On probation and his house of horrors shut down, Tennessee Scientologist talks up Mexico

There’s been a lot of press coverage, much of it confused, about a collection of mental health facilities in Cannon County, Tennessee that was run by Scientologists and was housing people who were being held against their will.

The Cannon County Sheriff’s Department recently released a couple of incident reports about a 911 call on February 7 that led them to discover the first victim, a mentally ill 24-year-old man from Beverly Hills, California who was being held in a cabin that had “no obvious amenities for life” except for some sheets, and that was padlocked from the outside. It was the schizophrenic young man who had made the 911 call, and he was rescued by the deputies. Later the deputies returned and found a 48-year-old woman being held in another cabin, and they arrested two caretakers, Hans Snyder Lytle and Denis Flamand (not Flamond, as the press has it), who pleaded to false imprisonment misdemeanors and got a year’s probation.

The owner and manager of the facilities, collectively known as Life Center For A New Tomorrow, is longtime Scientologist Marc Vallieres. He was charged with two felony counts of facilitation of kidnapping. The Cannon County circuit court clerk told us that Vallieres was allowed to enter a diversion program and was sentenced to two years of state probation.

But that apparently hasn’t stopped Vallieres’ ambition to offer Scientologists an alternative to psychiatric care for their loved ones who are “Type 3” — Scientology jargon for people with psychoses.

According to Facebook postings to private groups maintained by fellow Church of Scientology members, Vallieres says he has been operating his Life Center in Tennessee for 15 years, and has tried numerous times to expand it.

From our previous reporting, we know that Vallieres had worked directly with the Church of Scientology to offer a place where members could be sent for Scientology methods of treating the mentally ill. We wrote about a severely ill woman who made two runs for freedom from Life Center before she was taken to Arkansas and was held in a basement for a year until she was rescued. Another woman, Barbara Cordova Oliver, was a fixture at Scientology’s Hollywood Celebrity Center who had a nervous breakdown and was sent by her husband to Life Center. When we called Vallieres and asked him about Barbara’s condition, he referred us to the Celebrity Centre.

And there are other connections linking Vallieres and the church itself. In 2013, Church of Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw put out a press release praising Vallieres for his work getting Scientology’s views on drug abuse into local schools. Even today, Scientology front group Citizens Commission for Human Rights recommends Life Center For A New Tomorrow as an alternative to psychiatric care.

We asked former Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder about Vallieres, and he told us there was no question that the church was aware of what Vallieres was doing, and approved of it.

Previously, we talked to family members of the two victims who were rescued from Life Center in February, leading to the facilities being shut down. One of them told us that Vallieres planned to leave Tennessee and start up his operation somewhere else, but he wouldn’t tell us where.

And what about Vallieres himself? He hasn’t responded to our phone calls and emails, but we did find that he’s had interesting things to say about Life Center For A New Tomorrow on Facebook.

Here’s how he described his project on February 19, 2016, almost a year before his facilities were raided and then shut down.

I currently own 5 locations in TN USA which care for people with mental difficulties, or people on psych drugs who want to come off them. It became clear that some of them would never fully recovered due to brain damages caused by drugs or psych treatments. To return them to society was not an option as they would soon after find themselves back in a psych ward.

I wanted to find a solution for them. I bought 124 acres with the idea that I would build 40 cabins on the land, each cabin being a house for those people. The plans for the construction is all approved and I even set up a nonprofit organization in the hope that I would get donations to build those cabins and get the project going. But as we all know, trying to get donations for a project is a major enterprise and I abandoned the idea.

However, I managed to set up 2 houses on the property. One has 5 bedrooms, 3 full bathrooms. The bedroom are large enough to lodge 2 people. The other house has 2 bedrooms.

In TN, it is not difficult to get someone on social disability. The average amount they then receive is $750 per month. Most of them also qualifies for food stamps for about $200 per month. I calculated at that time that if I had 6 residents, it would cover all my costs (mortgages, electric, taxes).

Each client would pay $700 per month. That would cover the rent and the salary for on staff residing on the property to watch over and do the cleaning etc.

The family of the clients would then cover the food that would not be covered by the food stamps. And they would have the option to pay per hour for extra services such as going in town for shopping, going to a movie, etc. We even have an auditor for those would need assists or regular auditing.

There is a barn where we could keep horses and animals. The 124 acres is isolated, no neighbors, trails in the wood and we could set up ouside activities, a garden, etc.

