Former clients say that Adam Haber’s alleged predatory behavior has been an “open secret” for more than a decade
Warning: There are details in this story about a sexual assault.
Several survivors, former clients, and staff members say that two recovery facilities ignored reports that an employee had been sexually assaulting vulnerable women clients for more than a decade before he was charged with the crime.
Adam Haber, who used to work as a fitness trainer for the Last Door Recovery Society in New Westminster, B.C., east of Vancouver, was charged with three counts of sexual assault in 2012.
At least 11 people have been hurt, according to the police, and they want more to come forward.
All of the charges involve alleged assaults on former clients of Westminster House, a “sister” drug treatment center for women. Police say Haber met these people while he was a client, sponsor, and later contract worker at the men’s-only Last Door starting in 2010.
The two facilities are owned and run by different people, but they have a “close working relationship,” raise money together, and have clients attend the same community-based support meetings.
One survivor, AB, who is charged with assaulting Haber in July 2013, said, “It seems like there was no accountability when people tried to blow the whistle.” Her name can’t be used because it’s against the law.
Angela Marie MacDougall, the executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services, said that the allegations show that there is a “culture of silence” about sexual violence in treatment and recovery circles across B.C., which can make it impossible for women to get better.
‘Open secret
Survivors and former clients say they have been complaining about Haber for more than a decade and that his alleged predatory behavior was an “open secret” that staff at both facilities downplayed or ignored.
Last Door says it didn’t know about the alleged assaults or turned a blind eye to concerns.
In a statement to the CBC, the society said that Haber was fired the next day after the assault claims were made public on social media in late January. Police confirmed that Last Door staff reported the claims soon after.
“Any suggestion that we ignore or downplay complaints from any person or group, especially survivors and community members, is false,” Last Door said in an emailed statement to CBC. The statement did not name anyone.
“We take every concern and complaint seriously, and if we need to make changes, we will do so to better serve our community.”
But all of the former customers and employees that CBC talked to said it was impossible that Last Door hadn’t heard about the accusations until January.
Carly Bradley, who used to be a client, said, “They knew and they let it happen.”
Former clients said that Haber was close friends with a lot of the staff and leaders at the facilities and felt “untouchable.”
AB told the CBC that she met Haber in 2011 when she was staying at Westminster House for six months. She said that his interest in her grew after she moved into the organization’s transitional housing and was given a cellphone and access to social media.
“I started getting messages from him on Facebook asking me to go to [recovery] meetings with him. AB, who was 23 at the time, said, “If I didn’t go to a meeting, I would get random messages like, ‘Why weren’t you at this meeting?'”
“It was always the same for him. He was always trying to get you involved in something.
AB said that Haber offered to let her stay at his apartment when she later relapsed and lost her housing. Since her family lived far away, she thought she had no choice. That’s where he’s said to have hurt her over the past few weeks.
“I didn’t even get to his house for five minutes before he told me I couldn’t sleep on the couch because he didn’t have any extra blankets and his roommate might come back from a trip and see me there.
“At this time, I was clearly using drugs, and he would go out and get my favorite drug for me and bring it back. Or he’d give me money so I could go buy my own drugs,” she said.
“I would get so high that I would pass out, and when I woke up, I would be in his bed or something.”
AB said that she was able to escape with the help of a friend and her family, who came to get her.
Emma, who is also a survivor, said that the stress of trying to tell people about an attack that happened years ago caused her to relapse this year for the first time in six years. She doesn’t want Haber to punish her for speaking out, so CBC isn’t using her real name.
Emma has told police that Haber hit her, but he has not been charged with a crime.
Emma said that she almost died from an overdose of drugs earlier this year. She was hospitalized and put on life support.
In a message to the CBC, Emma said, “It’s been a crazy fight against these facilities.”
Allegations ignore
Ex-clients of Westminister House told the CBC that at least three assaults were reported to staff.
Sarah Burfoot says that in early 2012, a friend from the facility who had nowhere else to go called her in a crisis.
Burfoot was living in the organization’s temporary housing, and he couldn’t bring anyone who was drunk or high.
After several of Burfoot’s friends said they couldn’t help, one of her friends told her to call Haber, who came to get them. Burfoot said that it made her feel uneasy.
Haber took them to his apartment, where Burfoot decided he would sleep on the couch and the two women would share his bed.
Burfoot says that when she came out of the bathroom, Haber was in bed with her friend, who was asleep and too drunk to say yes.
“When I came out of the house and into his room, I asked him, “What are you doing? Why are you sleeping with her?'” Burfoot asked.
“I was like, ‘No, get out. It doesn’t matter if she said it was OK to leave.
Burfoot said she was angry and didn’t sleep much that night because she was afraid he would come back.
“I didn’t really like or trust him, but I didn’t really know what he was capable of at that point.”
In the morning, the women left. Burfoot said she told a staff member at Westminister House about the incident, but the person didn’t do anything.
Neither Suzan Hogarth, the current executive director, nor Dennis Wardman, the medical director of Westminster House, responded to multiple requests for comment.
Former director apologize
Sarah Franklen, who was executive director from 2006 to 2015, said she knew Haber was known to be a “creep,” but she never got a formal report about an assault.
She called the accusations “sickening” and said she was sorry for accidentally “turning a blind eye.”
Franklen told the CBC, “If anyone had said anything, things would have been very different.” “Looking back, I probably could have been a little more interested, and it’s a shame I didn’t.”
Burfoot says it’s hard for her to believe that leaders didn’t know about the claims.
Burfoot said, “It’s too bad they didn’t report it officially, but I think that’s what they should have done.” “But I can’t believe it wasn’t talked about.”
A decade of silenc
Survivors told the CBC that they didn’t know at the time that other people had been assaulted, but that Haber had a bad reputation at both facilities.
“It was basically known but not talked about,” said Noah Gelb, who was a client in 2015 and worked for the society’s youth program for three years, from 2015 to 2018.
Last Door’s website recommends Westminster House, and clients of Westminster House who wanted fitness training were told to go to Haber, Gelb, Burfoot, Bradley, and Ally, according to CBC.
Gelb, Burfoot, and Bradley said that the staff at Westminster House also told women and men who were leaving treatment and looking for a place to live about him.
Sgt. Andrew Leaver of the New Westminster Police Department told CBC News, “Mr. Haber’s job put him in close contact with women who were in a very vulnerable place in their lives.”
Bradley was a client at Westminster House for six months in 2012. She said that within her first week, other clients told her to stay away from Haber and that he kept sending her and other women unwanted romantic and sexual messages.
She said, “I didn’t understand how he could do step work and sponsor guys in Last Door when everyone knew he was a predator.”
But staff never did anything, even when Bradley told one of them that Haber had attacked AB and another friend from Westminster House in 2013, she said.
“I felt like no one was taking me seriously, and it was just brushed aside. I was angry, I was disgusted, and I just hated Haber.”
Bradley came back as a client at the end of February, not long after police said they were looking into Haber.
Her view is that not much has changed. She says that when she told a group counselor about her worries about Haber, they were again brushed aside.
She left three days into her treatment, and she says she’s back to using drugs without another program.
Bradley said, “It didn’t feel right to stay there.”
“I was mad; it’s still going on, and they still don’t care,” he said.