While the Department of Mental Health is hoping the third time's a charm when it comes to awarding a contract for the therapeutic group home, one potential bidder has an interesting background that even national media have attempted to investigate Running group homes for troubled teen boys in Indiana, Associates of Clinical Psychology physician Dr. Marc Zackheim hopes he has the opportunity to work on Guam.


He said his mission statement would see him "bring hospital quality care of service to the group homes, but to do it in a way in which is a very easy transition for the children so that no one gets upset." After being acquitted on charges of practicing without a license and battery in Indiana, Zackheim will put in a third bid for the Department of Mental Health's third therapeutic group home request for proposal. Zackheim says his experience with troubled teens along with raising his stepson, Anthony Godby Johnson, have been successful.


"He certainly has been a wonderful guide to what can be done if the right things happen," he described. "He's an amazing kid. But he's not a kid. He's twenty-seven years old."


But when KUAM Googled Johnson's name, we found numerous stories including national media investigations, into the legitimacy of his existence. Johnson's heart-wrenching story caught the hearts of the nation in the Nineties - even Oprah Winfrey, Mr. Rogers, Germaine Jackson, and Mickey Mantle. At the time he was reportedly a teen dying of advanced syphilis, diagnosed with AIDS, living with an amputated leg and more than fifty broken bones.


His story, outlined in his 1993 autobiography "A Rock and A Hard Place", grabbed the hearts of many across the nation who pitied the teen who claimed he had been abused and forced into prostitution by his biological parents, ready to end his life. That's when Johnson allegedly met his adoptive mother, Vicki Johnson (aka, Joanne Victoria Fraginals Zackheim), who at the time was a social worker in New Jersey. Following a television special and a movie, national media began conducting investigations as no one, other than his adoptive mother, Vicki, and his step-father, Marc Zackheim, has ever seen Tony in person.


Many media believe the entire was fabricated by Vicki and Dr. Zackheim.


ABC's 20/20 program even hired an expert voice analyst who compared tapes of Vicki's and Tony's voices, ultimately determining the two voices to be the same person. The news magazine also determined the photo of Tony that was sent to his supporters over the years was actually a 4th grade photo of a New Jersey man who had been taught by Vicki Johnson.


But Zackheim, who spoke with KUAM News this week, says his stepson is alive, even after battling AIDS and advanced syphilis for more than a decade. "You know," speculated the physician, "I am his stepdad and he's a wonderful kid, but again, I'd be glad to speak about this and would very much like to but I have to wait until the RFP is decided."


When we pushed Zackheim for more information about his alleged son, it was evident the psychologist wasn't sure how old Tony is. "He's a great...he's a uhh...a great kid. And again, he'll be thirty this year - almost thirty - so thank you so much, I'm sorry I can't answer it any further," he responded.


Whether Tony's existence is a farce and whether Zackheim will get the Mental Health contract remain a mystery. At least for now.