Troubled

Paul Geer "The Music Man" was convicted by a federal jury after a two-week-long trial on two counts of coercing and enticing two separate children to travel across state lines to engage in unlawful sexual activity and two counts of transporting the children across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity with those children.  The jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on two additional counts. 

"The evidence at trial proved that, while Geer was a teacher at the Family Foundation School in Hancock, New York, he imposed various disciplinary sanctions on students that were tantamount to torture. The sanctions Geer imposed on students included depriving children of food or forcing children to eat food that had been regurgitated, binding children in rugs and leaving them in isolated rooms for extended periods of time and forcing children to perform forced physical labor. "

Read the full Press Release from the US Attorney's Officer HERE.

3/5/25 News 12 with Erin Lawlor: https://www.wbng.com/2025/03/05/watch-family-foundation-school-alumni-share-their-story-following-arrest-paul-geer/

Listen to "Meet the Music Man" HERE.

Read Liz Ianelli's memoir about The Family School "I See You Survivor" HERE

Watch Jon Martin Crawford testify to Congress about FFS HERE

Read the Catskills Reporter's ongoing series about FFS HERE

Get ready to hear all about the trial once Paul's 2 week period to try and overturn the conviction has passed. Until then please help us protect this case.

THANK YOU to all of you, without whom this would never have been possible. And as always, to all Survivors out there, #ISeeYouSurvivor

Hey stranger danger, remember us?

We’ve been on Blackout for the last few years primarily because the podcast and all you epic humans tuning in from across the Globe have been successful!

I dig that it seems weird to go dark when things are working, but gander a google for “Paul Geer” and you’ll see that the Federal Govt has finally charged the “Music Man” from my personal vortex of hell “the Family Foundation School” for just 3 of his many victims who came forward from his 30 year reign of terror, and yes we all hope that more of his victims will have access to Justice in the future .

For those that arent caught up on this predator, checkout our interview with Liz and Liz titled “Meet The Music Man” from 2020.

We pushed for YEARS for the NY Child Victims Act which opened the statute of limitations for child victims of SA in civil court.

Those cases have finally arrived in Federal Criminal Court in the “USA vs Paul Geer”. Currently, the jury is deliberating so we are keeping our mouths SHUT as we have for the last few years to protect this process.

Troubled remains a free, non monetized podcast by Survivors, for Survivors and the general public. Our goal is still to raise awareness with the goal being Justice and accountability for the past as well as legislation and reform in the present and for the future.

To this day, a quarter million NEW child victims are abducted, trafficked, detained and tortured in coercive behavior modification facilities nationwide.

For the thousands of Survivors from the Family School specifically, we see you survivor. As soon as the verdict is in we will posts updates about the trial and if you would like your voice included please send audio Recordings to our email TheTroubledPodcast@gmail

We’ll use as many clips as possible, but they may be edited for brevity or content.

FFS Survivors who would like to submit a character witness statement for Paul Geers sentencing (which is months up to a year out) we are happy to forward you that email or you can contact the James T Foley Courthouse in Albany (which is also how you would purchase the trial transcript which is 5 cents a page, altho please note that we do plan to host our copy publicly once received).

For ANY Survivor who hopes to be involved in ANY civil or criminal cases in the future, PLEASE PLEASE hear this “anything you say publicly on any podcast, in any article or even on any of your social media platforms CAN absolutely be used as evidence in any court.”

We have a lot to say about how Survivors testimonials were used in Federal Court this time but we and EVERY FFS Survivor (or anyone related to any active case) should seriously stay shhhed until the verdict is announced to avoid jeopardizing our collective access to Justice.

We’ll be seeing you again very very soon, but until then #iseeyousurvivor

Last week, the first volume of the report on the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigation was released. Last year, the first Indigenous Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, created the initiative after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves of Indigenous children by Canada’s Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in May 2021. If YOU are a Survivor of Institutional Child Abuse (w/in the so-called "Troubled Teen Industry": Conversion Therapy, Wilderness Therapy, Bootcamps, Boarding Schools), or one of our allies, it is imperative to support the Indigenous Communities of Turtle Island through this review and reconciliation. Please center, elevate and amplify Indigenous Survivors and Advocates.

