As early as the 8^th Century, the “Feast” of Saint Valentine was marked by the Western Church of Christendom in honor of one of the Christian martyr, Valentine. 

In ancient Rome, Lupercalia was observed February 13–15 on behalf of Pan and Juno, two pagan gods of love, marriage and fertility.

More recently, in order to generate revenue between Christmas and Easter, companies like Hallmark elevated Valentine’s Day to an international day of love. Approximately 190 million Valentine’s Day cards are purchased. Every kiss begins with K. Restaurants serve small, fixed-price menus at inflated prices. Men shake their heads, discretely breathe heavily and endure the slings and arrows of a corporate manufactured day of greed … I mean love.

But there is an even darker side to this day.

Numerous shootings and tragedies have occurred on February 14. Perhaps the most notorious is The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929. This was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago’s North Side Gang. The men were gathered at a Chicago garage on the morning of February 14, 1929. They were lined up against a wall and shot by four unknown assailants, two of whom were disguised as police officers.

Today, a part of this wall, with bullet holes, is on display in the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada.

And now, another notable event is going to occur on February 14, 2025. On that day, Acadia Healthcare is going to shutter one of its torture chambers … err, treatment centers, Timberline Knolls.

Let’s briefly review events leading up to this closure.

In August 2024, a lawsuit was filed against Timberline Knolls alleging staff member Erick Hampton sexually assaulted a 24-year-old patient, Jane Doe, three times in May 2024. The lawsuit also alleges Timberline Knolls falsely accused the victim of having a secret affair with a staff member and out of fear, she left the facility after less than two weeks. Blaming the victim is always a sound strategy! (rolling eyes emoji here)

On August 21, 2018, Michael Jacksa, then a counselor at Timberline Knolls was arrested and charged with assaulting a 29-year-old patient at Timberline Knolls during two counseling sessions between May and June of 2018. Jacksa was indicated for sexually abusing at least six other former Timberline Knolls.

But the problems are far more widespread.

According to media sources, 546 calls were made to authorities from Timberline Knolls from 2023 – 2024.

Dozens of 911 calls related to criminal sexual abuse or sexual assault at Timberline Knolls were made to authorities since 2018.

With all of the numerous issues involving rape, sexual abuse, sexual assault, inappropriate behavior and lack of oversight, Timberline Knolls still had the audacity to hold itself out as having, “A Timberline Knolls Sexual Abuse Trauma Treatment Center for Women and Girls.” 

Just when you think that corporate hypocrisy and reprehensible conduct have reached an all-time low, we discover an even deeper level of hell.

Therefore, we should not be surprised by the closing. After all, it is part of Acadia’s overall corporate business strategy. That is, when a treatment center has too much notoriety, when its liability is too great, you simply shut down that treatment center and move along …

In 2018, Acadia through its wholly owned subsidiary, Ascent Children’s Health Services announced it was closing all ten (10) locations in the State of Arkansas. This closure displaced nearly 1700 children.

The closure was announced after the settlement of a Crittenden County Circuit Court civil lawsuit filed in July 2017 by Ashley Smith, mother of 2-year-old Christopher Gardner. Christopher died June 12, 2017, after being left in a transport van at the West Memphis facility for eight hours. Ascent workers signed documents showing that Christopher was taken inside the West Memphis day care center, even though he remained in the van.

In 2019, a lawsuit was filed against amongst other defendants, Acadia Healthcare. In that lawsuit, a guardian of an adolescent accused the Acadia companies of failing to protect a young girl under their care. The filing states that an employee of one of Acadia’s subsidiary companies repeatedly raped the child in 2018. The jury awarded the plaintiff $485 million dollars in damages. 

Acadia Healthcare of course, closed this youth treatment center in New Mexico amid egregious abuse allegations, multiple lawsuits and losing its certification from state regulators.

Acadia’s on-going incompetence, professional negligence and many scandals caused lower-than-expected volume growth. This resulted in a $20 to $30 million reduction in Acadia’s revenue guidance and a $10 to $15 million impact on the company’s EBITDA outlook.

Acadia’s response?

Acadia’s Chief Financial Officer, Heather Dixon stated, “If lower volumes persist, Acadia will reduce facility-level costs accordingly.” This tantamount to the old saying, “The beatings will continue until morale improves!”

Closing a facility is the nuclear level reduction of facility-level costs. A level to which Acadia does not hesitate to implement when its corporate commodities … uh… patients, become too problematic and not profitable enough.

Acadia’s profiteering at the expense of its patients is the dirtiest kind of money. And yet, our eating disorder organizations will close their eyes, hold their noses and continue to accept Acadia’s dirty money.

Perhaps these organizations believe that because the foul stench of the dirty money is covered in shiny wrapping paper, i.e., on the surface it comes from those treatment centers owned by Acadia; McCallum Place, Carolina House, Montecatini and various smaller centers, then they are free to accept revenue built on the backs of suffering people whose lives are worsened by Acadia’s corporate greed.

Those organizations may believe that since they haven’t heard anything unethical or bad about those specific treatment centers, [not that they have investigated] then it is acceptable to continue to associate with them.

These organization’s parochial thinking ignores the harsh reality that Acadia’s mindset is focused on greed and unethical profiteering. These organizations may believe it is acceptable to wait until a patient has been raped, or sexually abused, or mistreated before they take some type of action. And even that may not be enough. After all, when the tsunami of abuse allegations was brought to the public’s attention, when a patient was allegedly raped, not one organization stood up and issued any statement condemning the on-going conduct. Not one!

These organizations have not come to the realization that, “Tattaglia is a pimp. He never could have outfought Santino. But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along.” Acadia is Barzini. And it will line up against a wall for execution, any of its treatment centers which do not turn a big enough profit.

If those organizations, knowing that the parent company is corrupt, and through demands for third party investigations, increased oversight and stronger vigilance, could have prevented future abuse in those facilities and instead does nothing … DOES NOTHING … they should be held accountable.

They need to understand it was, “Barzini/Acadia all along.” And are you going to collaborate with that type of reprobate?