Judge orders Eureka ranch for adopted kids to be licensed

By MATT VOLZ

HELENA – The owner of a Eureka ranch for troubled children adopted abroad must submit to inspections, background checks and obtain a license from state regulators or be shut down, a state judge ordered.

District Judge James Wheelis’ March 20 order follows a previous ruling dismissing claims the Ranch For Kids should be exempt from state oversight because of its religious affiliation.

State Labor and Industry regulators and ranch owner Joyce Sterkel have been battling since 2010 over the ranch’s refusal to obtain a license from the Board of Private Alternative Adolescent and Residential Outdoor Programs.

Sterkel argued the ranch is exempt from state oversight because it is an adjunct ministry of a local church. But Wheelis agreed with the attorney for the state Department of Labor and Industry, who said the Epicenter International Missions Ministry is not a church and that Sterkel was attempting to skirt state fees and regulations.

Wheelis granted the state summary judgment in the lawsuit and ordered the Ranch for Kids to submit a completed application and employee background checks by May 20. If it fails to satisfy all the requirements, it must immediately discontinue operation of its program, the judge ordered.

Ranch for Kids also must pay nearly $25,000 in attorney fees.

The ranch can appeal, but it would have to shut down its operations while it does so, state attorney Mary Tapper said Thursday.

Neither Sterkel nor ranch manager William Sutley responded to requests for comment. Their attorney, Tiffin Hall, has filed a request with the judge to change his ruling on the awarding of attorney fees.

“The judge has not yet ruled on this motion,” Hall wrote in an email. “Once he does we will then be in a position to finally decide if we are going t appeal or not.”

A separate lawsuit by the state Labor Department asks Wheelis to order the ranch to stop using buildings on the property that are not up to code. The state’s injunction request says the ranch has refused to make some corrections to the buildings.

The Eureka ranch came under an international spotlight last summer when a delegation of Russian government officials showed up at its gates with a television crew demanding to be let in to check on the welfare of the Russian children there.

The ranch houses about two dozen children who were adopted abroad, several of them Russian, who are having trouble at home. Many of them suffer from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder or have behavioral problems from spending their early lives in difficult conditions in orphanages.

The Russians were not allowed entry onto the property, and Sterkel said then she believed it was a political stunt to influence a U.S.-Russia bilateral adoption agreement that was making its way through the Russian parliament at the time.