Lawsuit: Trails Carolina and Solstice East

“Four teenagers who attended two Asheville-area residential treatment centers filed a federal lawsuit Dec. 31, [2025] alleging they suffered lasting harm from forced labor, systematic abuse and frequent strip searches at the now-shuttered facilities.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, claims Trails Carolina and Solstice East were part of a “sophisticated” for-profit enterprise that falsely promised industry-leading therapeutic services by trained and qualified professionals in a safe environment.

Instead, the lawsuit claims residents suffered physical abuse, neglect, food and clothing deprivation, exploitation and forced labor at these facilities while they were managed and marketed by Oregon-based Wilderness Training & Consulting, which does business as Family Help & Wellness.

While telling parents their children would be in the care of trained professionals, the lawsuit claims the facilities left residents with undertrained and underqualified staff, most of whom only had a GED or high school diploma and no applicable license.

The lawsuit claims the facilities and their corporate owners violated the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act by allegedly holding the children in forced labor and involuntary servitude under threats of harm.

It also alleges they violated the Child Abuse Victims’ Rights Act, took part in civil conspiracy, participated in unfair and deceptive trade practices and breached their duty of care over vulnerable adolescents entrusted to their custody for therapy.

Suit claims frequent strip searches, threats at Solstice East

Solstice East, a Weaverville-based residential treatment center for girls ages 14 and older, opened in 2012 as an expansion of the same program in Utah.

It later rebranded as Magnolia Mill before merging with Asheville Academy for Girls in 2025. Asheville Academy closed after two children died by suicide there in May, the Citizen Times previously reported.

The program marketed itself as a “groundbreaking treatment facility,” while the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services documented “dozens of instances” of abuse and neglect summarized in a 151-page report in 2020, the suit claims.

The report found Solstice had 115 medication errors in a seven-month period, used physical restraints without notifying parents and restricted residents’ communication with families, according to a copy obtained by the Citizen Times.

The three plaintiffs who attended Solstice — identified as C.C., V.M. and K.G. in the complaint — were stripped of “privileges” and were not allowed to speak to their parents when they arrived at the facility, the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit describes numerous ways the facility allegedly punished residents for not cooperating. The suit claims children were placed in an area where they were forbidden to speak for days or weeks.

There was also “basement protocol,” during which children had to “drag a mattress to the basement and stay there day and night for days while all lights were on,” the lawsuit claims. In 2021, a former client described similar treatment in a USA TODAY network investigation.

The plaintiffs, who are now young adults, “recall hearing students screaming in the basement as they were left for days,” the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit alleges Solstice also forced students into “extensive exercise” until they “passed out or vomited” and restricted their food as a form of punishment. It claims girls were frequently strip searched, including by male staff, and told to “dance around” the room with only a “small towel to cover their bodies.”

Despite their website saying otherwise, the lawsuit claims Solstice staff would use fear of physical violence against residents to obtain compliance.

The lawsuit claims a plaintiff was placed into what Solstice called a “burrito hold.” This is where staff would hold a child down in a sleeping bag with their face covered, limiting their ability to breathe, the lawsuit claims. Often the child would be tied with a tarp or held down by staff all night, according to the suit.

“The Solstice Plaintiffs saw Solstice staff put minor residents in chokeholds until the residents passed out — this was done publicly in a threatening manner to others,” the lawsuit said.

In this environment, the lawsuit claims the plaintiffs and other residents were forced to do a long list of work for at least four hours on weekdays and six hours on weekend days.

If the children tried telling their parents anything negative about the facility, the lawsuit claims staff would screen letters and make the children rewrite them. Staff would pause or end phone calls if anything negative was said about the facility, the suit alleges.

The lawsuit claims Solstice staff would then convince parents that their children were manipulating them.

Shawn Farrell, Asheville Academy’s executive director, did not respond to a request for comment Jan. 2,[2026] nor did Family Help & Wellness.

Trails Carolina used child’s death as threat, suit alleges

Trails Carolina, a wilderness therapy camp in Lake Toxaway, a Transylvania County community an hour southwest of Asheville, closed after the state health department revoked its license following the February 2024 death of a 12-year-old camper.

The child died of suffocation in a “bivy,” and his death was later ruled a homicide by the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. District Attorney Andrew Murray declined to pursue involuntary manslaughter charges, the Citizen Times reported.[A Bivy or bivvy is a bivouac shelter meaning an improvised camp site that usually is of a temporary nature. It often is constructed of natural materials like a structure of branches to form a frame, which is then covered with leaves, ferns and similar material for waterproofing.]

The camp faced sanctions from state health regulators when camper died there in 2014 after running away. One law enforcement officer, whose name and agency were redacted in state health department documents, said the child might have been found alive if camp staff had notified law enforcement immediately.

The recently filed lawsuit claims staff used the boy’s 2014 death as a “traumatic deterrent” against two plaintiffs who attended Trials, identified as L.R. and V.M.

“If you don’t run away, you don’t die,” the lawsuit quotes an unknown staffer saying. [Wow! Just Wow!]

Trials Carolina was frequently cited by state health regulators since 2010, according to records obtained by the Citizen Times. The lawsuit claims the state found as many as 50 separate deficiencies from 2010 to 2019.

The lawsuit alleges the children were forced to hike for “days or weeks,” carrying 100-pound backpacks. The children stayed in wet clothes after hiking through freezing rain, according to the suit. Children weren’t allowed to stop for bathroom breaks, the lawsuit claims, leading some to continue hiking after they urinated on themselves.

One of the plaintiffs developed a fever for three days and had trouble breathing on a hike, the lawsuit alleges. When the child’s vision became blurry, “unlicensed Trails staff told (them) to ‘sleep it off,’” the lawsuit said.

Staff never gave the child medical attention or told the parents about the sickness, the lawsuit claims.

When a plaintiff refused to eat the same meal for a sixth straight day, the suit claims the 13-year-old child was placed in a sleeping bag and wrapped in a tarp with weight on top — a position again called the “burrito hold.” The other plaintiff was forced to sleep in this position for seven consecutive nights, the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit claims that strip searches were frequent at this facility as well, even once “in full view of a resident group.” The plaintiffs claim they were strip searched “within minutes” of arriving at the facility. “Several people” were in the room, the suit said.

A spokesperson for Trails Carolina and Family Help & Wellness did not respond to a request for comment.”

New lawsuit claims abuse, neglect at two Asheville-area teen centers
[Asheville Citizen-Times 1/5/26 by Ryler Ober]

Wow! Two deaths too!

REFORM Puzzle Piece