Claims of impropriety spur probe of Parallax in Wichita

In the beginning, the woman said, she viewed Milt Fowler as a father figure.

By early 2005, when she came for help at the substance abuse treatment program Parallax, her addiction was killing her.

Fowler, 65, is founder and CEO of the nonprofit Parallax Program Inc., which has operated in Wichita for more than 30 years, with city, state and federal funding. The members of the board of directors represent health, legal and law enforcement communities.

On the Parallax website, Fowler is quoted saying: "I enjoy watching people grow in recovery."

But the man whom the woman once saw as fatherly started giving her money, touching her inappropriately and sending her sexually graphic text messages, she said in a written statement to investigators.

The woman, in her 40s, is one of several former Parallax clients or staff who say they have told state investigators that they encountered an atmosphere of sexual harassment or worse in the Parallax program over the past five years.

Fowler could not be reached for comment despite numerous messages left for him.

Since August, the women have submitted allegations — many focused on Fowler — to the Parallax board and to the SRS, the state department that licenses it.

The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, or SRS, recently confirmed that it had begun an on-site investigation of Parallax that "is definitely not routine."

SRS spokesman Steve Mock said Friday that he couldn't comment on the allegations or the investigation.

"We're working with the board to make sure that they rectify these concerns and that they ensure that their program provides a safe, therapeutic environment," Mock said.

Some of the women said they recently gave their information to detectives with the Wichita police sex crimes unit.

The Eagle has interviewed seven former Parallax clients or staff. Five of them provided written allegations they said they filed with the SRS or the organization's board.

They asked that their names not be used to protect their safety or anonymity. Most of them remain in recovery from substance abuse.

Some of them have asked the board for Fowler's resignation.

They say they support the aims of the Parallax program.

"We don't want it closed down. We want it cleaned up," one former patient and employee said.

The complaints they have made to the SRS or the board include:

* allegations of fraudulent billing or over-billing for patient care.

* allegations that government-funded meat was sold for private profit in the outpatient coffee shop.

* allegations that counseling positions were filled by people not trained or fit for the jobs — among them a registered sex offender.

* an allegation by a former patient that Fowler used her to get Viagra for him.

Danny Bardezbain — a former sheriff's major, current Eastborough police chief and president of the 10-member Parallax board — declined to comment on the allegations, whether the board has received the complaints, or Fowler's current status, citing the ongoing SRS investigation.

Parallax has been described as a mid-size substance abuse treatment program serving Sedgwick County and providing services including detoxification, reintegration and outpatient care. Some of its clients have been convicted of drug crimes and are put on probation and receive government-funded treatment.

'It made me sick'

In her statement to investigators with the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, the woman who had admired Fowler wrote that she spent months in treatment and had a few relapses. Fowler promoted her from a Parallax coffee shop job.

She said in the statement that she "trusted Milt and was always trying to gain his approval."

But her view of him changed. "I started putting two and two together and realized this man wasn't about being a father figure at all."

He sent her text messages asking about her breasts and what she was wearing, she said in her statement.

"I wanted to tell someone but I know no one would believe me," she wrote. "After all, I'm a drug addict and a former patient."

He let her use a Parallax van for three years, before recently retrieving it, she said. "He would text me about phone sex or text and I would just go along with it because I needed that van to get to work and get my girls around and I was afraid if I didn't do it, he would take my van away from me," she wrote in her statement.

One time, Fowler showed up in his truck and asked her to come over, according to the statement. "He then took my hand and placed it on his penis.... I pulled my hand back and said something like, 'I can't do this here,' " she wrote.

"I felt like I went from patient to employee to prostitute with him and it made me sick," she wrote. "Now how in the heck could I ever trust a counselor or another man in a trusted position after he did what he did to me???"

She has since gone to female counselors, she wrote.

Concerns reported

Another woman, who worked as a Parallax counselor from 2006 to 2009, said she raised concerns about Fowler and how the program was being run to SRS in January 2009. SRS told her it would investigate, but the problems continued, she said.

The current SRS investigation began about a month after she took her concerns to the Parallax board on Aug. 23.

SRS investigators told her and the other women raising the allegations that the ongoing investigation could take up to a year, she said.

In a statement to the board, the former counselor, who said she is a licensed therapist, wrote, "I was abruptly fired from Parallax after reporting to the state that Mr. Fowler had knowingly hired a convicted sex offender to work as a counselor at Parallax."

The man she is referring to — Richard Dean Zugg — has a 2001 conviction in Iowa for indecent contact with an 8-year-old boy, according to the Kansas offender registry.

"Mr. Fowler allowed the sex offender to also work around families and children unsupervised every weekend for nearly two years (there are numerous Parallax staff here that can evidence this occurred,)" the former counselor said in a statement to the board.

Zugg's presence upset some people in treatment because they had been molested as children, she wrote.

In January 2009, she said, she learned from another counselor that Zugg, 51, was an outpatient counselor. When she and the other counselor asked the outpatient manager about Zugg, he said that Fowler "knew about Mr. Zugg's sex offender status when he hired him," her statement said.

She anonymously reported it. Days later, during an emergency staff meeting, Fowler said, "All right, I want to know which one of you gutless counselors turned me in?" she wrote. No one responded.

"The entire meeting was based on threats and intimidation tactics by Mr. Fowler with the remainder of the meeting geared to allow the sex offender to claim his 'innocence' on molestation charges," she wrote.

