Owners of Nye County boarding school charged in child abuse case

The married owners of a now-shuttered private boarding school in Amargosa Valley were formally charged Tuesday with 45 counts each of child abuse or neglect.

“After careful review and mindful of the need to protect the public, we have decided to pursue criminal charges in this matter,” Nye County District Attorney Chris Arabia said in a statement Tuesday. “These children suffered, and that’s simply unacceptable.”

The felony counts against Marcel and Patricia Chappuis represent each student enrolled at Northwest Academy between February 2018 and February 2019, according to the complaint. The students ranged from ages 11 to 17 and are named in the complaint by their initials.

“My only comment is good luck with that one,” the couple’s attorney, Thomas Gibson, said of the formal charges. “Forty-five counts of nothing that they can prove.”

The couple, who have been free on bail, originally were arrested Feb. 14 on 43 counts each of allowing child abuse or neglect, all stemming from issues with Northwest Academy’s tap water.

Their school for troubled teens in Nye County closed the next day. Patricia Chappuis also faced two additional felony counts of child abuse or neglect linked to previous alleged altercations with students.

The ongoing investigation into the school was opened in late January following reports of abuse by staff member Caleb Hill, who was arrested about two weeks before the owners on suspicion of slamming students to the ground. He had not been formally charged in the case as of Tuesday afternoon.

The criminal complaint against the school’s owners, filed Tuesday in Beatty Justice Court, alleges that they caused their students “to suffer unjustifiable physical pain or mental suffering as a result of abuse or neglect.”

They did so, according to the document, by failing to provide safe drinking water, by failing to “adequately screen and supervise” staffers at the school and by failing to protect children from physical or verbal abuse.

The criminal complaint comes after a Las Vegas Review-Journal investigation examining the multi-agency failures in Nevada that allowed problems at the school to go unaddressed for more than two years.

Over the years, for example, the school racked up dozens of violations from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection after the couple had stopped treating its tap water in October 2016.

As students were exposed to the tainted water, the division sent letter after letter, extending deadlines for the school to fix a number of recurring issues, including its failure to test the water for bacteria and obtain appropriate water operators as required by state law.

Meanwhile, reports of abuse from students, parents and frustrated school staffers came as early as 2015, including claims that students were dragged across the desert by their necks, handcuffed to chairs and subjected to inappropriate sexual behavior with staff members. Yet divisions of the Department of Health and Human Services, which licensed the school as a child care facility, found many of the claims to be unsubstantiated, records show.

Following the Review-Journal investigation, “Deserted in the Desert,” the department finalized a “root cause analysis” report, which found that the agency did not have policies in place that would have required interagency communication about the ongoing issues with Northwest Academy.

Unaware of the abuse claims, for example, the state Department of Education continued renewing the academy’s private school license.

But long before abuse allegations at Northwest Academy began to surface, the Review-Journal found, the school and its predecessor, Horizon Academy, had ties to a global network of schools with a well-recorded history of abuse and neglect allegations that resulted in financial settlements paid to families.

Still, state departments did not flag those connections when licensing Northwest Associates Psychological Services Corp. as the school’s operator.

Nor did they flag Patricia Chappuis, a registered agent of the corporation under the name of Patti L. Thompson. Court records show she has faced fraud and embezzlement allegations in multiple states.

Marcel and Patricia Chappuis are expected in Beatty Justice Court on Aug. 19 for their arraignment.

Contact Amelia Pak-Harvey at apak-harvey2@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4630. Follow @AmeliaPakHarvey on Twitter. Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.