
had negative feelings about Joe, about his practices at Elan that she had
previously been unable to articulate. They were just gut feelings that
something was seriously wrong, and until therapy she hadn't shared her
feelings with anyone. Having an objective third party gave things a different perspective.
She became more aware of being manipulated, and blindly following a pattern of behavior,
simply because it was easier than resisting.

…..

Sherry, becoming stronger from her therapy, realized the marriage was over.
Sherry recalls that after one marriage counseling session they stopped at a Howard Johnsons, and
Joe told her that whether they got a divorce or not, he was going to buy Scarborough Downs, a
harness racetrack and he wanted her to be his partner. She was flabbergasted. They had been to
the racetrack, ten miles south of Portland many times together, but she had no idea he wanted to
own it. It seemed the antithesis of Elan, and she couldn't understand why
he wanted to get involved with running a racetrack. It seemed to her
that they had started out helping people who had addictions. A
racetrack with its bars and gambling created addictive behavior. She
stared at him, and suddenly understood that he needed a lot of cash to buy the track, and stalling
the divorce would help his finances. If that didn't work, having her as his partner, could tie up her
share of a divorce settlement in the purchase price. She had gotten wise to his way of thinking,
after nearly ten years of marriage, and she knew then her survival depended on getting away from
him.
……

After nearly ten years of being married to Joe, having his two children, and working full time at
Elan she gave up the businesses she helped create. She also left most of its profits behind. Joe, on
the other hand still had assets well over $1 million and was operating three businesses with an
excess of 300 employees.

Shortly thereafter Joe called a meeting at the Sheraton Inn in South Portland to discuss both Elan
and Scarborough Downs. Those present were instructed that they were to have absolutely no
contact with his soon to be ex-wife. Anyone found talking to her, or having any
communication whatsoever with her would immediately be fired, he
warned.
…..

Joe falsely told the story's reporter, Peter Dammann, that he grew up in rat and roach
infested squalor, and after being a heroin addict at the age of 12 ended up at Daytop
Village, a very brutal drug rehabilitation program from which he graduated with flying
colors, while still only in his teens. Joe said he later started DARTEC in Connecticut, got
married, and then took a third mortgage out on his house to start Elan.

Describing Elan, Joe declared "We help people find their identity, develop the internal controls
they were lacking. We teach them that life is a game of consequence. We are preparing them for
life, and let's face it, life is not a very nice place to be." The article ended quoting Joe: "I want to
do and try as many things in my life as I can," he asserted, noting, however, that he would never
do anything to compromise the program at Elan because " I've always believed that you should
dance with the one who brung ya."
…..

The entire Elan operation was incredibly lucrative for Joe and his
partner, Gerry Davidson, eventually making them hundreds of
thousands of dollars each year in profit. In the early 70's it had received very
favorable press coverage due in a large part to Davidson's extensive contacts. Descriptions of the
facility when it first began to operate, however, differ dramatically from later accounts.
Particularly interesting are the contradictory statements about Elan which came from Davidson
and Ricci themselves. Whether the program was misrepresented at the outset, or later changed as
it grew is not clear.

For example, just after Elan opened in 1971 Davidson did an interview for U.S. News And World
Report. He said: "Therapeutic communities largely are run by ex-addicts who have become
extremely sanctimonious, like all converted heathen. So the communities frequently are set up in
some ways reminiscent of concentration camps. They shave their patients heads, make them
wear diapers, hang degrading signs on them, things like that. In our therapeutic community we do
not do this. Our approach is to build self-esteem, and regard for others. We treat one another like
responsible human beings. Our residents respond in fashion, and we have no trouble whatever
with people leaving."

Despite these statements, Elan later condoned the use of

degrading signs, sent posses out to bring back runaways who
dared try to leave the program and was accused of seriously
humiliating its residents.
…..

After Elan opened it was not long before people who mattered knew about the new facility in
rural Maine. Davidson networked his contacts in many states for referrals, and also went
to Washington to lobby for insurance coverage being extended to facilities like Elan. He
was a powerful figure with contacts at Harvard, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Troubled teens began to be referred from many states. Juvenile officers and social
workers who didn't know where else to send their wards would pack them off to Elan.
Rich parents at their wits end felt safe listening to Joe talk about what he could do for
their kids. Joe would even offer to fly Elan's private plane to pick up potential residents,
and take them to his place in the woods. People were swayed by Joe's charisma, and liked the
way he talked about Elan which he called "the Rolls Royce of adolescent treatment centers."

…….

On July 22,1975 a team of five investigators --a psychiatrist and four social workers from the
Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS)-- visited Elan for a routine evaluation.
Eleven of its state wards had been placed at Elan. The team stayed for two days, talking with
staffers and residents about the program, traveling the grounds observing groups and the daily
they were aghast
activities. And after spending nearly 48 hours on the premises,
at the flagrant child abuse, and violation of civil rights
they witnessed. They called their superior, Mary Lee Leahy, who headed the Illinois
DCFS, and received authorization to immediately remove the children from Illinois.
The following Monday morning, July 28th, Mary Lee Leahy sent a telegram to then Maine
governor, James Longley, informing him of the serious allegations concerning Elan. She
requested he immediately conduct a full scale investigation into its operation.

That same day, Don Schlosser, a spokesman for the Illinois DCFS told the Associated Press that
the department's evaluation team had "never seen anything quite so bizarre and degrading." He
said "The whole concept of this program seems to be a brain washing technique."

The next day Leahy followed up her telegram to Governor Longley with a letter summarizing
some of the findings of her review team. She was appalled by instances of physical abuse and
forced labor which included spankings, punching one another in a boxing ring, and
senseless ditch digging. She also cited instances of handcuffing a child to a table and the

pouring of a mixture of food and human feces over a child's

head, denial of food and recreation, improper medical care, and a total lack of
privacy. She summarized her letter by writing:

"In short, our Illinois team members found the Elan program abhorrent to all accepted standards
of child care. The treatment model seems predicated on suspension of each child's liberties; they
become automatons who conform to acceptable behavior patterns after they find it
hopeless to resist the will of their 'masters'."
Elan's population at the time was 217 residents, making each director responsible for
approximately 45 children. The evaluation team explained that all five resident
directors
were former drug addicts, all graduates themselves of the Elan
program, and none possessed a college degree or had any prior
experience in child care. One resident director who was in charge of a house where seven
of the Illinois residents lived told the team that he had a history of assaultive behavior toward
females. His third assault resulted in serious injury to the woman, which had been the reason for
his admission to Elan. This staff member said that he still had difficulties relating to women and
that his progress was being monitored by other Elan employees.

The report outlined further staffing structures at Elan, explaining that in addition to the five
resident directors there were 20 coordinators who conducted most of the
therapy groups. All these staff coordinators were also former Elan
residents, and some were recent Elan graduates whose names in fact still appeared on
the present resident population sheet.

The Illinois evaluators explained the various bizarre forms of punishment for residents which
included 'the ring', 'electric sauce,' ditch digging, handcuffs, straight jackets, and spankings.
The ring was modeled after a regular boxing ring. A resident to be disciplined was placed in the
center of a circle formed by other residents, given 16 ounce boxing gloves and head gear. The
resident was then confronted with an opponent chosen by the individual who he had allegedly
victimized, and forced to put in a round which usually lasted a minute. If the resident
being punished was not beaten he or she had to fight subsequent
opponents until defeated.
Illinois investigators stated that six residents from Illinois told them about the ring, reporting
that those placed in the ring to defeat the person being punished were mostly large well built
boys and that boys were used to defeat both male and female residents. Two residents
independently told of a young female being forced into the ring. When she resisted she was held
down and an attempt was made to tie boxing gloves on her hands. When that was not
accomplished, she was subjected to the ring bare fisted and without heard gear. Of
particular concern to the investigators was the incident of one of their DCFS residents, who had
been determined to be pregnant, but subsequent to her physical exam
was put in the ring and defeated.
Some of the reasons for this form of punishment included refraining from discussing problems in
therapy, or refusing to cheer on another's fight in the ring.

Electric sauce was the name given to a mixture of garbage, ketchup, mustard, cigarette butts etc.
that was poured over residents' heads as another form of punishment. The report stated that some
residents even indicated that human feces was sometimes included in this 'sauce.'

Digging ditches was apparently still another form of punishment. Many residents reported that a
day of digging ditches under surveillance was a common practice. After each ditch was dug the
resident being punished would be required to fill it back up again, and repeat the process for the
duration of the punishment.
The use of handcuffs was also alleged. One resident explained that he had been cuffed for
about five hours for striking someone. had been ordered by a staff member to handcuff a
girl to a table by placing the cuffs around her ankles.
Investigators reported that they had personally witnessed a resident pleading not to be placed in a
straight jacket again. Another resident recalled that he had been awakened at 2:30am and ordered
to place one of his peers in a straight jacket.

The report contended that both Elan staff members and residents gave spankings to those guilty
of 'acting like babies.' And one of the resident directors who had previously identified himself as
having a history of serious assaults on women admitted to this team that he had also spanked a
female resident from Illinois.

Elan functioned as a separate society with its own dictionary of terms. A 'general meeting' was
called after a resident failed to comply with program requirements. At this meeting
everyone in the house gathered together and verbally assaulted the person. If this resident
did not voluntarily submit to this verbal assault from peers, he or she was then forcibly
dragged before the group. At these meetings it was represented that 'anything
goes,' and the use of obscene, degrading and vile language was condoned.
Sometimes the posse mentality of these meetings reached a crescendo and the residents charged
at the subject, striking, kicking and throwing things. One resident reported that he once had
trouble pushing his way into the group to get close enough to personally attack the subject, and
was afraid that he might be disciplined for not enthusiastically participating
in this disciplining procedure.
The Illinois investigators wrote that they had heard about an adolescent who had been tied to a
pole and gagged with a rag. They also wrote about a pitcher of chocolate milk which had been
dumped over another boy's head. Other forms of punishment included the scrubbing of a floor
with a tooth brush, and the cleaning of toilet bowls with bare hands.

Though the poor qualifications of Elan personnel and abusive methods of punishment were grave
concern to the team, they did not confine their outrage to just those areas. In their report they
stated that they were also appalled by violations of privacy at Elan.
"Expeditors" were constantly at work keeping a written record of negative behavior, acting "like
a secret police force." All
incoming mail for residents no matter whom it
was from was intercepted, opened and read by the Elan staff. If it was
determined inappropriate for the resident to read it was confiscated or the objectionable material
deleted. All outgoing mail to parents and others was censored, and
new residents could not write letters, make or receive phone calls.
These activities were considered privileges to be earned through
elevation on the hierarchy. One resident reported that he had letter writing privileges,
but chose not to write letters because he did not want them read by staff members. Those
who were permitted to make phone calls also had their calls
monitored by a staff member, and the evaluation team reported that
even their own phone conversations at Elan had been monitored
by a staffer who informed them afterwards that he had listened to
their calls.
During their two day stay at Elan, members of the evaluation team stated that they observed
group therapy sessions where personal insults, and attacks on individual
family members were common. Verbal attacks from the staffers to the
residents overheard included: "You mother fucking whore"... "You cock
sucking, titty sucking, mother fucking asshole"..."You mother fucking
dog"... Each tirade lasted ten minutes or more.
Team members further reported that Elan's resident nurse told them that all new residents were
subjected to a strip search. They stated that Elan's nurse told them that she got vaginal smears and
did rectal exams on new female residents and secured semen specimens from new male residents
to test for any venereal disease. She reportedly stated that the semen specimen was obtained from
each new male resident by giving him a small cup and directing him to a private room to
masturbate and return with the sample. The evaluation team stated that they subsequently
contacted physicians in charge of both public and private facilities to determine if masturbation
was an acceptable procedure for obtaining a semen specimen. Each physician contacted was
shocked by such a procedure and stated it was not medically acceptable. During the team's
discussion with Elan's registered nurse they were also distraught to find that she dispensed many
medications. Discussing the specific drugs, they found about a dozen were controlled
pharmaceuticals that required a prescription. The nurse also reportedly told them that girls
leaving Elan were given birth control pills upon request, without having a physical exam
performed prior to their getting them.

Deprivation of food as punishment, lack of adequate

recreation facilities, trained kitchen personnel, and
clothing for residents were other concerns expressed in
this report. The evaluators told of one of their wards who had his shoes taken away. He
said that during his six weeks at Elan, he had made repeated requests for shoes, but the requests
were denied because he was told that if he had shoes he might
run away. When this child was brought back to Chicago, it was found that he had blood
poisoning in one foot.

The evaluation team's report concluded from its investigation of Elan that there was absolutely
no justification for the outrageous treatment of adolescents which they witnessed, writing
"Elan will argue that the evaluation team has taken occurrences out of context, and that contrary
to the findings of the evaluation team , the incidents were in the best interests of the child.
Regardless of the reasons given by Elan excusing or justifying the incidents each and every
incident reported is directly contrary to Illinois law and regulations, and under no circumstances
can the agency permit any of its wards to reside at an institution where such events occur. In
addition these practices violate the child's civil rights and liberties and
deprive him of his self respect and dignity. Under no circumstances can the
Department of Children and Family Services permit any child to be
subjected to Elan."
Joe Ricci, the then 29 year old millionaire founder and executive therapeutic director of Elan was
livid when Illinois pulled its wards, but he soon launched his own attack. A source who
was close to Joe at the time said he was told by his lawyers to downplay
the controversy, try to keep a cap on it. But Joe decided to be on the
offensive and came out fighting, threatening law suits for defamation
of character and breach of contracts.
An embarrassed state government in Maine immediately launched an inquiry into Illinois
allegations in an attempt to explain how such things could be allowed to happen right under its
nose. It sent a six member evaluation team of its own to Elan on July 31st and August 1st, and
Governor Longley and David Smith, the commissioner for Human Services, made a much
heralded trip to Poland Spring.

When Longley received the official 70 page report from the Illinois evaluation team on August
5th, he had Maine's Department of Human Services issue an interim report on its independent
findings. Maine stated that Illinois's findings were unfounded. It reported that its investigation
revealed: "No evidence of unjustifiable denials of civil liberties or of mistreatment brutality or
anything that could be considered abhorrent to all acceptable standards of child care." This report
asserted that: "The residents (of Elan) interviewed usually expressed new found feelings of
dignity, self-assurance, and mental well being, and they attributed these feelings to the treatment
they received at Elan."

