Spanish steppers try aversion therapy

[Guest guest]

ASSOCIATED PRESS

June 21, 1998

LOS ANGELES -- Six unlicensed alcohol-rehabilitation clinics suspected

of forcing patients to drink large amounts of alcohol to cure their

addition have closed or were shut down by authorities.

Law enforcement and county health officials, who inspected clinics

countywide after 11 suspicious deaths occurred at such facilities,

announced the closures Friday.

The inspections began after authorities received reports that

organizations touting themselves as Spanish-language Alcoholics

Anonymous meetings were a front for live-in facilities where patients

may have been held against their will.

Authorities said the closures account for all known 24-hour facilities

that conducted the forced aversion therapy, in which patients were

forced to drink large doses of alcohol until their system tired of the

craving.

Four of the facilities were ordered to cease-and-desist any of the

illegal activity, said Fred Leaf of the county Department of Health

Services. Two of the facilities closed on their own.

Court officials have sent a list of 57 suspect facilities to all county

courthouses. Defendants sentenced to alcohol treatment are to be

provided with the list, along with a health department warning advising

them not to visit the sites under investigation.

The investigation was spurred by the May 25 death of a 34-year-old man.

He died during an apparent aversion therapy treatment at Grupo

Liberacion y Fortaleza, one of the clinics that is now closed.

Criminal charges have been brought against seven men in connection with

two deaths.

In addition to the suspicious deaths, Leaf said earlier last week that

investigators have found evidence of whippings, beatings and other

offenses, such as unsanitary living conditions.

Officials said there are plans to also inspect other organizations that

use the Grupo Alcoholicos Anonimos name, even though they do not appear

to be run as 24-hour facilities.

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

P.

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Pumpkin Eater

" Facts are stubborn things "

-- Judge Zobel, from Alain Rene Lesage

[no, I didnt know who he was either]

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