This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system.
An Ohio lawmaker who has proposed giving the state greater authority to shut down troubled residential treatment centers for children says that kids locked away need access to a professional who is ready to report abuse and neglect to police and state regulators.
Rep. Crystal Lett, D-Columbus, made the comments during a Children and Human Services Committee meeting earlier this week while discussing HB 811, legislation she sponsored that would compel the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) to revoke the licenses of residential treatment facilities if there is a pattern of serious violations, abuse, neglect or exploitation.
Lett cited investigations by The Marshall Project of two of the state’s largest facilities: Fox Run Center for Children and Adolescents in St. Clairsville and Mohican Young Star Academy near Loudonville. Lett highlighted campuswide brawls and injuries to children and staff at Mohican and emergency incidents or allegations of abuse and neglect documented by police at Fox Run that did not appear in state records.
“These are not isolated incidents,” Lett said. “As of now, these facilities are demonstrating repeated failures in caring for some of our most vulnerable children.”
In her testimony, Lett also referenced former Fox Run CEO Randall MacKendrick, who recently faced federal charges of possessing child pornography and attempted coercion and enticement of a minor. He also pleaded not guilty to state charges of unlawful sexual contact with a minor, importuning, disseminating matter harmful to a juvenile and possessing criminal tools.
Lett, a former mental health worker whose brother died while living in a residential treatment center, said her concerns extend beyond whether the state can close facilities after repeated violations. She questioned why police reports from Fox Run did not consistently appear in the state’s incident-reporting system, and who is responsible for ensuring that law enforcement communicates those incidents to state regulators.
“There was a lack of awareness that there was even a breakdown in the communication,” Lett said, referring to police reports that did not appear in the state incident database.
She said children living in the facilities should have access to a professional who is independent of their guardians and can elevate concerns to state officials or law enforcement. One possibility, she suggested, would be connecting children with an adult advocate through a coordinator at OhioRISE, which is a Medicaid managed care program for young people aged 0 to 20.
Kerstin Sjoberg, the president and chief executive of Disability Rights Ohio, the state’s federally mandated protection and advocacy system for people with disabilities, said Lett’s idea of professionals connecting with children would be a good thing, but she had reservations about how it would be implemented. DBH’s response to allegations of abuse and neglect is “inconsistent,” she said.
“It could be helpful if those people take accountability for that role, and that's the piece that I'm not sure how you make that happen because, you know technically, we have DBH in an oversight role with adults that aren't always taking accountability when they do hear about things,” Sjoberg said.
Sjoberg said she hopes that if professionals come in to monitor kids and find out something alarming, their response to that information is “appropriate and urgent.”
The Marshall Project recently obtained records that show the Department of Behavioral Health conducted an investigation after the newsroom shared its analysis of Fox Run’s self-reported incident data from January 2022 through June of 2025, which found that at least 40 incidents involving police did not appear in state documents.
The investigation included an on-site inspection and interviews with MacKendrick and another administrator, according to state records.
“Review of the identified incidents showed that some were not reportable by the rule and others were appropriately reported. However, based upon the available documentation, it could not be determined whether all incidents were reported as required,” the state review concluded. The department did not identify any violations, and no action was taken.
When The Marshall Project’s investigation of Fox Run was published, MacKendrick said that aggression, self-harm and suicide attempts are “unfortunately not uncommon among this high-acuity population.”
“Fox Run cooperates with state regulators and other oversight agencies, investigates concerns, and implements corrective actions whenever warranted,” MacKendrick wrote.
The Marshall Project published its investigation into Mohican in November 2025; the state began proceedings to revoke the facility’s license the next month while suspending patient admissions. That hearing process has taken nearly a year. After months of continuances, the final hearing took place Oct. 26, according to a DBH spokesperson. The department is currently waiting on findings from the hearing officer.
Mohican leaders have declined to comment and said the allegations are without merit.
Addison Torrence, who lived at Sequel Pomegranate Health Systems as a teenager before it was shut down in 2021 for abuse and neglect, and now works as an advocate for reform of these facilities, said Lett’s bill is an “important first step” toward ensuring that children in residential treatment are safe and being helped, rather than hurt further.
With police often being summoned to the facilities to restore order, Torrence said, it’s critical “that officers have a clear reporting process to follow, that communication across agencies is clear and effective, and that the Department of Behavioral Health is addressing these incidents with urgency and consistency.”
Without clear and robust reporting, “we lose an important opportunity to identify patterns of abuse and neglect, hold facilities accountable, and intervene before more children are harmed,” he said.
Sjoberg also called for better training and hiring practices at residential treatment facilities.
“We need to invest in better training for the staff that have the most regular contact with kids. They're the ones that are managing the general environment and interacting with kids on a day-to-day basis, almost 24/7,” Sjoberg said. “They don’t usually have any kind of licenses or particular education.”
In her testimony, Lett said closing dangerous facilities is only part of the solution.
“We cannot allow repeated violations to be treated as paperwork problems while children remain at risk,” she said. “The children living in these facilities are not disposable, friends … They are Ohio’s children.”