March 3, 2025 • 18 mins
Jonah Bevin, the adopted son of former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin and his (now estranged) wife Glenna, is struggling to find footing after being released from a controversial Jamaican youth facility.
Atttorney Dawn Post, a children's rights activist, has been working pro bono to help Jonah get his life back on track after the Bevins separated themselves from their adopted son. Jonah claims that he and other teens were abused at the Jamaican facility which is now under legal scrutiny.
Ms. Post says that Jonah was misled by his parents into thinking that his birth mother and other family members were alive in Ethiopia. The Bevins offered passage for Jonah back to Ethiopia but attorney Post said the details were sketchy and she advised Jonah decline the offer.
She is continuing her work to assist several of the young men who allege that they were abused in Jamaica.
Click the link to hear our complete discussion.
Atttorney Dawn Post, a children's rights activist, has been working pro bono to help Jonah get his life back on track after the Bevins separated themselves from their adopted son. Jonah claims that he and other teens were abused at the Jamaican facility which is now under legal scrutiny.
Ms. Post says that Jonah was misled by his parents into thinking that his birth mother and other family members were alive in Ethiopia. The Bevins offered passage for Jonah back to Ethiopia but attorney Post said the details were sketchy and she advised Jonah decline the offer.
She is continuing her work to assist several of the young men who allege that they were abused in Jamaica.
Click the link to hear our complete discussion.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Terry miners here on NewsRadio Waight forty whas. Last week
I interviewed reporter Deborah Yetter, who wrote in The Kentucky
Lantern an update on the story of Jonah Bevin, the
adopted son of former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevan and his
now estranged wife Glenna. We got into details of him
being essentially shipped to a rehabilitation center. He's still a teenager,
(00:28):
but he's eighteen. He's of the age of emancipation now,
but was an underage person sent there. And a woman
named Dawn Post is a children's rights lawyer who actually
traveled to Jamaica to represent Jonah and some of these
other boys who were removed from the Atlantis Leadership Academy.
And Dawn Post, welcome to the show. Good to have
(00:50):
you on.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you, thank you for having me. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak about these important issues, not only involving Jonah,
but the many young Peo people who are being abandoned
by their adoptive families.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I was reading your bio over the weekend, and I
know that you witnessed some things as a child, and
this sort of sent you down this path. You wanted
to defend kids who are what you call from broken
adoption situations.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
That is absolutely true. I decided when I was ten
I was going to become a lawyer for children based
upon something that occurred in my home state, and that
has been my career as I'm a nonprofit children's rights attorney,
and I began working on the issue of broken adoptions
primarily out of the foster care space, beginning enter about
(01:39):
twenty ten twenty eleven when I initially started publishing and
speaking about these issues. And this really came out of
my work in foster care and as a director of
attorneys for the child programs in New York City. And
so it wasn't until this past year that I was
exposed to the significant number of young people who are
(02:01):
being abandoned by their adopted families into the so called
troubled teen industry. And I learned that, of course, by
being contacted about the three young men who were abandoned
in Jamaica after being removed from an incredibly abusive American
owned facility in Jamaica called Atlantis Leadership Academy.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I read the great details about that, But first, how
is it legal to send a group of people in
the night to go take a kid, a teenager from
his home in handcuffs and take him to Jamaica. Why
isn't that human trafficking.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I absolutely believe it should be human trafficking. The issue
is is that there are parents who are signing papers
and in fact documenting to the traffickers to handcuff them
or zip tie them as to what occurred with Jonah
specifically when he was transferred to Jamaica by one of
(02:58):
these transporters. And unfortunately, I believe that there are some
gaps in the law with respect to this. So I
believe that there are some legislative fixes that we need
to look at, not only with respect to the transporters,
and there have been laws passed in one state, the
state of Oregon has specifically passed laws around this that
youth cannot be transported in this way against their will.
