DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. – In a lawsuit filed against Vista Maria, an all-girls facility that Local 4 began investigating over a year ago, six women and girls said the respected Dearborn Heights nonprofit that was meant to protect children instead became a “house of horrors.”
The lawsuit -- filed April 13, 2026, by former residents and some family members on their behalf -- accuses Vista Maria and its staff of psychological and physical abuse, “sexual abuse, including sexual assault, molestation, and nonconsensual touching and harassment,” along with unsafe conditions and negligence.
All were placed there as minors, many through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) and court orders, the suit said.
The lawsuit filed is the first “in a series of lawsuits” to come against the facility, according to one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, Moose Scheib, of the Moose Law Firm.
We’ve now formally filed the initial complaint, which marks the beginning of what we expect will be a much broader case,” said Scheib. “The allegations laid out by these survivors are not isolated … they reflect a long pattern of abuse and systemic failure involving young women who were placed in an environment that was supposed to protect them.”
“We’re quite actually survivors,” said Sophia Knoblauch, a former resident named in the lawsuit, now 18. “There’s girls who literally didn’t survive that place.”
Vista Maria and its new CEO, Kathy Regan, describe the nonprofit as one that “began as a home for girls and women in need” and evolved to offer mental health services, foster care and adoption, independent living, secure care for survivors of human trafficking, education and advocacy.
In a previous interview with Local 4, Regan said they had retrained staff and spent more than half a million dollars to make improvements to the facility. She said they are vowing to remain transparent.
Regarding the violations, Regan said, “It’s tough. It’s sad. Reading those allegations kills us, and that’s why you’ve seen a lot of terminations coming out of Vista Maria, because safety is sacred to us.”
The girls previously said they arrived at Vista Maria with every reason to believe those promises.
“They make it seem like, oh, it’s such a Godly place. They’re doing God’s work, and it’s really evil what they’re doing there,” a former resident said.
“They just don’t care. They don’t. I’ve tried to kill myself so many times in there just because the staff treated us so horrible,” former Vista Maria resident Sarina Jensen previously told Local 4.
Local 4’s investigation
The Investigators at Local 4 began looking into the facility in March 2025, after a 16-year-old girl went missing from Vista Maria on March 14 and wasn’t found for roughly six weeks.
The girl, who was already a victim of trafficking, was found in an apartment belonging to a 62-year-old man. Police believed sexual contact had taken place, “based on some of the evidence collected at the apartment.”
Kamal Abou Darwiche later pleaded guilty to charges of attempted child sexually abusive material and harboring a juvenile. All other charges were dismissed.
The lawsuit now alleges Vista Maria staff failed to follow missing-person reporting requirements, failed to promptly notify the teen’s guardian and case manager, deleted her computer data without backing it up, and even provided the wrong clothing to law enforcement for scent dogs.
Dearborn Heights police also told Local 4 last year that they responded to 368 calls to Vista Maria, and over the last five years, state records showed a disturbing pattern of complaints -- claims of inappropriate physical contact, improper restraints, and failure to report assaults.
Soon after, dozens of former and currents employees and residents began speaking with the Investigators on Local 4, describing the facility as a “living hell” and a “horror show.”
Local 4 went through documents from the MDHHS that showed dozens of violations published in 2025. Some current and former employees said the core issues appeared to be poor training, inadequate oversight, and unsafe environments. They said their concerns were being ignored.
“They’re hiring people off the street, or people who used to live at Vista Maria,” the former staffer said. “There are men grooming the girls, and they keep relationships with them even after they age out.”
Some allegations were even more serious, including reports of sexual relationships between male staff and teen residents. A current worker described the living conditions at Vista Maria as “inhumane,” and the other added, “There’s no structure. The girls run the place. It’s abusive for staff and for them.”
One report from 2025 said a staff member hit a young resident in the face five times, and the incident was allegedly not appropriately reported. In another case, a girl was hospitalized after claiming a staffer punched her in the lip and choked her.