Responding to the charges of the ring, spankings and physical abuse Maine wrote : "One of the
cardinal rules of the Elan program is that the use of physical violence, by either a staff member,
or a resident is strictly outlawed." Yet it defended the use of the ring stating: " Only acts of
repeated physical violence (on the part of residents ) result in a person being placed in the
ring where rounds last about one minute and the participants are evenly matched. "

Responding to the Illinois charges of Elan spanking its residents the Maine evaluators again
chose to justify this behavior, though it was in direct contradiction to Elan 's stated policy of no
corporal punishment.

Regarding spankings they wrote: "It is recognized and accepted by residents as an "ultimate"
technique for dealing with rare and unusual behavior," adding: "There was, however, an isolated
incident which was recognized as excessive by other staff members and which therefore
resulted in the temporary suspension of the staff member responsible."

The Maine team (comprised of four lawyers, a Ph.D., and a psychiatrist) also stated that it found
"no evidence to support the charge that residents were forced to dig ditches" writing: "The work
assignments performed by the residents are beneficial and integral part of the Elan treatment
program and that such work assignments contribute significantly in the development of
responsibility, self- respect, and pride."
Responding to Illinois's other charges regarding lack of privacy and violation of civil rights the
Maine contingent wrote in part: "We found that the degree of privacy afforded Elan residents is
acceptable within the context of the entire program."
Finally, answering the allegations of screamed obscenities they wrote: "Persons experienced in
dealing with trouble adolescents will readily agree that obscene words are an everyday
occurrence in the adolescent world, and although we do not condone this type of vocabulary, we
feel the use of such words would in no way support a charge of mistreatment or of bizarre or
degrading treatment."

………..

"Our primary purpose then," Devine now recalls "..was just to get our kids out of that place, and

He notes that some of

prevent them from ever going back."

those sent to Elan were not even delinquent,

but merely orphans. Now, even fifteen years later, he
remembers the incident with intensity and is surprised that Elan is still
operating.
The publicity generated from Illinois's claims of abuse, caused other states to send their own
investigators to determine how their wards were being treated. During the same period that
Maine's evaluation team was assessing Elan, so were three evaluators form Connecticut, four
from Rhode Island, and four from Massachusetts.

…….

Ken Zaretsky, now a 34 year old entrepreneur living in Chicago, was a teenage staff member at
Elan during these state investigations. Looking back on that time frame he reveals that after

the Illinois investigators arrived , everything was covered up .

"We lied through our teeth, " he says, explaining that he and other staff members did a good job

What we
of softening the program for the subsequent investigations. "

couldn't cover up we admitted to as

the exception rather than the rule. The
residents were thrilled when the place was overrun with investigators, because they had a real fun
time. We laid off everybody then. But everything the Illinois investigators said
was true, every last word of it", he declares.
Ken would be considered one of Elan's success stories. He was in the program in 1971 from the
time he was 15, graduated, and became a senior staff member, spending a total of five years at
Elan. He believed in Elan and Joe Ricci whom he says "We all thought was God." But nearly
fifteen years later he reports his scars from Elan still run deep, and that the aftershocks of all the
humiliation are still felt in his relationship with himself and others. And he regrets the abuse he
perpetrated on the residents when he became a staff member. " But I was brainwashed, "
he says in his own defense. "I might have abused someone else, but I was a
victim too. It can be compared to a mother in the concentration camps
pushing the buttons on her children in the ovens. How can you fault her for
that?"
Ken came from Illinois, though he was not a ward of the state. He was one of Elan's private
Marvin Schwartz. "Marvin was
referrals from a doctor by the name of
known as Mr. Adolescent Illinois, " recalls Ken indicating
that he was probably single handedly responsible for
building Elan with his private referrals.
"I think he and Gerry Davidson went back a long way. I didn't realize it at
the time, but found out later when I worked at Elan that he

would get a kickback for every kid he sent there and

that's clearly why he did it", says Ken
Ken says that he and many others who were placed at Elan in the early and mid 70's were not the
hard core deviant kids people imagined. He says he didn't use heroin or any hard drugs. " I was a
normal kid, given the time in our country's history that I was being a kid in," he observes..

……

Three months after the multi- state investigation of Elan, Maine's Department of Human Services
issued what it called its Final Report Concerning the Alleged Mistreatment of Juveniles by Elan
Corporation. The six pages, prepared by Maine's Office of Alcoholism and Drug Prevention
( ODAP) , summarized the findings of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts regarding
their investigations of Elan. The ODAP summaries were strikingly similar to the interim report
issued earlier by Maine which had been reviewed by the other states. It read in part:
"Based on a reasonable interpretation of the results of investigations by state officials form
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Rhode Island the Maine Department of Human Services
has concluded that there was insufficient evidence to justify the Illinois charges... As a result of
these investigations, the four states have reviewed their policies regarding placement and referral
of state youths at Elan facilities and all have determined that Elan has consistently provided and
will continue to provide innovative, appropriate, and beneficial treatment to juveniles with
serious behavioral problems. None of the four investigating states has withdrawn
any of their state wards from Elan and every state intends to continue their
present policy of encouraging the placement of youths at Elan facilities."

Maine's ODAP did not

In preparing its final report, however,

include a summary of the actual investigative

report done by evaluators from Massachusetts
who visited Elan in July. Their report, filed
August 6th, had findings similar to the Illinois
team, yet these went unreported.
Spending 48 hours at Elan facilities in Poland Spring, and Parsonfield, the Massachusetts
evaluators spoke with residents individually in separate rooms, assuring each of confidentiality.
According to the Massachusetts team, spankings occurred at Elan in the course of a general
meeting held for disciplinary reasons and were attended by all the residents of a particular house.
They described that residents (receiving spankings) were required to bend over a chair, and if
they refused, two or more residents and staff would forcibly restrain them by holding arms and
legs.

The Massachusetts evaluators described a similar boxing ring format similar to that described by
Illinois and stated that injuries from the ring ranged from negligible effects, to black eyes bloody
noses, split lips and sprained ankles.

They also received reports of 'electric sauce' poured over resident's heads. Sitting in a corner was
that the length of time a
still another form of discipline reported. They wrote
disciplinee must remain in the corner varied from two
days to several months. During this time residents had to have all
meals in the corner and were allowed to leave only to go to the bathroom.
One resident reported to the evaluators that another resident forced to sit in
a corner for two solid months, began to talk to herself, and as a result of
talking to herself was given a spanking by the entire house.
In summarizing their investigation, the Massachusetts team wrote :
"It is the opinion if the evaluation team that there is sufficient corroboration among youth in the
Elan program to consider certain forms of behavior control employed to constitute abusive
Use of such forms of behavior control
treatment of clients.

would seem to constitute systematic legal violation of

clients' rights ( such as assault and assault and
battery) regardless of any therapeutic rationale in
which they may be incorporated.
It should also be noted that use of abusive behavior controls would seem to be in direct violation
of Department of Youth Services standards regarding the treatment of youth under the
department's care. The net effect of such practices, while in direct contradiction to the program's
stated position was reported by most clients interviewed to be one of severe humiliation as well
as in many instances, physically painful.

In light of the information received it is the evaluation team's opinion that the issue of placement
of wards of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the care of DYS at Elan be seriously
reconsidered. Subsequently it is felt that a decision must be reached regarding the present
contractual agreements between the Commonwealth and Elan pursuant to the best interests of the
youth in the program."

Instead of explaining these findings of the four

Massachusetts investigators, Maine's ODAP
substituted a subsequent report written by Robert
Watson, Director Intensive Care for the Division of
Youth Services that supposedly summarized the
above findings of the team. It concluded in part:
"Boxing is a therapeutic tool utilized by the community to stop residents from bullying one
another. This is carefully supervised to insure that no one is hurt. The purpose is to show that
any and all residents cannot bully one another. This is the administration's definition."
Watson also wrote: "Electric sauce is not, has not been and never will be a practice or tool of the
Elan administration." adding: " Of all the residents interviewed only one said he had electric
sauce thrown at him. Two said they saw it, and almost all others had heard about it. A staff
member at Elan had used this practice approximately eight months ago. As soon as the
administration learned that this practice had taken place, it was
immediately stopped, and this staff member was terminated. This
practice has not taken place since. Summarizing Massachusetts position Watson
wrote:
"I feel with further definition the Elan program will continue to achieve our purpose in
treatment of the youth we sent to them."

Watson knew what he was writing when he used past tense sent in the above statement, because
Massachusetts stopped placing its youth at Elan following its
investigation.
Maine's ODAP represented in its final report summary that Elan had received a unanimous
The omissions in the
support from its other evaluations, but this wasn't true.
ODAP summary raise questions about the spin placed on
its 1975 report concerning child abuse at Elan.
Jerry Docherty who is now deputy director for Family Continuity Programs in Massachusetts
remembers visiting Elan during this period when he was with the Massachusetts Department of
Youth Services. He was not a member of the evaluation team, but made a separate trip to Elan
concerning one of the Massachusetts' wards. He recalls having serious doubts about the
therapeutic effectiveness of the program, but says he was impressed with the educational aspect
which seemed to function separately. During his visit he asked to see the boxing ring,
and asked about other allegations and says "What was presented to me
was certainly far less controversial than what I read in the papers. I never
saw any of it, but I had some gut level concerns that they weren't showing me things."..... I also
had a strong feeling that the state program was separated from the private pay program and
there was a qualitative different feel to it."

He never realized that Elan was run for profit. Learning that the
Joe and Gerry made more than $300,000 a year from the program,
he says "That is sick."
……..

Taft traveled to Maine to visit Elan, and also spoke with social workers, law enforcement officials
and others responsible for referring clients there.

He described some unusual impressions: "There

is a rain of curses and shouts
amidst a confusing chaos of teenagers. Some give commands,
others furiously scrub floors, dressed in bizarre costumes- diapers
and tin foil and rags. Some have huge signs around their necks.
Others scribble on note pads. They are intent on something: just
what is uncertain. And no one is smiling. No one. "
Taft wrote: "Residents are made to wear costumes that illustrate their unacceptable behavior . For
example one boy whose supervisor thought the sun rose and set on him was made to dress like
Caesar. Another ''cry baby'' was given a diaper and bottle, and others carried signs like "HELP! I
am an emotionally crippled monster."

Taft mentions the spankings, and describes the ring: "With heavy 16 ounce gloves, headgear, and
surrounded by residents, bullies and provokers must face a different boxer each minute to the
screams of delight, and derision from their peers."
They beat an emotionally
Taft quotes an ex Elan employee who stated: "

slow kid in the snow, it was awful. He was just black

and blue for weeks."
A former Elan employee , Donna Pizzi, told Taft "When I left there it was like 'phew', I'm out. It
was like they had power over me , I went through a lot of psychological pushing and pulling."
Pizzi said she found herself wondering about the "blank looks" on the faces of
both staff and residents. "There's a lot of rote repetition of creeds and philosophies
without much thinking." She said the staff themselves were so young, most
of them only in their teens, and themselves graduates of the
program. "They are barely developed. It's as if they depend on the
place , like they had no other place to turn to except (work) at
Elan," she declared.
Taft reported that there was a sort of cult speak vocabulary at Elan. He explained bad behavior
for example was "corruptness," and "justice" is gained for those who have been abused in the
system. His article drew attention to the proliferation of "pithy sayings" tacked to every wall of
every residence.

Perhaps most revealing about Taft's article were his

conversations with Gerry Davidson and Joe Ricci. "We're a community of
self help like the Mormons." Davidson told Taft when he visited Elan nearly 11 years ago. He
He then
said he had always been a passioned observer of group phenomena.
compared Elan to the Nazi concentration camps of World
War II:
"I've always been fascinated with the phenomenon of
identification with the aggressor," he said recalling how
some Jews after their release from the camps took on the
leather dress of their guards. Davidson stated: " At Elan I
want to provide a good aggressor, a responsible , good role
model. And that role model is Joe Ricci."
Outlining the program philosophy for the reporter Joe told Taft: " We allow no sex, no drugs, no
physical violence. You are responsible for yourself and so are we." When questioned about the
charge of Elan fostering dependency, Joe grumbled, calling it "A crock of shit..." He declared
"You've gotta be Spartan and Machiavellian with your staff."

Talking to Taft about that summer of 1975 when Illinois made its allegations, Joe angrily told
him: "It was a raid from the start..." He claimed that the members of the Illinois team: "...were
very unprofessional." He said "They got drunk at one meal, and then came back to Elan to work.
I didn't like that...In retrospect Illinois was the worst and the best thing to happen to us...We
had 120 kids before that. Now we have twice as many." (This
wasn't true. At the time of the investigations in 1975 the Elan
population was recorded as 217)
Both Joe and Gerry refused to disclose their salaries, but told Taft that the profit margin then in
1979 was about ten to fifteen percent of the $40 per student per day ($1,200 per month ) tuition.
Using those figures Taft estimated that of the $4.3 million in fees
from the previous year, the annual profit split between them in
1979 was between $350,000 and $547,500.
Just how successful Elan was despite its overwhelming financial success was hard to determine.
Taft revealed that Elan itself, though
operating for eight years, had never done
any follow up on former residents until about a year and a
half earlier. Of the 12 states that referred children to Elan, only four had ever done any follow up,
and what had been done was limited and informal. Just Maryland, Rhode Island, Oregon and
71 former Elan residents finding 12 of
Vermont surveyed a total of
them were in jail, 17 were working or in school and 42
were in the words of one official "living marginal lives"
that included some petty crime, frequent unemployment,
and overuse of alcohol and drugs. These state statistics
certainly differed from Elan's 80% success rate that it boasted
in its promotional literature were "living healthy productive lives."

Six months later in September of 1979 Joe sat down with another reporter, Peter Daaman from
MAINE TIMES. When the subject of the Illinois Investigation came up Joe told him: "Illinois
did a tap dance on us for a year." He
said the evaluation team was a 'hit
squad' sent out by governor Dan Walker to get headlines and
secure Walker's reelection. "
…….

Elan spent a great deal of

(No mention was made that

money employing the services of a

Chicago public relations firm to
polish its image , or that the Department of Children & Family Services
chose never to place any more of its children at Elan)

……..

In early 1981, nearly six years after the explosive Illinois investigation of Elan, and the hasty
subsequent investigations by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and Connecticut, the Rhode
Island Office of the Child Advocate was asked to conduct another, more in depth study of the
Elan facility. This request was made by Rhode Island judge, Edward Healey, because of
allegations of abuse and neglect which surfaced during a family court juvenile proceeding. This
investigation was perhaps the most comprehensive of all. It involved seven health care
professionals including two psychiatrists, a psychiatric nurse, a sociologist and two attorneys
from the Child Advocate's Office. The evaluation team studied the reviews of Elan by other
states, including Rhode Island, read extensive magazine articles and professional writings
concerning the program, and conducted an on-site visit on February 27th and 28th. During
this visit researchers reviewed each of the files relating to 130 Rhode
Island children that had been placed at Elan from the time the state
first utilized the program.