(03:20):
And it's interesting to note that programs will say we
can't take your kids out of Oregon, but if you
want to bring them to another state, we'll take them
from there. So you know, if there's a will, there's
a way. So we really need to make this a
federal six so that youth are not transported in that
way understood.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Obviously, we're highlighting this because it's a relative, if you will,
of a former Kentucky governor. But he was in Utah,
So I'm not quite sure how the teenager was in
Utah and then was transported, So walk me through that. Sure.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Well, I think that it is important for everyone to
understand that Jonah has been primarily in institutional placements since
the age of thirteen. At thirteen, he was sent to
an incredibly abusive program called Master's Ranch, and he somewhat
jokingly talks about how can you send a young black
kid to a place called Master's Ranch, which is in
(04:21):
Missouri and is well known for its abuses of the
young people in its care. In fact, the beds are
what we call coffin beds, and I have video of
it and it's quite horrific. And so he had been
moving between placements, also going to a placement called Leahona
Academy in Utah, which is also focused on adopted children,
(04:42):
again incredibly abusive. First thing they do is shave their
heads right down, and that has also been in the news.
But what had happened after he had been sent to Jamaica,
where he had quite frankly, all the boys injured torture.
The description of the acts of what happened to them,
including waterboarding, including many of the other things that occurred
(05:05):
if you were looking at the Geneva Convention, would be
a violation as it is torture. And when they were
removed by the Jamaican officials, and when the parents did
not step forward and did not plan for their return
to the United States, they were placed into the permanent
custody of Jamaica. So then Jamaica was making the decisions
(05:27):
on where they should go. And while I think there
are some unclear details as to how Jonah returned, he
ended up coming back to another program, initially in Florida,
and then his adoptive father arranged for him to be
sent to another abusive program in Utah, and so when
(05:47):
he turned eighteen, he went straight to homelessness, and he
spent his eighteenth birthday in a Utah homeless shelter. Though
a very convoluted series of events, but heed in Utah
because of the fact that he had been in placement
there as a result of his adoptive parents' actions.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Have you tried to reach out to either of the
Bevin parents.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I spoke to Missus Bevan on April first, twenty twenty four.
That was right before the permanent custody was entered into
by the Jamaican court. I was attempting to engage with
Missus Bevian in order to have Jonah return to the
US into the custody or guardianship of someone else, which
(06:33):
the court was willing to do under their law they
could release to a fit person. However, Missus Bevan at
that time indicated that she would need to speak to
her husband. Her husband did not want Jonah back in
the United States that he did not He in fact
did not even have a lawyer in Jamaica to represent
(06:54):
his interests or Jonah's. Some of the other adoptive parents
did hire Jamaican lawyers, but the Bevans did not. In fact,
the Atlantis Leadership Academy lawyer represented to the court that
he was representing the Bevan's interests and Jonah in order
to have the school reopened, despite the very incredible allegations.
(07:14):
I also recently spoke to Missus Bevin just this past
week when she contacted me in an effort to try
to get Jonah on the plane to go to Ethiopia
and ask me to lie to Jonah as she said
that he would believe anything he was told, and she
was quite insistent in saying that she wanted me to
(07:36):
convince him to go on this trip to Ethiopia, which
we were all very skeptical about and very concerned about
because we had no details, and of course Jonah has
a very legitimate concern about being left in a foreign
country and after what had happened to him, and a
real lack of trust around this. And following that conversation,
(07:57):
I reached out to the mother's lawyer because it would
be incredibly cruel to have presented an idea of a
biological family being alive in order to get him to go,
when in fact they may not be. And I asked
for actual proof to show the legitimacy of the existence
of the family and the details around this trip, and
(08:19):
the attorney did not respond to me, and the mother
refused to provide me the information. During our phone calls.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Who offered up the notion that Jonah's biological mother was alive?
Which person put that in your ear or Jonah's This came.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I believe from mister Bevan, who contacted and reached out
Jonah reached out to Jonah. The timing seemed a little suspect,
and were still not completely clear about the timing, but
it certainly appeared to have been after the Kentucky lantern
was looking into the and was speaking to Jonah about
(08:59):
the facts that he was homeless. So we were concerned
about the timing of this offer. And of course, you know,
it's heartbreaking because Jonah feels that he doesn't have a family,
and he's desperate to have a family, and he's desperate
to have those connections, and so to hear an offer
that his biological mother and possibly a brother and possibly
(09:21):
a sister and all the sudden a cousin came out
of the woodwork that they could be alive. That could
be a beautiful experience and a beautiful thing to happen.
