The Challenger program, according to its brochure, is designed to bring "defiant, irresponsible or rebellious teenagers out of their dream world and back to reality."
But the Challenger Foundation - a private group that takes troubled youths on survivalist experiences in the wilderness - is now being called out of its own world to answer a few questions.A ruling Friday by 3rd District Judge Dennis Frederick, who said the program violated a New York girl's constitutional rights, has prompted the state to ask Challenger to meet certain conditions.
Foundation director Stephen Cartisano, however, believes the court ruling is a tragedy and that the state is waging a campaign of "intimidation, harassment and persecution."
Frederick ruled that the Challenger Foundation violated the due process rights of Elizabeth Zasso, 17, who, at the request of her father, was abducted June 15 from her workplace in New York and brought to Utah, where she was forced to participate in the Challenger program.
Representatives of the Utah attorney general's office and the state department of social services observed this week's hearings on the Challenger case.
Following Frederick's ruling, Assistant Attorney General Paul Tinker said the state - which has already filed criminal action in an unrelated matter - has an increased interest in Challenger.
"For the first time that any of us are aware of, there is a judicial finding of abuse" against Challenger, he said. "And that certainly heightens our level of concern."
The judge, basing his decision on the testimony of Zasso, found that Challenger, "under the feeble guise of attitude adjustment," hoisted a "manifold of abuses and indignities" upon Zasso without justification or legal authority. The judge, who ruled that the girl was emancipated, said the program subjected her to conditions that the courts do not allow prisoners to be subjected to.
Cartisano said the ruling was unfair because the judge stated during the hearing that the primary issue was Zasso's emancipation rather than the program.
"We did not respond to the allegations (of abuse and neglect) because the judge told us that Challenger is not on trial . . . and then he turned around in his ruling and slammed us."
Cartisano, who plans to appeal, believes the ruling not only harms his business but will have a negative effect on "parents everywhere who have teenagers."
He said the real victim in this case is Zasso, "who is being taken from her parents by the state of Utah and turned over to her boyfriend, a criminal." According to court documents filed by Challenger, the boyfriend, Christopher Plath, is a "well-known drug user and pusher."
Zasso's troubles with her parents centered around her desire to date Plath. On May 4, she left home after refusing her parents' wishes for her to stop seeing him.
Sixteen years old at the time, Zasso moved in with Plath and maintained a part-time job with a dentist, receiving no more support from her parents.
On June 15, two men she had never seen before showed up at her work and abducted her. The men were agents of Challenger and had been hired by Zasso's parents, who paid the foundation more than $15,000 to place her in the program.
Without being allowed as much as a phone call, Zasso was flown to Provo and then driven to Escalante, where she was strip searched and forced to start a 63-day odyssey into the wilds.
Meanwhile, Plath tried to get charges filed in New York against her parents. No one would take the case, so Plath came to Utah and hired local attorney Michael Mohrman, who obtained an order from Frederick to have the program deliver her to the court for a hearing.
She testified that she was subjected to all kinds of privations, including lack of medical attention, adequate food, shelter and clothing and sanitary facilities.
Cartisano said conditions in the program are not as serious as she testified and he intends to clear up the mis-statements in a press conference Monday.
In a matter unrelated to the Zasso case, Garfield County prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Challenger in May. The company, which conducts most of its experiences in Garfield County, is charged with child abuse, tampering with a witness and interfering with a public servant.
The case, which has not yet gone to preliminary hearing, has been continued several times by the prosecution.
Cartisano said he and his attorneys have been prepared to tackle the case because "there really is no case.
"It's all part of (the state's) campaign of harassment. I have more success than these guys can ever dream about. They want to put me out of business because they think they are the sole repositories of light and truth regarding children."