This extensive effort resulted in a

forty page report that cited extensive abuses
at Elan which constituted a flagrant violation of individual civil rights.
The Rhode Island investigators were seriously concerned about the
lack of checks and balances for the exercise of authority by Ricci.
They were disturbed that there was no board of directors or any
effective institutional review mechanism. The evaluators met with both Joe
and Gerry, but found Gerry less involved with the daily operation, and on occasion unable to
respond accurately regarding the program's use of the ring, and isolation cells at the facility
in Parsonfield. Additionally, they learned that many
of the Rhode Island residents
interviewed were unable to identify Davidson as even being a
member of the Elan staff, though his responsibilities supposedly
included psychiatric and medical care for residents in all the Elan
facilities.
The evaluators were equally concerned about the lack of professional staff. During their visit the
team was introduced to three M.A. psychologists, but each had been with Elan for a brief time,
and like Davidson seemed peripheral to the day to day operation. Residents interviewed
showed no awareness of even the existence of professional staff. The sole
clinical treatment at Elan seemed to
responsibility for

rest with former graduates who had

undergone "in-service" staff training
conducted by Joe Ricci.
The Evaluation team believed that the lack of professional staffing was responsible for the fact
that Elan did not perform a thorough clinical assessment of each child upon admission or during
The team concluded: "Upon arrival no thorough
residence.
intake assessment is performed aside from educational
assessment...Written individualized treatment plans are not
developed as part of the intake process.
Placement within the program is
based solely upon age and education ."

They cited one instance where a case records review failed to address a serious medical problem
of one of the Rhode Island residents who clearly required a neurological exam. The team reported
that an evaluation was finally arranged by Elan staff just prior to the team's on- site visit, but
noted that the child had been in the program for several months. The team was very critical of
Elan's one treatment for all approach to therapy and stated: " A child can be damaged by
exposure to relentless confrontation, criticism, and control that marks the Elan approach."

Finally, the team came to much the same conclusion as did the
Illinois and Massachusetts investigators:
"The climate of Elan is confrontation , " they wrote, reporting that the emphasis is control and
containment in an atmosphere that was described to them by Gerry Davidson as being
"paramilitary" and " like the moonies." They stated that key features of life at Elan were: "group
living, sensory overload, and constant self and group criticism, with little opportunity for
solitude or independence.

After reviewing extensive case files regarding its

Rhode Island residents, the evaluators concluded that
Elan's proclamation of its success rate was "grossly
exaggerated." They asked Elan to provide information regarding specific standards by
which it determined the success rate it advertised. Answering this request Gerry Davidson
responded " We feel we have been successful when a graduate is comparatively self
supporting( or is attending school) and does not get into trouble with the authorities. The specific
rate of success for Rhode Island children is 75%."

When pressed for a definition of its term 'graduate' Dr. Davidson responded that residents are
graduated when they demonstrate:
1. That they can be reasonably consistent in school and/or work performance.
2. That they know how to form relationships based on mutual respect and, in particular, are not
exploitive in relationships with the opposite sex.
3. That they can accept the normal misfortunes of life without using them as excuses for
misbehavior.
4. That they can use the tools for relating we have given them. If they experience anxiety or
depression they can talk to people and get themselves out of troublesome situations."

Yet despite its claim of an overall 80 % success rate, Elan could

not provide the evaluators with any scientific data to substantiate
it, or the claim of 75% success with the Rhode Island residents.
Because of this, the evaluation team proceeded to evaluate the success rate for their wards.
Each file was reviewed of the 130 Rhode Islanders. The name of each child was then run
through the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI) in order to obtain existing documentation
of criminal offenses that may have been committed after returning to Rhode Island from Elan.
(although some then adults, may not have returned to the state) Of the 130 children originally

70 of them
placed at Elan, 13 were still there. Of the remaining 117 children,

(60%) had been arrested for criminal

violations according to the BCI. (The evaluators found this
60% arrest rate very conservative measure of failure for the former Elan residents since BCI
records did not reflect instances of neglect or abuse of children, mental health
institutionalization, or other indicators of social or family disruption. The BCI also only
reflected adult criminal violations. So if youths who had not yet reached 18 years of age had
committed a crime, that would not be listed. They would be referred to family court).

In light of these statistics the evaluators concluded: "Elan's

claims for success with
Rhode Island children seems more self-serving than scientific and
reflects adversely on the credibility of the Elan administration."
…….

Despite requests to Joe Ricci and his lawyers for Elan

success stories to be included in this book, none were
furnished...
Former residents and staff members consequently were tracked down through newspaper
advertisements and by word of mouth. Conversations with nearly two dozen
people who were at Elan at different intervals between the years 1971-
1988 reveal striking similarities, though these people come from five
different states, and varied economic and social circumstance. In most
cases they have not talked to each other since leaving the program. All
contacted were willing to discuss their experiences, though some did not want their names used
for fear of reprisal.
[warning: the following story is hard to read and
could possibly scar you for life, out of respect for
the victim, no highlighting will be done]
Stephen Smith now 29 was 15 years old when he was sent to Elan by a social worker in
Connecticut. He had been a ward of that state since the age of six when his father signed over
custody of Stephen and his sisters after their mother had been sent to prison for robbery.
At fifteen he was sensitive and withdrawn, read books all the time, and hated school because the
other kids seemed childish, and had perfect families. He explains that the circumstance that led
to his going to Elan involved an altercation with a neighbor whom he "shot in the butt" with a bb.
gun after the neighbor kicked his dog. Stephen says his social worker gave him the choice of
either going to jail or Elan. "I chose Elan because she told me it was like a summer camp in the
Maine woods, " he recalled with irony from the warden's office of Maine State Prison where he
was serving a ten year term for burglary.

Stephen is boyish looking, small boned with honey blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. His
eyes portray a sadness, which his story supports. The images from his teen years are still alive
for him, enough for his voice to crack when he talks about being raped by another Elan resident
when he and three other boys and two girls were left in a semi isolation room for a period of
more than a week. He is articulate and candid about his life before, during and since his years at
Poland Spring and Parsonfield. "I don't care how personal you get," he says. "The most important
thing is that the truth comes out about Ricci. He has no business screwing up kids, and making a
fortune doing it. The state takes kids from messed up families, but they put them in places worse.
If I was not messed up before I got to Elan, I certainly was afterwards..."

He says: "When I first got there, I couldn't believe it. Everybody was screaming and beating on
each other. I had to sit in these groups, and I didn't want to talk to anybody. I feel that I was
misdiagnosed. For one thing I didn't have a drug problem. Most of the kids that were in there
were I guess there for drugs because I'd be sitting in the groups and they'd want me to talk about
what drugs I was doing', what I was hooked on. And I said, 'listen I don't have any of that,' and
they'd all say 'Oh yeah? sure !' as If I was denying it. Then they'd ask me if I hated my mother.
They'd take out my file and read in front of everyone in the group, things about my mother and
her criminal record. I didn't dig that, so I just didn't say anything. And then when I shut up, they
accused me of intimidating the group, said I was doing some violent act against the group
members for not opening up. I was making people hostile at me. So everyone once in a while
they'd set up a general meeting, and then throw me in the boxing ring until I lost. So I just used to
try to run away all the time. Its the only thing I ever did; try to run away every chance I got. I
tried about seven times, but they always caught me because they had this posse that would go out.
If they caught someone they'd be rewarded by Ricci..."

"The first time I met Joe Ricci..." he continues, his voice getting softer, and more serious, "...was
at a general meeting that was called by a guy named Jeff Gottlieb. I had tried to run away again,
and Joe Ricci came in. I'll never forget it, because he made me feel really worthless, you know
like I was an absolute nothing. He came in and I was called up along with a girl named Nancy,
and another girl named Marie, two guys named Ray, and Johnny, and another kid named Sean.
So when Joe Ricci came in to the house we were all sitting down around a table, and he
announced: 'We have some cancer in this house, and any good surgeon knows the best way to
get rid of cancer is to cut it out, before it spreads.' Then he called all of us up in front of the
house, and asked everybody else if they had any feelings for us, so we all got screamed at. Then
they put us in the boxing ring you know. Then at the end of the meeting Joe Ricci says ' Now
we're gonna put you upstairs in one of the rooms. It was a room about the size of this. (6x10) and
they boarded up the windows, and boarded up the door and locked it. And he said 'Whatever goes
on in there goes on.' It was in July...I know it was in July, because it was my 16th birthday the
next day... It was horrible. Six of us all stuck in there together. The guys- Ray and Johnny would
take turns beating each other. Ray would pound his head until he got tired. And they'd take turns
having sex with the two girls. One of them didn't care, but the other girl didn't want to, but they
made her. Sean and Ray would keep her food, and that's how they got to her. The day I turned 16
I was sitting in the corner and I mentioned that it was my birthday, and Sean picked me up and
said 'Oh it's you're birthday, I have something to give you...' He started to hit me in the face and
stuff, and then, well he raped me in there," he says, his voice trembling.

"After Sean did that stuff with me, he made me do it with the others..." Stephen continued, taking
a breath and observing: "Between that time, and one other time I think it had a lot to do with me
not having normal relationships with girls. It's really screwed me up, and during the past years
I've gone from blaming my mother, or my social worker Mrs. Daley, for what happened to me at
Elan. But I realize it was really Joe Ricci's fault. He didn't care what happened to us in the
room, or anywhere else. He was just in it for the money, and he didn't care about kids. He was
running a business and that's all it was."

Other punishments Stephen detailed included cleaning toilets with bare hands, wearing signs,
and doing meaningless chores just to be taught a lesson: "I'd have to push this wheelbarrow
down to the lake in the summer, about a mile while wearing a winter coat," he says. " And I'd
have to get rocks out of the water, and fill up the wheelbarrow, and bring it back up again, then
empty them out, and then fill the wheelbarrow up , and go back down to the water. Other times
I'd dig ditches and fill them up again. The whole time they'd be one or two people watching, and
hollering to hurry up. It was totally meaningless...and this was all just because I wouldn't talk in
groups, or I'd try to run away...Sometimes I'd get a cowboy ass kick too," he recalled. "One time
Joe Ricci was there and he said he was sick of my shit, trying to run away and stuff. I tried to talk
to some people who came up from Chicago to do some kind of investigation, and I think that's
what he was all pissed off at. I never talked to them though. Anyhow I got a cowboy ass kick
then. That was when they took you and threw you from room to room bouncing you up against
the walls. All the residents would drag you around digging you with their hands, punching you ,
and spitting in your face. It was a lot worse than the ring. It was really vicious."

Stephen doesn't hesitate to compare Elan with the maximum security prison where he was
incarcerated. "Elan's much much worse...Here there's a lot of shit. But I get a chance for some
solitude, to read, and I'm going to college. I 've also gotten to learn woodworking, and make some
money in the prison store. At Elan, there was nothing positive, it was pure hell," he concluded.
"You know the worst thing is the judge that sentenced me here (for 10 years ) lectured to me
saying I blew the opportunity I had at Elan...I don't understand how the courts can legitimize a
guy like Ricci who has harmed so many mixed up kids."

***

Corrine Lowery who lives in a Chicago suburb was referred to Elan in 1979 when she was
fourteen years old. That was four years after the Illinois report citing child abuse, and wards of
the Illinois were no longer being referred to Elan. But
Corrine was a private
placement from an upper middle class family, who happened to
have Gerry Davidson's friend, Marvin Schwartz, for a doctor.
During her visit to Maine to talk about her past, she was nine months pregnant, a pretty, well
dressed and intelligent woman of 24 already the mother of a two year old daughter. She said she
wanted to talk about her teenage years at Elan to "Set the record straight."

She explained that she was a 12 year old, nearly an all A student, when she experienced serious
conflicts with her mother's boyfriend who lived in her house. "My dad died in 1975," she
explains, "and my mother was confused. She had three kids, and no real income. This guy was
helping her out-and well, he was a child abuser. My mom had kicked him out of the house for a
while, and things were fine between us, but then she took him back in, and that's when all hell
broke loose...They made me out to be a liar at school because of what I said about him. Anyway ,
he was out for revenge. I was told I was grounded for a year or I could leave the house, so I left
and stayed with a friend of mine. Then they called me at my friend's house and asked if I thought
school was important to me because I had stopped going after I left home. I was persuaded to go
home, supposedly to talk to someone from school who would be at my mom's house...Well,
when I got to the house, there was Dr. Schwartz's associate, Dr. Andrews, and I was just grabbed
and taken to Chicago Lake Shore Hospital."

She stayed in the mental ward at the hospital for four of five months. "I was given no therapy,
nothing, " she says, explaining that Schwartz would occasionally come in to see her and fall
asleep in a chair by her bed. "Dr.
Schwartz was weird," she recalled,
observing that every troubled kid who had Dr. Schwartz for a
doctor was sent to Elan. "I was drugged and, locked up for nearly
five months..." she declared "I wasn't a kid who did drugs. I never
even touched drugs. I have a heart problem too, but there they were
shooting me up with thorazine, I think. After a while I couldn't
even see or walk straight." Eventually she says that Dr. Schwartz called her mother
and told her she wasn't "really ready yet for the real world."

"The insurance ran out at the hospital, so they had to do something else with me. Dr. Schwartz
told my mom I needed structure in my life, and he knew of this school in Maine, that wasn't too
strict, but was just what I needed. I think he told her I'd be much better in just eight or nine
months."

Corrine says that she and her mother then flew to Maine. "When I first got there I was off
all the medication then. The first two days my mom was there for the
orientation, so they made it look real good. The first day we went down to
the lake, and I really didn't think it was that bad. I actually thought wow this
might be great..For me it was a relief just to be out of the hospital, be at a place that didn't
have bars on the windows, where there wasn't a quiet room with padded walls, and hospital beds.
But I had no idea what was ahead. I had absolutely no idea. I would have taken the
bars on the windows and the Thorazine...There was so much screwing
around with my mind. They yelled at me the whole time about my father dying, and about
being into drugs. And I wasn't into drugs. I mean I'd stand there and listen to them saying ' You
did this because your father died and you feel it's your fault.' And I was thinking that my dad had
a heart attack in his sleep and I don't see how I had anything to do with that. I mean the stuff, it
just wasn't anything that applied to me at all. It was just bizarre, and for a young mind
it was really confusing."
Corrine recounted her own experiences with Joe: "I used to have night guard duty at the trailer
where he and Dr. Davidson had their offices. I would go over with another girl, and he'd tell us to
watch out for what he called 'gorillas,' people that were out to get him. He told us to watch out for
anyone walking on top of the trailer and listen for any strange noises while he was inside
sleeping on a pull out couch. It was very unusual- there we were two fifteen year old girls
guarding him. One night we heard a noise, and he jumped up and ran out with a shot gun. He
swore up and down someone was going to get him."

