Boys at Wyoming school are shackled to chairs with masks over the head, beaten and humiliated by teachers in campaign of horror, lawsuit says

By WILL POTTER, US SENIOR NEWS REPORTER Published: 18:48, 16 June 2026 | Updated: 18:57, 16 June 2026 Boys were shackled to chairs, beaten and kept in isolation by teachers in a sickening years-long campaign of abuse at a Wyoming juvenile school, a lawsuit alleges.  Staff at the Wyoming Boys' School in Worland, a facility where delinquent juveniles were sent by courts, allegedly humiliated and abused teen boys to punish them for bad behavior.  The lawsuit, first submitted in 2024, was filed by three plaintiffs, who are now adults -Blaise Chivers-King, Charles 'Rees' Karn, and Dylan Tolar - against the school, 10 current and former employees, and the Wyoming Department of Families. The defendants denied the allegations in a counter-motion to dismiss.  The men had all been sent to the school after 2018, and accused school staffers of subjecting them to severe abuse and brutal conditions.  In horrific images included in their lawsuit, which has been re-filed with new alleged victims several times, one of the boys was seen crouching in a corner with his head in his hands as he was held in solitary confinement.  In another sickening image, Karn was seen shirtless and strapped by his wrists and ankles to a chair with a mask over his head.  The case has slowly moved through Wyoming courts for years, but in May the defendants issued a shocking rebuke of the boys' allegations - arguing their behavior brought the punishments on themselves.  The response drew a scathing new filing from the men's attorney on Friday, alleging that a school security guard told them during their ordeals: 'The best part of the chair is watching the kids cry and scream like a f***ing child … that’s what makes it worth it.' Boys were allegedly shackled to chairs, beaten and kept in isolation by teachers at a Wyoming juvenile school - with a shock lawsuit alleging one inmate (pictured) was shackled to a chair for over eight hours  Boys at the school, where they were sent by courts following brushes with the law, alleged in the lawsuit that they were kept in solitary confinement without books, exercise or a window, as part of an alleged years-long campaign of abuse  The boys were all sent to the school by courts after brushes with the law - and Karn is currently serving a life sentence in prison for murdering his girlfriend in 2023.  In an excoriating response to the filing on Friday, the former inmates urged the judge in their case to sent it to trial as they alleged they were targeted with excessive, brutal punishments at the school. This allegedly included being slammed and tackled unnecessarily, being held in restraints for 'long stretches' despite not resisting, indifference to their medical needs or injuries, and keeping them in solitary confinement.  Alongside the alleged quote from a security guard about enjoying watching the boys 'cry and scream', the lawsuit included a nightmarish picture of one of the plaintiffs strapped to a chair.  The lawsuit alleged that the boys would be placed in the restraints for 'up to eight hours a day', and said it was one of many punishments they were subjected to.  One of the former school students, Charles 'Rees' Karn (pictured), alleged in the lawsuit that he was regularly shackled to a chair, including in one incident for over eight hours. Karn is currently serving a life sentence for murdering his girlfriend in 2023, seen in his mugshot  Wyoming Boys’ School Superintendent Dale Weber approved putting Karn in a restraint chair from 11:5am to 7:30pm in one incident in June 2021, the lawsuit alleged. Weber has denied any wrongdoing  Staff at the Wyoming Boys' School in Worland, a facility where delinquent juveniles were sent by courts, allegedly humiliated and abused teen boys to punish them for bad behavior, using restraints and shackles to control them, the lawsuit says The counter-filing also accused the boys' school of falsifying records about their time at the facility, including logbooks with 'large gaps in documentation.'  The plaintiffs’ filing also claims that the school filed court documents with 'inaccurate entries, uncertain authorship, and no verification mechanism' in logbooks.  This allegedly included a month of missing entries from April 7 to May 9, 2024, despite one of the later defendants - anonymized as 'DH' - being in solitary confinement during that time.  'Additionally, incident reports were regularly falsified,' the lawsuit alleged.  According to the boys' filing, Wyoming Boys’ School Superintendent Dale Weber approved putting Karn in a restraint chair from 11:50am to 7:30pm in one incident in June 2021.  Weber denied wrongdoing in testimony, but admitted that 'a student who is suffering from severe depression and self-harm should not be kept in solitary confinement', the plaintiffs said, per Wyoming News.   Karn was allegedly repeatedly held in the chair on many occasions, with a staffer then taunting him by telling him, 'You sure love that chair' and 'last time you cried like a baby for like an hour', the lawsuit said.  The lawsuit also alleged that the solitary confinement in the boys' school was 'significantly harsher' than in a 'typical adult prison', because unlike in an adult prison, the boys were not allowed to read books, exercise or look out a window.  Reports show the state's brief and the boys' filings offer starkly different versions of their time in the facility, as the school said Karn was punished regularly after he was placed in the facility in 2018 due to behavior issues including breaking glasses, throwing items and threatening others.  The school alleged that Karn had to be detained for a week in December 2018 for assaulting another inmate with a shower head, while Karn alleged that a school staffer then shoved his head into broken glass.  The boys alleged that the school's solitary confinement rooms (pictured) are 'significantly worse' than those in adult prisons, including not being allowed to read books or exercise  The school said in a counter-filing that while it denied some allegations, other claims of harsh treatment were necessary to control the boys' bad behavior  Karn alleged that the staffer restrained him on the broken glass after he broke it, and told him, 'If you're going to break s***, then this is pretty much what you're going to get.'  The staffer, John Schwalbe, denied these allegations in testimony in court.  The state argued that Karn was out of control and frequently needed to be restrained for harming himself, hitting items in his room and hurting other inmates - going as far as to allegedly make terroristic bomb threats against the school.  But in their most recent filing, the boys deny the characterization of their time at the facility put forward by the state's motion, and said many of their worst treatment couldn't be reported at the time due to a lack of safeguards.  In another claim in May 2020, the state claims Chivers-King was detained for throwing a chair at staff, threatening guards and punching his window out.  But Chivers-King denied this characterization and said he was severely punished for merely 'toppling' a chair, before he was 'forced to the ground' while he stood with his arms crossed.  For anonymous plaintiff DH, the state alleged that he was punished for repeatedly refusing to follow instructions, while the boys' response accused the facility of disciplining him for behaviors that were 'obvious symptoms of his disabilities.'  DH said that he was held in solitary confinement during his stay, which he described in his lawsuit as 'lonely, depressing, and I had a few bugs for company.'  He also alleged that a staffer called him a 'ret**d', while the state disputed his claims and alleged that staffers gave him 'highly individualized attention.'  The counter-argument to the boys' lawsuit concluded that there was no 'evidence plaintiffs were discriminated against ‘by reason of’ their disabilities; rather, the record shows WBS staff’s actions were based on Plaintiffs’ conduct.' The judge is set to decide whether to send the case to trial or dismiss it at a later date.  The Daily Mail has contacted attorneys for the school, the Wyoming Department of Family Services, Schwalbe and Weber for comment.  No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. 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