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[This story might sound like a Francis Ford Cupola movie, but it's all true.] After he fled Florida in the early 1980s Straight's former national clinical director Reverend Doctor Miller Newton (AKA Father Cassian Newton) setup his own chain of Straight-like programs based in New Jersey which he named Kids Centers of America. One by-one each of his Kids facilities were closed by state authorities under allegations of child abuse. In 1996 Dr. Newton paid the federal government $45,000 in return for not being prosecuted for 254 counts of insurance fraud. Before leaving New Jersey for good to return to Madeira Beach, Florida Newton and team settled for $11 million with two former clients who had charged abuse.
In 1998 Dr. Newton received permission to add a community room with a television set to a second property he purchased across the street from his residence in Madeira Beach fueling speculation and protests from his neighbors that he was setting-up a new Straight. Newton donated the property to Christ at the Sea Foundation Inc., a nonprofit he founded with his wife Ruth Ann, Father Michael Soren and Robert Moss. Mr. Moss' father, Robert Moss, Sr., did the books for Kids until he caught on to what was going on and became in "bad standing" at Kids. Robert Moss, Jr. allegedly married a fellow associate at Kids. Reputedly, she is from a wealthy Texas family. Some say Newton is a sort of grandfather figure for their children. In 1999 Father Newton applied for a substance abuse license to counsel youths referred by Pinellas County's Juvenile Assessment Center rekindling rumors that he was trying to establish a new Straight in Florida. Recently, Betty Sembler, Straight's founder, allowed Dr. Newton to join the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse, a subsidiary of her Drug Free America Foundation (formerly named Straight Foundation). This has caused speculation that Kids could have been the New York City arm of Straight all along. (See Why was there never a Straight New York City area? or Recovering Krystal.)
Dr. Newton was an ordained Methodist preacher until 1999 when he converted to the Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America and became Father Cassian (See The Word, April 2004, p. 33). Recently Father Cassian put a cupola atop the recreation room on his property across the street. This has sparked a zoning committee hearing for property use, and surfaced new fears from Straight watchers and from his neighbors that he is using George Bush's Faith-based Initiative to operate another rehabilitation program for kids.
Yesterday some citizens telling us that they are survivors from the Straight Holocaust were busy going door-to-door to Newton's neighbors to give them a flier about Dr. Newton and his programs. The door knockers say Dr. Newton came out in a black bathrobe to check his mail when he discovered them knocking around whereupon he made a phone call and a red truck with two young men showed up. The cops were right behind them. No arrests were made. Photos. Related articles: sptimes discussion Newton suits Newton's New Jersey programs FACTNET, world's biggest reporter on cults cover's Lulu Corter abuse case