
{"id":16441,"date":"2011-03-10T10:46:06","date_gmt":"2011-03-10T15:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=16441"},"modified":"2011-03-10T10:46:06","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T15:46:06","slug":"a-death-in-rougemont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2011\/03\/10\/a-death-in-rougemont\/","title":{"rendered":"A death in Rougemont"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>FROM THE EDITOR<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For most of his life, Mel Levine enjoyed success and acclaim. His career as a pediatrician and the breakthroughs in education embodied in the nonprofit he founded, All Kinds of Minds, were widely acclaimed. He would speak to packed houses of his belief that all children can learn. He had fame, financial success and the respect of his peers. He also had a past that over the last few years resurfaced in dark and ugly bits and pieces, as more and more allegations that he had behaved improperly with his young patients arose.<\/p>\n<p>Though there was no court judgment against him, Levine did settle with some of his former patients. He voluntarily suspended his medical license in 2008 and agreed in a 2009 consent order to stop practicing medicine in any jurisdiction after several North Carolina patients took their case to the state medical board. He resigned from All Kinds of Minds as well, and today it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s website has almost no reference to him.<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks ago, another set of allegations arose \u00e2\u20ac\u201c this time in the form of a class action suit from 40 of his former patients in Boston. A day after it was announced, Levine left a suicide note for his wife, then walked into the woods on his farm near Rougemont and ended his life.<\/p>\n<p>His thoughts through his final days as recorded in his diary show that he had contemplated ending his own life for a while. He also proclaimed his innocence, yet saw no way out other than the script he chose.<\/p>\n<p>The long journey of determining guilt and innocence and sorting out the good Levine has done over the years from the crimes some of his former patients in Massachusetts and North Carolina allege is far from over.<\/p>\n<p>The attorney representing the former patients says she will seek damages from Children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Hospital in Boston as well as Levine\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s estate. North Carolina patients will likely be involved as well, which could draw UNC into the matter.<\/p>\n<p>The shocking death in Rougemont ended the torment in this tale for only one man and sealed off forever the full story for the rest of us. The truth may eventually rise to the surface, but it will be incomplete, and some questions will forever be left unanswered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For most of his life, Mel Levine enjoyed success and acclaim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16441"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16567,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16441\/revisions\/16567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}