Sembler firm sued for injuring boy

Mel Sembler is a scumbag who served as the U.S. ambassador to Australia and Nauru under Mad Dog Bush and as the ambassador to Italy under current dictator Bush. For years he's been a big fundraiser in Florida for the Republicans.

Perhaps most controversially, Mel Sembler and his wife Betty are the founders of Straight, Inc., a youth "treatment" program known for years for abusing kids via beatings, sexual assault, and other methods. Following the discovery of this abuse, the Senate called Straight, Inc. "cruel and inhuman behavior modification." When the accounts of this abuse surfaced again years later, Sembler resigned in disgrace as ambassador to Italy.

In more recent times, he's headed the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Trust.

Sembler also founded and headed the Sembler Company, which builds and manages shopping complexes, like one in St. Petersburg, Florida, called BayWalk. A few years ago, demonstrators protested against BayWalk because of racial incidents there. Now the Sembler Company is in trouble again, this time due to negligence at BayWalk that left a small child grievously injured.

Last year, a 3-year-old boy was hurt at BayWalk when a stereo speaker fell 20 feet and landed on his head. The child suffered a broken skull and a major brain injury, and will be severely disabled for the rest of his life. He lost all feeling in his right hand at the age of 3 because of the incident. His father then lost his job, and his family lost their apartment - and they're faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills for 2 hours a day of therapy. Costs will run into the millions.

The speaker, which weighed 40 to 70 pounds, fell after being carelessly perched on a stand in BayWalk's courtyard.

Now the family has filed a lawsuit against the Sembler Company for its reckless disregard for the safety of customers.

If Mel Sembler is still an executive of his shopping center management company, some of the judgment ought to come straight out of his personal bank account.

(Source: http://www.thestraights.com/articles/BayWalkDiversityWeekend.htm;
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/17/Southpinellas/Family_of_boy_injured.shtml)