Word: morantz
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...October afternoon in 1978, Lawyer Paul Morantz reached into the mailbox of his Los Angeles home and suddenly felt a sharp pain. He pulled back his hand-and with it a 4½-ft. diamond-back rattlesnake, its fangs embedded near his thumb. A tourniquet applied by a quick-thinking neighbor saved the lawyer's life...
Arrested were Charles (Chuck) Dederich, 67, founder of the Synanon Foundation, and two of his "Imperial Marines," Lance Kenton, 22 (son of Bandleader Stan Kenton), and Joseph Musico, 30. Three weeks before the snake attack, Morantz had won a $300,000 judgment against the controversial drug rehabilitation organization on behalf of a married couple who claimed the wife had been held captive by Synanon members...
Kenton and Musico, who still face up to two years in jail, must undergo psychiatric tests before the judge decides whether to place them on probation. Morantz, who sat in the front row of the courtroom as the deal was announced, declared himself satisfied. "I'm very happy," he said. "To have them stand up in court and admit-they're guilty gives me an enormous amount of satisfaction...
...Angeles police investigators were told by Synanon defectors that Dederich had explicitly urged violent retaliation against Morantz. According to affidavits obtained by the police from the ex-Synanon members, Dederich had said, "Why doesn't someone get Paul Morantz?" and "Someone ought to break this guy's legs." Police later seized 13 tapes and 35 pages of documents from a ranch owned by Synanon in Tulare County, Calif...
...Angeles Deputy District Attorney Mike Carroll last week played to reporters a tape dated Sept. 5, 1977, which was more than a year before the attack on Morantz. On the tape, a voice identified by the D.A. as Dederich's exhorted, "Our religious posture is don't mess with us. You can get killed, dead, physically dead . . . We're not going to permit people like greedy lawyers to destroy us. I'm quite willing to break some lawyers' legs and tell them that next time I'll break your wife's legs...