The 13th Step - Update: A New Bill and a Final Ruling

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

New Hampshire lawmakers consider a new oversight bill proposed in response to the podcast. And the judge issues his final ruling in Eric Spofford’s defamation lawsuit against NHPR and three of our sources.

Last speaker is Amanda Vachon. Welcome. Amanda Vachon seems a little nervous. She's in Concord, New Hampshire's state capitol, and she's about to testify before the State Senate's Health and Human Services Committee. Amanda opens up a bright yellow folder. She's got a printed copy of her speech in there.

Morning, Madam Chair, I'm with the committee. This is the first time I've done this, so bear with me. My name is Amanda Vashon. Amanda starts out by talking about her job. She works for a community mental health center as a drug court coordinator.

Drug courts are special programs that can be offered to people who are convicted of a crime and have substance use disorder. The drug court mandates a participant to engage in long-term substance use treatment, random and frequent drug testing, community supervision. I'm sitting right behind Amanda, ferociously tapping notes on my iPhone.

It's a position I have occupied dozens of times before in this same building, covering the legislature as a reporter for New Hampshire Public Radio. But this time is a little bit different. Amanda is one of a handful of people testifying about Senate Bill 495. It's a bill that advocates hope will bring more oversight to the substance use disorder treatment field in New Hampshire. A bill, I'm told, has been long, long overdue.

And it's finally being proposed because of this, this podcast. At one point, Amanda looks up from her notes. She decides to go off script. I have worked in the drug court field for more than a decade. I worked majority of my career in Stafford County. And when I listened to the 13 step podcast, I was left sick to my stomach because I have sent as a part of a multidisciplinary team hundreds of people to inpatient centers. And I know that statistically speaking, there were people that came across my desk that went to those treatment centers over the course of their time in drug court and were likely

victimized by somebody in that treatment center. And it gave me pause and it, you know, affected my sleep for a few days to think that I was involved in decisions that potentially created further trauma for the people that we were trying to serve. As I listened to Amanda, I was kind of in awe. I kept thinking about how for years any talk of sexual misconduct in recovery settings was done in whispers. The sexual misconduct allegations involving Eric Spofford were often referred to as an open secret.

Eric, you'll remember, was the founder of the state's biggest addiction treatment facility. Lots of people say they heard he sexually harassed or sexually assaulted former clients and employees, but they were afraid if they went public, they'd face retaliation, so they stayed quiet. But now, Amanda and a handful of other people were coming to state lawmakers to say, hey, sexual misconduct gets in the way of recovery. It's time to do something about it.

It was a small moment, not some massive protest or an inquiry by the governor, and I'm pretty sure I was the only reporter there to see it, but it was something. If we are sending people to inpatient centers with no oversight that could potentially lead to further victimhood. We're not going to be doing what we're set out to do. And so this bill is very, very important for that reason. MUSIC You're listening to the 13th step. I'm Lauren Chuljin, and I'm back in your feed with a couple important updates.

The first is this legislation. It's actually been in the work since this past summer, just weeks after we dropped the podcast in June 2023. A bunch of people who work in the behavioral health world in New Hampshire started meeting on Zoom every other week or so, and they started brainstorming. In some ways, this podcast wasn't news to any of them. Not only was Eric Spofford's alleged behavior

pretty well known, but a lot of the people on these calls were treatment providers themselves or leaders of advocacy groups, people who have told me that they've long wanted more statewide oversight of addiction treatment. I'm told that our reporting is what finally forced this conversation out into the open, and it also gave people a shared language. Michelle Merritt was on these early Zoom calls. I visited her at her office recently. Michelle has worked in this industry for about a decade. She's the president and CEO of an advocacy group called New Futures. And yet this was the first time she'd ever heard the term 13-stepping.

