Synanon - Alleged Criminal Activity

Alleged Criminal Activity

On March 20, 1978, a former member of Synanon was severely beaten (for being a "splittee") during his honeymoon when he took his bride to show her where he had once lived at the Walker Creek Ranch.

Synanon is heavily implicated in the late-1972 or early-1973 disappearance of Rose Lena Cole, who was ordered by a court to enroll in Synanon before she disappeared. She has not been seen or heard from since.

During the summer of 1978, the NBC Nightly News produced a news segment on the controversies surrounding Synanon. Following this broadcast, several executives of the NBC network and its corporate chairman allegedly received hundreds of threats from Synanon members and supporters. However, NBC continued with a series of reports on the Synanon situation on the NBC Nightly News.

On September 21, 1978, ex-Synanon member Phil Ritter was severely beaten by two Synanon members, which fractured his skull and caused him to fall into a coma with a near-fatal case of bacterial meningitis.

Several weeks later, on October 11, 1978, two Synanon members placed a de-rattled rattlesnake in the mailbox of attorney Paul Morantz of Pacific Palisades, California. Morantz had successfully brought suit on behalf of a woman abducted by Synanon. The snake bit and almost killed him.

Six weeks later, the Los Angeles Police Department performed a search of the ranch in Badger that found a recorded speech by Dederich in which he said, "We're not going to mess with the old-time, turn-the-other-cheek religious postures...our religious posture is: Don't mess with us. You can get killed dead, literally dead...these are real threats," he snarled. "They are draining life's blood from us, and expecting us to play by their silly rules. We will make the rules. I see nothing frightening about it...I am quite willing to break some lawyer's legs, and next break his wife's legs, and threaten to cut their child's arm off. That is the end of that lawyer. That is a very satisfactory, humane way of transmitting information. I really do want an ear in a glass of alcohol on my desk."

Dederich was arrested while drunk on December 2, 1978. The two other Synanon residents, one of whom was Lance Kenton, the son of the musician Stan Kenton, pleaded "no contest" to charges of assault, and also conspiracy to commit murder. While his associates went to jail, Dederich himself avoided imprisonment by formally stepping down as the chairman of Synanon.

Much of the violence by Synanon had been carried out by a group within Synanon called the "Imperial Marines."

The Point Reyes Light, a small-circulation weekly newspaper in Marin County, received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1979 in recognition of its coverage of Synanon when other news agencies avoided reporting on it.

Synanon struggled to survive without its leader, and also with a severely tarnished reputation. The Internal Revenue Service sued for $17 million in back taxes, and all of its properties were confiscated and sold. Synanon formally dissolved in 1991.