Word: synanon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Challenging Synanon can be hazardous to health and wealth
...days later Lance Kenton, 20, the son of Bandleader Stan Kenton, and Joseph Musico, 28, were taken into custody by Los Angeles police in connection with the rattlesnake attack. Both men are members of Synanon, a drug rehabilitation group based in Badger, Calif...
Three weeks earlier. Lawyer Morantz had won a $300,000 judgment against Synanon for a married couple who said that the wife was kidnaped and abused by members of the organization. From his hospital bed, where he was listed for a time in guarded condition, Morantz said: "I've been told that inside Synanon I'm on their enemies list." But Synanon Lawyer Dan Garrett insisted that the group had had no part in the rattlesnake attack. Said he: "Synanon does not and will not condone, support or harbor any individual engaged in such activities...
Still, what happened to Paul Morantz is only the latest in a series of curious misfortunes that have befallen people who have challenged Synanon in court, in print or on the air. Among the other victims...
...Phillip Ritter, a Berkeley, Calif, accountant, who last year won (but later lost) custody of his child from his Syna-non-member wife, was jumped by two men outside his home on Sept. 21 and severely beaten. "It was the usual Synanon method of operation," says Jack Hurst, a friend and ex-president of Synanon who quit the group in 1976. "The short hair, the baseball bats, the doctored license plates." Ritter is currently in hiding...