Teenager suing Utah 'boarding school' Elevations for 'kidnapping' and 'torturing' him after father raped him for being gay demands 'troubled teen' industry be shut down as Paris Hilton and Taylor Goodridge cases rock Beehive State

Finn Richardson claims he was 'whisked away' from his home in the dead of night by two unknown men and detained at a Utah facility for 8 months against his will The 18-year-old said his father set up the abduction after he raped him for being gay and wanting to live with his mother, according to a lawsuit filed last week Richardson has now told DailyMail.com that he wants to see the entire 'troubled teen' industry shut down amid a litany of cases brought against Utah centers 

A gay teenager who claims he was ‘kidnapped’ and ‘tortured’ at a private treatment center in Utah after being raped by his father has said the entire ‘troubled teen’ industry should be shut down.

Finn Richardson has alleged that aged 15 he was ‘whisked away’ from his home in Washington, D.C., by two unknown men and taken to a treatment center for supposedly disobedient youths around 2,000 miles away in Syracuse, Utah.

He was held at Elevations RTC against his will from August 2021 to March 2022, according to a lawsuit filed in Utah’s 2nd District Court last week.

Richardson claims the kidnapping was arranged by his father who was upset that his son was gay and wanted to live with his mother.

In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Richardson, now 18, has said the entire industry is ‘inherently abusive’ and should be ‘shut down’.

Finn Richardson, pictured here at Elevations, a treatment center for ‘troubled’ youths in Utah, is suing the facility over claims it ‘kidnapped’ him when he was 15 after his father raped him

Ryan Faust, a therapist at the center, ‘tortured’ Richardson by taking away his personal belongings and also failed to report allegations of his father’s rape, according to a lawsuit

A statement by the Elevations facility in Syracuse, Utah, denied it had ‘kidnapped’ Richardson and said Faust did report the rape allegations, but that the issue was over when he did so

Elevations has denied it ‘kidnapped’ Richardson.

The case has shone a light on Utah’s ‘troubled teen’ industry, which is thought to worth around half a billion dollars a year to the Beehive State.

The state houses around a third of all teens that crossed state lines to enter a youth treatment center between 2015 and 2020.

Four deaths have occurred in these facilities since 2021, with 37 lawsuits filed against centers between 2010 and 2020.

It comes after Paris Hilton claimed that she was sexually abused after being forced to undergo cervical exams performed by staff members in the early hours of the morning while attending a Utah boarding school for troubled teens in the 1990s.

In August, another Utah teen facility was forced to close its doors after it was accused of ignoring 17-year-old student Taylor Goodridge’s cries for medical attention in the days before her death.

State legislators have recently introduced regulations to improve standards at these centers.

But Meg Appelgate, CEO of Unsilenced, an advocacy group for former residents of youth treatment centers, said Richardon’s case was symptomatic of a broken industry.

Utah is home to almost 100 youth residential centers, which cater to parents paying upward of $30,000 to find help for struggling teenagers.

Some are on juvenile probation or struggling with drug misuse and eating disorders.

Others, such as Richardson, are simply from broken homes.

Paris Hilton has detailed alleged sexual abuse she endured while attending a Utah boarding school for troubled teens in the 1990s

Hilton has campaigned for the closure of Provo Canyon School since 2020

Taylor Goodridge, 17, a student at Diamond Ranch Academy in Hurricane, Utah, died on December 20 from an ‘easily treated’ infection that led to sepsis after school staff allegedly ignored her cries for medical attention

Diamond Ranch Academy – an 108-bed teen treatment rehabilitation program in Hurricane – was sued by the girl’s parents over her death. It described itself on its website as a ‘world-class residential treatment center and therapeutic boarding school for teenagers’

The ‘troubled teen’ industry was born in Utah in the 1960s when a Brigham Young University student named Larry Dean Olsen started leading wilderness outings with his classmates.

It has since spread across the US, but the Beehive State remains the epicenter of the industry thanks to its pitch to rehabilitate wayward teens through living and hiking in its picturesque landscapes, as well its favorable laws.

Utah is considered a ‘parent’s rights state’, which means that parents can make medical decisions on behalf of their children, who are unable to leave a facility without their guardian’s consent.

It was this that allowed Richardson’s father to have him ‘abducted’ from his home on August 11, 2021, and have him detained at the Elevations center in Utah at $25,000 a month.

Richard told a press conference in Utah last week that he was stripped and searched upon arrival at the center before he ‘shrank’ into a bed barely bigger than himself and broke down in tears.

He remembers the narrow, gray hallways, stained carpets and windows covered in hand marks from children banging on them desperate to get out.

Around 50 children aged between 13 and 18 were ‘condemned’ to monotonous days and frequently punished for minor offenses, such as having dust on their desks, Richardson claimed.

Richardson claims in his lawsuit that Faust ‘began to torture’ him by stealing his personal affects, including a gift card, ‘so that he would feel even more powerless’.

Faust said he ‘did not believe’ Richardson when the boy told him that his father had raped him when he was 15 and failed to report the allegation to the authorities, according to the lawsuit.

Richardson, who is now back living in Washington, D.C, with his mother and in his final year of high school, said he hoped he was launching his case for ‘all the survivors’ of Elevations.

Richardson claimed youths at Elevations center were made to endure monotonous days and frequently ‘punished’ for minor infractions, such as having dust on their desks

He is now living with his mother at home in Washington, D.C, and is in his final year of school

Elevations said in a statement that Faust did report Richardson’s allegation that his father had raped him, but ‘the issue with the state was how soon’ he did so.

It added: ‘Knowing the allegation occurred at the home of the out-of-state parent and the alleged abuser was thousands of miles away, the therapist briefly delayed reporting while he reviewed the matter, taking into account the ongoing dispute and social dynamics between the parents.

‘The therapist reported the allegation; the father was investigated, and no charges were filed.

‘All of this occurred nearly two years ago under a state statute that has since changed to require reporting abuse allegations without delay for judgment or investigation.

‘Our staff has been retrained to follow these new guidelines, and we will continue to behave within the law and in a way to protect the interests of our students, whose safety and well-being remain our primary priority.’

‘We look forward to defending our program and staff against this unwarranted attack.’

Some teenagers have said they have been helped by their time at such centers.

But Appelgate, who has supported Richardson in his case, echoed his calls for the industry to be shut down.

‘The very act of removing kids from their community, their home, their familial system, is not based on evidence,’ she told DailyMail.com.

‘Regardless of intentions, it is not regulated or reported on. These are not safe places for children.’

Meg Appelgate, (left), CEO of Unsilenced, an advocacy group for former residents of youth treatment centers, said Richardon’s case was symptomatic of the broken industry

Utah State Senator Mike McKell (left) introduced new laws on the industry in 2021 to increase oversight and ban solitary isolation after ‘a lot of kids had been harmed’ by the practice

Utah State Senator Mike McKell (R.) helped bring in new laws in 2021 that placed limits on the use of medication and restraints in youth treatment centers and banned solitary isolation.

The regulations also increased the reporting requirement for facilities as well as the frequency of inspections.

McKell told DailyMail.com the laws were needed because ‘a lot of kids had been harmed by the industry’.

‘We had a half a billion dollar industry, outside any type of regulatory structure,’ he added.

He said there were things happening that ‘should never have been legal’, including a young girl who was chemically restrained more than a dozen times at Provo Canyon School, the same institution Paris Hilton spent 11 months at when she was 17 years old.

The reality star has campaigned to regulate the industry after she alleged physical and mental abuse incidents at the school, which has been running since the 1970s.