Local News in Brief : State Shuts Youth Home
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State regulators have temporarily suspended the license of a group home for troubled boys in Van Nuys and accused its president, a minister, of sexually molesting a 14-year-old resident of the facility.
The suspension order by the Department of Social Services accuses the Rev. Roger W. Burt of molesting the boy in 1984 at the Youth Encounter Home he operated under the auspices of a parent company, Christian Counseling Assn.
Burt, president of the home and Christian Counseling, is also accused in a 17-page complaint of disciplining a boy by handcuffing him to a chair for several hours. Additionally, the complaint says Burt failed to notify state authorities that he was arrested in 1986 on suspicion of committing a lewd act in public with a male prostitute.
The state order, which Christian Counseling has until May 31 to appeal, prohibits the Youth Encounter Home from caring for boys at a one-story wood and brick house.
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