Corrine explains that Elan was a violent place, though she escaped real physical abuse. "I never
had to go into the ring, but I saw many many people go into the ring for reasons other than
violence." She says: "They called one girl ' a hooker.' They claimed she was very seductive, and
they threw her in the ring for it. I mean that makes no sense. You just don't go beat people up for
that sort of thing. What would be the next, logical step-go out and murder the real hookers of
the world?"

"Joe was constantly quizzing me.. I think he really wanted me out of there"...
"I got along with most everyone.
I'd actually try to talk to people because
there were a lot of kids I knew from Lakeshore Hospital who had
been sent there by Dr. Schwartz. I'd talk to them like friends and say 'Isn't this bull
shit?' But you weren't suppose to talk to people, you were supposed to confront them, and Joe
noticed that I didn't do that, and he didn't like it..."

"Most of the time though I played along, just so I could get along. I was like an
actress, and I had to act a role they wanted so I could get the privilege of
wearing long pants, and blow drying my hair. Otherwise people who were shot down couldn't
even wear shoes. I just played along, but I tried not to be sick about it. If I had to give someone a
haircut (verbal reprimand) most of the time what I was saying wouldn't make much sense, so I
wouldn't be really hurting them. But I think Joe knew. He constantly asked me why I didn't
conform, what I wanted out of life, whether I wanted to be like that forever? I wasn't a bad
person. I was an A student before I came. But that didn't matter, we were all stereotyped. No
matter what the reason was for being there, it was assumed
everyone was on drugs. All the girls were viewed as
provocative little sluts, and the boys were kind of perverted, though he didn't seem to
pick on the boys as much. Some girls he singled out, and gave them special treatment. Though I
don't know the exact relationships he had with them, there were a lot of rumors. I even heard that
he did drugs with some of them."

Corrine recalls that she and another girl named Mary were once allowed to have free dinner and
a couple of drinks at Scarborough Downs. ( though at 16 they were under age) as a special treat
for dog sitting at his house. On the way home they asked the driver of the Elan van to stop at a
Stop 'n Go where they bought some candy. When they got back to Elan, Joe was livid and called
a general meeting. "We didn't know what we had done.... "At first we thought it was because we
ordered more than one drink at Scarborough Downs. But eventually we realized it was because
we asked the driver to stop on the way home. Joe screamed at us, and called us ungrateful,
manipulative little bitches, so we had to 'hit the pan (do dishes) for a long long time after that."
Corrine explained that she was a staff coordinator at Elan, a step away from graduation, but got
shot down because she was influencing others... 'corrupting them.' She says she was eventually
sent to Parsonfield, and then told to leave, given 24 hours notice the day before Easter of 1984.
She was not allowed to even say good-bye to anyone.

Talking about her life during the past eight years since leaving Elan, she is quiet and thoughtful,
choosing her words carefully.

"When you get out of Elan, it's so amazing not to have anyone follow you
around. It's freedom for the first time, and you just don't want to take any
responsibility, because you're just not ready for it. You're back to the stage
where you're a little kid. You want to go outside and play all day long. You eat
twice as much, sleep twice as much, want to do everything you couldn't do there..." She said she
regretted losing her adolescence. "I wanted to go to college, and be something. I always wanted
to be a doctor, and I loved science. I probably could have done it too, but I was just locked up for
so long. I wanted to make up for lost time, and couldn't stand any more discipline." she revealed.,
adding "I don't dwell on my time at Elan, but it's always there as a flashback."

Emphatically, her voice quivering "I'd never send my kids to any place like that...If I ever
felt I couldn't control my daughter, I'd feel better just locking her up in a closet and
tossing her a meal once in a while. It would really be less abusive. People need to stay away
from people like Joe Ricci. He is mentally ill, power hungry, and he will stop at nothing to get
what he wants. Maybe he didn't have a good childhood or whatever, but he wants what he wants,
and doesn't care who he pushes around or steps on to get it..I first realized what he was really like
when I started going over to his trailer, and to his house. He'd be so cruel, ready to do anything to
get his way. And if people were in his way, he'd buy them off. I saw the way he'd throw his
money around. When I was at his house, he'd have words with his girlfriend, then tell her to go
shopping. Joe Ricci is scum. Anyone who can use people the way he did-and its not just
people at Elan-it's everybody..."

Sitting upright in her chair from the kick of the baby in her womb, Corrine took a deep breath
before she continued talking fervently "There are people who are honestly struggling to make it in
life, you know-good people. And then you have a jerk like Joe Ricci kicking everybody around to
get what he's got, and ruining kids' lives. It's disgusting. I'm just one person, how many kids have
been there since Elan opened? I've been in touch with some of the kids that were
there with me, and they were all worse off after going to Elan. Some were
really brainwashed, and totally unable to function afterwards. I don't know what
ever happened to a really good friend of mine. I tried to help her, but she just seemed to go
berserk afterwards. I never believed in the place. I'm really stubborn and managed not to get
brainwashed. I think that's why I survived. I never believed in Joe Ricci."

***

Ken Zaretsky, the Chicago entrepreneur who admitted he helped cover up some of the abuses at
Elan during the state investigations in 1975 said "It's frightening to realize how many
casualties there are from that place." He cited two suicides by residents who graduated
and became staff members, and fears that "Joe placed a time bomb in all of us." He shared the
story of his best friend Neil Saxner, also a former resident. After graduating and working at Elan,
he and Neil thought they would run a similar program to Elan in the Chicago area, but Neil was
cited for child abuse. "Neil thought he was Joe Ricci......He talked and walked like him. He even
married a woman named Sherry. But when he realized he couldn't be Joe, the pressure became
too great, and he killed himself."

***
Dave Elder was second in command during the early days of Elan, working as assistant executive
director, directly under Joe. He had been first a resident, and then a graduate working his way up
the Elan hierarchy. He told a reporter researching an article that appeared in MAINE TIMES that
Elan's encounter groups were: "tools to vent your feelings...a way to deal with the community."
Despite his grasp of the Elan concept, Dave nevertheless found the pressure Joe placed upon him
overwhelming. After leaving Elan, he drove a taxi in Portland for a while. He had financial
problems, was married, and had a baby on the way when he took his own life. According to one
observer, Joe was furious when he learned that Elder had killed himself, and
forbade any Elan staffer to pay last respects.
***

John Ricci, now 28, is Joe's first cousin, the son of Bamboo's brother Tom. He is tall, well
groomed, and handsome enough to pass for an actor in a soap opera. He speaks in quiet well
defined phrases about the pain Joe has caused his family, and of his extreme distrust for the
cousin he once adored. Like many other ex-residents, and staff members of Elan sketched a
grisly picture of life there. But his stories are particularly compelling. He continually referred to
Joe as "my cousin," and talked about the family's unwillingness to see Joe as he really was until
it was too late. He said Joe was always somewhat larger than life observing "We
all went
from feeling very proud to have a member of the family like him
to feeling very disrespected by him. "
John and his older brother, Tom Jr., both went to Elan, graduated and became staff members
counseling other teenagers like themselves. "I bought my cousin's program hook, line and sinker,
" he declared. " Joe created this process. He'd strip you of all your identity and
replace it with his cult oriented nonsense...Joe had this God-like
greatness...A 16 or 17 year old doesn't see the reasons behind the reasons
for actions.. All I saw was a charismatic, flamboyant, very powerful figure
that got respect, and I idolized that..."
But after he became an Elan staff member, he began to view things differently: "I saw just how
disorganized and insensitive everything was... And there I was an 18 year old staff
member working all night by myself taking care of 108 other kids, putting
them in the boxing ring, keeping them in restraints, when I barely had my
own act together."
He explained that his brother Tommy eventually left Elan much more messed up than he was
when he went there, lost touch with family members and became a drug using drifter. In June of
1989 Tommy's body was found at the bottom of the Ventura River in California and John
believes that his experiences at Elan contributed to his death.

Many former Elan residents, and staff members indicated Joe had sexual
relations with some of the female residents, but are fearful of saying it on
record. But John said that he knew of two Elan residents that his cousin
"slept with."
John 's father (unlike Joe's father Bamboo) had done quite well in business, as a general
contractor, affording him to be sent to a military school in New York. When his family moved to
Maine In the late 1970's, he transferred to Lake Region High. He found the adjustment difficult,
so it was suggested he go to Elan. Now
he regrets that he often played the role
of house boxer, beating out people when residents were put in the
ring. A strapping 6ft. 2 inches he was sometimes 60 pounds
heavier than the people he opposed. "I hated to do it, but I wanted
to get out of there, get along in the program...." He recalled "I feel
guilty about some of the things I did at Elan, but I can somewhat
selfishly alleviate that by saying that we (staff members) were all
victims of Joe's regime."
After graduating in 1980 John worked at Elan until he left in the mid 80's He later became
heavily involved in drugs with a cocaine habit costing between $500- $700 a week. Eventually,
he cleaned up and went to Florida for three years where he worked as a tile layer's assistant
making $12 an hour. It was there that he says he
finally got in touch with his
feelings, and realized how screwed up he had become.
Now he claims he has a good relationship with his parents, and doesn't fault them for putting him
though he says his father
in Elan. He believes they were as duped as he was,
still probably "doesn't realize just what went on there."
Tom Agos spoke from Gurnee, Illinois, a posh Chicago suburb where he was working as a police
officer. Tom was sent to Elan in 1974 when he was 14 years old. He had some run- ins with the
law and had experimented with drugs. His parents hospitalized him at a
Chicago area hospital, and Dr. Marvin Schwartz, referred him to
Elan. He graduated after two years and worked at Elan as an assistant director until
1978.Describing his experience, Tom is forthright and articulate. "The program is billed to get
you ready for life, but it doesn't do that in the functional sense. There were a lot of scare tactics, a
lot of humiliation. It
was basically if you misbehave we'll beat the snot
out of you."Agos admits as a staff member he perpetuated the
Elan philosophy and declared "I'm not proud to say I worked
there... At the time I really believed I was doing the right thing, but
as I went on in life I found out that Joe Ricci and his band of merry
men were not really the gods I thought they were...But to a 15 or
16 year old screwed up kid, they were impressive."
In a half hour phone conversation from the Gurnee police station Agos shared his
observations about Joe and the Elan program.He confirmed that electric sauce (garbage poured
over people's heads) the ring, and spankings all occurred with regularity, and says "Corporal
punishment was used quite often, and I have the x-rays of a broken nose to prove it."

Now 29, Agos has a good job, a wife, two children, a house and two cars But he explains that
his philosophy of life is "light years away from Elan's." He tries to practice non -violence, even as
a police officer working on the street. "You treat people the way you expect to be treated", he
believes.

Looking back at his time at Elan, Agos recalled a few transformations of

staffers that were quite amazing, and specifically mentioned Alice Quinn
whom he said was one of the first staff hired who had not previously been a
graduate of Elan. "She was hired fresh out of college, had no experience, and was meek,
timid, quiet, and very very nice...I watched her change before my very eyes.
It was unbelievable..." he recalled, seeing how Joe had taken a liking to her and
socialized with her after hours. He said after a few months on the job "she kind of became Joe,
developed his personality, and hisobnoxious,
kind of squirmy tone to her voice."

Another major change was the one made by

a former secretary at Elan, Sharon Terry, whom
he describes as the person who filled the staff's orders for sundries. "She was
one of the office girls, very pleasant, very nice," he recalled, but noted that
as Joe gradually gave her more responsibility for the houses, she
became a tyrant.
Tom seemed visibly surprised to learn that she eventually became the next
in command at Elan, responsible for daily operations in Joe's absence.

"She was a secretary, " he observed, "Nothing

is wrong with that profession, but it doesn't
make her qualified to control the destinies of
impressionable children."Agos said decided not to pattern his life after
Joe Ricci Elan's role model because he found him to be "impulsive, not level headed and, toward
the end, kind of scary."
….

In 1981 Joe Ricci and his partner Dr. Gerald Davidson had been in business for over a decade.
They had become very wealthy men because of Elan. Dr. Davidson's success might have been
predestined. At 58 years of age, he had studied at prestigious schools, and had taught at Harvard.
Joe Ricci's success was more unusual. At 35 years old, he had
been a millionaire since his mid twenties. He had never finished a
formal high school, had by his own account been a heroin addict,
and spent much of his life in institutions, first as a patient, and later
as a low paid worker.
Joe enjoyed wealth and unlike many Mainers did not (in the Down East tradition) live beneath his
means. He drove a top of the line Mercedes sports car, owned a Bentley , wore flashy clothes and
had a posh house. Separating him further from the Maine mentality was the fact that two years
earlier he had purchased a race track.

Joe Ricci, the millionaire high school drop out, former heroin addict, who ran a
treatment center for adolescents and a racetrack, was an enigma. And in 1981 FBI agents, a state
bank investigator, and bank officers drew some conclusions that would have serious
ramifications.

Joe and Gerry had been doing business at Portland's office of Depositors Trust bank for four
years, had a $1 million line of credit, and $800,000 in outstanding loans. The businesses
in their holding company, Golden Ark Enterprises,
included Elan, Scarborough Downs, and The Williamsburg, an
upscale apartment complex in Portland's fashionable western
promenade.
………….

In 1982 two former residents of Elan filed complaints charging

physical and emotional abuse. The Maine Bureau of Mental Health and Retardation
notified Joe that they were initiating an investigation. Owen Colomb, the attorney general's office
investigator, who helped spawn the Mafia allegations, was dispatched to conduct the
investigation.

Joe told everyone that he was 'under siege,' and his lawsuit against the bank became an obsession.