That in a nutshell was the project. It will happen but I need to expand the Life Center for a New Tomorrow even more so I can finance the final touch for this project. Hiring staff is not a problem. Getting any kind of license for the project is not a problem. I managed to get one for 6 years form the Dept of Mental Health of TN to operated the center. I then manage to get rid of them once I realized their rules and regulations were slowing me down.

Marc Vallieres

 
Vallieres may have told his fellow Scientologists that he “got rid” of his state licensing because state regulations were slowing him down, but according to a 2014 account in the Tennessean, Life Center came up deficient after a site visit by regulators.

On Dec 7, Vallieres announced that he was looking for new staff, and experience in working with the mentally ill was not necessary…

The Life Center for a New Tomorrow in TN, has helped and is continuing to help a lot of families that have been harmed by the psychiatric industry. Currently the Life Center is booming with new arrivals and we really need to add staff like yesterday otherwise some of the clients that should be coming here to receive the real tech on mental help will end up in the hands of psychiatrists. I need people who can take care and watch the clients. You don’t need to be very well trained, we can help with that. If you think you could come for only one month, that would help me to hold the forth until we find permanent staff. If you are interested please contact me at owner@lifecneterforanewtomorrow.com

thank you very much. We have a chance here to replace psychiatry with the only workable tech that exists and we should take that opportunity to expand greatly and rapidly.

Marc Vallieres

 
But here’s what we found most interesting. On April 21, less than a month ago, and well after patients had to be rescued from his facilities, Vallieres announced that he was going to open a new facility in a tiny village in Baja California, Mexico.

EXPANSION NEWS FROM THE LIFE CENTER FOR A NEW TOMORROW

For the past 15 years, the Life Center for a New Tomorrow in Tennessee USA has helped many people who had type 3s condition or some mental difficulties, restimulation and people on psych drugs that wanted to wean off them. The original goal on the Admin Scale for the Life Center was to eventually created a facility that would be licensed just the same as a psych hospital but which would of course not use any psych treatments or drugs but would rather use the only workable technology of the mind from LRH.

Because of the legal restriction and abuse of power from the psychiatrict industry, it has been difficult to move toward that goal. Therefore, I have decided to expand the operation and open a facility in Mexico. I have found a very good location in Ejido Ignacio Zaragoza. It is about 40 minutes from Ensenada Baja CA in a small village. I already have clients waiting to go there as soon as I open.

What I need now is one staff to begin the operation. I need someone who is bilingual. A trained auditor would be best of course but it is not needed at the beginning. I need someone who had good TRs, patience, can confront psychotic type cases and is willing to relocate to live on the property. The staff also needs to be able to work legally in Mexico. We can help with work permit.

Once we began operation and have 3 clients or more, I will hire another staff. The property is located on 1.5 acre. It is a large 3-bedroom house. About one mile from the house the same owner has a 60-acre parcel of land, totally isolated and beautiful. The idea is to build the ideal hospital on that property once we are ready.

If you or anyone you know might be interested please let me know. You can email me directly at owner@lifecenterforanewtomorrow.com. In order to get rid of psychiatry, we need an alternative where people can go. The Life Center for a New Tomorrow is that alternative.

Marc Vallieres

 
Yesterday, we contacted the Tennessee Department of Correction and spoke to a director of communications. She told us that according to their records, Vallieres was in compliance with his probation, and a home visit had been completed. She told us that the state was not aware that Vallieres might be planning to expand his operation to Mexico.

When we asked if Vallieres is allowed to leave the state of Tennessee during his probation, she told us that some exceptions are made when an offender on a border county wants to cross a state line for a job, for example. But Mexico appears to be out of the question.

Still, these Scientologists seem determined to find a place where they can hold severely mentally ill people in primitive conditions out of the public eye. They are, after all, on a mission from L. Ron Hubbard.

 
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Chris Shelton on Scientology and mental health

 
Says Chris: “With the Tennessee story still in the news, I realized now was the time to get the full story out on L. Ron Hubbard’s false claims and pseudoscience ‘tech’ about mental illness and the tragic results that come from using it.”

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

Oh, this is rich. Deny the origins of the Holocaust with one front group, and promote understanding of the Holocaust with another — Scientology has all bases covered!

 
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Countdown to Denver!

 
HowdyCon 2017: Denver, June 23-25 at the Residence Inn Denver City Center. Go here to start making your plans, and book your room soon!

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 11, 2017 at 07:00

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