In late 2020, a tipserson in email to journalists Lauren Children at New Hampshire Public Radio,

the note contained a shocking allegation that the founder of the largest network of addiction

treatment centers in the state, a man named Eric Spofford, had been sexually harassing or

sexually assaulting women at his facilities. Some of the women were employees, some were clients.

Eric Spofford denies these allegations.

I'm Ayis Shirasco and this is the Sunday Story.

Children began investigating and her reporting revealed troubling issues, not just at the

treatment centers in New Hampshire but throughout the addiction treatment industry. As one source

told her, addiction treatment needs a Me Too movement. Lauren Children now has a podcast based

on her investigation, it's called the 13th Step. We're going to bring you the first episode of

the series, but first Lauren joins me to talk about her experience reporting the story,

which at times she says felt really dangerous.

Hi Lauren. Hi Ayis, I'm curious on how you got involved with this story because I understand

it began when you were reporting on a COVID outbreak at one of these addiction treatment centers,

yeah exactly. I mean the intent was not to go on this wild journey or even to find allegations

of sexual misconduct. Basically, I had just done a story about an outbreak at the largest

addiction treatment network that we have in New Hampshire. Then I got a tip that effectively said

you think a COVID outbreak is bad and this tip came from a former employee of one of these facilities

and she made a huge allegation. She said that the CEO and founder of this network, his name is

Eric's Buffard. She said he was facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct,

including a sexual assault allegation by a woman who worked for him who used to be a patient

at one of these facilities. So that's obviously a wild allegation and it would be in any industry.

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