Mel Sembler's back. Big Rick Scott donor. Remember his abusive camps to scare kids "Straight"?

[madfloridian]

From Mother Jones:

GOP Gov. Rick Scott Raising Big Bucks With Founder of Abusive Teen Boot Camps

This Thursday, a who's who of Florida big shots will hold a private, $1,000-a-head fundraiser for the Republican Party of Florida and Gov. Rick Scott's reelection effort, led by a host committee that includes Mel Sembler, the founder of a notorious substance abuse rehab program that folded after allegations of extreme abuse were lodged against several of its facilities.

The program, Straight Inc., was founded in 1976 by Sembler, a developer, and his wife, Betty. In the 17 years that it operated drug treatment centers, Straight Inc. was plagued by news reports and at least one civil suit claiming that its staff kidnapped its adult patients and mentally, physically, and sexually abused their underage charges. Two state investigations substantiated reports of abuse.

Straight Inc. officials consistently denied these allegations. Sembler's biography on the Sembler Company website hails Straight Inc. as having "successfully graduated more than 12,000 young people nationwide from its remarkable program." Sembler, it adds, "is nationally recognized as an activist in the anti-drug campaign." Sembler could not be reached for comment.

Critics paints a much darker picture. "Children had to flap their arms like chickens or else face shaming as 'sluts' and homosexuals," John Gorenfeld reported in the May 2006 issue of Mother Jones. "Hundreds of Straight alums now claim they were scarred for life, among them Samantha Monroe, who was enrolled in 1980…and claims she was starved, raped, and confined in a closet."

More from Gorenfeld, who formerly wrote for Salon and Alternet and published a book called Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon Created the Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right, and Built an American Kingdom

This is an article from 2005.

His Own Private Abu Ghraib

He created a system to reprogram bad kids. Delete the bad code in their personalities. Break the will of sullen stoner boys, make bad girls confess to whorish secrets and reverse-engineer the minds of heavy metal kids. And rebuild all of them into an anti-drug army. Such were the works of Melvin Sembler and the feats that STRAIGHT, the ultimate in teen drug rehab programs, attempted during the Totally Awesome Eighties.

Melvin Sembler's clinics might have seemed like a good idea at the time, when teen drug use was high and New Age thinking seemed to offer new and hopeful therapies for pressing the RESET button on human beings.

There were major problems, though. He modeled STRAIGHT after another program, creepily named "The Seed," shut down after the U.S. Congress literally issued a report in 1974 comparing it to "the highly refined 'brainwashing' techniques employed by the North Koreans." Sembler's imitation wasn't shut down until 1993 for illegal child abuse: beatings and sexual humiliation. Kids were thrown against walls. Or forced to sit in their own menstrual blood. Unless, of course, they were ready to cooperate, confess, and chant "I'm at STRAIGHT, feeling great" with the others. In that case they got to be the enforcers. Dozens of lawsuits exposed a similar picture in 12 clinics across America.

And there was an article in Florida Trend May 1997 called Money Man Mel Sembler.

Money Man (Mel Sembler)

Welcome to the front lines of big-money political fund raising. Here, in a spacious second-floor office overlooking Central Avenue on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, Mel Sembler is shaping the future of Republican Party politics. As the newly appointed finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, Sembler is the point man for the party's $50 million fund-raising campaign this year. Next year that figure will be much larger, he says. But don't expect to hear about the $25 checks from the Ma and Pa America.

Sembler targets the really big bucks - the money, as he says, that really makes a difference. At a time when political fund raising by both parties is under a growing cloud, Sembler sees the problem as a Democratic one and presses on with business as usual. "You gotta have money," Sembler insists without a hint of apology. "Without money you can't get your message out to the people. And that's what this is really all about."

A self-made millionaire, anti-drug crusader, community benefactor and self-avowed family man, Sembler personifies the conservative, successful image that Republicans hold dear. He earned a fortune building suburban shopping centers and rode those riches to the highest levels of party politics. He raised millions to support conservative candidates and causes and was duly rewarded by President Bush with the ultimate in political spoils: a key ambassadorship posting to Australia.

.....Responding to years of complaints from former patients, auditors cited evidence of excessive use of force, sleep deprivation, and the withholding of food and medication. Sembler denies any wrongdoing and continues to defend the program's methods, particularly against the criticisms of the St. Petersburg Times editorial board. "People thought we were taking away children's rights. But we saw it just the opposite - giving them back their rights by helping them get off drugs." In 1993, with the allegations surfacing and the program losing about $500,000 a year, Sembler closed Straight.

And now he's still around helping to get Rick Scott re-elected. From the first link:

After Straight Inc. closed, the education arm of Sembler's organization lived on as a new program named the Drug Free American Foundation, which still exists today. Sembler, after serving as ambassador, continued to fundraise for prominent Republicans, including Mitt Romney. He also hosted an event to raise money for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's legal defense fund when the former Bush White House aide was on trial for perjury.

[mercuryblues]

1. more on sembler

Sorry, I never saved the links when I wrote this.

When a sidewalk is not just a sidewalk.
A little history on the Baywalk Mall. It was co-developed by The Sembler Company and Fred Bullard.
Sembler sold out to Bullard in Sept ‘08. Three months later Bullard filed for bankruptcy. Then Baywalk became a holding of CWCapital Co. Wells Fargo is the trustee of CWCapitol. Coincidentally, CWCapitol and Sembler share[d] a real estate consulting firm, RCL Company.
(So after bailing out the banks with our tax dollars, they are getting stimulus money to prop up their holdings. )
I have a sneaking suspicion that CWCapitol/Wells fargo is affiliated with the Sembler, somewhere, somehow, someway.

Sembler was co-founded by Melvin Sembler and Robert Litchfield. Litchfield was fired from the Romney campaign because he is a defendant in a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit involves civil rights violations and abuse suffered by children in his (and Sembler’s) so called “straight” schools, for youth drug and alcohol rehab. Sembler was not named as a defendant.
Sembler is a whole ‘nother can of worms. He is a big campaign donor to anyone named boosh. (plus a slew of other politicians) So much so that both boosh senior and the junior gave him ambassadorships. Sembler had a compaint against him at the UN for human rights violations (the UN refuse to hear the case) Also Sembler was ambassador to Italy, and may somehow be involved with renditions under booshie. making him a protected man.

This is why the protests began. The Sembler involvement in a shopping mall. They continued, because of wells fargo and their legal problems for initiating “ghetto” loans. Now they also include privatizing sidewalk.

The sidewalk vacation was only a part of the so-called “BayWalk revitalization” plan passed by the City Council. The city will give away $700,000 of federal stimulus funds to the nearly vacant downtown mall for security improvements. For its part, the current controlling owner of BayWalk, C.W. Capital, pledged in a letter to the city that they would invest $6 million into the open-air entertainment complex. But the sidewalk vacation was essential to the deal, according to BayWalk managers, because they want to be able to shuttle protesters to an area across the street.