“How they are training us to interact with these kids and what we’re supposed to do with these kids does not serve them anything,” a current employee said. “It’s more so a mental health facility or a lock up -- a mini lock up -- than it is a residential to help these youth get back into the environment.”
Yet, despite the complaints, a recent MDHHS report found no violation in staffing sufficiency.
State suspends placements at Vista Maria
After Local 4’s reporting, MDHHS suspended placements at Vista Maria from April 24 until July 24, 2025. The agency was told to work “towards remediations necessary to improve outcomes for the youth they serve,” “assess progress,” and “develop a re-admission plan.”
MDHHS told Local 4, in part, “During the placement suspension, Vista Maria and MDHHS worked collaboratively to assess progress and develop a readmission plan … MDHHS is unable to comment on case specific information regarding discharges.”
Vista Maria ends residential program, lays off staff
In October 2025, Vista Maria announced it was ending its residential program and was transferring the remaining 11 residents living there to other care facilities by December.
The decision to transfer the residents was made on Oct. 20, with the support of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Vista Maria’s Executive Leadership and Board of Directors.
Vista Maria said it was not closing altogether. Its other programs, such as foster care and independent living, continue.
In December 2025, Vista Maria laid off nearly 130 employees and officially ended its residential youth mental health programming.
Vista Maria said the layoffs are due to “social, systemic, and regulatory factors.” It first announced its decision to make a “thoughtful shift in how we serve Michigan’s youth.”
Details of the lawsuit
“What these survivors describe is not just misconduct,” said Scheib. “It rises to a degree of harm that can only be described as deeply disturbing, and in many ways, evil. These were young women who were entrusted to an institution for care and support … and instead of being helped, many describe experiences that left them with a lifetime of trauma.”
The lawsuit, also citing Local 4’s investigations, said girls were improperly restrained, humiliated, denied food, overmedicated, and, in some cases, sexually assaulted -- all while under the organization’s supervision from periods spanning 2020-2025, and, in one case, dating back to 1999-2000.
Ahmed Haidar, the former chief of Dearborn Heights police, said officers spent too much time at Vista Maria, referencing “two open investigations involving sexual contact between a former male staff member and two teen residents,” according to the newly filed suit.
In one Local 4 interview cited in the lawsuit, a former resident described what she called “cruel punishment” and “inappropriate restraints,” saying, “I remember I was writing in my room … and I got tackled like almost in a straddle position, like the guy [staff] was on top of me, straddling me. And I just remember with my hands pinned above my head, this is not okay. This is abuse.”
She also described another moment -- after a teen got upset on a phone call, “this guy [staff] just grabbed her by the ponytail to the ground.”
6 former residents listed in lawsuit
Sophia Knoblauch, now 18, said she was placed at Vista Maria at 12 years old and lived there from 2020 through 2025. She said staff made “abusive, and degrading comments,” including encouraging her to die by suicide. She said meals were denied as punishment and that she was subjected to restraints so forceful her head was pushed into a wall. In another incident, the lawsuit said a staff member “poured a chemical cleaning agent onto” her head “while she was restrained.”
“I feel like Vista Maria was actually like literally the worst times of my life,” Knoblauch said. “It didn’t do anything but traumatize me even more.”
Knoblauch also alleges she was denied access to her prescribed inhaler during asthma attacks, and that she was excessively sedated, sometimes with multiple sedative injections at once.
The lawsuit described an instance in which she says she was left naked while under observation and supervised by male staff. She said during this time, a male staff member sexually assaulted her by “caressing her inner thighs and fondling her nipples.”
She also said she was repeatedly placed in the “behavioral management room,” (BMR) where she says male staff forcibly removed her clothing and observed her nude on cameras.
The minor who went missing from the facility in 2025 is represented by a family member in the lawsuit. She alleges Vista Maria staff “failed to immediately notify proper authorities” when the teen went missing and engaged in a pattern of conduct that undercut residents’ safety and privacy.
