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Willow River Farms, a private group home for the mentally retarded and physically disabled in Brookshire, turned into a place where "residents would gather in groups and have sex with multiple partners at the same time," and the atmosphere was described as "one big orgy" by a former employee, according to a lawsuit recently filed in Harris County.

The suit, filed by Houston attorney John Ramsey, focuses on the alleged sexual assault of a 42-year-old mentally retarded woman.

"The more the family told me about this, the angrier I got," Ramsey tells Hair Balls. "[Willow River Farms] helped create a predator who is preying on other residents at this facility."

Photo courtesy of Marina Castillo-Knuti

Keep the DREAM alive. That's what community activists in Houston are trying to do tomorrow at Mason Park when they hold a rally in support of the DREAM Act, a piece of federal legislation that would allow certain undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship.

Officially called the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, (see our take on it here) the proposed law would let illegal immigrants who entered the United States before the age of 16 and have lived here for at least five years to earn permanent residency by either serving in the military for two years or by completing at least two years of college.

Sponsors of the tomorrow's rally, Immigrant Families and Students in the Struggle, ask that supporters don their cap and gown to symbolize all of the undocumented students' graduating from high school and college. The event in Houston coincides with the National DREAM Act Graduation Day in Washington, D.C.

This week's cover story, The Recruit, deals with state schools and the popular alternative: privately-owned group homes.

Today, Governor Rick Perry signed into law a bill designed to improve the safety and quality of care for residents at state schools.

"Whether these Texans live in a state facility or in therapeutic community settings, we are obligated by basic human decency to provide them with a safe setting in which to live, learn and grow," Perry said. "SB 643 improves oversight of the state school population with everything from increased penalties for wrongdoing, to increased use of monitoring technology in our facilities."

The bill makes it harder on state school employees. New applicants are subject to criminal background checks and staff can get randomly tested for drugs. A failed test is an automatic firing. And, if an employee knows another employee is using drugs, he's required to narc on the other guy.

Photo by Paul Knight

Trevor Falk

Before our first trip to Richmond State School, we imagined it as a dark place with prison-type buildings, a prime spot for the type of abuse stories that have been widely publicized in the last several years.  

It wasn't that way.

When we started going to privately-owned facilities -- often called community-based services -- in Harris and Fort Bend counties, we pictured a family-type setting that was a progressive alternative to the institutionalized state schools.

Again, we were often wrong.

In fact, just about every preconceived notion we had about state schools versus private homes was wrong. The push from legislators and advocacy groups to move out state school residents is strong, and private homes are competing, almost fighting, to house that population.

A fourth man has filed a $15 million lawsuit against the Episcopal Diocese of Texas and St. Stephen's Episcopal School for allegedly covering up his sexual abuse at the hands of the school's chaplain.

Filed Thursday in a Corpus Christi federal court, the suit is the third to accuse then-headmaster Allen Becker and other diocese authorities of covering up Jim Tucker's molestation of male students in the Austin boarding school in the 1960s. (After the publication of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the Press was made aware of a lawsuit filed against the diocese for Tucker's alleged molestation of a student at Houston's St. James Episcopal School, where Tucker worked after St. Stephen's. That suit was settled and sealed).

The new lawsuit, which does not name the accuser, alleges that "During the summer of 1967, Tucker made his usual late-night visit to plaintiff's bed in the dark room with the lights out, and while carrying on a general discussion, defendant Tucker molested, sexually abused and exploited [the] plaintiff....Plaintiff's memories were not recovered until after June of 2007 when [he] read a notice letter from the diocese and St. Stephen's community about an investigation that confirmed numerous reports and other evidence of Tucker's crimes against boys that had been concealed by the bishops and the headmasters...."

In 2005, the Austin American-Statesman wrote about Allen Becker, the retired headmaster of a prestigious Austin Episcopal boarding school, hitting the bricks once again to raise money for a lower-income black congregation on the city's east side.

