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Rotenberg records reportedly are seized

Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Wen

Globe Staff / May 15, 2008

State Police seized documents late last week from the offices of the

Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton that are related to a

prank phone call last summer that led two students to wrongfully

receive dozens of punishing electrical shocks, according to two

people with direct knowledge of the investigation.

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The collection of evidence has to do with a yearlong grand jury

investigation led by the office of Attorney General Martha Coakley,

said Mollins, a New York lawyer who has filed several

lawsuits against the school and who said he spoke to a representative

of Coakley's office about the Rotenberg investigation. Mollins said

he was told the grand jury is also examining possible financial

improprieties by the school.

The second source, who works for the state and asked to remain

nameless because this person is not authorized to speak about grand

jury proceedings, said State Police investigators came with a search

warrant and left with boxes of documents. The source said the

investigation had an ambitious scope and involves multiple government

agencies.

Reached last night, Ernest Corrigan, a spokesman for the school, did

not confirm that a seizure of documents had occurred last week. He

said only that school officials have been cooperative with state and

local police ever since they reported the prank phone call to police

last summer.

" We've been supportive of the investigation, " he said.

A spokesman for Coakley declined to comment, saying the office never

confirms or denies an ongoing investigation.

The special-education school, which serves about 250 adults and

children from across the country with emotional and behavioral

problems, has been the target of numerous government investigations

related to its unorthodox behavior-modification methods, including

skin-shock treatments to deter inappropriate behavior. Rotenberg

officials, who have weathered two attempts by Massachusetts officials

to close the center, have defended its treatment methods as effective

for some students.

School officials have also said they have instituted numerous

safeguards to prevent a repeat of the Aug. 26 incident, in which two

emotionally disturbed students wrongfully received dozens of

electrical shocks based on instructions from a caller posing as a

supervisor. The incident was caught on 24-hour surveillance tapes,

which were shown to investigators last summer. The tapes were

subsequently destroyed by school officials, even though investigators

had instructed them to preserve the tapes.

After hearing about the destruction of the tapes, Senator A.

Joyce, a Democrat from Milton who has sought to ban shock therapy at

the school, said he intended to ask the attorney general's office to

look into the matter.

Wen can be reached at wen@....

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

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