……
On December 17, 1983 the clubhouse at Scarborough Downs was

burned to the ground in a

suspicious fire that Joe told everyone was arson .
He said it was committed by the powers who were out to get him. The fire occurred on a blistery
night, and containment of the fire was hampered by the fact that there was no water in the private
fire hydrants maintained by the track. (Nine years earlier, the fire at Elan also
occurred on a frigid day and frozen hoses hampered extinguishment of the
fire) The phone at the track was not working that night when the fire was discovered, and the
security guard on duty had to drive ten minutes to the Scarborough Fire Department to report the
blaze.

…..

The clubhouse fire the previous December (happening almost exactly two years from the

December 17, 1981 allegations that he was involved with the

Mafia ) had Joe saying he was more persecuted than ever. He told anyone who
would listen that the fire at his track was arson perpetrated upon him by the same people who
wanted to put him out of business.

But research into the fire's investigative file, and surrounding

circumstances reveals a more complex tale involving stolen
meetings
confidential Elan files, cash payoffs, and
between an ex-con explosives expert and
Joe less than three months before the
blaze.
…..

The subject of the investigation was a Department of Human Services file on

Elan that was taken from the Portland Office of Human Services in March of
1983. Elan was then in the midst of investigations by that department and
facing an impending license renewal. In the course of this interview Fischer admits to
having acted as a courier, picking up the file from an unnamed person at the human services
office, and transporting it to a law office in Portland for copying. Later that day Fischer reports
calling a number that he believed was an office at Elan, and received a $150 cash payment from
an unnamed woman. Fischer's account reveals that he was subcontracted to do this by a private
investigator he knew who had approached him in Portland's old port area.

….

Fischer states that he skimmed the file on route to the attorney's office and noted that it contained
information concerning a complaint about Elan from a member of the Shaker Community in
Poland Spring along with a report from the Rhode Island Child Advocate's office. When Fischer
arrived at the attorney's office (whose name like the private Investigator has been blackened out
of the official report that was made part of public records) he said that the receptionist there also
seemed to be expecting him. He saw an attorney who later called Joe Ricci on the phone, and
arranged the meeting he had with Joe at the Sonesta that evening at 5:30pm. According to Fischer
this attorney telephoned Joe who was on another line talking to Dr. Davidson who was in
Venezuela, and said "Joe I've got Fischer here, do you still want to meet him?" Fischer surmises
that Joe must have known he was going to that attorney's office, from either the man who hired
him, or the person at human services who had given him the file, because he had never talked to
Joe before they met that evening.

Quoting from the Maine State Police Report, Fischer describes his meeting with Joe Ricci this
way: (blank areas censored by State Police)

Anthony Fischer: He pulled up and he was in a Mercedes two seat coupe, real expensive
jobs...He got out right, and I had told---if I was going to meet with Ricci I wanted to do it alone,
right, that you know the guy makes me nervous, you hear things...Then we sat down , and we
were talking back and forth right and he mentioned to me that the governor wanted his
Scarborough Downs to build an ethanol plant on because his Downs has an exit right off from the
highway, some stupid silly bogus thing like that. Then he told me that the State Police were
investigating him for the arson of some restaurant, and that you know they were out to get him.
And he said that there was no need of it, that he was basically a recluse. Then he told me
something that kind of made my hair raise a little bit okay. He told me that --- had told him that I
had you know, done some shit on the side for the FBI when I was with-- You know. And that
made me a little nervous, and I asked him how he knew that. He told me---- was on his
payroll...So you know I figured well here's a person you know who's definitely got some inroads
to know that type of shit, Okay. And he asked me all about---you know. And subsequently of
course the conversation I told him about the book that me and -- had written on you know the
bombings...And I told him that you know I had helped to write that book, and that you know we
compiled it and everything. And somewhere in the course of that conversation we were talking
about , you know, fires and how to do it and get away with and all this, that and the other.
And he told me he was picking my brains because he, had an idea, you know, and at the end of
the conversation he offered me a job, head of Security at Scarborough Downs. And I, I told him
I'd think about it , and he gave me a ride home to Raymond OK And then after that, the next time
I saw him was when he come up to the house terrorizing , all pissed off that the file was never
delivered back to the Department of Human Services.
Herring: OK, now at this particular time that you're meeting with him at the Sonesta , you have
the file, don't you?
Fischer: Ya
Herring: Because you've just been to ---office, and you had the file . Now you were also paid?
Fischer: No, I was paid for it by a woman in a blue car.
 Herring: Were you paid for it before or after you met with Ricci?
Fischer: Before. I dropped the file off before lunch, because I remember I used the ---at lunch
Herring: ...Let's back up a bit a little. Once the arrangements were made for you to meet with
Ricci and there was some discussion about you getting paid. Tell me about that.
Fischer: OK I told ---that I was suppose to get paid and he wrote down a telephone number, and I
called that number.
Herring : Who answered?
Fischer: Elan 4 OK I know for a fact it was an Elan number ...I can't prove it but heart and soul I
know it was an Elan number....... I called that number . I left --- office and went to the Village
Green, called that telephone number OK I was told to sit tight and wait, OK I sat tight and
waited.. A blue I think it was a Plymouth Station wagon right pulled up, this woman honked the
horn , I went over. She had dark hair, real cute real good looking doll. I got in the car, she ran me
down to the Franklin Street Arterial, and paid me $150 bucks, and I got out of the car and
left...OK the file now is sitting at ---house because I took the file up to ---- and dropped it off
there before I made the call.
Herring: Before you called her?
Fischer: Because see I was supposed to take the file from -- and run it back to Department of
Human Services, and for some reason I don't remember, I think I got side tracked. It's one of
those bogus little deals where they paid me too quick and I went, I was too busy enjoying the 150
bucks that you know, because at that time I was so broke if I'd step on a nickel I could have told
you if it was heads or tails, you know.... and I think I was just out spending the 150 bucks, and
one thing led to another....I was out in Raymond , no vehicle and subsequently it just stayed with
him.
Herring : Now at the Sonesta Hotel was the file discussed?
Fischer: No no
Herring : Did he bring it up, or you bring it up, either one of you?
Fischer: I think he thanked me for it., I think. I think If I recall he thanked me. He was more
interested in the bombs. That was the main gist of that whole thing, he wanted , you know he
wanted to know about all that time.
Fischer: Yup, Yup. Because I remember I explained to him now and I can't recall whether he
asked me that or whether he, somehow in the course of the conversation it came up about fires.
Herring: uhhuh.
Fischer: ...And I told him the old battery trick. You take a car battery, you pour the car battery
into a pan...
Herring : Uhhuh
Fischer: Into a pan, you *********** hold your breath because if you breathe that cloud you're
dead OK Run it outside let it all cool down, pour off the liquid and all along the bottom of the pan
you'll find little glass chips...
Herring: Uhhuh
Fischer: OK You take a pair of tweezers, ************ or a penny into it for weight... OK you
take a styrofoam container, you fill that full of gasoline, right, you drop that in, the gas seeps
through the ******* kindling point and va- voom!. And there's absolutely nothing there to
trace....
Herring : uhhuh
Fischer: Because styrofoam is a petroleum product, it burns. ..You know , and all you have is one
section of an area scorched. And I remember I explained that in detail to him.
Herring : Did you explain any others....
Fischer: Ya you ***************** the positive post and ground run it to the negative blasting
cap. OK you break off the minute hand , right, And then you set it by the hour. What happens is
the thing comes around, the hour hand. Once it hits that little tac Va Voom!
I explained that one to him. The old light bulb one, he was real interested in that one as well...
Take a light bulb, *************** into it, screw it into a lamp, that's if you want to mark
somebody up. They come in, they turn it on, it blows, take the hand right off the guy, bleeds to
death, goes into shock... And as I recall he took some notes. He took some notes on a napkin.
Herring : uhhuh
Fischer: While we were talking at the Sonesta, you know, and I don't, I don't know whether he
was doodling or taking notes, I guess it's you know.
Herring : Did he make any attempt to try to hire you to do anything for him?
Fischer : No No, He offered me a job, Director of Security for Scarborough Downs, and I told
him I'd have to think about it, and I told my wife about it, and she just no no no no !
Herring : So his main interest in talking to you that day was what? Learning about bombs or was
it learning about security or
Fischer: Ya, he asked me a lot about security because you know, he told me that ---had told him I
had given some to the FBI, OK during that whole thing and he wanted to know, you knew he was
saying the State Police are always investigating him, that he's real worried about his employees,
and what I should look for, and you know. And he wanted to know what I knew about electronic
devices, you know he was telling me his place is always bugged. I told him about West Star
which is a corporation where you know right over, right through the mail you can buy the little
de-bugging devices to tell if your house is bugged and stuff like that. I told him that, we talked
about the stun gun too
Herring: Uhhuh
Fischer: He was saying something about getting a stun gun because he had a lock down facility
at Poland Spring where, you know, it's like a little jail. Guards walk around with pool cues and
stuff, and he said that it would be more humane to stun them than beat them with a pool cue. I
tended that was toward the end of the conversation. After that I really didn't appreciate the guy
that much because I'd been on the receiving end of programs like that..
Herring: So when you left you took the file home?
Fischer: No I didn't. I didn't take the file home to Raymond. The file stayed at ----I don't think
----- knew what it was. He's just a friend of mine who lives up on Munjoy Hill. It was just a thing
where I'd been visiting him, and left it in his car OK And because Ricci gave me a ride home to
Raymond right, and nothing was mentioned about the file or anything OK I think Ricci was under
the impression , see the meeting was set up for like 5:30 if I remember right 5:30-6 o'clock
somewhere right around there okay. And I think he was under the impression I had already run
the file back to the Department of Human Services.... I think he was under that impression
OKAnd the file was up at --- and to be honest with you I really can't recall why left it, it wound
up just getting left there okay. Cuz I remember I had to go back into Portland right, and I got it
right off the back of --car, And I don't think he was even aware that it was even there. You know
then -- gave me a ride home.

Fisher later recalls that the next time he saw Joe Ricci was when he appeared on his doorstep at
1:30 am some weeks later and describes this scene to Detective Herring:
Fischer: We were in bed. There was a knock on the door right, and that man woke me up. She
said someone is pounding on the door, right. So I yelled out, who is it , right. And he answered
"Its Joe Ricci, open up," all right. So I went out opened the door. OK he comes in, he was
wearing a long brown leather coat, right. He says I gotta talk to you, when he opened the door.
And I looked passed him and I could see a car and it was running. And I said 'who 's in the car?'
And he goes "Just some people to make sure I come out " and I could smell he had been doing
some serious drinking, right, so he came in right, and then he started yelling and swearing
'fucking asshole, you know you stabbed me in the back, you little cocksucker, that file, you know
where's that file. I want it now, and stuff. And he was threatening to the point where you know
that file was right there in my house, but I'd be damned if I was going to give it to him. Cuz you
know like I say all the tourists had left and here I am sitting on Panther Pond. I figured you know
this guy could do me in, and you guys wouldn't find me for four days, right. So I told him, I can't
recall whether I told him a friend of mine had it, or whether I destroyed it. I think I told him I
destroyed it , but I was nervous. No, I think I told him both. Because I told him I could get in
some really hot shit, right, over that file. And he told me not to worry about that, right, That if he
could get the file, even if I was to get caught I would have, you know all the legal backing , that
his financial situation could provide , right. You know anything money could buy was basically
what he was saying. And I remember my wife got up , and she was standing in the doorway and
she was just scared shitless, because at one point he said, " Well let me tell you something you
little bastard, you don't know everything that's going on in this particular thing because if you did
you'd be floating , they'd find you floating in back bay." He must have threatened to kill me at
least four times that night, all right. And it got to the point where I literally threw his ass out, told
him to get the fuck out. He went out, you know he was ambivalent. One minute I was the worst
scum of the earth, then the next minute I was the best thing that could ever happen, and you know
he was going to set us up, take care of us, you know buy us a house, and you know if I wanted to
straighten my life out he'd step right in there and he'd do this and he'd do that, you know. And
then the next minute I was going to be found floating in back bay again. And I, I, I started to get
to get a little more than ugly with him, OK And he noticed the trophies on my mantle, right. I'm
the brown belt New Hampshire champion.
Herring : oh really?
Fischer: Ya, I'm heavily into the arts, And I , I started throwing some of my own around and told
him you know, if you don't calm down , you come into my home, you upset my wife, I'm going to
bust every bone in your face, right. He said "I don't have to, I'm carrying it. " And that's what my
wife got all upset about. Then he calmed down once I started threatening him right back, all right.
And he went out , and he got the woman out of the car. There wasn't a bunch of people out there
to make sure that he came out. All there was , it was a woman, who introduced. My wife could
probably tell you her name, she's got a memory like that. But he introduced her as the --- of Elan,
right. And they sat down and they shot the shit for a while. And he left, right. And that was the
end of it. Well it was that same night, my wife said we're moving.

Fischer's interview with Detective Herring later reveals that he brought the human service file to
the attorney general's office a couple of months later after the fire at Scarborough Downs. This
action was apparently prompted by other incidents that occurred after Joe Ricci's alleged early
morning appearance at Fischer's home. He tells Detective Herring and Ouelette about being
beaten up in broad daylight:
Fischer: I had come out of the post office in Raymond, Maine, all right, and these two guys
grabbed me. One slugged me in the stomach, and bent me over, and the other one grabbed a hold
of my head and drove me back on to the hood of the thing, and told me that you know I better
mind my own business, and take care of business, you know something along those lines, all
right. And I don't know whether it was about Ricci, I don't really know what it was about, but I
remember I came home and the whole back of my head was swelling up to shit. They had to run
me up to Lewiston Hospital. You can check the date when that happened by going to Lewiston
Hospital because they had a cat scan on me and the bill is still outstanding. I can't afford to pay
the bill. You know I had a real bad head injury, one pupil was dilated. The doctor was real
nervous about that. It was the hospital closest to Raymond, I think it was over in Naples.
Herring : Bridgton?
Fischer: Bridgton, that might be it. It was a hospital close to Raymond. They ran me up to the
hospital, one of my neighbors right, because I was , I was in a daze. I got hurt on that. And then
he sent me all the way to Lewiston right, to get a CAT scan so you can check the date that
happened. And that's when my wife said "This is it, you know we've got this fucking asshole
coming out threatening us, you get attacked in broad daylight, and we're out of here."
Ouelette: Do you remember anything about these guys? Any names mentioned or vehicles?
Fischer: Ya. Vehicle was dark, I think it was dark blue, dark blue,
Ouelette: Was Ricci's name ever mentioned while they were
Fischer: I can't recall, it might have been, I honestly can't recall
Ouelette: But you drove in, you went inside, you came out.
Fischer: I was on foot because I didn't have an automobile.
Ouelette: Then you walked out
Fischer: When I walked out, I walked out of the post office, the post office is in Raymond, and I
lived up on that hill toward Panther Pond. I walked across that
Ouelette: Anywhere toward that cemetery? The road going into your place, Panther Pond?
There's a little, isn't there a little cemetery there off 121? You come in that cove and Panther
Pond.
Fischer : I go in 302.
Ouelette : Oh OK
Fischer: I go up 302 right and then there's a road that shoots up this way, Right towards Panther
Pond , where the post office is.
Ouelette: Ya.
Fischer: OK down by water and stuff, and I had walked a little ways up the road not very far, I
was still at the post office as far as I was concerned, and these guys pulled over , jumped out, and
grabbed and spun, and I was getting ready to hit one and Jesus got hit like a mule. I mean you
know I'd taken some bad shots, but this guy hit like a mule right in the gut and doubled me over
and then the other one grabbed my hair up around in here and just slammed me down across the
hood of the car. He said something about...you know...it left the impression, I don't know whether
it was all about Ricci and the file, but it left the impression that that's what it was about. You
know to make sure that, you know, there was, that's the impression it left on me. It also left the
same on my wife. And that shit, that must have been two weeks maybe after, not even two weeks.
My wife could tell you better as far as dates go. I think it was shortly after Ricci had been out to
the house making all those threats and stuff. Cause I remember I was pissed. I wanted to go right
over Blackstrap Road and dance on the guy and the, you know my wife kept saying no no no,
you know. See, I know in the back of my head that if I wanted to go to Blackstrap and clean him,
You know, I know I could do that. But my wife, you know she's she's known, she said no no no
we're just going to move, leave it alone, leave it alone, this guy will kill you....It really scared the
shit out of her.