After listening to the podcast, I had some conversations with people that I've worked with to say, are you familiar with this? And I was surprised how they all knew what it was. And again, having been in this space for 10 years, no one has ever specifically named it for me. It's been more of this sort of like undercurrent that we would see it crop up in different places but there was never a specific name for what it was. So that was surprising for me but then it also I think it it made me

angry to some extent that it has gone unchecked. So the group on Zoom they decided that proposing legislation would be their best chance at additional oversight. It was up to Michelle and her colleagues to write the bill and get lawmakers to sponsor it, but together, they all decided it should include two big policy goals. The first is, they want the state to keep better track of anyone who provides substance use disorder treatment in this state. I realize that sounds pretty basic, but to give you a little refresher, New Hampshire,

like many states, was in a real bind when the opioid epidemic hit. There wasn't enough treatment or enough funding. As one of Michelle's colleagues put it to me, the state went from zero to 60 in a really short period of time. They had to hustle to just get the right services in place. And yet, there still weren't enough beds to serve everyone who needed addiction treatment. So over the years, new facilities have popped up to try and meet that demand. But Michelle says that doesn't mean those places are high quality. And sometimes, the state doesn't even know these facilities exist.

We've seen some come up in Manchester, someone asked me about one the other day. Oh, are you familiar with this? I have never heard of them. I've been working in this space for a decade, and I have never heard of that treatment facility. They also highlighted for me that that particular treatment facility had individuals that they were calling recovery coaches who were themselves less than 30 days out of a treatment program. Anybody who is working with people in recovery know that that is a dangerous period

to be introducing somebody to someone who is not yet fully in recovery. You are not only putting your employee then at risk of a potential recurrence of their substance use disorder, but you're endangering every other person within that program. No treatment facility of any type of credibility that I know of in New Hampshire would be doing that. And yet it's happening in Manchester right now. Among the things lawmakers are now considering is a certification requirement.

The bill leaves it up to the health department to decide exactly what being certified would mean, but the idea is that no one in the state of New Hampshire could provide addiction treatment without being registered with the state in some capacity. The second big goal of this legislation is to make it easier for people to report misconduct. This bill would create a new job in the state health department called a behavioral health ombudsman. If something bad happens to you in a mental health or substance use disorder treatment facility,

the behavioral health ombudsman would be the person you call. They could field complaints and then investigate them. This is the part of the bill Amanda Vachon really hopes is going to work out. Amanda is the woman you heard testifying earlier with the speech in the yellow folder. I caught up with her after the hearing. I think it legitimizes the process, you know, that there's going to be an actual reporting system, you know, that there may be some assurance that something's going to happen with their report and it's just not going to go into the void.

As you know by now, there are so many reasons why people don't report sexual misconduct, especially in recovery settings. And if no one makes complaints, there is no chance of accountability. And the ripple effects of that silence are endless. Amanda and her colleagues help people follow through on their court mandated addiction treatment plans. So if someone in state government became a safe place for fielding complaints, maybe we would hear as part of our program that something went wrong at an agency and that helps us then decide whether or not we can trust in a treatment center. Part of the reason Amanda was nervous about testifying and talking into my microphone was because she really doesn't want people to get the wrong idea about addiction

treatment. I've met so many brilliant dedicated people over the course of my career that are passionate about this field and want to see people get better and so I don't want this bill to be viewed as oh we doubt the sincerity of the people working in those centers. That's not what we're saying. I just think that we've got to have some regulations and oversight to ensure that we weed out those people that are not great, right?

And that helps protect the staff at those centers as well because as your podcast pointed out, it wasn't just the patients, it was the staff too that were victims. So I'm going to protect everybody. This bill could change many times over as it makes its way through the legislature. But the fact that it exists marks an important moment. This legislation is the first time the New Hampshire legislature has proposed regulations

aimed specifically at curbing sexual misconduct in the addiction treatment industry. There are likely to be debates about the costs and the fine print, but it appears that policymakers and the health department here agree. We need more accountability and oversight to keep people safe while they work toward recovery. And that's just here in New Hampshire. As we all learned on this journey, each state handles addiction treatment differently. The industry is covered by a patchwork of rules and regulations. What happens in New Hampshire is different from say Ohio or Texas or Florida.

