All Muck is Local: Utah

It’s so hard to find good help these days.

That seems to be especially true in presidential campaigns recently. Rudy Giuliani’s South Carolina state chairman has just been indicted on charges of cocaine possession. And Mitt Romney’s campaign is already in hot water after an aide allegedly impersonated a state trooper.

But the most recent case strikes close to home for the former Massachusetts governor. This week The Hill reported on several lawsuits that continue to follow Robert Lichfield, Romney’s co-chair of his Utah finance committee. Lichfield owns and operates boarding schools for troubled teens, but many former students are speaking out about their treatment while in school. From The Hill:

The complaint, which plaintiffs amended and resubmitted to the court last week, alleges children attending schools operated by Lichfield suffered abuses such as unsanitary living conditions; denial of adequate food; exposure to extreme temperatures; beatings; confinement in dog cages; and sexual fondling.

A second lawsuit filed by more than 25 plaintiffs in July in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of New York alleges that Lichfield and several partners entered into a scheme to defraud them by operating an unlicensed boarding school in upstate New York. The suit does not allege physical or emotional abuse.

Lichfield is one of six co-chairs for Romney’s finance committee in Utah, a state that provided almost $3 million of $23 million first-quarter campaign funds. Already this season he and his family have given $15,000 to the Romney presidential campaign. Lichfield helped to bring in $300,000 at a recent fundraiser.

The president of the organization under suit called the claims “ludicrous,” and says of many of the plaintiffs that “they have a long history of lying, fabricating and twisting the story around to their own benefit.” He points out that similar cases have been brought against his company in the past, most of which have been dismissed on procedural grounds.

Romney, for his part, is staying out of the debate, calling it “a civil lawsuit between two parties” that should be handled among themselves. But given that the substance of past complaints has never been publicly aired, that stance might change if details and testimony emerge. For the moment, Lichfield is bringing in more money than bad publicity.