A few months after Fischer was beaten up, the fire destroyed the
clubhouse at Scarborough Downs and private investigators
working for the track's insurance company contacted Fischer to
discuss the blaze with him. Fischer also learned that Joe Ricci's private investigators
had contacted his half brother to help implicate him for arson (This is contrary to Joe 's
attorney's version of events in his letter to the Public Safety Commissioner in which he states the
Fischer's half brother David Dell contacted Ricci) Here's Fischer's comments to Detective Herring
about the insurance investigators:
Fischer: This is after the Scarborough Downs fire, OK And I knew that it was beginning to get
hot, OK A couple of Ricci's private detectives showed up OK, and read me the riot act. They told
me they were with the insurance company from Massachusetts and they insured Scarborough
Downs and everything and they wanted to know
Herring: Did they show you identification?
Fischer : Ya, they were Massachusetts private investigators. They left me a card too.
Herring: OK so they weren't really his ?
Fischer: No, they said they worked for the insurance company. But they started off on the wrong
foot because apparently Ricci called my brother and offered my brother money to testify that I
burned down Scarborough Downs, or something crazy and screwy like that. Because my brother
called me up all upset saying you know Jesus Christ you know I got this guy calling me wanting
to know what I knew about the fire at Scarborough Downs and what I knew about you and all this
that and the other. And then a few days later right, this private investigator showed up to see my
brother. My brother was in a real ugly mood about the whole thing and he was drinking down
the----- and all of a sudden these private investigators show up and you know my brother is the
type that you know, he doesn't need any bullshit in his life, you know.

Also during the interview Detective Herring asked Fischer some more questions about Joe,
specifically in response to Fischer's earlier claim that he read about Joe Ricci's Mafia connections
in the newspapers. Fischer's response about Joe's business are worthy of note:
Herring: Do you know anything other than what you read in the paper about him?
Fischer: I know he's a dog. You know during that Sonesta conversation he said something about,
you know all the money is a little bit dirty. He was telling me that I had nothing to be ashamed of
about my SCAR days ( radical reform group) and being an ex con and all this. He said he was
an ex-con. He said he was an ex-junky, you know, and he said besides, you know
you don't make a million dollars as quickly as I did and have it all
clean. Or something like that. He said all new money is dirty.
Herring: How did you say he made his money...?
Fischer: Ya him and---they started a methadone program , right. One of the nice infallible things
about the system we live in. He started this program, Okay where people who commit crimes
they go in, they tell the judge , you know" I got a drug problem". OK you know jail is already
ordered, and the judge will sentence him to probation, and Joe Ricci's methadone program him,
and ---ran together Okay, the doctor down in Brookline, Mass. And it was either Jersey or
Connecticut that he did this, But it got to the point right, where attorneys would tell 17 year old
kids with no prior drug history." Listen I can make a deal here go in, you huff and plead to the
judge that you got a drug problem. He'll sentence you to Ricci's methadone program, no problem.
And he was actually creating drug addicts, you know.
Ouelette: In other words he was shooting them when they didn't have a problem?
Fischer: That'
right, because they would go in and some scum bag
attorney who didn't really want to work at the defense in the case
would just tell them look cough, or plea. Tell them you got a drug
problem. It's your first offense. No problem. The judge will send
you to a methadone treatment program, Okay. Now here's a kid
totally clean alright, who's went out raised a little hell and broke in,
stole a carton of cigarettes right not knowing that they could do a
better deal anyhow. They just do as their attorney told them. They
go in, plead guilty and tell the judge I got a drug problem
Herring: And and Ricci would get paid for these kids?
Fischer: Yup
Herring: By state?
Fischer : Yup the state would pay him. That was down out of state,
and then he came up to Maine, He made a million dollars down
there, came here bought these farms and started Elan. I have a
funny feeling that if you guys really dig on Ricci ..Here's a
character who's running a drug rehabilitation center and I don't
think he's clean himself, OK I think you'd find that Joe Ricci got
his finger in a lot of different things including the drug industry in
Maine.
The investigations into the fire at Scarborough Downs lasted for many months. Not only did the
state fire marshall's office investigate the fire, but so did the Mission Insurance Company whose
investigators even placed a call to Joe's ex wife to ask if she thought he was capable of setting
fire to his own track. ( She declined to speculate about anything her ex husband would do)
Through his own investigators Joe learned that he was a suspect, and began telling everyone that
he thought that something as preposterous as that might occur.... That's why he said he had
rewritten his track's insurance policy for 'replacement value only' just weeks before the fire He
thought this would eliminate the appearance that he could have benefited financially from it.

Interestingly enough the clubhouse, valued by the

town of Scarborough at $93,000 in 1979, was
'replaced' five years later for a cost of $2.2 million.
Ten years earlier on January 8, 1974, a fire had
destroyed an Elan building in Sebago that was rented
from a local doctor. The contents belonging to Elan
were also 'adequately insured.'
The fire at Scarborough Downs allowed Joe to
significantly upgrade his facility just as the fire at
Elan in Sebago caused him to establish Elan's
expanded location in Poland Spring.
…..
ATTENTION:

At this point---we have provide chapters 1 thru 7 at no charge...some of you have gotten Chapters
33 to epilogue---

**** and I, after resigning the advertising agency account with Joe Ricci--had to go into exile to
write the book--implied death threats and all---from 1988 to 1990 we had no income....We spent
over $50,000 (fifty thousand) dollars in three years to reasearch and write the book-=---We had to
sell our home---but because of the role we played...it was the price we had to pay....When we
printed 5000 copies of the book and sold it for $14...we had to give book sellers 60% of profits...
…..

Joe had no friends who were not employees either at the Downs or Elan. His employees were his
public and private life, the source of both business and pleasure. One person close to him
observed that it was Joe's protection to have only friends who were on his payroll, as their
economic dependence assured a loyalty ordinary friendships didn't guarantee. "No doubt about it,
people were paid to tell Joe what he wanted to hear." she said. She reported that one time during a
meeting he had casually asked no one in particular whether he was getting fat. One employee
observed that he did seem to have added a couple of pounds, and the next day that man was fired.
…….…….

Eric Moynihan, the new general manager at Scarborough Downs was chosen for the
job in 1984 because he had worked at Elan for three years. A psychology major in
college, he understood Joe's mood swings, and the frustration about his bank case which had been
the topic at Elan since it happened. Eric had survived a
mass exodus by Elan
employees during the previous two years, and was an easy going personality
who was loyal and attentive. He had the ability to know enough to sit silently when Joe was on a
rampage, and laugh with him when he was in a good mood, though he admittedly didn't get to
know Joe very well while he was at Elan. Being in education his activities were often separate
from the rest of the therapy program, and he had in fact only recently come to Joe's attention
for the work he contributed preparing Elan's licensing application for the state board of
education.

Eric had been working as assistant headmaster at Elan's Pinehenge School and attending graduate
school nights at the University of Southern Maine studying for his masters degree in secondary
education administration. He hoped to be a high school principal, and was getting all A's in his
courses. In fact he had sent Joe a memo only a month earlier expressing his desire to become
certified as a secondary school administrator since none of Elan 's personnel at Pinehenge School
had such certification. It was a deficiancy the state licensing people had mentioned in their review
of the school's application.

Eric's transfer to Scarborough Downs had been 'arranged ' for him. Just a week before the move
was to happen, he was called into a meeting at Elan with Joe and Martha, and told he
was going to be the new general manager at Scarborough Downs.
Nobody ever discussed this dramatic career move with him, noting that it was just
assumed he'd take the racetrack job, which raised his salary from $18,000 to
$25,000 overnight. Married with three young children, this boost in income seemed
a Godsend, something he couldn't refuse. Graduate school was put on hold.

……

Joe was adept at involving both his employees and his troubled adolescents in his causes. Specific
job descriptions or duties meant nothing to him when he wanted a recruit for a particular project.
He'd shuffle people around on his private game board, moving Eric from his educational post at
Elan to Scarborough Downs, Bobby Leighton back and forth, along with Martha, his secretaries,
accountants, janitors and lawyers. Even Elan residents sometimes did maintenance work at the
track, and lawn care at his house. Former Downs' Club chef, John Fortin, was willing to quit
rather than cook institutional style meals at Elan, but most stayed, losing their identities in a
Ricci Reality that was confusing.
……

When I left my office early that afternoon to go to lunch, I took the finished copy along for final
reading, throwing my rough drafts, ripped and wrinkled into the waste basket under my desk.
Upon returning a half hour later I was surprised to find Joe and Martha in my office. Martha was
sitting in a side chair, while Joe was seated behind my desk. In front of him was a roll of scotch
tape, and about ten scraps of paper taped together which formed a crude page. It was the contents
of my waste paper basket! Surprised to see me, Martha made a hasty exit, while Joe made
light of his violation of my privacy. He smiled and said he "liked to put
together puzzles", and the one in front of him was quite interesting. Without
missing a beat, I simply handed him the finished copy of the article,
remarking that my final draft was much easier reading than the 'trashy'
version on the desk. Yet inside I felt violated, and made a vow to keep my
guard up, lest I lose my sense of self.
I wondered what he had been looking for, rummaging through my waste basket. Was he that
paranoid that he thought I had serious secrets to hide, or did he merely want to be omnipotent in
his knowledge? Was it important to know everything about his employees in order to be better
able to control them? I didn't know then that this violation of privacy was
common practice at Elan.
……..

In addition to my duties at the track I had also been asked to create some ad copy and do media
buying for Elan. Dr. Davidson contacted me and asked me to begin retail advertising in some
upscale big city magazines to recruit kids from wealthy families. It
seems the state of
Maine had been revising their rules and regulations, and had not
renewed Elan's license as a residential child care facility. This
meant Elan was no longer getting state referrals, and the
enrollment was decreasing. That summer I placed advertisements
for Elan in magazines in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia .
They were headlined :What Do You Do When A Good Kid Goes
Bad?, and touted what I had been lead to believe was Elan's
93% success rate.
……

Directly across from me sat Sharon Terry, the assistant

executive director at Elan, a woman about 45 years old whom I had met just once
before. Sharon had salt and pepper colored hair, and protruding upper front teeth. She was not
attractive, nor was she ugly. Stylishly dressed in a sweater and skirt ensemble she looked
respectable. She began at Elan in 1980 as a 'gal Friday.' Though
she had absolutely
no training in mental health, or any professional credentials
she rose in the Elan ranks to be Joe's right hand person,
making an annual salary one former Elan administrator
speculated was 'close to $100,000.'
……….

Joe took the podium. He began by telling about his successes at Elan and Scarborough Downs,
citing all the standard reasons such as diligence, hard work and perserverence. Then he told the
audience a story about a father and son. The father had no time to play with his son who kept
pestering him for attention. The father finally ripped a map of the world from a magazine and tore
it into little pieces, and he told his son to put the pieces together and come back when he was
done.

The little boy was back in an instant, however, much to the father's surprise. And when his dad
asked how he'd put the map fragments together so quickly, the boy explained that on the other
side of the sheet with the map was a picture of a man. "When I put the man together, the whole
world just fell into place, exclaimed the son..."

Joe declared that he helped kids at Elan get their lives together so the world would be a less ugly
place. After he was done he walked to the back of the room, and asked me "Did you like the
story about the father and son?...I used to tell that when I was at Daytop, and
it always got them."
………

"I'll send you on a trip to a

"You should really go on vacation," he observed.

warm climate. How about the Bahamas, or the

Caribbean? I do that all the time for my staff at Elan.
It prevents them from getting burned out, rejuvenates
them, and makes them better employees. Where would you like
to go? You can take with you the person of your choice," he remarked, purposefully ignoring the
fact that it would obviously be my husband. I told him I appreciated his generous offer, but I
wasn't well enough to go around the block let alone thousands of miles away to a tropical island.

……

When thepress asked Joe whether his candidacy was a vendetta toward
Attorney General James Tierney for the alleged 'harassment' of Elan,
Joe was quick to point out that his campaign had absolutely nothing to do with his lawsuit. The
fact that Tierney was the favorite for the Democratic nomination was pure coincidence. Those
close to Joe knew, however, that challenging Tierney, and garnering publicity for his lawsuit was
an obsession.

….

Alice began working for Elan in 1982 after graduating from Providence College in Rhode Island
with a degree in social work two years earlier. She had been working as a waitress at an Inn in her
hometown of Warwick. Though she had no professional experience with
adolescents prior to her arrival at Elan, she had quickly become senior
director earning a salary in excess of $35,000. I had heard that she and
Joe had a personal relationship, and one former Elan staffer expounded upon that
statement, commenting that it was their mutual appetite for cocaine that made Joe and Alice
compatible.

……..

