‘Oh Shut Up’: Rep. Susan Wild Lashes Out Over Ad Based on Free Beacon Report 

Democrats

Wild sought federal funds for children’s psych hospital she defended in a sodomy case

Susan Wild / Facebook Chuck Ross • October 28, 2022 3:44 pm

Rep. Susan Wild (D., Pa.) lashed out Friday over a campaign ad that seized on a Washington Free Beacon report about her work for a children’s psychiatric hospital embroiled in a molestation scandal.

“Oh shut up,” Wild tweeted in response to the Congressional Leadership Fund’s ad slamming Wild for defending KidsPeace in a 2005 lawsuit involving a patient who sued the organization after he was sodomized by a counselor. Wild argued that the rape was a “medical incident” and that the KidsPeace’s insurance company should have to pay the settlement to the boy.

Wild, best known for Zooming into a campaign event while driving, did not respond to the Free Beacon’s request for comment on the story cited in the ad. But she defended her legal work for KidsPeace in her Friday outburst, saying she “had nothing to do with” the underlying molestation claim and dismissing the Congressional Leadership Fund as “liars.” Wild did not dispute that she referred to the molestation as a “medical incident” in court filings.

Wild’s meltdown comes as she is locked in a close race with Republican challenger Lisa Scheller, whom Wild beat in 2020 by just 14,000 votes. Republicans believe they can flip the seat as voters have soured on Democrats over the economy and crime.

Dozens of KidsPeace patients and their families have sued the organization over the years for negligence. Wild represented KidsPeace in two cases in the early 2000s. She represented the organization as part of a lawsuit involving a former patient, Matthew Craft, who sued KidsPeace for negligence for failing to prevent his rape in 1998 at the hands of KidsPeace counselor Dean Sine. Craft said Sine anally raped him and then threatened him from speaking out. He said that KidsPeace staff treated him for constipation after the brutal assault.

Craft said KidsPeace was negligent in employing Sine, who was indicted in 1992 for manslaughter in the suffocation death of another KidsPeace patient. Sine was acquitted, but he was later convicted of molesting another minor in an incident unrelated to KidsPeace.

Though Wild and KidsPeace did not deny the assault took place, Wild argued in court filings that KidsPeace did not have a “crystal ball” to predict Sine’s