Investigation into Abuse at the Lord's Ranch in Arkansas

What was the Lord's Ranch?

The Lord’s Ranch opened in 1976 and closed in 2016. The facility was alleged to have focused on providing medical treatments, including mental health services and other residential treatment methods. Owner and wealthy businessman Ted Suhl, whose father Bud Suhl founded Lord's Ranch, was convicted and given a prison sentence for bribery and fraud for gaming the Medicaid system of more than $125 million in state Medicaid funds through the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) for the camp, Trinity Behavioral Health Care and Maxus. We believe the fraud in the Medicaid system by Suhl incentivized the Lord's Ranch to stall, cover up, ignore, and/or otherwise minimize allegations of abuse and misconduct for Suhl and LR to preserve its lucrative state contracts.

Attorneys and former residents say abusive staff acted with impunity and sexually abused LR’s vulnerable, adolescent residents with little if any consequence, with reports of abuse going back to at least 1990. The camp took in children of the ages 7-17, many of whom had troubled family or criminal pasts, from Arkansas, Alaska, Illinois and Indiana, and promised to rehabilitate them with religion, but instead traumatized them with sexual abuse in its culture of corruption.

The Arkansas Times reported on the Warm Springs treatment facility on multiple occasions, detailing the fraud and abuse, as well as noting that Alaska had officially stopped sending children to the camp in 2014, with the state’s DHS also removing Ted Suhl’s businesses from their Medicaid programs.

Your Lord's Ranch abuse claim

Our pending civil litigation is a way to get to the truth of what happened to so many young people at the Lord's Ranch and to hold accountable the owners, leaders and former staff who knew or should have known about the sexual abuse, or who took part in the abuse of inpatient clients of the Randolph County treatment facility.

We encourage anyone with any information, who worked there or knows someone who did, or who was a resident there to come forward as a witness to what happened. These conversations are time-sensitive, as there is a window ending at the beginning of 2024 to file these types of abuse claims.

Delivering justice for sexual abuse survivors

The results we have achieved in many sexual abuse and hazing cases are a testament to our team’s fierce dedication to clients. For example, we are proud to have secured justice for a wide range of people: those abused by clergy or scout leaders, school administrators, teachers, coaches, and counselors, victims of sex trafficking, and those who were forced into a sexual assault as a hazing ritual. The team has represented and currently represents dozens of survivors of rape and childhood sexual abuse in many of the highest-profile abuse cases in the country. In addition to securing tens of millions of dollars on behalf of survivors in cases against powerful institutions, they have fought for accountability and policy change to help protect future generations of children. Some of the recent recoveries include a settlement on behalf of a child abused at a religious church camp; a settlement on behalf of a teenage boy sexually abused at a boarding school; and meaningful recoveries on behalf of patients abused by medical professionals.

Free consultation on your case with Chicago-based sexual abuse lawyers

The sexual abuse attorneys at Romanucci & Blandin have proven success in these types of cases. If you or a loved one has suffered injury or abuse, please contact our office at 312-458-1000 or click here for a free case evaluation. There is never a fee until you are compensated for your injuries at the end of the case. 

Disclaimer: The content found on this page is not legal assistance and contacting the sexual abuse lawyers at Romanucci & Blandin’s law office for a free consultation regarding personal injury cases and sexual abuse claims does not constitute an attorney-client relationship.