State Lifts License of Camp O’Neal; Psychiatrist Denies Sex Allegation

State social services officials suspended the license of Camp O’Neal on Friday, accusing the operators of the High Sierra group home of repeatedly violating care and treatment regulations and failing to properly supervise three teen-agers who drowned in the Convict Lake tragedy last month.

After the temporary suspension order was served, officials from four counties removed 15 teen-age boys who were still living in the facility for delinquent and troubled youngsters. But operators of the camp, which is licensed for 34 residents, vowed to fight the closure at a state hearing within 30 days.

Fred Miller, state deputy director of community care licensing, accused Camp O’Neal in the suspension order of “gross lack of care and supervision.”

Kathleen Norris, public information officer for the state Department of Social Services, said “there were other accusations of lack of care and supervision, but the most serious, of course, was the incident resulting in the death of the three clients.”

Camp residents David Sellers, 15; Shawn Diaz, 15, and Ryan McCandless, 13, died when they fell through the ice during an outing at Convict Lake on Feb. 19. Camp counselors David Meyers and Randy Porter, volunteer fireman Vidar Anderson and U.S. Forest Service employee Clay Cutter died trying to rescue the youths.

Questions of whether the youngsters had been properly supervised arose and state licensing records disclosed what Norris termed “chronic problems” in caring for camp residents.

Many of the allegations in Friday’s suspension order come from previously reported state licensing records, including charges that camp officials failed to protect the residents from sexual abuse by a client and a female teacher, and that clients were overmedicated and poorly clothed.

But the suspension order also included new allegations that Bobbi Trott, executive director of the camp, “physically restrained clients in an effort to administer injections,” and that staff members without proper medical training were allowed to inject clients with drugs.

State officials also alleged that in a bizarre incident a staff member “flatulated in (a client’s) . . . face as a form of punishment.”

“I don’t know if that was in the form of a punishment,” said Trott, adding that the staff member was reprimanded and later fired for another reason.

Trott denied the other allegations and Benjamin Epstein, public relations consultant for the camp who was hired after the drownings, vowed that the facility’s officials would be vindicated.

“They are completely dedicated to emerging from whatever adversity as an even better, stronger Camp O’Neal,” he said.

Epstein said that when the suspension order was served, camp officials were still “stunned and bewildered” over the news Thursday that Dr. James Harrington White, consulting psychiatrist to the camp and a member of the facility’s board of directors, had been arrested in Newport Beach on suspicion of drugging and sexually molesting an adult patient.

State officials said there was no connection between the suspension order and the arrest of White.

Trott disclosed Friday that a former client of the camp who had run away from the facility last fall had subsequently been placed in White’s custody by juvenile officials in the youth’s home county and had been living in White’s home in Newport Beach.

She refused to disclose the boy’s home county and said she did not know if he was living with the psychiatrist when he was arrested.

During their search of White’s Corona del Mar home Thursday afternoon, Newport Beach police took three juveniles into custody. Two 15-year-old boys were held, apparently in protective custody for reasons that police said were unrelated to the White arrest. The third youth was released. Police, citing confidentiality regulations regarding juveniles, would not discuss the boys’ relationship with White.

White, 47, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he drugged a patient with prescription medication and then committed oral copulation on him.

White made no comment during his brief arraignment in Orange County Municipal Court in Newport Beach. “He’s extremely distraught. . . . He’s stunned,” said his defense attorney, Robert D. Coviello of Santa Ana.

Trott said that White was recommended to her by Mono County mental health officials and that the psychiatrist was appointed to the camp’s board of directors when he lent money to the nonprofit facility.

Camp O’Neal has been involved in controversy soon after it was transferred by the county probation department into private hands three years ago.

In December, 1987, a Kern County auditor’s report questioned the role of Tim Christensen--who later married Trott--in helping to arrange transfer of the camp to Trott’s control while he served as director of a publicly funded job-training program.

The report questioned Christensen’s use of public money to travel to Mono County to help Trott take over the camp, pointing out that Christensen later formed the for-profit school that serves youngsters on the grounds of Camp O’Neal.

Christensen, who married Trott one month after establishing the school in September, 1987, denied that there was any conflict of interest and said he was investigated and cleared by a Kern County grand jury.

Christensen, who is a member of the board of directors of Camp O’Neal as well as of his High Sierra School, acknowledges that he rents a trailer to the camp for $660 a month through a third company--Jenneric Corp.--that he also helped form. But he denied any conflict of interest in the arrangement.

“It’s legitimate and above board,” he said.

Christensen said that he, in turn, rents space for the school from Camp O’Neal for about $200 a month.