Roughly 100 girls ages 12 to 17 live at Mingus Mountain Youth Treatment Center (MMYTC) in Yavapai County. The executive director says more than half were sold or traded for sex before coming here. Two survivors are waiting to talk in a therapy office, where a medium-sized dog guards the safe space. The girls sit together on a couch. KJZZ is only referring to them by first initials. K is a violinist partial to blue who is wearing rainbow-colored, monster-clawed slippers. The MMYTC staff helps K embrace her past, but she used to think she could not change. “I would run away. Go do drugs. Go with different people and just go everywhere — Texas, and California and New Mexico,” K said. S wears giant brown clogs because they’re warm. She likes to read, and her favorite color is neon green. Much of the center’s specialized sex trafficking program makes sense to S. She has a GED now, and she said her self-respect is growing. But S sometimes wants her old life back. “So I feel like I’m never going to be at a point where I’m completely 100% comfortable in one place because I’m just so used to moving around and not sitting still, like (K),” said S, who is college-bound to learn cosmetology. K said she wants to study the same subject because she likes doing hair. Do they hope to work together in the future? “We haven’t really talked about it because we don’t know if we’re going to find each other,” K said. “But we have the same case worker now. So we might find each other.” K and S have spent less than a year at MMYTC.
13 former residents allege negligence
Thirteen former residents at the state-licensed behavioral health center allege in a negligence lawsuit filed in January that they were subjected to a range of sex crimes between 2011 and 2022. A defendant has told a judge he can’t be held personally responsible for the acts of the limited liability companies accused of wrongdoing. Lawyers for the defendant LLCs want the case thrown out and deny having been careless when responsible for some of society’s most vulnerable. Some girls get confused when taken to see a movie or when it's their turn to order a meal. "Because they have never been to a restaurant,” said Shaun Mohon, executive director of MMYTC. Mohon was the official guide during KJZZ's tour of the sprawling campus with postcard views of Prescott Valley. He’s an industry veteran who joined the center in 2020 under a different title. Mohon said girls at the center get individual treatment to create hope that can lead to healing. “This might be the first connection that they’ve had with an adult that’s worked or the first trust they’ve built with an adult figure that they feel safe with,” Mohon said. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs call MMYTC an inescapable nightmare. A spokesperson for MMYTC said an internal search for evidence of past abuse has found nothing. Mohon pointed to equine therapy, apartments for those who turn 18 with nowhere to go, and a university partnership to earn college credit as examples of features the center offers but doesn't have to. The lawsuit cites a recent U.S. Senate Finance Committee staff report called
Warehouses of Neglect: How Taxpayers are Funding Systemic Abuse in Youth Residential Treatment Facilities. The government document references John Ripley, a defendant in the Arizona lawsuit, 25 times. Ripley did not reply to questions from KJZZ.
Government report cites defendant in lawsuit
A MMYTC spokesperson calls the report a partisan political exercise, not an unbiased investigation of the center, where Mohon also let KJZZ visit a classroom. The kids interviewed me and it broke the ice. One girl noticed the name brand of my prescription glasses and said I must be rich. Places like where the girl lives have made Ripley wealthy, according to the government report, which cites a 2022 investigation by American Public Media. Ripley is quoted as saying controlling staff is how to profit from youth residential treatment centers. Another girl in the classroom stepped forward and told me she wanted to give a quote. “Mistakes are improvements,” she said. Ripley’s motion to be dismissed from the lawsuit says allegations of sex crimes by staff were not part of the job they were hired to do for the LLCs, so Ripley can’t be held liable. The girls I met in class at MMYTC are unlikely to know of the case. One took my microphone and was recording while another shared a magic trick with cards. Right before we left, their neighbor taught me a word in O’odham. “Always, that’s my favorite word,” she said. Mohon also let KJZZ sit in on the daily round-table chat by his executive team. Their work enabled survivors S and K to grow into official role models for those new to the center. “(S) is my survivor sister,” K said. “Even though she's older than me and a little bit more mature than me, we can still relate on a level because we’ve been through the same experiences.” S agreed that maybe opening their own salon some day is a good idea. “(K) is always smiling. She’s always so cheerful. And she’s always trying to help people out. I just want to see the best for her and if I can be a part of that, that would be really cool,” S said. Attorneys for the lawsuit plaintiffs declined to comment for this story. A defense request for a gag order was made the same day as KJZZ's visit to the center will be the subject of a show cause hearing scheduled for early June.