READ Indian Country Today's coverage for a summary and follow for more information.

The National Boarding School Healing Coalition is requesting people who attended a boarding school or are a descendent of a boarding school attendee to submit their written testimonies to the House of Natural Resources Committee by May 26. Email submissions to [email protected] and CC NABS at [email protected]. 

The National Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) has put together a suggested outline for written testimony for individuals to follow if needed:  

YOU can support the first targets of the US' Historic prevalence of mass, for-profit, legal, child abduction, detention, trafficking and torture schema by sharing this brief update episode and ALL of the links below to help make sure that ALL Survivors of the Residential Schools for the Indigenous are aware of their opportunity to submit testimony. We are disheartened that after centuries of Survivors speaking up, and a year of investigation, the US Government is allowing mere days for Survivors to step forward and share traumas they may have kept locked away for decades. STILL, raise awareness for this update in #everychildmatters and then do the following:

Podcast on this Friday!

Welcome back to Troubled, a podcast by/for Survivors of Institutional Youth Abuse. 

THANK YOU for being here for the third season of our Independent self archival project. Two seasons bootlegged together over a cell phone, recorded in an old Prius wasn't too much for you? Well, masochism may pay off here as we embark on our most personal missions yet and play the cards we've held closest throughout the collective crucible of advocacy in a time of Covid.

Super quick 31st birthday catch-up with Amanda Householder, who just filed a lawsuit against her parents, Boyd and Stephanie Householder, owners of Circle of Hope Girls Ranch AND their complicit and culpable cohorts - Agape Boarding School for Boys, Agape Baptist Church and Berean Baptist Church. We won't be getting into the nitty gritty of the details today, out of respect for Amanda, but we HIGHLY recommend you read the Kansas City Star Article "I was born into this." Daughter of Missouri reform school sues parents over abuse" by Judy Thomas and Laura Bauer, two rare gems of journalistic integrity. It is incredibly difficult to find ethical media allies of this caliber and we would just like to thank these women for how they have treated Survivors of Institutional Abuse throughout the last year of consistent coverage in Missouri. We wish they weren't an exception, but we are infinitely grateful they're both committed to exposing this crime against humanity as it plays out in their backyards. 

Forgive us our ADHD and self-defense, in this and every episode. We look forward to exploring the specific traumas of ourselves and our peers who were forever altered relationally by peer-on-peer attack therapy, but we'll also briefly address it in this update. 

We hope that Survivors will see other Survivors making moves and taking names as invitations or challenges to do so themselves. We hope that you will join us on the frontlines at every fork in the road. We also understand that for a historically invalidated community, and collectively gaslit community, that it can be triggering to see the mic passed to the next advocate. Often we can feel as if we are being spoken for, or over, or disregarded entirely. But every opportunity for a Survivor to speak, is an opportunity for Survivors to be heard. If we believe that we are stronger together, then we cannot continue to allow our community to reenact our trauma. MANY Survivors are neurodiverse, many of us experience RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) - especially since it's the most common symptom of ADHD. Even if we don't have RSD dialing up the perception of rejection, we HAVE been abandoned, excluded, silenced, and otherwise pariah-ed to the point where you don't even need 'confirmation bias' to perceive the world as wholly unsafe, as well as the people in it. I dig it. I'm living in this world with you. 

PLEASE let us be aware of how we deflect and project ourselves onto the world around us. We cannot move towards an exclusionary policy as we curate our collective movement.

Please join us in advocating for youth rights to liberate all kids in cages, from the border, through foster care, to the ToughLove so-called Troubled Teen Industry.

Until next time, #iseeyousurvivor and THANK YOU to all of our allies

It has officially been one year since the death of 16 year old foster child, Cornelius Frederick. 

Look back on Lakeside with Corn's Case Manager, and the Director of Case Management, Meghan Folkerson. 

Please join us in reigniting this campaign for justice. 

Read National Juvenile Justice Network's Shut Down Sequel: Progress Report HERE: https://www.njjn.org/our-work/shut-down-sequel-progress-report

More Info on our website HERE: https://talktroubled.org/justiceforcornelius/

#justiceforcornelius #shutdownsequel #sayhisname #blacklivesmatter