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Clinic, Staff Sentenced Over Girl's Restraint Death
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
March 15, 2007

RICE LAKE, WISCONSIN--The day treatment center where 7-year-old Angellika "Angie" Arndt died after being restrained facedown was ordered on Monday to pay a $100,000 fine -- the maximum punishment allowed for negligent abuse.

Former staff member Brad Ridout was sentenced to just 60 days in jail, after facing a possible maximum sentence of nine months.

Last December, Northwest Guidance and Counseling Clinic Inc. pleaded no contest to one felony count of negligent abuse, and Ridout pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of negligent abuse.

Angie, who had diagnoses of reactive attachment disorder, mood disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, died on May 26, one day after Ridout and another staff member placed her in a "control hold" at the Rice Lake Day Treatment Center as a consequence for gargling milk. Ridout laid across the girl's upper body for 30 minutes until she stopped struggling. Ridout and the other staffer then realized that she had stopped breathing.

A medical examiner later ruled Angellika's death a homicide due to "complications from chest compression asphyxiation".

Investigators learned that it was the ninth time the girl had been restrained in the previous four weeks.

Rick Pelishek, a regional director of Wisconsin Family Ties and Disability Rights, told the Star Tribune that more needs to be done to make sure more children like Angie don't die from similar practices.

"The issue isn't just that Angie's gone, but what's wrong here? What went wrong? How can we fix it? But instead of looking for answers, it's as if what happened to Angie has just faded away," Pelishek said.

Related:
"Counseling center, staffer sentenced in girl's death" (Associated Press via Pioneer Press)

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/16887433.htm
"Don't forget the 'horrendous thing that happened to Angie'" (Star Tribune)
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1047751.html
"Angellika Arndt, 7, Died After Ninth Restraint At Clinic" (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/restraints/wi/angellika.htm

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