Complaint brings new focus to abuse claims at Pierceton Woods Academy

Lasting Change and former mayoral and congressional candidate Tim Smith sues attorney

FORT WAYNE, Ind. --Former Fort Wayne mayoral and U.S. congressional candidate Tim Smith filed a complaint in Allen Circuit Court this year claiming a Warsaw-based attorney breached  confidentiality and non-disparagement clauses in a child sex abuse settlement and caused Smith reputational harm.

Thursday Judge Ashley Hand presided over a telephonic pretrial conference between the Chicago-based attorneys for Smith and Eric Wilkins of Hunt Suedhoff Kearney for Travis McConnell.

Red dot indicates location of Pierceton Woods Academy in Pierceton, a school for troubled boys under the umbrella of Lasting Change, Inc. At least one case of abuse was settled in January 2022.

McConnell was the attorney for Caleb Joseph who filed a lawsuit in 2020 in Kosciusko Circuit Court against Lasting Change Inc, Pierceton Woods, and associated principals.

McConnell said his client was sexually abused at Pierceton Woods Academy, a home for troubled boys in Pierceton where clients are often admitted because of sexual abuse. 

The abuse occurred for several months in 2019, the explanatory complaint stated.

Pierceton Woods is under the umbrella of Lasting Change, Inc. where Smith became the CEO in 2022.

Smith held that he shouldn’t be held accountable for behavior that occurred before he joined Lasting Change, however he signed the confidentiality agreement in January 2022, because he was the organization’s CEO.

Smith says in the lawsuit that the agreement forbid McConnell or Joseph from publicly speaking about the case or speaking to media about it.

In 2023, McConnell turned over details of the lawsuit to Propublica, an online publication known for hard hitting investigative journalism and The IndyStar, Indianapolis newspaper of record with a reputation for investigative journalism.

McConnell said he did this after Smith appeared in front of the Indiana State Legislature in April 2023 asking for immunity from abuse claims against his organization.

Smith was seeking to limit liability in civil cases involving child abuse at Pierceton Woods because the organization’s insurance premiums were “skyrocketing,” according to a report in the Warsaw News.

(Photos from complaint dated March 5, 2026, Allen Circuit Court.)

McConnell said Smith’s lobbying amounted to lying in public, breaking the confidentiality agreement which Smith described as “unilateral” and did not include him. 

McConnell justified turning over documents to media outlets and criticizing Pierceton Woods on his podcasts. 

“Any allegedly defamatory statements were true or substantially true,” McConnell said in court documents, and are allowed under the First Amendment.

He supported his arguments by declaring that Smith is a public figure and that it was the media and political organizations that were responsible for any reputational harm.

McConnell also cited Indiana’s anti-Slapp statute which allows a defendant to file a motion to dismiss a lawsuit “in connection with a public issue.” If the defendant wins, he would be allowed to recover costs and attorney’s fees.

In his motion to dismiss, McConnell also claims that plaintiff i.e. Smith is barred “by the doctrine of unclean hands” and that “some or all claims are barred by the statutes of limitations.”

In Indiana, the statute of limitations typically lasts for two years. He also said Smith had not suffered “legal recoverable damages.”

The information McConnell sent to media highlighted a $72,000 settlement and many details claiming a pattern of abuse at Pierceton Woods. 

In 2022, Smith became the CEO of Lasting Change located at 4120 Illinois Rd. In Fort Wayne.  Its subsidiaries include Pierceton Woods Academy and Spencer Home, Crosswinds, Inc. and Lifeline Youth and Family Services, information found on Lasting Change’s website. 

Smith joined the organization in 2020 after leaving a corporate position at Medpro in 2019, according to his online bio.

Propublica also published information found online that Lifeline Youth and Family Services has been a tax exempt organization since 2014 and that donations to the organization are tax deductible.

Online records showed that the organization in 2024 had revenues of nearly $35 million and nearly $26 million in expenses. Smith’s salary that year was $343,000 with several other officers’ salaries ranging from $140,000 to $174,000. 

Smith says McConnell broke the agreement which had an effect on his race for the 2024 U.S. 3rd congressional seat. Out of a field of eight primary candidates, Smith came in second. Marlin Stutzman won.

He announced his candidacy in July 2023 after The IndyStar’s article was published in April of that year. 

In March of this year, Smith’s attorneys  AmundsenDavis, a Chicago firm on North Michigan Avenue, filed the complaint.

In the complaint are three still photos of attacks ads from the conservative political action committee, Club for Growth, Inc., quoting material from the negative media articles. (shown above)

The complaint also cites two podcasts McConnell published on YouTube he uploaded prior to the signed 2022 agreement. So far, he has not taken them down, the complaint stated.

“This is the perfect place to work if you’re a pedophile,” McConnell said in the Jan. 31, 2021 podcast. In another podcast episode published Dec. 31, 2020, McConnell alleged there was systemic abuse, a coverup and a “culture of suppressing reports.” 

Although Smith said a non-disparagement clause bars any commentary about him or Pierceton Woods, the podcasts are still available on YouTube.

During the campaign year, in March 2024, McConnell wrote two letters to the editor, one to The Times-Union based in Warsaw and the other in Ink Free News, published two months before the May primary. 

McConnell claimed there were at least “27 reports alleging sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior by staff at Pierceton Woods.”

Smith said losses due to McConnell’s “selective disclosures” were terrible to his reputation and friendships and “every neighbor whose vote (I) spent years trying to earn.”

It’s up to Hand to sort through McConnell’s motion to dismiss the case and discovery. One filing indicates an outside mediator, Peter Schroeder based in Indianapolis, has been appointed

On Aug. 3, there’s a scheduled hearing on discovery issues; on Nov. 13, a hearing on McConnell’s motion to dismiss.

By Dec. 27, the 180-day allotted time set by the state will be up for a ruling on the anti-Slapp motion, Hand said in court.

A key phrase in the anti-Slapp rules: “If the defendant can show by a preponderance of the evidence that the act on which the SLAPP suit is based is a lawful one in furtherance of the constitutional rights of free speech or petition, the court will grant the motion.”