Duck In A Raincoat: An Unauthorized Portrait Of Joe Ricci

by Maura Curley

A provocative portrait of Ricci as a drug addicted psychopath who terrorized adolescents at Elan and his employees at his racetrack.This is the story of Joe Ricci, racetrack owner, and founder of Elan, a for profit treatment center for troubled adolescents attended by children from around the world, including Kennedy cousin, convicted killer Michael Skakel.Elan operated for nearly forty years in rural Maine until it closed in 2011 because former residents - now adults - waged a campaign to tell their experiences of abuse via social media and anti-Elan websites. They are still seeking justice and considering class action. Yet Ricci ran for governor of Maine posing as David facing Goliath, duped the the iconic news show 60 Minutes into broadcasting a favorable portrait of him, and convinced a jury to award him $15 million in a lawsuit he filed for violation of his civil rights.Curley, a journalist and insider who once worked for Ricci, meticulously chronicles abuses at Elan, which she didn’t discover until after she stopped working him. She also relays her first person account as a marketing consultant for Ricci’s companies and his campaign for governor.Duck in a Raincoat contains stunning revelations of psychological manipulation, drug use, child abuse, professional malfeasance and appropriated virtue. But perhaps most shocking are Curley’s conversations with Ricci’s partner, Dr. Gerald Davidson, a psychiatrist, and former Harvard University professor who lends Curley his medical textbooks to illustrate Ricci's psychopathic personality. Elan made both Ricci and Davidson millionaires many times over. It wasn’t until Davidson was dying of cancer that he finally revealed the truth about his partner.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime

295 pages, Paperback

First published December 13, 2012

Reviews

[Valoka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no words to tell how much this book is important. Thanks to Maura Curley for this amazing and courageous work. For Elan's and trouble teen industry's survivors : know that you are heard, more and more people know what you've gone through even outside of America

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was interested in reading this, and I think it’s an important story to tell, but the grammar and punctuation was so bad and inconsistent that it rendered the otherwise passable writing incomprehensible. The fact that this book, according to the author, has been updated three times since it was published with this many errors is unacceptable.

[Dusty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very insightful

Really the only book that goes into deep detail of what Ricci was like. Very helpful in research that I'm doing.

[John Orban · Rating 5 out of 5]

Words cannot begin to express the horror documented in this book.

A stunning documentary about an all too common occurrence in Amerika today. Psychopathology is is the rise. Read and learn how to recognize it. Although if you’ve seen Trump...he’s your poster child.