But we have not been offered any evidence that it's true.
And if it's not true, that is an incredibly cruel
thing to have done to such a vulnerable young person
(09:44):
as Jonah, with everything that he has experienced.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Who was thought since at least age five when he
was adopted by Americans, that his family his mother was dead.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Absolutely he had always been told that his family was dead.
This was very brand new information to him.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
The people operating this Atlanta's Leadership Academy, and I know
there are others in Jamaica. How is it they're not
being held to task on this legally?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So you know, there have been federal lawsuits that have
been filed in Miami, primarily, and that is where there
was some licensing of the Atlanta's Leadership Academy as well
as the educational program, which of course was never provided,
but that's where allegedly was licensed as well. So there
were thirteen lawsuits that have been brought. Jonah is planning
(10:34):
on signing to bring his own case. But Lisa and
Randy Cook, who are the owners of the program, they
were served, but my understanding is that they have defaulted.
With respect to Jamaica, there have been a number of
individuals who are facing criminal charges, and I believe that
trial dates are going to be set in that case
(10:56):
next month. And I actually am very concerned about the
fact and have very mixed feelings about the fact that
the actual owner who allowed all of this to happen,
has evated justice in Jamaica, has evaded justice in the US,
and there's been no accountability around that.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, I mean I saw the price tag on it,
eight to ten thousand dollars per month for parents to
pay someone to pay to put their kid in there.
And it's pitched as like a place of harmony that
will help someone evolve into a better person. But then
I read the Kentucky Lantern descriptions that we Yeta wrote
about about the beatings that you just talked about, and
(11:34):
also an incidents where Jonah I guess was walking down
the beach he got away from their care and then
they took him back in like he was a prisoner
of war who had escaped.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yes, you know, we kind of jokingly referred to it
as the Great Escape. But approximately three days after he
had arrived there, and as the way he said it
to me is he said, I saw abuse, you know,
growing up in Ethiopia, and when I saw it there,
it triggered me and I took off and a number
of other kids took off too, and they were all caught,
(12:06):
dragged back and subjected to incredible abuse. At that time.
I think they were also kept up for five days
and nights, were not provided any food or water, had
to drink out of toilets in order to get any hydration.
There was some very unique tortures that they did implement
upon these young boys. And the fact is that the
(12:28):
last home that they were living in we actually did
see and there was actual sewage in the pool. It
was an incredibly disgusting, very poor, run down place. We
were also able to talk to sources on the ground
who said that they were dividing up one chicken and
a couple cups of sosa rice between eleven people. That
(12:51):
was the young people that were there as well as
the staff, and that was all that everyone had to
eat per day. And so there are photographs that have
been published of at least one of the young men, Cody,
that NBC had reported on, that showed the dramatic weight
loss that he incurred. But Jonah also lost an incredible
amount of weight. But this is something, you know, Where
(13:15):
did all that money go is the question, because it
certainly didn't go into the quality of the accommodations that
they were at. It certainly did not go to the
staff who were being paid less than minimum wage and
in Jamaican wages, which is close to nothing, and it
certainly didn't go into any kind of therapeutic program or
(13:36):
to education. They were being warehouse, they were being subjected
to abuse, they were going through intense physical exercise and discipline,
and all of this in the name of treatment that
actually did not exist. And so I think a big
question is where did all that money go, because it
certainly didn't benefit anyone except the owners and anyone associated
(13:59):
with them, including educational consultants and possibly those traffickers.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And we don't know the Bevin family story either. What
were the difficulties that Jonah presented for the family if
any and I know he was adopted with multiple other kids,
and they are of age now and should be able
to fill in some of the blanks if mom and
dad won't.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Talk, certainly. And one thing that I want to frame,
and I have looked at some of the Facebook comments
and some other things that people have said saying, oh,
you know these type of kids, they're killers, or they're
killing animals, or they're hurting other family members. No, that's
not the case. And I would encourage anyone in particularly
because this is my field and I've worked with young
(14:42):
people who have experienced trauma before, is that let's reframe
it and think about what were the parents doing, what
was the household looking like? What were the dynamics of
the family When you're adopted, and particularly from an orphanage
in Ethiopia sample, you might have food issues. You might
(15:03):
do hoarding because you're afraid of where your nextpial is
going to come from. You might have food aggression in
order to protect that food. And so when you're getting
punished for doing that, because you're doing that as a
trauma response, and then you're getting punished for it by
an uninformed and untrauma informed parent, that could contribute to
(15:24):
some difficult dynamics in the household. And so I think
in general, I would ask people to think and ask
themselves what was going on with the adults and the
family dynamics and not automatically assume that had anything to
do with a child, because there's so much more at
play here, and in fact, was there anything that they
(15:47):
were trying to avoid being revealed publicly by sending him away?