That Friday morning I boarded Joe's private plane for a flight to LaGuardia along with John, Joe,
and Father Bob. I realized, as we took off from the Portland Jetport, that Joe had assembled
an impressive entourage designed to persuade 60 MINUTES to do his
story. John carried a bulging briefcase containing court documents including secret
interdepartmental memos from the bank that would illustrate how victimized his client had been.
Father Bob was there to certify the purity of his employer's soul, and I to translate and talk TV
terms. In New York we were met by a chauffeured limousine Joe had hired, and whisked to to
the headquarters of CBS News on West 57th Street.

……..

On April 13, 1987 a federal jury in Portland, Maine awarded Joe Ricci
$15 million because of a suit he filed against his bank for wrongfully
terminating his credit. The jury's award, the largest verdict ever in the
state of Maine, set a national precedent. Joe had filed his claim nearly five years
earlier, when his line of credit was canceled because of an FBI rumor that linked him to the
Mafia, and indicated his involvement in a gangland killing.

……

Despite an article in the December 27, 1987 issue of THE NEW YORK
TIMES reporting that he had set up a center for constitutional rights in
South Portland, Maine, and a non-profit newspaper was in the works,
neither ever got underway.
In April of 1989, two years after his historic Key Bank victory, Joe took to trial a suit he filed
against his former lawyers who represented both him and the bank when his credit was cut
off. Charging conflict of interest he sought $25 million in damages from the law firm. This
trial, like the one involving the bank, was expected to be drawn out for at least six weeks.
Yet after only four days of testimony, the case was settled for an undisclosed sum reported
to be a little over $1million. ( A later hearing held before the Maine
Bar of Overseers, found the lawyers innocent of any
wrongdoing)
………….

Joe offered to introduce Allan to two former Elan residents. He said these young women could
substantiate his charge that the attorney general's office tried to intimidate them into saying
negative things about his character. He said they could confirm that the AG's office made
allegations that he used drugs, made sexual advances to female residents, and "almost every
horrific thing you can imagine."
…..

Before leaving that night he confirmed his arrangements to visit Elan the next day, talk to a few
residents, and then take a look at Scarborough Downs so he could nail down all the locations
prior to shooting Ed Bradley's interview with Joe the following month.

After John left to take Allan back to his hotel, Alice, Joe and I talked for a few minutes, and I
was astounded by Alice's near hysterical behavior. She said nearly nothing in Allan's presence,
barely managing to murmur a greeting when Joe introduced her as one of Elan's senior staff
members. And after he and John drove down the driveway, she was overcome with anxiety about
having to show him around Elan the next day.

"What happens if he asks a question I can't answer?" she wailed breathlessly,

"Or what if something goes wrong? Are you going to be there?" she asked
me anxiously. I explained that I wasn't because I had production for Scarborough Downs, and
besides I knew very little about Elan's day to day concepts. Joe assured Alice, that things would
be OK, explaining that Sharon Terry would be present as well. Joe told Allan he wasn't going to
be there. He said "Everybody acts different when I'm around, and I want you to see the place
without undue influence from me."
……..

I was frustrated and confused, and frankly didn't understand what Joe feared, what he had to hide.
I thought Elan was a reputable place, and though it was controversial in its approach, it had
weathered controversy before. I began to think Joe really had something to hide, given his fearful
presence.
…

Sharon's voice came over the line dutifully authoritative, announcing the defense strategy that
they hoped I would have advanced: "The theory is that they'll just move in with the movie
camera, television cameras anyway," she began, "...you know at Elan. They'll just come in start
filming. And then you're going to have the person standing there you know moving their arms
And there
saying that there's no comment, you know we don't want to be on record.
has to be people at the beginning of the road at Elan
stationed in case this should happen to get down there
to where they're filming, where they're going to break
through.
……

A half hour later I led the caravan into the Elan grounds for my second visit
to that rural place in Poland Spring. The center was quiet when we drove
up, the seemingly hushed silence of design. Joe's partner, Gerry Davidson
was on the porch of the main building, a rustic bungalow in sharp contrast to Joe's 125 acre
estate. Ed had planned to interview Davidson as well, but said he wanted to meet the two former
residents first. Inside sat Linda Cormier, Joe's secretary, and about three other office personnel
with the two former residents brought there for the interview.

One of the women had been hit by a car recently, and was in a wheel chair with her leg in a cast.
Allan suggested the cameras set up outside on the lawn since it was an unusually warm sunny day
for early April. Sitting in the sunlight Ed Bradley asked the two women, Michelle and Lisa, about
their experiences with the investigators from the attorney general's office, and Michelle said:
"This guy made Joe out to be this big bad horrible person, just like he was a
criminal...you know a crooked person. He said we all know,ha ha, where he gets his
money, like it was a joke..." Lisa said the investigator, made her feel that she should be
afraid of Joe, as if people from Joe's organization were watching her. Both talked about
being intimidated by seeing the investigator's guns, and praised Joe for his kindness and
integrity.

I had no reason to doubt Lisa and Michelle's sincerity, but questioned the
context of their remarks, and wondered whether Allan knew to what great
lengths Joe had gone to get them to Elan that day to speak to Ed Bradley on
camera. Neither had done particularly well since leaving Elan. One had attempted
college, and been the recipient of a free trailer from Joe, but backslid
into work at a massage parlor, and had a serious drinking problem.

After telling Allan about her potential testimony, Joe had his accountant look into a treatment
facility for her to dry out. A day earlier I overheard Joe telling somebody over the phone that his
life depended on getting one of those young women to Elan at the pointed hour, cleaned up, and
The other woman (who worked as a
bushy-tailed to talk to 60 MINUTES.
stripper) had also been the recipient of generosity from Joe, and
had received promises of future help.
…..

Allan knew that Elan was controversial, and said so on the air, but he also
called it the most prestigious school for troubled teenagers in the country.
Did he take this accolade from a brochure, or was it researched? Did he
know that during the past year the state of Maine had for numerous reasons
chosen not to renew Elan's human service licenses as a residential treatment
center for troubled adolescents, and that other
state licences
allowing the facility to act in the capacity of alcohol
and drug rehabilitation were no longer current? Was
Allan aware of the actual abuse complaints against Elan by former residents,
and some state mandates that prevented the placement of children at Elan
because it was determined it violated the basic civil rights of its residents?
(This revelation would have been a dramatic irony particularly when Joe
Ricci's major complaint against the bank was a violation of his own civil
rights)

Looking back now I even have more

ponderings...doubts...regarding one of the world's
most powerful investigative news organizations'
ability to accurately and thoroughly research its
subject.
,…..

Dear ***,
It is with regret that I tender my resignation. Neither you nor Joe can imagine the devastation and
humiliation I feel as a result of today's meeting, and this morning's telephone conversation with
Joe. I
have supported Joe 100% and have always worked in his best
interest. Doubting my loyalty to him, Scarborough Downs, Elan,
and his campaign as well as his ordering me to violate M.R.S.A.
Title 17A is absurd.
I apologize for taking a few days off but I haven't felt able to work. However, I will complete the
remainder of my time. Please make my termination effective June 15, 1986. I will work until June
8, and whereas I have one week's vacation, will take time June 9-15.

Again, I regret this turn of events as I had enjoyed my employment . However, Joe's orders at
6:15am this date not to permit Scarborough Police Dept. to make any arrests on Scarborough
Downs property is no only unethical but in my opinion totally illegal. I have been ordered to
obstruct government administration which is in direct violation of Title 17a Sect, 751 and
possibly section 603-improper influence.

I thank you, Eric and Steve for an enjoyable working relationship. I am sure that you realize that I
will not enter into any unethical or illegal arrangements. I also consider Joe's decision to follow
police and security personnel with video cameras as harassment and an insult to my professional
integrity. Friday night's altercation will be decided in a court, and not in Joe's conference room.
I will be referring this matter to my attorney to insure that my rights and ethics are not further
violated.

Very Truly Yours

Brad J. Buck…..

…..

I also wondered why Joe's own partner knew about his drug use, but let
him continue to function as a role model at Elan.
….

the 'white
The lawyers for Joe and Gerry blunted this attack, by introducing

washed' 1975 Maine ODAP report into

evidence. They maintained that four states--Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts
and Rhode Island--totally vindicated Elan and in fact praised Elan in this report. They
also produced an expert witness from Illinois who testified Elan had a 90% success rate.
The bank's attorey's could also have introduced the damning report regarding Elan done in 1981
by the child advocate's office in Rhode Island. It substantiated that there was no basis whatsoever
for Elan's inflated claims of 90% success with its residents.

By attributing Elan's declining population in 1982 to the Illinois report six years
earlier, the bankers missed the mark. They should have used an expert who could
explain how states are prohibited from sending their kids to Elan because Elan has
been found to violate a child's civil rights.

…..

Ms. Lockwood's description of the fragile state of her patient's mental state came just two days
after Joe's partner Gerry Davidson testified that Elan had made him and Joe millionaires.
According to court documents a 1982
financial statement showed that Gerry
had a net worth of $2.5 million including $350,000 in bonds and
securities, and $400,000 in mortgage free real estate. The salaries
for just Gerry and Joe in 1981 were $433,984 and climbed to
$757,984 in 1982 (the year they were refused the $125,000 loan
and were allegedly destitute.) In 1983 their combined salaries
dipped to $603,200, but rose again in 1984, 1985 and 1986 to
$620,537 and $621,113 and $658,424. In
addition to their
salaries both men took large loans from
Elan. In 1981 there was $438,168 in outstanding loans to Joe
and Gerry, and this amount rose to $694,522 in 1986.
In telling the story of how he met Joe, Gerry unapologetically acknowledged Elan's astounding
success. He told the jury about his own impressive medical credentials and of his meeting with
Joe Ricci in the early 1970's whom he said he found to be energetic thoughtful and intelligent. He
said that Joe was "...certainly a lot better than the Harvard Medical students I was teaching who
were supposed to be the creme de la creme." He told the jury that Joe was once a troubled youth
himself who went through a drug rehabilitation program and subsequently "...was not only Elan's
executive director, but the role model for students...Everybody knows that Joe started out with
nothing and made it... " he said. Explaining the social structure at Elan he stated: "All societies
have a chain of command. At Elan Joe Ricci is the general."

Whether or not any juror or parent of an Elan resident, or

other healthcare professional questioned someone with Joe's
abnormal personality being the role model for troubled
adolescents is worth pondering.
….

Now, four years after the trial Joseph Ricci VS Key Bank, the bank's trial attorney, Thomas
Burns, is still incredulous. He says: " (The bank) settled against my will, against my advice. It
was insane to settle that case because it wouldn't have stood up five minutes on appeal." He
further states that "Judge Watson should have set the verdict aside but he didn't do it...the bank
panicked and went ahead and threw money at him." Joe also made a personal call to Victor Riley,
chairman of Key Bank, headquartered in Albany, New York, and Burns says: "The bank was
concerned about the post judgement interest (an appeal would have taken at least a year) and they
were going through mergers and didn't want the debt on the books...There were all sorts of
problems."

But he emphatically states: "Joe Ricci

brainwashed everyone in southern Maine for
years about that case. It was a total, utter
miscarriage of justice...They never had a dime's
worth of damage."
Reflecting upon that case now Watson says it was one of his most memorable. Asked whether he
was surprised by the jury's verdict, he hesitates for a moment, chuckles, then simply says "Yes."
Watson has been a judge for 25 years, and has an impressive background. He grew up in Harlem,
was wounded serving in an all black army in World War II, and was vice president of NAACP in
New York. When he was in Portland presiding over the trial he endeared jurors and court
spectators, with his dry sense of sometimes self deprecating humor, and quick wit. Despite his
stature as a federal judge who had dealings with LBJ and the Kennedys, Watson does not seem
impressed with his status.
Talking via telephone from his Manahattan office, he is candid, but careful in recalling his
perceptions of the trial, and Joe Ricci.

Some of his feelings about Joe Ricci whom he considers " ...a very interesting man..." were not
for attribution. But speculating about the reasons for the jury's decision to award such an
enormous sum in the case, he says: "I think it was the old parable of David and Goliath. "
Talking about both the $15 million award for compensatory damages, and the subsequent $12
million awarded for punitve damages he emphasizes that he immeditely set aside the latter,
because it was not legally correct. Asked why he didn't set aside the compensatory award he
explains his perception of his role as a judge. He declares: "I don't want to substitute my
judgement. They (jurors) are the judges of the facts. I am only the judge of the law. If that's not
the case, what is the point of having a jury?"

When asked if it would be fair to inquire how he would have voted had he been a member of the
jury, he chuckles lightly, and says: "No...it wouldn't be." He reveals that he "...wanted to settle
that case, and it could have been settled in the early stages of the trial for $2 million, but the bank
wouldn't agree to the terms."

Proceeding to trial and convincing the jurors of

the crimes perpetrated against him made Joe
and Gerry millions of dollars richer than Elan
had already made them.
….

During the winter of 1987 Joe was also busy deciding what to do with the $15 million he
secured from Key Bank. Linda Smeaton left Blackstrap Road and attended spas in the south
where she got therapy for her serious leg injuries. Joe took several trips himself to Arizona and
Texas to look into starting another Elan in a warmer climate. He also went to Hollywood to see
about getting a movie made about his life...He'd come back from these trips with stories of having
talked to Martin Sorsese, and Clint Eastwood...

……

Eric couldn't believe that he had returned to work for Joe just a year ago thinking he had changed,
and feared what lay ahead.

Joe had begun to do things at the track, that Eric found alarming.
He brought in Elan staff like Sharon
Terry, Marty Kruglik a former resident,
and Alice Quinn, and endowed them
with positons of authority, though they
knew absolutely nothing about harness
racing, or the daily operations of a race
track.
…….

After a newspaper article stating that I was

writing a book about Joe Ricci appeared, I began
getting eerie phone calls with nobody on the
other end of the line. Several times when driving
in my car, I realized that I was being followed.
One time when my husband and I were out, we
confronted a person in a car who had trailed us
for more than two hours. When we aked why he
had been at all our stops during a single
afternoon, he simply smiled and sped away.
I soon received phone calls and letters from ex-Elan residents, and employees of Joe's businesses
Many were
who made chilling accusations about Joe...some for the record, others not.
afraid to speak on the record, fearing reprisals from him.
When I began to realize the extent of Joe's influence over so
many lives, I felt the need to get away from Maine to write the
book safely without feeling fearful. We sold our house in the summer of 1988,
We told nobody
put many items in storage, and moved secretly with our son to Montreal.
except close relatives where we were, and pretended to others that we were
living in Massachusetts.