"We want to give children in this part of Austin a chance for a first-class education," Becker was quoted as saying. He was known for his love of molding young minds, and the library at St. Stephen's Episcopal School was even named after him. And it was a former St. Stephen's teacher, Dean Towner, who asked Becker to spearhead the fundraising campaign.

"I knew he had a special feeling about educating young black kids," Towner was quoted as saying. The article also goes on to say that Becker "felt that African American children could learn as much and achieve as much as white children if given the chance."

However, what Becker didn't mention, and what certain higher-ups at The Episcopal Diocese of Texas were well aware of, was that 35 years earlier he had booted a pedophile priest out of his school, and that priest wound up at a mostly black congregation in Houston. The man who believed in equality had allowed a predator into the lives of the very children he purported to love.

Photo by Nick Vlcek

Craigslist -- which we recently described in a feature as being at a crossroads -- seems to have decided which road to take.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced the company will be dropping its "Erotic Services" ads.

The ads have played a role in a series of recent murders and other crimes; AGs across the country (not including Texas) had banded together to force Craigslist to make changes.

Craig Newmark, the founder of the company, recently attended the memorial service for one of the victims. Video and a slideshow of that event can be seen here.

A new category, which will be called "Adult Services," will charge a fee to advertisers and be monitored by Craigslist employees to make sure no hanky-panky goes on. Which doesn't sound too feasible, but what the hey.

As Hurricane Ike threatened the Upper Texas Coast, we went to press with the story of the 4th Street Players, a predominantly white Anglo street gang in the Galveston Bay town of Bacliff.

Nine members of the gang, who wore red colors in emulation of LA's Blood gangs, had been arrested in May of last year after a two-year investigation by the FBI, DEA, ATF and several local law enforcement agencies and charged with numerous crimes related to the sale of cocaine, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine. A second indictment arising from the same investigation charged four more members of the 4th Street Players with one or more counts of the sale of crack.

Last week Federal Judge David Hittner sentenced five of them, each of whom plead guilty, to prison.

Over the weekend Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, spoke at the memorial service for Katherine Olson, the woman murdered after answering a false ad seeking a nanny.

It was a culminiation of sorts of the intense pressure Craigslist finds itself under now, as publicity-hungry elected law-enforcement officials continue their crusade against the company.

"I am really, really humbled and really honored to have been invited here today to speak at this tribute to Katherine, extended by the whole Olson family," Newmark told the crowd. "I was personally sickened and horrified when I heard about this tragedy. I started Craigslist around 14 years ago as a way to give back to the community."

A slideshow of the event can be seen here.

Criminals being dubbed the latest "Craigslist Killer" seem to be popping up everywhere.

There was Michael Anderson in Minnesota, who lured to her death a woman answering an ad for a nanny; a 16-year-old S/M enthusiast who killed a New York City radio newsman who posted an ad; and a yuppie who used the online marketplace to meet hookers he would rob, killing one.

The incidents have sparked law-enforcement officials across the country to go after Craigslist, and in some ways founder Craig Newmark is under siege.

Newmark is negotiating with the officials -- some of them ambitious politicians with a sharp nose for what gets admiring headlines -- but he has also reached out to the victims. This weekend he will speak at a memorial concert for the woman killed in Minnesota, having been invited by her family.

Forty-one state attorneys general have signed on to an agreement with Craigslist that seeks to limit the "erotic services" ads; one notable exception to that is Texas AG Greg Abbott. (An Abbott spokesman tells Hair Balls the agreement "did not, in any way, adequately protect children from harmful conduct, nor did it adequately prohibit listings that advertise illegal activity.")

Click here for an in-depth look at Craigslist, Newmark, and the ongoing efforts to change the way it operates, by Bradley Campbell and Matt Snyders, reporters for our Twin Cities sister paper City Pages.

For a slideshow on the life of the murdered Minnesota woman, Katherine Olson, click here. For a slideshow/timeline of events from Craigslist's founding to the murder, click here.