And I think that's an important question to ask as well.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Last thing for you, what's next for Jonah?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
What's next for Jonah is that we are currently trying
to find him safe and appropriate placement where he'll get
the supports that he's needed after five years in institutional care.
There's of course a lot of things that need to
be done in order to learn life skills, social skills
being back in the American community, and work skills. He
(16:19):
very much likes to work with his hands, and so
I think he really needs time to breathe and think
about his options and where he wants to go. But
he's a wonderful, wonderful young man who is a pleasure
to spend time with, and I think that he has
incredible potential and with the right supports and services that
we're trying to put into a place, I think we
(16:39):
can make it happen.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Don Post appreciates your insights.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
You're very welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I noticed there's a go fund me set up too.
It looks like it's got twelve and a half thousand
dollars in it so far. So that's the help.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yes, I will say that I have shown that to Jonah,
and for someone who believes that no one cared and
that no one is quarter, I cannot tell you how
touched he is about the fact that so many people
even ten twenty dollars, because he really has truly felt
so alone for so long, and I've been doing this
(17:13):
work pro bono, and I'm doing this out of my
four oh one k by the way, my nonprofit, and
so we you know, I'm dedicated to the cause and
to the work that I'm doing for all the young people,
including another facility in Jamaica that has one hundred and
eighty adoptees. But I will say that Jonah, and thank
you for everyone in Kentucky who's donated, and we're going
(17:35):
to be posting an update to the GoFundMe to say
today he went shopping. But thank you all everyone for
the incredible support that you've shown, because it has meant
a great deal to Jonah.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Don You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Don Post, a children's rights attorney in New York, back
in a minute. This report is spot
Terry miners here on NewsRadio Waight forty whas. Last week
I interviewed reporter Deborah Yetter, who wrote in The Kentucky
Lantern an update on the story of Jonah Bevin, the
adopted son of former Kentucky Governor Matt Bevan and his
now estranged wife Glenna. We got into details of him
being essentially shipped to a rehabilitation center. He's still a teenager,
(00:28):
but he's eighteen. He's of the age of emancipation now,
but was an underage person sent there. And a woman
named Dawn Post is a children's rights lawyer who actually
traveled to Jamaica to represent Jonah and some of these
other boys who were removed from the Atlantis Leadership Academy.
