![]() State Department who ran marathons, organized book clubs and was active in her church, Cho “had a lot of positive energy and wanted to make the world a better place,” said Steve Park, who runs a charity called Little Lights. Timberline officials did not alert police until five hours after Cho left, according to a DuPage County 911 audio recording obtained by the Tribune.Ī program specialist for the U.S. Grace Cho, 33, left Timberline during her intake interview last year, then took her own life in a nearby hotel. Some of those runaway incidents lasted only hours, but one proved fatal, government records show. There was a surge of police reports about dangerous incidents at the rehab facility last year, the Tribune found. Meanwhile, Timberline reported 10 missing persons or runaways to Lemont police in 2018, compared with seven reports total in the previous three years.Ī man shovels snow from a sidewalk in front of a building located on the grounds of Timberline Knolls on Feb. “Facility administrators were greatly saddened by this whole situation and believed they acted swiftly and certainly to take Jacksa off the street.”īut the Tribune also found the charges against Jacksa arose amid a surge of Lemont police reports about dangerous incidents at Timberline last year.Īpart from the Jacksa case, police responded to 14 allegations of patient-on-patient sex crimes or batteries at the facility last year, compared with a total of 12 such cases in the previous three years. His alleged sexual attacks on patients were “an isolated incident,” said Timberline spokesman Gary Mack. Timberline Knolls suspended Jacksa a third time in early August, after the police got involved, then fired him Aug. Widely accepted treatment standards say people who report sex crimes should not be forced to give their accounts in front of their alleged attackers. Afterward, the woman “went back to her lodge and broke a mirror, intending to hurt herself or commit suicide over the embarrassment and emotional distress the whole situation with Jacksa had caused,” a Lemont police report said. In early July, when Timberline staff discovered journal entries by a patient that described her sexual encounters with Jacksa, they confronted the woman in his presence, police reports show. In the meantime, Timberline staff conducted internal investigations, twice suspending and reinstating Jacksa, police records show. The abuse allegations began to surface last summer, but Timberline officials waited at least three weeks to contact law enforcement, police reports show. Former patients told police that Jacksa subjected them to rape, forced oral sex, digital penetration and fondling beneath their clothes. They arrive at the nationally recognized treatment center after suicide attempts, addicted to drugs, overwhelmed by mood and eating disorders.īut instead of finding safe harbor, some reported being traumatized in new and horrible ways.Ĭook County prosecutors allege that a Timberline Knolls counselor, Mike Jacksa, sexually assaulted or abused six patients last year at the leafy 43-acre rehab center in suburban Lemont. The women and girls who come to Timberline Knolls are in crisis. Don’t worry change is going to continue happen.Acadia Healthcare: Administrators of Timberline Knolls Psych Facility Waited 3 Weeks to Contact Cops About Employee Sex Assaults March 7, 2019 Huge props to all the staff on lodges for working so hard and being patient. Leadership has also recently given the Behavioral Health Associate’s a significant raise as well. It really shows their support that they have for the staff and residents and wanting to see the program succeed. Huge props to the leadership team for staying long hours on the lodges from the Clinical Director, Director or HR, the CFO, and most of all the CEO. They are creating a better training lesson for all staff, the way leadership is coming together to create new programming and behavioral plans for our residents. A new CEO (Sarah S) took over at Timberline Knolls about 5 or 6 weeks ago and just seeing the change. But WOW the way things are starting to turn around. All from my own training, to the way staff is put on the lodges without proper training. I started about 6 weeks ago and I saw a lot of things I didn’t agree with or like, with me having about 12 years in the mental health field. ![]()
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