Margaret Singer, Et Al. V. APA, Et Al. (RICO Lawsuit)
When the APA's BSERP declined to accept the DIMPAC findings, Singer sued the APA and other scholars in 1992 for "defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy", under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), and lost in 1994. The lawsuit alleged that several top executives at the APA and ASA attempted to destroy careers, charging that from 1986 to 1992 they resorted to improper influence of witnesses in state court litigations, filed untrue affidavits, attempted to obstruct justice in federal litigations, deceived federal judges, and committed wire and mail fraud. Ofshe and Singer said that these actions damaged their reputations as forensic experts in the fields of psychology and sociology in the area of coercive persuasion, preventing their testimony against cults, and specified acts of collusion between several of the defendants and cult groups.
In an interview with The Cult Observer, Michael Flomenhaft, a lawyer in the firm representing Singer and Ofshe, said:
"All the facts are there. It's a very insidious thing, and it's hard to believe that such institutions could have engaged in this behavior. This case had to be brought very deliberately because the nature of the complaints causes skepticism".
Flomenhaft referred to the relationships of some the defendants as "incestuous".
An article in the same The Cult Observer describes a press release by Flomenhaft which stated that besides the APA, other defendants named included:
- Raymond Fowler (then APA chief executive officer)
- Leonard Goodstein (former APA executive director)
- Donald N. Bersoff (lawyer)
- Bruce J. Ennis (lawyer)
- Newton Malony (professor at the Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California)
- James T. Richardson (professor at the University of Nevada)
- Rodney Stark (professor at the University of Washington)
- Joan Huber (former president of the ASA and professor at Ohio State University)
- William D'Antonio (former ASA president and professor at Catholic University)
- Dick Anthony (a psychologist resident in Albany, California, and writer on new religious movements.)
The court summons filed by Singer and Ofshe's lawyer described the rejection of the DIMPAC report by the APA's BSERP as a "rejection of the scientific validity of the theory of coercive persuasion".
The court dismissed the case on the basis that the claims of defamation, frauds, aiding and abetting and conspiracy constituted a dispute over the application of the First Amendment to a public debate over academic and professional matters. The court stated that one could characterize the parties as the opposing camps in a long-standing debate over certain theories in the field of psychology; and that the plaintiffs could not establish deceit with reference to representations made to other parties in the lawsuit.
In a further ruling, James R. Lamden ordered Ofshe and Singer to pay $80,000 in attorneys' fees under California's SLAPP suit law, which penalizes those who harass others for exercising their First Amendment rights. At that time, Singer and Ofshe declared their intention to sue Michael Flomenhaft, the lawyer who represented them in the case, for malpractice.
Read more about this topic: APA Task Force On Deceptive And Indirect Techniques Of Persuasion And Control