And Dawn Post, welcome to the show. Good to have
(00:50):
you on.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you, thank you for having me. I appreciate the
opportunity to speak about these important issues, not only involving Jonah,
but the many young Peo people who are being abandoned
by their adoptive families.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I was reading your bio over the weekend, and I
know that you witnessed some things as a child, and
this sort of sent you down this path. You wanted
to defend kids who are what you call from broken
adoption situations.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
That is absolutely true. I decided when I was ten
I was going to become a lawyer for children based
upon something that occurred in my home state, and that
has been my career as I'm a nonprofit children's rights attorney,
and I began working on the issue of broken adoptions
primarily out of the foster care space, beginning enter about
(01:39):
twenty ten twenty eleven when I initially started publishing and
speaking about these issues. And this really came out of
my work in foster care and as a director of
attorneys for the child programs in New York City. And
so it wasn't until this past year that I was
exposed to the significant number of young people who are
(02:01):
being abandoned by their adopted families into the so called
troubled teen industry. And I learned that, of course, by
being contacted about the three young men who were abandoned
in Jamaica after being removed from an incredibly abusive American
owned facility in Jamaica called Atlantis Leadership Academy.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I read the great details about that, But first, how
is it legal to send a group of people in
the night to go take a kid, a teenager from
his home in handcuffs and take him to Jamaica. Why
isn't that human trafficking.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I absolutely believe it should be human trafficking. The issue
is is that there are parents who are signing papers
and in fact documenting to the traffickers to handcuff them
or zip tie them as to what occurred with Jonah
specifically when he was transferred to Jamaica by one of
(02:58):
these transporters. And unfortunately, I believe that there are some
gaps in the law with respect to this. So I
believe that there are some legislative fixes that we need
to look at, not only with respect to the transporters,
and there have been laws passed in one state, the
state of Oregon has specifically passed laws around this that
youth cannot be transported in this way against their will.
(03:20):
And it's interesting to note that programs will say we
can't take your kids out of Oregon, but if you
want to bring them to another state, we'll take them
from there. So you know, if there's a will, there's
a way. So we really need to make this a
federal six so that youth are not transported in that
way understood.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Obviously, we're highlighting this because it's a relative, if you will,
of a former Kentucky governor. But he was in Utah,
So I'm not quite sure how the teenager was in
Utah and then was transported, So walk me through that. Sure.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Well, I think that it is important for everyone to
understand that Jonah has been primarily in institutional placements since
the age of thirteen. At thirteen, he was sent to
an incredibly abusive program called Master's Ranch, and he somewhat
jokingly talks about how can you send a young black
kid to a place called Master's Ranch, which is in
(04:21):
Missouri and is well known for its abuses of the
young people in its care. In fact, the beds are
what we call coffin beds, and I have video of
it and it's quite horrific. And so he had been
moving between placements, also going to a placement called Leahona
Academy in Utah, which is also focused on adopted children,
(04:42):
again incredibly abusive. First thing they do is shave their
heads right down, and that has also been in the news.
But what had happened after he had been sent to Jamaica,
where he had quite frankly, all the boys injured torture.
The description of the acts of what happened to them,
including waterboarding, including many of the other things that occurred
(05:05):
if you were looking at the Geneva Convention, would be
a violation as it is torture. And when they were
removed by the Jamaican officials, and when the parents did
not step forward and did not plan for their return
to the United States, they were placed into the permanent
custody of Jamaica. So then Jamaica was making the decisions
(05:27):
on where they should go. And while I think there
are some unclear details as to how Jonah returned, he
ended up coming back to another program, initially in Florida,
and then his adoptive father arranged for him to be
sent to another abusive program in Utah, and so when
(05:47):
he turned eighteen, he went straight to homelessness, and he
spent his eighteenth birthday in a Utah homeless shelter. Though
a very convoluted series of events, but heed in Utah
because of the fact that he had been in placement
there as a result of his adoptive parents' actions.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Have you tried to reach out to either of the
Bevin parents.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
I spoke to Missus Bevan on April first, twenty twenty four.
That was right before the permanent custody was entered into
by the Jamaican court. I was attempting to engage with
Missus Bevian in order to have Jonah return to the
US into the custody or guardianship of someone else, which
(06:33):
the court was willing to do under their law they
could release to a fit person. However, Missus Bevan at
that time indicated that she would need to speak to
her husband. Her husband did not want Jonah back in
the United States that he did not He in fact
did not even have a lawyer in Jamaica to represent
(06:54):
his interests or Jonah's. Some of the other adoptive parents
did hire Jamaican lawyers, but the Bevans did not. In fact,
the Atlantis Leadership Academy lawyer represented to the court that
he was representing the Bevan's interests and Jonah in order
to have the school reopened, despite the very incredible allegations.
