Paris Hilton Backs Haitian Teen Abandoned at Abusive School by Parents

The heiress and media personality Paris Hilton was among those voicing support this month for Elijah Goldman, a 17-year-old Michigan boy who was allegedly abandoned in Jamaica for months by his adoptive parents after the troubled-teen boarding school they shipped him off to was shuttered over horrific abuse claims.

Elijah arrived home in Traverse City on Sept. 3, seven months after his school closed down. Mark and Spring Goldman, who adopted Elijah from Haiti at the age of 10, never arrived to collect him, and the teenager was sent to a series of Jamaican group homes, according to a recent investigation by the Detroit Free Press.

Five days after Elijah landed back in the United States, Hilton tweeted out a link to the Free Press’ story to her 16.4 million followers, saying that the teen “needs our help.”

She went on to urge anyone living in the local area who could help “provide resources” to get in touch with her team. “He is an amazing kid and what is happening to him in Traverse City is truly unconscionable…” Hilton said. “I will share more when I am able to. I will not stop fighting for him and will be watching everything VERY closely over the next week as we get him safety, stability, and support.”

Hilton, who was sent to a series of youth residential treatment facilities during her adolescence, has in recent years become an outspoken advocate against abusive child welfare programs.

She traveled to Jamaica in April in the wake of explosive allegations about what was going on behind closed doors at the Atlantic Leadership Facility, a school in Treasure Beach, Jamaica. In February, seven teenage American boys, including Elijah, who’d been there since the previous September, were removed from the facility by Jamaican authorities, according to NBC News.

Hilton laid out the boys’ claims during a press conference in Jamaica.

“I heard these boys were stripped naked, violently beaten, whipped, and waterboarded,” she said. “The staff would take a cup of bleach and salt, and rub it into the child’s wounds to torture them. Imagine someone doing this to your child. It makes me sick. These boys came into this world expecting love and nurturing, but instead have been faced with absolute terror.”

The children also said they were placed in isolation, physically restrained, and starved of food, Hilton said.

The facility was closed down in March, around the same time that five of its employees were charged with child cruelty and assault. Its founder and executive director, Randall Cook, did not reply to NBC News’ request for comment that month. He previously denied the boys’ allegations.

By the time NBC published its article, five of the seven boys had returned to the United States. Eventually only Elijah remained.

“I appreciate them for bringing me to the U.S., but they abandoned me,” the 17-year-old texted the Free Press from Jamaica. “I’m staying strong, but it hurts.”

The Goldmans sent Elijah to the Atlantic Leadership Academy over supposed behavior issues, including watching pornography, lying, and running away, according to the Free Press. At the school, he was cut with a razor and beaten with a hammer, he later testified in a Jamaican court hearing.

As court proceedings were playing out, Elijah said, he heard from his parents. “They didn’t want me home… And they didn’t believe me about the whole court thing… that they were abusing us,” he said.

The Goldmans, described as a “wealthy and conservative Christian couple” by the Free Press, did not ultimately respond to requests for comment and a list of questions sent by the newspaper.

Jamaican authorities placed Elijah on a plane and sent him to Miami, Florida earlier this month, where Dawn Post, a New York lawyer who’d been fighting for his repatriation, met him alongside Chelsea Maldonado, a youth advocate who consults with 11:11 Media Impact, the charitable division of Hilton’s media company.

“No child should be adopted into this country only to be abandoned, or sent to a place like Atlantis Leadership Academy…” Maldonado told the Free Press. “This must end.”

But Elijah’s ordeal wasn’t over yet. Florida Child Protective Services put him on a plane to Traverse City, where he moved into a hotel room as his parents fought with his lawyers over his future. Although he wanted to stay in Michigan, the Goldmans had made plans to send him to Utah, where he didn’t know anyone, he said.

As Hilton and other advocates put out their calls to action last week, and as his lawyers prepared to square off with the Goldmans in court, a foster parent suddenly stepped up on Wednesday, saying she would take the boy in.

The Goldmans didn’t object, according to the Free Press. The couple are still facing abandonment claims filed by Elijah’s legal team, with a future trial pending.

It was not immediately clear how the foster parent, a retired schoolteacher identified by the newspaper only as “Teri,” had discovered Elijah’s story, and state approval of the arrangement remained pending on Thursday.

But taking him in was “just the right thing to do,” she told the Free Press from a hallway in the courthouse building where she later hugged Elijah.