Attorney: 35 Women Sue Indiana Facility Over Abuse; Trafficking

LEBANON, Ind. — In June, an expanded federal civil lawsuit was filed against Central Indiana Teen Challenge, now operating as the Refuge Girls Academy, bringing severe accusations of forced labor, human trafficking, and institutional abuse to light. Originally initiated with nine plaintiffs, the amended complaint now represents 35 young women who say they were exploited and mistreated as minors at the faith-based facility.

Attorney Andrea Simmons of the Indianapolis-based law firm CohenMalad, LLP, which is leading the litigation alongside Boston’s Justice Law Collective, detailed the patterns uncovered during extensive client interviews in a podcast episode with WIBC’s Johnette Cruz.

Uncovering Suppressed Memories: The Scope of the Accusations

According to Simmons, the legal team conducted deep investigations into the conditions at the facility, which is structurally a residential home despite being marketed as a sprawling rehabilitation program.

“We have interviewed every single one of them for at least an hour, sometimes much longer than that,” Simmons stated. “We kind of let them decide how much they need to share. And sometimes they can’t even share the whole story in one sitting. Many of them have suppressed these memories.”

Simmons noted that many of the young women entered the home at highly vulnerable ages, leaving them unable to process the severe nature of their environment until years later.

“They came out of this place young and not even really necessarily understanding when they got out that what had happened to them was way, way inappropriate and wrong,” Simmons explained. “They kind of thought they were alone, and then over time they found these networks of other survivors.”

As more survivors speak out, the legal team continues to uncover new claims. Simmons emphasized that abuse documentation often “comes out in fits and starts,” adding, “sometimes something that we recognize is really outrageous, they didn’t even really necessarily know was all that outrageous when it happened to them until they start talking to an adult about it or an attorney.”

Severe Regulatory Gaps and Hundreds of Emergency Calls

The lawsuit highlights a lack of state oversight, enabling an environment where minors were cut off from external support systems. Local authorities and DCS were frequently alerted to crises at the home, yet no criminal charges were successfully brought. Simmons clarified that while her firm lacks the statutory power to initiate criminal proceedings, the civil system is being leveraged to enforce accountability under anti-trafficking laws.

“Our firm does not have the authority or the power to open any kind of a criminal investigation in any context,” Simmons said. “In this case, there’s so little state regulation—well, there’s really none over this facility—that they either have not been investigated at all or the investigations were done… we’re still trying to figure that out.”

When confronted with the lawsuit, many plaintiffs expressed disbelief that the law protected them. “They’re still kind of in shock, like, ‘You mean I actually have a case? You mean I can actually join this lawsuit?'” Simmons shared. “They’re always surprised that what has happened to them is actually wrong under federal law and under state law.”

Forced Labor and the ‘Troubled Teen Industry’

A core element of the lawsuit involves extensive violations of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), specifically concerning forced manual labor imposed on minor children. Former residents say they were forced to perform rigorous maintenance tasks internally, as well as external commercial operations for corporate partners, including a local florist and several universities.

“The troubled teen industry has a long history of this kind of thing, particularly in the faith-based community,” Simmons remarked. “The sorts of things that our clients are telling us about—isolation, kind of misuse of food, using food as a weapon, talking fasts, not prioritizing their education even though they’re in high school—that’s actually kind of ubiquitous in this industry.”

The manual labor demands consumed the vast majority of the residents’ waking hours, causing their education to take a secondary role. Simmons described a clear hierarchy of daily operations:

“Still today, they don’t prioritize education. It’s kind of at the very bottom of a list of ways they spend their time. They spend much more time at hard labor, they spend much more time at devotion… and very little time each day with school work.”

Demanding Work Conditions and Bizarre Punishments

According to court filings and interviews, the labor required of the girls extended far beyond standard household chores. Simmons detailed multiple layers of mandated work:

• Internal Facility Maintenance: The facility reportedly employed no external maintenance staff, cooks, or chefs, forcing minor residents to handle all deep-cleaning, food preparation, and physical upkeep.
• Punitive Chores: Minor residents were subjected to cruel punishments, including “scrubbing on hands and knees with a toothbrush on the staircase, or getting down on hands and knees and cutting the lawn with scissors”.
• Commercial Exploitation: The organization allegedly contracted the girls out for manual labor at external events without providing compensation. “We’ve heard, ‘We got there when the sun came up, and we were there until the sun went down’—12, 14, 16-hour days with only one short break,” Simmons noted. The girls were forced to haul personal belongings for college students and assemble heavy bunk beds.

“That’s actually the type of work that is a violation of federal law,” Simmons stated flatly. “Forced labor for minors is a violation of federal law.”

Medical Neglect and Psychological Cruelty

Beyond the accusations of financial exploitation, the amended complaint outlines a pattern of severe psychological and physical abuse. Simmons noted that while the 35 plaintiffs share a common timeline of systemic mistreatment, “they all each have their own little unique horror story.”

The most striking allegations involve deliberate medical neglect and the abrupt termination of essential psychiatric healthcare:

“The ones that really stand out to me the most are the ones that represent actual cruelty with no possible justification under anybody’s standards… ignoring physical illnesses and injuries and allowing them to suffer unnecessarily with no medical care when they were severely ill or injured.”

Simmons further detailed a dangerous practice concerning mental health medication management:

“The other thing that strikes me… applies to more than one girl… who are on a prescription for antipsychotic drugs or antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication, who are just taken off of their meds cold turkey. With no consultation with a psychiatrist or other physician.”

Isolation and Emotional Distress

Residents who experienced panic attacks or resisted the facility’s strict mandates were routinely placed in solitary isolation rooms for weeks at a time.

“You’re already a teenager with all of your hormones and emotions in a high gear, you’re coming from a stressful, traumatic environment, and then you’re thrown into this place and you’re taken off your meds—I can’t even imagine,” Simmons expressed. “And then put in isolation… the young woman that we interviewed this morning was in isolation for a month. Nothing to do.”

Seeking Accountability

As the civil case moves forward in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, the legal team is focusing entirely on statutory violations rather than theological disputes. Simmons emphasized that the lawsuit targets the illegal operational practices of the home rather than its religious affiliation.

“We’re trying to steer away from the sort of religious aspect of it and stick with the legal aspect of it,” Simmons concluded. “Because I know there’s a wide variety of views on how children should be raised… but from a legal and a moral perspective, it was just flat out wrong. There’s no justification for a lot of what these girls went through.”

The plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and statutory damages for pain, suffering, and lost wages, aiming to dismantle systemic exploitation within the broader troubled teen industry.

To see and listen to the full podcast interview with Attorney Andrea Simmons, please CLICK HERE.

Attorney: 35 Women Sue Indiana Facility Over Abuse; Trafficking was originally published on wibc.com