Dr. Phil sued for allegedly pressuring teen to go to clinic where she was reportedly assaulted

Dr. Phil McGraw speaks at the ceremony honoring Dr. him with a star on The Hollywood Walk Of Fame on February 21, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
Dr. Phil McGraw speaks at the ceremony honoring Dr. him with a star on The Hollywood Walk Of Fame on February 21, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images) Photo credit Getty Images

A Colorado woman is suing “Dr. Phil” TV show host Phil McGraw for pressuring her family to send her to a clinic where she was allegedly groped by a male staffer, NBC News reported.

Hannah Archuleta’s negligence lawsuit was filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court. In it, Archuleta said she was 17 and dealing with suicidal thoughts when she appeared on McGraw’s CBS Talk show in 2019.

After the show, McGraw insisted that Archuleta’s family send her immediately to the Turn-About Ranch in Escalante, Utah, said the suit. He allegedly said she was on “a one-way street to shock therapy,” if she didn’t get help and told her father, Tony, that he “had a Ph. D in wimping out.”

Archuleta’s parents were under so much pressure to have her committed that her mother, Heather, had a panic attack, the suit claims.

A medical service took the teen from the Paramount soundstage in California to the rural cattle ranch where the clinic is located. Staffers assured the family that McGraw was “personally invested” in Archuleta’s case.

While McGraw has a doctorate in psychology, he is not a licensed psychologist or a medical doctor.

His show volunteered to pay expenses for car rental, air fare, meals and lodging for Archuleta. However, the family was not warned about “troubling incidents” at the clinic, including the 2016 death of a counselor who was allegedly beaten to death by a 17-year-old boy wielding a metal bar.

At the Turn-About Ranch, Archuleta was allegedly groped by a staffer and then punished for reporting the assault. When she wrote her father for help, he pulled her from the program and filed a report with the local sheriff’s department, said the suit.

In addition to McGraw, Archuleta’s suit names CBS Broadcasting, ViacomCBS, Peteski Productions, Paramount Pictures Corp., and the McGraw family’s Stage 29 Productions as defendants. She is seeking unspecified damages.

Gloria Allred, a high-profile attorney who often represents women in suits against celebrities, is representing Archuleta. In June another case filed by Allred on behalf of Archuleta against the clinic was dismissed, said NBC News.

In a statement, McGraw spokesman Jerry Sharell said Archuleta’s parents chose to send their daughter to the clinic and vowed “this case will be vigorously contested.”

“None of the defendants in this case had anything to do with her program at the facility, as documents signed by the Archuletas reflect,” it said. “We understand that she subsequently sued Turn-About Ranch but that case was dismissed and recently refiled.”

In the new lawsuit, it is suggested that McGraw had some kind of financial arrangement with the ranch and that he had sent other patients there.

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