In one incident, a staff member allegedly hit the teen in the face. Staff also yelled at residents during phone calls with outside family members or guardians, the lawsuit said. Residents were also allegedly denied private telephone conversations, a restriction that prevented confidentiality or disclosure of abuse in the facility.
During her disappearance, staff are accused of deleting the teen’s computer data without backing it up, therefore mishandling or hiding evidence and prolonging the search. Staff are also accused of providing the wrong clothing to law enforcement for scent dogs during the search.
Rebecca Andrzejewski, now 21, said she was placed at Vista Maria at 16 and lived at Rose Hall and Freedom Hall from about 2020 through 2022. She alleges she was twice placed in the BMR where male staff forcibly removed her clothes and watched her naked on cameras. She also describes a restraint called the “chicken wing,” and alleges that a male staff member pinned her and rubbed his groin against her.
Alaina Armstrong, now 20, says she was placed at the facility at 12 and lived there from about 2017 through 2019. She alleges phone privileges were denied after staff discovered she was calling relatives for help, and that during one BMR incident, her clothing was forcibly removed, and a male staff member rubbed her exposed thighs and pubic region before she was left nude overnight in view of cameras.
Bella Cantineri, now 21, says she lived at Vista Maria from July 2020 to May 2021 and describes an abusive environment, alleging she was “stomped on her head for several minutes without staff intervention.”
She also said staff escalated fights rather than defused them. Under restraints, the suit alleges a male staff member sexually assaulted Cantineri, “straddled her lap and spat on her.” She described poor housing conditions, including a hall without working heat or fire alarms and only a hospital blanket to keep warm.
Ashley Bell, now 40, said she lived in Vista Maria as a 13-year-old in 1999-2000. She alleges discriminatory targeting based on race, denial of food and necessities as punishment, and inappropriate sexual contact by a male therapist. She said he repeatedly rubbed his genitals against her buttocks.
She also alleges a female staff member provided cigarettes and alcohol at night and encouraged residents to perform sex acts on one another while staff watched.
First in ‘series of lawsuits’
The lawsuit alleges the women suffered long-lasting harm, including, “shock, fright; grief; emotional distress; depression; mental pain and anxiety; embarrassment; humiliation; mistrust of adults,” and post-traumatic stress disorder with physical manifestations.
It also alleges insufficient staffing ratios, improper physical punishment and humiliation, improper restraint maneuvers and excessive use of restraints, failure to report suspected abuse, unsafe conditions, falsified records, and employees hired without necessary clearances or training.
The lawsuit seeks monetary damages and asserts multiple counts, including assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, gross negligence, and negligent hiring, retention and supervision.
“As this case develops, we will be looking closely at all degrees of accountability,” Scheib told Local 4. “These include not only those directly involved, but also the leadership and governance structures in place at the time. Institutions do not operate in a vacuum, and where patterns like this exist, there are always questions about who knew, when they knew it, what was ignored, and how it was allowed to continue.”
Scheib said they will also be examining the “broader ecosystem surrounding the organization,” including funding sources, donors, and oversight failures, to fully understand “how this environment was sustained for decades.”
In the coming months, Scheib said he expects additional survivors to come forward and to be added to the case “through a rolling process.”
Scheib said his team will continue gathering records, working with experts, and interviewing former employees who have come forward to build out the “full scope of how this was ignored for so long.”
“Our focus remains on giving these survivors a voice, ensuring their stories are heard, and pursuing justice through every available avenue,” Scheib said.
Vista Maria’s response
A spokesperson for the facility told Local 4 on Monday that they will not be commenting until they have seen a copy of the complaint.
While Vista Maria’s residential program remains closed, a spokesperson for the facility told Local 4 they are “exploring potential options to support other populations.” Vista Maria’s current programs include foster care and adoption, transitional and supportive housing, job readiness and youth development, and more.
Previous coverage
Here’s some of our previous coverage of this story: