A 16-year-old boy has testified that Challenger founder Stephen Cartisano shoved him and tried to choke him when he tried to escape from the controversial wilderness treatment program.
Justin Michael Morris was asked by Kane County Attorney James Scarth if he had ever been hurt by program staff members."Yes," the boy answered. "Several times by several people." The first person he named was Cartisano.
His testimony is the first that accuses Cartisano of personally hurting a client. The other charges in his 6th Circuit Court trial allege that Cartisano, as founder and director of the company, knew or should have known of the abuses but failed to act.
Cartisano, 34, is charged with negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, in the death of a 16-year-old Florida girl in the program. He is also charged with six counts of misdemeanor child abuse.
Kristen Chase, of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., collapsed and died while hiking in the program June 27, 1990. An autopsy showed she suffered a heatstroke brought on by exertion.
Morris admitted on the stand that he once falsely accused a Challenger employee of molesting him. He said he made the accusation while trying to get out of the program.
Morris was one of several former Challenger students to testify that they were starved, hit, tied up and forced to eat rodents and lizards to survive in the 63-day treatment program.
Earlier, the mother of one of the boys, Christina Bennett, said she put her son in the program to help build his confidence. She testified she got back a "shattered child" who screams out in the night.
Bennett, of Stone Mountain, Ga., told the four-member jury the program did not deliver on its promises to provide counseling and help her son, 14-year-old Timothy Temple.
Instead, she claims he was physically and emotionally abused.
After being taken from the Challenger program last summer, she said, her son mostly stays in the house with the shades drawn. He suffers from recurring nightmares, wets the bed and fears Challenger counselors will kidnap and kill him, she said.
Temple followed her on the witness stand. He said he was in the program just 10 days, during which time he hiked seven days without food.
At one point, he said he was tied to a tree overnight in his underwear.
Another time, he said, the entire group was forced to hike with heavy water jugs because one boy had stolen a can of his peaches.
Since leaving the program last August, he said he has been "afraid to sleep alone."
His psychologist, Dr. James E. Stark, of Atlanta, testified he diagnosed the boy suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, similar to combat fatigue.
"It was caused by something that happened during the high desert last year," Stark said.
Dr. William Black, a Panguitch, Utah, general practitioner contracted by Challenger to provide medical services, said he hospitalized one youth for malnutrition after the program was shut down by authorities last fall.
Black said 14-year-old Matthew Callahan had lost more than 20 pounds while in the program and displayed classic symptoms of starvation, including wasted muscles, extended abdomen and slowed speech.
"He was emaciated and frail," Black said.