Paris: The Memoir(25)

as they must bear the burdens of our mistakes.

CONRAD HILTON





6

Once upon a time in Palm Springs, a furniture salesman named Mel Wasserman was on his way to a local diner and saw some teenagers on a street corner, protesting whatever people were protesting in 1964. According to legend, Mel invited them to his house for spaghetti dinner and offered them a place to stay for the night. They could even stay longer, he said, but they had to live by his agreement, which included a strict code of appearances and behavior and participation in group “therapy sessions.”

Wasserman was a disciple of Charles E. Dederich, founder of Synanon, a violent cult that had been driven underground but never fully eradicated by the FBI. From 1958 until 1991, Dederich and his hench-bitches—aka “The Imperial Marines”—lured young people into the cult, promising to cure them of drug addiction and homosexuality. His methods included verbal abuse, physical violence, forced abortions and vasectomies, and psychological torture. “The Game” was like a verbal Fight Club. “The Trip” was a marathon weekend of sleep deprivation, brainwashing, and physical challenges. (Imagine being strapped to the bottom of a roller coaster for seventy-two hours.)

Wasserman saw the opportunity to monetize all this and took it to the next level. He moved to a compound in the San Bernardino Mountains and re-created the cult environment, now calling it an “emotional growth boarding school.” Slick marketing targeted vulnerable parents who felt they’d lost control of their teenage children. He rebranded “The Game” as “Rap,” and “The Trip” became a series of “Propheets.” (That extra e makes it sound suuuuuper legit, doesn’t it?)

Wasserman named his “school” CEDU—short for Charles E. Dederich University—but because of the lawsuits and bad press surrounding the cult, promotional materials claimed it meant “SEE yourself as you are and DO something about it.”

The CEDU business model was so successful, Wasserman and his disciples—plus a few venture capitalists who saw the potential gold mine—opened sister schools in states where oversight laws were lame and authorities were willing to look the other way. They gained accreditation and developed lucrative partnerships with private insurers and state agencies so they could siphon money from Medicaid and the foster-care system.

In the 1990s, Maury Povich and Sally Jessy Raphael legitimized CEDU and made bank off “wild teen” episodes featuring kids—mostly pretty girls—sent off to boot camps and boarding schools for “tough love.” Later, Dr. Phil got on board, including video of the violent transport of a teenage boy who was dragged out of bed by dudes three times his size, the same way I was.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the state of Alaska spent more than $31 million in Medicaid funds to send 511 kids to facilities in Utah between 1999 and 2005. An average of $60,665 per child. And that’s kids funded by the taxpayers of just one state. The millions CEDU raked in from insurance claims and private payers will never be known.

Working-class parents mortgaged their homes and took second jobs to send their kids to CEDU. Wealthy parents came in with deep pockets, so CEDU aggressively courted them, especially celebrities. My parents were not alone. Michael Douglas, Clint Eastwood, Roseanne Barr, Barbara Walters, Montel Williams, Marie Osmond—the list goes on. CEDU and other facilities like it were a trending solution for the upper-class problem child. Programs expanded to take in kids as young as eight years old, staffed with loyal “graduates” who were too damaged to make it out in the real world.

TLDR: That random spaghetti dinner at Mel Wasserman’s ballooned into a fifty-billion-dollar-per-year business we call the “troubled-teen industry.”

That’s how you entrepreneur: Recognize a problem—or create one—and offer your product as the solution.

I get it.

When Nicky and I were little, if she got a hundred dollars for her birthday, I used to set up a little store in my room and invite her to come shopping.

“This plush designer teddy bear is so full of love,” I said. “It’s like hugging a magic cloud. A love cloud. I should keep him because he makes me so happy. But I want you to be happy. So, I guess I could part with him for a hundred dollars.”

She gladly handed over the hundred bucks, and within hours, I was down at the pet store, acquiring a hamster castle or a new best friend for my chinchilla.

Am I proud of this? Of course not. Much. The point is, it takes one to know one. I see Mel Wasserman for exactly what he was: an opportunist.

An evangelist with the soul of a furniture salesman.

He knew that people who couldn’t afford fifty bucks for a new coffee table would do anything—pay anything—for the hope of healing their broken family. He offered therapists financial incentives to send kids his way. They handed parents a royal-blue brochure that showed a fabulous lodge, spectacular scenery, and happy students playing tennis and riding horses.

Actual copy from a CEDU brochure used in the mid-1990s:

Founded in 1967, CEDU High School is the nation’s original emotional growth boarding school. Students build mastery through a rich curriculum of academics, performing and visual arts, outdoor education, recovery, and emotional growth. Students exhibiting behavioral and emotional difficulties create a successful future by learning to express themselves emotionally, artistically, and intellectually. CEDU High School’s unique art infusion approach motivates students and engages them to explore thoughts and feelings. Arts are woven through college preparatory academics, adventure education, and the original CEDU Emotional Growth Curriculum. The result? Teens rediscover their dreams and families reunite.