Romney Forced to Fire 2nd Crucial Campaign Backer

September 6, 2007
By BHDC Staff

Big scoop coming from Radar: Mitt Romney, just days after ousting disgraced Sen. Larry Craig from his Presidential campaign, has had to fire another well-connected state campaign organizer due to tawdry dealings — this time involving abuse and fraud toward troubled teens.

“Mitt Romney has asked his Utah finance committee co-chair, Robert Lichfield, who is affiliated with a controversial network of schools for troubled teens and has been dogged by allegations of abuse and fraud, to step down,” according to Radar’s report.

Lichfield is Utah’s largest political donor, and organized a fundraiser in February in his hometown of St. George that made nearly $300,000 for the Romney campaign. Members of the Lichfield family have donated $17,000 to Romney thus far.

But besides being rich, Lichfield was also named in a June 2007 complaint filed in federal court in Utah by the families of 133 children who allege kids under his supervision ”were subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse.”

Radar notes that one plaintiff, Chase Wood, “claims he was fondled, forced to eat his own vomit, and locked in a dog cage at the Cross Creek Center for Boys, a school that Lichfield founded in the late 1970s.”