From our little apartment in Montreal, I made bi-weekly junkets to Maine,

slipping in and out for interviews. Twice I traveled to Joe's hometown of
Port Chester, New York, and spent thousands of dollars on telephone calls
throughout the U.S., tracking down former Elan residents, employees, and
others in at least ten different states.
……

On St Patrick's weekend Dan and I traveled to Maine to review records at the state capital in
Augusta regarding Elan and Scarborugh Downs. I had contacted various state offices
and spent about a half hour on the phone from Montreal with Sylvia
Lund from the Office of Drug and Alcohol Protection.(ODAP) She told
me that I could come in anytime and see the public records. When I
arrived they pulled the files regarding Elan, but after just five minutes office
manager Neil Miner bolted into the alcove where I was reviewing the
documents and demanded that I stop. When I explained that I called in
advance for clearance, he called Department of Human Services Director of
Social Services, Peter Walsh, and Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes at
home for their opinions.

I was told I had to put the

After waiting for a half hour,

request in writing, and lawyers would

have to look over all the documents
before sending them to me. (These
materials contained information about
Elan's loss of licensing during 1985, and
1986. There was also the whitewashed
ODAP report issued after the Chicago
investigations into Elan)
….

Stephen Smith, an inmate at Maine State Prison in Thomaston, had been one of the first people to
write me with accounts of his experinces at Elan. We exchanged several letters, and I decided to
interview him at the prison when I was in Maine.On the second day of the trial I left early and set
out to see Stephen. The warden had arranged a private space where we could talk with some
degree of privacy, and I could use a tape recorder.

I had never been to a prison before, but prepared myself for the stares from the all male inmates,
and tried not to wince at the sound of steel doors banging behind me, as I was escorted through
narow passageways, up and down flights of stairs.

Stephen had written detailed accounts of his isolation at Elan, his rape, ditch digging, attempted
runaways, and subsquent punishments. But when I met him face to face, I really felt his pain.
At 27 years old he looked still kiddish with long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. His blue
eyes welled with outrage, as he revealed that Joe Ricci was "worse than Satan." " I don't
understand how he gets away with what he does, how people can legitimize his actions, how he
can grow rich from the pain he inflicts..." he says shaking his head, telling me again what he had
told me in a letter: that his stiff sentence at Thomaston was handed down by a judge who
chastized him for "not taking advantage of the opportunity at Elan."

Stephen said he was attending college at the prison, reading constantly, and learning to express
himself verbally. He promised to send me some of his writing.

The following poems arrived in the mail a few days later with a note saying : "Writing a poem
about Joe Ricci is like pulling barbed wire through my heart...He's a Mengele, a sick and insane
god gone mad..."

Mengele of Auchwitz

Mengele of Auchwitz
left a disciple in the woods of Maine,
Saint Snake, Joe Ricci...
The wicked always seek,
obscure woods far from decent people,
where they can cause innocents to scream
and laugh at their futility.

Self Made

Joe Ricci, Master, God, King

Ruler of a world called Elan;
His heart runs on Mercedes tires;
His throne is millions made on self's,
Yet he'd say:
"I'm a self made millionaire."
…….

I declined to eat, somewhat stunned by Gerry's candid characterizations of Joe.

I asked him about his quote in a 1975 article in CORRECTIONS magazine in
which he compared Elan to a concentration camp, and Joe Ricci to the
gestapo where residents take on the personality of the aggressor. He stopped
chewing for a minute, swallowed hard, and then with the palm of his hand chopped at the air in
front of my coffee cup. "Don't pay any attention to that piece... " he instructed, acting like the
learned doctor, talking to one of his charges.
But I pressed, asking him whether Joe was always a psychopath, or developed into one.
"He's been getting worse..." he observed, "and now I
think he poses a real threat to Elan. That's why after
this trial is over, I'm going to try to get him out of
there for everyone's sake.
……

Norberto was sent to Elan by his social worker in Rhode Island when he was about 13 or 14, and
moved quickly up the hierarchy, becoming a chief expeditor, the head of Elan's internal police
force, who successfully pursued and brought back those who tried to run away." I was fast..." he
recalled with a chuckle. "...there was nobody I couldn't get... I had a lot of status.

….

Norberto admitted that he had some bad experiences at Elan, but called them " a learning
experience." He mentioned Peter, Joe's right hand man, who beat him up, and humiliated him.
He said Peter and another guy punched him unmercifully, after a girl he was friendly with ran
away. They thought he had conspired with her. "We were tight but I didn't know she was
splitting." he said. The girl eventually returned and insisted she hadn't told Brice she was
leaving. "They knew then they were wrong for torturing me... " he said."But no apology no
nothing...They said 'That's just the way injustice is in life.'"
……

Norberto graduated from Elan when he was about 16 years and said he was doing all right
back in Connecticut when his social worker suggested he return, and said Elan's private
plane came and picked him up. "When I got back Joe Ricci shook my hand, and told me he
was putting me in re-entry status, making me a big shot in Elan 3

…..

"I can't say Joe Ricci never did nothing bad...But he did a lot of good. He did a tremendous good
by starting the program Elan. A lot of people died. But let me tell you why I think a lot of
people died. It was because they didn't know how to apply what they learned when they hit
streets."

He rattled off names of former graduates I should talk to, from about a dozen, half were in
prison, or on the street, others dead. He told me the wherabouts of one graduate, Don H., who is a
pimp, but warned me to be careful if I went to see him "because you re a good looking woman,
and he'll take what he wants."
Becoming more introspective he admitted that
there "...are not too many success
stories from Elan." and says "It's because people return to where
they came from...I probably could have been more successful, if I
stayed on as a staff member there...But you know the people that
stay on can never leave, because if they leave they'd be lost. They
just can't make it on their own." he observed.
Norberto observes " It's a place (Elan) that turns a person from negative into positive. " He says it
helped him become more aware of the world, and declares: "When I think about selling drugs to
make money, that's not negative stuff. A sin is only something you feel guilty
about..."
Stopping for a moment and musing Noberto observed: "But I think there was one thing that Joe
Ricci never really saw: a lot of people looked up to him, a lot of people wanted to be close to
Joe, and I don't think Joe knew that he broke a lot of hearts. You write that in your book. You just
say it like I said it. I don't think Joe knew that he was breaking these hearts."

Speaking about Joe he declared emphatically: "Joe is successful, and nobody can take that from
him. People can call him a mobster or they can call him a druggie, but they can't hurt him. You
know why ? He's got the bank account, and he can beat anyone. Joe is
the smartest man I know. You can write a book about Joe, but he might
write a book to undo whatever you say.
…..
Fischer told state police in 1985 that he had been hired
to transport an Elan file taken from the Department of
Human Services to Joe's attorney's office for copying.
……

Purportedly Joe had the authority to do this, based upon his controlling share of Golden Ark
Enterprises which encompassed the various houses at Elan-two through eight, established as
separate corporations for tax purposes.
…

Dear Elan Parent, Staff Member and Referring Source:

There have been ongoing disagreements between me and Mr. Ricci about matters at Elan
One. We have been negotiating for more than four weeks to resolve this. Until a few weeks
ago we seemed to be reaching an agreement whereby I would become sole owner on
December 1 and, indeed, I had been arranging financing, staffing, and affiliations with
other institutions for the school.

Unfortunately, negotioations appear to have totally broken down, and Mr Ricci has
announced that he has fired me as Medical Director. Thus, I have been left with no choice
but to seek a judicial resolution.

The point of this letter is to inform you that I and my attorneys are trying to resolve this
problem as soon as possible without needless worry from you. I will not give newspaper
interviews, and will carefully try to avoid publicity, and the trading of accusations in public,
because I believe that such actions can only harm Elan and all of its people.

One of the factors which has led to my disagreements with Mr.

Ricci is my feeling that Elans' "concept" is becoming progressively
diluted under his management and that as a result the school's
singular advantages over other programs are being diminished.
Gerald Davidson

…….

Liz Mendez* was a resident at Elan from 1981 until she left in 1984. It wasn't until February of
1990 that she contacted me, an hour after I finished speaking with Gerry. She told me she
had been in Boston for the past year and a half to "get away from Joe Ricci
because I thought he was going to come after me."

She said her therapist had been

involved in "debriefing some ex-Elan
residents" and told me: "she gets
really fired up about what I tell her
about the place... but even if she went
to check out what goes on there it
wouldn't work. Anybody who drops
in without notice, won't be allowed in,
and if you go as a guest, they'll
change everything around so that
nobody will see what normally goes
on. You'd have to be a fly on the
wall ."
….

After leaving college she said she began fearing for her life, because she thought he would track
her down, like he did the Elan residents who dared to run away.

Summing up her relationship with him she said: "For a while I thought Joe was just everything. I
thought he was this benevolent, caring rich sugar daddy...But I think he had motives for what he
did."

Referring to Elan as being "like a cult," she noted that "...literally you
don't get to see people from the outside world for months and
months on end. It's like brainwashing. You begin to think that's all
there is, because you either do what they want to survive, or you
don't make it...Getting on Joe's good side was the whole name of the game...Joe had
favorites, and if he liked you you'd get anything you want, cars, clothes, you name it. But the
flip side of that coin is that it takes the slightest little thing to piss
him off, and if he gets mad at you, forget it, because he just
doesn't forgive."
Pausing for a moment in her
narrative, Liz declared: "I just wish I
could stop other people from being
sent to Elan, I really wish I could...But
it all seems a little hopeless."
….

A lawsuit against Elan, Joe, Gerry and the state of Maine brought by former Elan resident
Betheny Berry was finally settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Berry filed her civil suit
charging abuse in 1987 after an earlier investigation by the state of Maine ( stemming from her
1983 complaint) showed no evidence of wrong doing. This 26 year old woman was 16 years
year old when she claimed she was abducted and taken to Elan where she remained for nearly
two years until her 18th birthday. She
charged a repeated pattern of physical and
emotional abuse which included deprivation of food and sleep, and
assault and battery.( Former Elan resident and staff member, Tom Agos remembers
Betheny as having been treated "very badly", and says he's not proud to have played a role in that
treatment).

….

Former controller Martha Amesbury's suit, like that of former

Scarborough Downs judge Dick Herman, was settled at the 11th hour
on the day it was scheduled for trial. In a pre -settlement conversation
with me, Martha revealed she was devastated by the lies Joe told
about her in his countersuit, and said: "Joe would just be cutting his
own throat to get me on the stand and say all the dirt the I'm going to

This 'dirt' allegedly

say about him."

included information that might be

of interest to the IRS.
…..

What about medical school classmates psychiatrists Gerry Davidson and

Marvin Schwartz who provided credibility to a 'therapeutic community' for
which Joe Ricci was the role model? What about the judges, and parole
officers who gave kids 'their last chance' at Elan, or risk going to jail, a fate
inmate Stephen Smith said is far preferable to Joe's Ricci's bunker in the
Maine woods? And what of social workers who sentenced kids to Elan
whose only crime was being orphans, and thereby wards of the state.?

what of the normally vigilant press who

Finally,

simply printed sweeping statements from Joe as

if they were based in fact? Even the veritable NEW YORK
TIMES was not imune when it stated in 1987 that Joe's philanthropic
center for consitutional law was already operational. All it ever had was an
empty office with a phone that rang and rang.

60 MINUTES, thought to be the premier investigative news show in the world, told an accurate
enough story of Joe's suit against the bank. But weren't there serious errors of ommision? And
what about the reference to Elan as one of the most
prestigious adolescent programs in the country? Just Joe
saying it didn't make it any truer than Elan's inflated
claims of a 80 % success rate which was disproven by the
state of Rhode Island..
Advertising, marketing, and public relations is in itself a profession dedicated to putting things in
their best most possible light. In that sense, during my stint working for
Joe, I did what I was paid to do. But the truth wasn't served by making sure Joe
Ricci told his story of victimization on 60 MINUTES. Like the Elan staffers (who
admitted to abusing residents, saying they didn't realize what
they were doing at the time) I, too, plead ignorance.
……

Just as this book was scheduled for publication Judge Watson, who presided over Joe's multi
million dollar lawsuit against Key Bank, sent me a copy of a screenplay titled : A MAN
CALLED JOE which had been sent to him for his comments. This script depicts Joe Ricci as a
quintessential crusader for justice.
Judge Watson and Bob Axelrod (Joe's attorney for the Key Bank trial) who spent days with the
scriptwriter at Joe's request, both indicated that the "60 MINUTES people" were
involved in this screenplay.

Recalling Allan Maraynes comments in the cafeteria of CBS

when he joked about getting the film rights to Joe's story, I
attempted to contact him at ABC's 20/20 show where he now
works as a producer.
Ironically more than two hundred people including Joe's relatives, his ex wife, employees,
lawyers and even a federal judge have willingly talked to me for this book, yet Maraynes who
himself is an investigative journalist refused to let me know whether Watson's and Axelrod's
observations were accurate.

Numerous calls to his office asking about his involvement in this film project resulted in only a
terse letter that stated he was not interested in being interviewed for a book concerning Joseph
Ricci. In a letter to the publisher he wrote:

..."I shall take very seriously any portrayal of me , either as a reporter

while at CBS, or as a private individual in the years after I left CBS. I
will take very seriously any impression left by the book that the
relationship I had with Mr. Ricci or any of his associates... was anything
other than ethical or legitimate while as an employee or CBS or again in
the years after I left."
……….

In researching and writing this book there have been surprises around many corners, and
receiving a copy of a ficticious script about Joe with the news that it may be sanctioned by a
former producer at 60 MINUTES was just another one .

What surprises me more than anything else is that Elan will

be celebrating its 20th anniversary this month, and Joe
Ricci is still functioning as a role model for troubled
adolescents, and growing richer doing it.

Perhaps state prison inmate, Norberto Brice,

was right when he said: " You can do what
you want, but Joe Ricci has money in the
bank....

He'll beat anybody. Joe Ricci

is the smartest man I ever
met.."
Maybe the observations of Joe's attorney, Bob Axelrod, are
more omininous. He predicts that in five, ten , fifteen or

"If Joe is still

more years down the road:

alive, he'll be doing exactly

what he's doing today." -1991
……….

Joe Ricci died, but The Elan School is alive and well, being run by the remaining members of the
Ricci Family. Directors at the school are still all ex-Elan. Some lower staff are not, but have
become twisted versions of their former self. Allegations continue and are
as recent as 2010. How long will this continue? Can we trust the media,CBS, 20/20,
60 Minutes, Maine Politicians, State Judges, Doctors, lawyers, etc…?

If you made it this far then you know the answer.