(07:14):
I also recently spoke to Missus Bevin just this past
week when she contacted me in an effort to try
to get Jonah on the plane to go to Ethiopia
and ask me to lie to Jonah as she said
that he would believe anything he was told, and she
was quite insistent in saying that she wanted me to
(07:36):
convince him to go on this trip to Ethiopia, which
we were all very skeptical about and very concerned about
because we had no details, and of course Jonah has
a very legitimate concern about being left in a foreign
country and after what had happened to him, and a
real lack of trust around this. And following that conversation,
(07:57):
I reached out to the mother's lawyer because it would
be incredibly cruel to have presented an idea of a
biological family being alive in order to get him to go,
when in fact they may not be. And I asked
for actual proof to show the legitimacy of the existence
of the family and the details around this trip, and
(08:19):
the attorney did not respond to me, and the mother
refused to provide me the information. During our phone calls.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Who offered up the notion that Jonah's biological mother was alive?
Which person put that in your ear or Jonah's This came.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I believe from mister Bevan, who contacted and reached out
Jonah reached out to Jonah. The timing seemed a little suspect,
and were still not completely clear about the timing, but
it certainly appeared to have been after the Kentucky lantern
was looking into the and was speaking to Jonah about
(08:59):
the facts that he was homeless. So we were concerned
about the timing of this offer. And of course, you know,
it's heartbreaking because Jonah feels that he doesn't have a family,
and he's desperate to have a family, and he's desperate
to have those connections, and so to hear an offer
that his biological mother and possibly a brother and possibly
(09:21):
a sister and all the sudden a cousin came out
of the woodwork that they could be alive. That could
be a beautiful experience and a beautiful thing to happen.
But we have not been offered any evidence that it's true.
And if it's not true, that is an incredibly cruel
thing to have done to such a vulnerable young person
(09:44):
as Jonah, with everything that he has experienced.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Who was thought since at least age five when he
was adopted by Americans, that his family his mother was dead.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Absolutely he had always been told that his family was dead.
This was very brand new information to him.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
The people operating this Atlanta's Leadership Academy, and I know
there are others in Jamaica. How is it they're not
being held to task on this legally?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So you know, there have been federal lawsuits that have
been filed in Miami, primarily, and that is where there
was some licensing of the Atlanta's Leadership Academy as well
as the educational program, which of course was never provided,
but that's where allegedly was licensed as well. So there
were thirteen lawsuits that have been brought. Jonah is planning
(10:34):
on signing to bring his own case. But Lisa and
Randy Cook, who are the owners of the program, they
were served, but my understanding is that they have defaulted.
With respect to Jamaica, there have been a number of
individuals who are facing criminal charges, and I believe that
trial dates are going to be set in that case
(10:56):
next month. And I actually am very concerned about the
fact and have very mixed feelings about the fact that
the actual owner who allowed all of this to happen,
has evated justice in Jamaica, has evaded justice in the US,
and there's been no accountability around that.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Yeah, I mean I saw the price tag on it,
eight to ten thousand dollars per month for parents to
pay someone to pay to put their kid in there.
And it's pitched as like a place of harmony that
will help someone evolve into a better person. But then
I read the Kentucky Lantern descriptions that we Yeta wrote
about about the beatings that you just talked about, and
(11:34):
also an incidents where Jonah I guess was walking down
the beach he got away from their care and then
they took him back in like he was a prisoner
of war who had escaped.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yes, you know, we kind of jokingly referred to it
as the Great Escape. But approximately three days after he
had arrived there, and as the way he said it
to me is he said, I saw abuse, you know,
growing up in Ethiopia, and when I saw it there,
it triggered me and I took off and a number
of other kids took off too, and they were all caught,
(12:06):
dragged back and subjected to incredible abuse. At that time.
I think they were also kept up for five days
and nights, were not provided any food or water, had
to drink out of toilets in order to get any hydration.
