A U.S. congressman from California says Boonville city officials should have "serious reservations" about selling the Kemper Military School property to associates of a controversial network of international boarding schools.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., warned that Boonville should "get the facts first" before accepting a purchase offer from Robert Lichfield, founder of World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools, or WWASPS.

"While many residential treatment facilities do provide good quality services for children, there is a long history of allegations of mistreatment of minors at campuses operated by the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs," Miller said in an e-mail to the Tribune. "The City of Boonville should have serious reservations about the sale of city property to an organization with such an egregious record of child abuse complaints."

Officials of Miller’s office said the congressman has not contacted the city of Boonville directly.

Lichfield and his associate, Randall Hinton, a former director of schools under Lichfield’s network, have proposed buying the Kemper property and opening a military-style school for difficult teens. A purchase contract sits before the Boonville City Council, and Boonville officials confirmed last week that they received a deposit check for $100,000 signed by Lichfield.

The council voted last week to delay making a decision on the sale until a public hearing. The meeting, held Monday night, drew a crowd of local residents who asked pointed questions of Lichfield’s associates.

Boonville police recommended a thorough investigation into Lichfield, his association and Hinton, who would operate the school with his brother, Russell Hinton. A preliminary investigation by the department found WWASPS schools appear to "regularly engage in physical restraint of children including the use of pepper spray, handcuffs, duct tape and wooden boxes to isolate the children."

Hinton acknowledged using pepper spray at a WWASPS school in Jamaica eight years ago. He described it as a two-month experiment that failed to subdue violent children.

Miller is the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The Department of Justice has turned down repeated requests by his committee to investigate WWASPS.

Miller’s office has described the organization as a St. George, Utah-based umbrella organization that oversees seven behavior modification programs in the United States and two abroad. The schools, formerly known as Teen Help, treat about 2,200 children at a cost of $30,000 to $50,000 in tuition and fees. At least eight affiliated schools and related programs have closed or been shut down since the mid-1990s.

A 2003 letter from Miller’s office to former Attorney General John Ashcroft alleges the association engaged in "human rights violations, fraudulent and deceptive advertising, fraud and unjust enrichment under the Internal Revenue Code."

So far, only one allegation against a staff member or official of WWASPS-affiliated schools has resulted in a criminal conviction. And many parents whose children have undergone treatment at the schools vouch for their effectiveness in transforming often severely troubled children. These parents claim that had it not been for the schools, their children would be dead or in prison.

Groups who oppose the programs claim they indoctrinate parents and children to worship tough-love ideals that can transform behavior but leave psychological scars. No professional, long-term studies on the psychological and emotional impact of WWASPS programs on children have been conducted.

Ashcroft and his successor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have said they lack jurisdiction to investigate privately owned schools. Miller, however, cites an investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into an alleged assault of a teen at Ivy Ridge, a WWASPS-affiliated school near Ogdensburg, N.Y. "The powers of the U.S. Attorney General are hardly more constrained than those of" state "officials," Miller wrote in a May 2004 letter.

Justice department spokesman Bryan Sierra said his office does not comment on cases with no charges or public records of crimes.

WWASPS President Ken Kay said he does not oppose tighter regulation of his programs but that such regulation should be conducted at the state and local level.