A week later, she said, she received a layoff notice.

She called SRS after she lost her job "and was told there was nothing they could do," she wrote.

She said Zugg remained a counselor.

Recently, Zugg has been working as manager of Parallax apartments where recovering alcoholics and addicts live, a former Parallax patient told The Eagle. Zugg could not be reached for comment.

Ex-counselor's view

The former counselor said several current and former Parallax patients or staff members approached her with concerns that she brought to the Parallax board.

In her statement, she wrote, "I also witnessed over a 3 year period, the CEO's exploitation pattern of a sexual predatory nature with numerous female clients that was very disturbing, illegal, and extremely detrimental to female clients in this community whom he is entrusted to serve."

During her employment, she wrote, "I had multiple clients who informed me the CEO gave them money for college, money for Christmas presents, cell phones and other personal items."

She wrote that she viewed it as a "grooming process" by Fowler to take advantage of "female clients who were vulnerable, weak, and lacked creditability in order to manipulate them for personal gain. He then counted on a lack of credibility of these targeted females to discount any possible misbehavior allegations on his part. Mr. Fowler engaged in the same practice with female staff."

Other concerns involve "unprofessional, unethical and abusive" handling of clients, the former counselor wrote to the board.

In her statement, she described an awards ceremony for clients where she said Fowler "pointed at one of my clients and blatantly accused her of causing another female client (stating her name) to relapse. My client responded she was not involved in the incident he was referring to but Mr. Fowler insisted she was, pointed at her and called her a 'liar' in front of 50 to 60 people seated at the ceremony, including at least a half dozen staff members."

The former counselor also said she wrote the board that she saw people without training and credentials lead individual and group sessions without supervision.

Fowler instructed "non-credentialed" staff to leave claim submission forms in his mailbox "for his signature representing to insurance providers the credentialed CEO was present in these sessions when he was not," she wrote.

'Texting me all day'

Another woman described in a statement given to SRS what she considered inappropriate sexual behavior by Fowler.

The woman, who began receiving treatment from Parallax in 2005, wrote in her statement that she got a job working at the Parallax coffee shop with help from Fowler.

"I remember thinking he was an angel sent down from heaven to help all of the addicts and alcoholics." He gave her pay advances and "was always very loving to me and was always hugging me."

"But it seemed every time he would hug me, his arm and hand would end up sliding down my back or hip area across my rump... This to me seemed a bit inappropriate but I never said anything because I thought maybe it was just me being ridiculous, until I started noticing that I was not the only female that he did it to," she wrote.

She found him "a very attractive man for his age in a Sean Connery sort of way."

Once, while working at Parallax, she wrote that Fowler put a little wooden statue on a desk in front of her face and asked if she knew why men can't remember. He then "pushed down on the head of the statue and a big penis popped out of the statue.... I laughed but at the same time I thought to my self that this was a little weird because I was still a client and not just an employee who you could joke around with in that way."

By 2008, she was working full time at the Parallax coffee shop, and Fowler had her lead a parenting group and womens group, she wrote.

He began to send her text messages with "foreword statements and hinting around that he had a thing for me," she wrote. The texts became more and more graphic, she wrote.

Eventually, she wrote, "Milt was texting me all day and night everyday about sex." Sexually graphic pictures were exchanged, she said.

In the summer of 2008, while she was working at a computer in the counselors office, Fowler shut the door "and walked up to me at the desk and put my hands on his... penis," she said in her statement.

"I kinda giggled and pulled my hand back and went back to working on the computer as he walked over to the file cabinet and banged his head against it in frustration. I was very uncomfortable but did not let Milt know. Like I said I was confused and concerned for my job."

Viagra allegation

Another written allegation brought to the Parallax board and SRS involves a former Parallax employee and detox patient who said she helped Fowler get a supply of Viagra, the erectile dysfunction drug.

The former employee gave this account during an interview with The Eagle: Around late 2005, while she was in outpatient treatment, working at the front desk of the inpatient facility, Fowler overheard her talking about Viagra and asked if she could get him a few pills — to try.

She was a recovering addict — pain medicine was her drug of choice — who felt he had saved her life by helping to get her in treatment when she was sick, homeless, destitute. She felt she owed him, so she gave him some of her boyfriend's Viagra pills, she said.

Weeks later, when he asked if she could get a prescription for Viagra for him, she obliged, she said. She said he gave her cash for an office visit to a clinic where she received a Viagra prescription for herself from a physician's assistant.

Fowler gave her a personal check for the prescription, she said.

She got Viagra for him three times, she said.

She said Fowler told her he couldn't get Viagra himself without his wife knowing.

Looking back, the woman said, "I know what I did was wrong." But she felt she had an obligation to him, she said.

A man's perspective

A male former Parallax counselor who worked in the program in recent years told The Eagle he found an atmosphere where relationships between clients and between clients and staff were "not discouraged."

But "it's completely taboo" for people to become involved with each other or service providers while in treatment, he said.

It prevents effective treatment from occurring, he said.

"It just replaces the drug with another feel-good sensation."

Once, he said, he saw a cake with frosting in the shape of women's breasts presented to Fowler in front of about a dozen male and female staff members. One male staff member began to suck off the frosting.

"I turned around and walked out," the man said. "That was enough for me."

This story was originally published October 10, 2010 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Claims of impropriety spur probe of Parallax in Wichita."