There was some very unique tortures that they did implement
upon these young boys. And the fact is that the
(12:28):
last home that they were living in we actually did
see and there was actual sewage in the pool. It
was an incredibly disgusting, very poor, run down place. We
were also able to talk to sources on the ground
who said that they were dividing up one chicken and
a couple cups of sosa rice between eleven people. That
(12:51):
was the young people that were there as well as
the staff, and that was all that everyone had to
eat per day. And so there are photographs that have
been published of at least one of the young men, Cody,
that NBC had reported on, that showed the dramatic weight
loss that he incurred. But Jonah also lost an incredible
amount of weight. But this is something, you know, Where
(13:15):
did all that money go is the question, because it
certainly didn't go into the quality of the accommodations that
they were at. It certainly did not go to the
staff who were being paid less than minimum wage and
in Jamaican wages, which is close to nothing, and it
certainly didn't go into any kind of therapeutic program or
(13:36):
to education. They were being warehouse, they were being subjected
to abuse, they were going through intense physical exercise and discipline,
and all of this in the name of treatment that
actually did not exist. And so I think a big
question is where did all that money go, because it
certainly didn't benefit anyone except the owners and anyone associated
(13:59):
with them, including educational consultants and possibly those traffickers.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
And we don't know the Bevin family story either. What
were the difficulties that Jonah presented for the family if
any and I know he was adopted with multiple other kids,
and they are of age now and should be able
to fill in some of the blanks if mom and
dad won't.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Talk, certainly. And one thing that I want to frame,
and I have looked at some of the Facebook comments
and some other things that people have said saying, oh,
you know these type of kids, they're killers, or they're
killing animals, or they're hurting other family members. No, that's
not the case. And I would encourage anyone in particularly
because this is my field and I've worked with young
(14:42):
people who have experienced trauma before, is that let's reframe
it and think about what were the parents doing, what
was the household looking like? What were the dynamics of
the family When you're adopted, and particularly from an orphanage
in Ethiopia sample, you might have food issues. You might
(15:03):
do hoarding because you're afraid of where your nextpial is
going to come from. You might have food aggression in
order to protect that food. And so when you're getting
punished for doing that, because you're doing that as a
trauma response, and then you're getting punished for it by
an uninformed and untrauma informed parent, that could contribute to
(15:24):
some difficult dynamics in the household. And so I think
in general, I would ask people to think and ask
themselves what was going on with the adults and the
family dynamics and not automatically assume that had anything to
do with a child, because there's so much more at
play here, and in fact, was there anything that they
(15:47):
were trying to avoid being revealed publicly by sending him away?
And I think that's an important question to ask as well.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Last thing for you, what's next for Jonah?
Speaker 2 (15:58):
What's next for Jonah is that we are currently trying
to find him safe and appropriate placement where he'll get
the supports that he's needed after five years in institutional care.
There's of course a lot of things that need to
be done in order to learn life skills, social skills
being back in the American community, and work skills. He
(16:19):
very much likes to work with his hands, and so
I think he really needs time to breathe and think
about his options and where he wants to go. But
he's a wonderful, wonderful young man who is a pleasure
to spend time with, and I think that he has
incredible potential and with the right supports and services that
we're trying to put into a place, I think we
(16:39):
can make it happen.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Don Post appreciates your insights.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
You're very welcome. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
I noticed there's a go fund me set up too.
It looks like it's got twelve and a half thousand
dollars in it so far. So that's the help.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yes, I will say that I have shown that to Jonah,
and for someone who believes that no one cared and
that no one is quarter, I cannot tell you how
touched he is about the fact that so many people
even ten twenty dollars, because he really has truly felt
so alone for so long, and I've been doing this
(17:13):
work pro bono, and I'm doing this out of my
four oh one k by the way, my nonprofit, and
so we you know, I'm dedicated to the cause and
to the work that I'm doing for all the young people,
including another facility in Jamaica that has one hundred and
eighty adoptees. But I will say that Jonah, and thank
you for everyone in Kentucky who's donated, and we're going
(17:35):
to be posting an update to the GoFundMe to say
today he went shopping. But thank you all everyone for
the incredible support that you've shown, because it has meant
a great deal to Jonah.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Don You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Don Post, a children's rights attorney in New York, back
in a minute. This report is spot
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