That's where Eric Spofford recently announced he'll be opening another treatment center. He posted about it recently on his Instagram. Eric says he's completed the acquisition and partnership in a detox and residential treatment facility in West Palm Beach. That means Eric now owns at least two addiction treatment facilities. The other one is in Columbus, Ohio.

In the caption for this post, Eric writes quote, this is a tough game and us entrepreneurs get our asses kicked daily. Celebrate your wins. Coming up, speaking of Eric, I've got some big news about the lawsuit he filed against us. That's after the lawsuit. The defamation lawsuit Eric Spofford filed against me, my colleagues, and three of the sources in this podcast. We actually learned about it in December, but I waited a bit before telling you because we wanted to see how Eric would respond, and now we know.

To recap, we left you off on a bit of a cliffhanger with this stuff. In episode six, I told you that we, an HPR, had filed a motion with the court to dismiss the lawsuit. I also told you that the judge agreed to dismiss it. But Eric was not done fighting. He and his lawyers argued that they needed to see all of our reporting materials, because without gaining access to my notes and interviews, they said they wouldn't be able to sufficiently allege that I had defamed Eric. That's as far as things have progressed by episode six.

But then the judge dropped a big order that seemed to be his version of a compromise. Judge Daniel St. Haller said that he wanted to see my reporting materials. He ordered what's known as an in-camera review. Halair said that he wanted to see my reporting materials. He ordered what's known as an in-camera review. The judge would look at my notes and interview transcripts privately, and he would decide if there was anything in there that Eric should be allowed to see.

This was like a punch in the gut. I've said before in this podcast, I have absolutely nothing to hide. There is no evidence that I have been irresponsible or wanted to defame Eric. It's just those interviews, my notes, my emails, sources trusted us to protect that information. But the judge said he needed to see anything that spoke to the quote, credibility of our sources.

And that amounted to more than 3000 pages of materials. I really worried then, and I still do now, that sharing that stuff with the judge will chill future reporting. That even though only the judge was reading these materials and my lawyers also took out the names and details of my sources, just the idea of it, that my work wasn't totally protected, I worry that will keep people who hear about this from talking to journalists in the future. But in the end, we complied with the order. We turned over those 3,000 pages.

And it ended up being the right decision for this case. Because in December, Judge Daniel St. Haller issued an order, his takeaways, from reading through my reporting. I'm going to read some of it to you. Here in conducting the in-camera review, the court found no indication that Chuljin or the other NHPR defendants possessed knowledge that their reporting was false, acted with reckless disregard of its falsity, or entertained doubts as to the truth of their publication. And then he goes on to add, quote, on the contrary, Spofford's assertion of actual malice has no merit as compared to the depth, detail, and accuracy of Chulchan's

investigation as reviewed by the court. Eric Spofford has threatened our sources with lawsuits. He's scared people into silence, but now there it was in black and white for anyone to see in a public document. Here's another bit from the order. Quote, While Spofford maintains that the accusations against him are baseless and entirely fabricated, the in-camera review documents contain absolutely no evidence of falsity. And with that, the judge threw out the lawsuit.

He set a deadline for Eric and his lawyers to appeal to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. That day finally came and went and no appeal came. We got an email from our lawyer that said plainly like this should be the last update episode for a while, but then again I have been wrong before. So if anything else happens that we think you should know about, we will be back. The Thirteenth Step is reported and produced by me, Lauren Joolgen. Mixing production, an additional reporting by Jason Moon, who also wrote the music you hear in this show. Editing from senior editor Katie Culinary, news director Dan Barrick and Allison McAdam. Sarah Plourd created our artwork and the website Ththsteppodcast.org. By the way,

we posted the judge's latest order in the defamation lawsuit on our site if you want to read it. Sigmund Schuetz is our lawyer and HPR's director of podcasts is Rebecca LaVoy. The 13th Step is a production of the document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.