| Paul Morantz | |
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Paul Morantz, Esq. |
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| Born | August 16, 1945 Los Angeles, California |
| Occupation | Attorney Journalist Author |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | USC School of Journalism USC School of Law |
| Genres | non-fiction, sports journalism |
| Subjects | cults, behavior modification, psychotherapy, college football |
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Influences
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www.paulmorantz.com |
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Paul Morantz is an attorney at law specializing in the prosecution of fanatical cults, religious or otherwise, and their leaders for harmful conduct. He is most recognized for his cases against Synanon, a behavior modification drug rehabilitation group in the 1970s, which attempted to kill Morantz and derail his efforts to rescue members of the group.[1][2] Since then, Morantz has continued practicing law specializing in the prosecution of those whose victims suffer through the undue influence of coercive persuasion. Morantz served as pro bono appellate counsel in Molko vs. Unification Church in 1988, which became the first case where the California Supreme Court recognized brainwashing as a wrongful and harmful tort, and allowed victims the right to sue for damages.[3][4]
Morantz is also a freelance writer and investigative journalist, who wrote the story for the 1978 television movie Deadman's Curve, based on the lives of surf singers Jan and Dean.[5] The original story Morantz wrote was published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1974 and was scheduled to be the cover, but Nixon resigned soon after and the story was pushed off the cover.[6] Morantz also has published an article in the Los Angeles Times about John Walker Lindh, the American man caught fighting with the Taliban. The article is an argument for understanding some of the psychological mechanisms which may have led to Lindh joining the Taliban and raises the question of whether he may have been brainwashed.[7]
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Paul Morantz was born and raised in Southern California, graduated Hamilton Highschool at age seventeen, and served in the United States Army in 1963 for six months as a reservist. After the Army, Morantz first attended Santa Monica City College then continued on at University of Southern California (USC) in 1965 as a journalism major.[3][8]
A lifelong football fan, Morantz became a sportswriter for the Daily Trojan after transferring to USC. In 1967 he interviewed a new JC football transfer and published a story entitled "O.J is Here" that was O. J. Simpson's first Los Angeles interview. Later that year Morantz became co-sports editor of the Daily Trojan along with Lance Spiegel.[3][8][9]
In 1968, the Los Angeles Times asked to hire Paul Morantz as a sportswriter but he opted to go to law school instead. Amidst a variety of odd jobs during his years at law school, Morantz took a position writing for the Pigskin Review that kept him close to his first love - college football. He also played for USC Law School in the basketball intramural league, his team "The Bailors" winning the USC championship. He later took up beach volleyball and won several trophies.[8][9][10]
After graduating from USC School of Law in 1971, Paul Morantz became a Los Angeles public defender in 1972. He left the public defender's office in 1973, then worked part-time as both a lawyer and writer. During which time he developed his feature-length article on surf singers Jan and Dean that was later published in Rolling Stone magazine, and wrote the story for the made-for-television movie.[6][9][10]
Although Morantz states that his early years following his days at USC were filled with indecision regarding whether he wanted to pursue writing versus practicing law, his ultimate career path combined the two fields. When he received a phone call from his brother in 1974 about a Nursing home kidnapping case Morantz used both investigative reporting skills and the law to prove the conspiracy. This early case brought Morantz public attention and led to his fourteen year battle against the Synanon cult starting in 1977, in which he again did the investigation. Morantz's next investigation in 1978 was focused on Werner Erhard, and the est Training attempt to dominate a small town near Fresno led Morantz to assist with putting a stop to it and preventing an Erhard plan to train the Los Angeles Police Department. In 1979, he represented victims against the estate of the Peoples Temple. From that point forward, Mr. Morantz's specialty was based on investigating and litigating cases involving brainwashing, a field he basically pioneered.[3][10][11]
Throughout his subsequent years of litigating a wide range of destructive cults, Paul Morantz eventually came to share a common belief with others on several sides of the multifaceted cult battles that education rather than litigation should be the first defense of religious and intellectual liberty. Twenty years later he returned to writing.[3][7][12]
In 1974 Paul Morantz uncovered a criminal conspiracy to kidnap skid row alcoholics and sell them to nursing homes where they were kept sedated with Thorazine while the state was billed through Medical/Medicare and their social security checks taken.[3] Los Angeles County supervisors called for a four point probe on January 23, 1975 after hearing testimony that patients were often sedated, their ability to communicate with anyone outside the institution restricted, and detained in facilities behind locked gates and barbed wire if they tried to leave.[13][14]
The public hearings held before the Board included testimony from former patients and institutional employees, with Supervisor Kenneth Hahn stating that he was "shocked" at the disclosures because "it's a terrible example of man's inhumanity to man, we can't whitewash this."[13][14]
Morantz filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the former patients, testified on nursing home abuses during the public hearings and aided in the creation of a district attorney task force on nursing home crimes.[15][16]
When Morantz took on the drug rehabilitation institution Synanon in 1977, it had the reputation as a seemingly successful program for rehabilitating drug addicts where existing traditional hospitals had failed.[17][1] It’s founder, Charles Dederich, an ex-alcoholic, established it in 1958 as a non-medical self-help program that included the "Game," a session in which participants acted out hostilities and sought the truth about themselves while not being bound by the truth in making critical attacks on each other. Synanon claimed it had cured thousands but by 1967 Dederich turned the organization into a "lifestyle" by recruiting non-addicts ("Squares") and building cities in Marin County, then Tulare County and eventually Lake Havasu.[18][19][20]
In 1974 Synanon declared itself a religion and centered on middle-class searching for utopia rather than addict curing. By then Synanon's assets, including real estate, ten aircraft, 400 cars, trucks and motorcycles, totaled around $33 million. Its advertising and specialty-gifts business netted $2.4 million in 1976 while donations and other income added another $5.5 million.[18] Rules were passed mandating non-smoking, dieting, exercise programs, group marriages, shaved heads, vasectomies, abortions and exchanging mates. Approximately 200 couples “changed partners.” Members were trained in "Syndo" (Martial arts) with the elite placed in the Imperial Marines who were trained to and did commit violence against their enemies.[18] Dederich became a rich man.[19][20]
By 1977 Morantz was warning government authorities Dederich was mandating violence against its enemies ("a reign of terror") and filing lawsuits on behalf of ex-members and victims.[20][21][22] Morantz would later state in 1985, that he was among 50 victims of a Synanon "reign of terror" from 1975 to 1978.[15]
Synanon members began to exhibit violent behavior, which culminated in 1978 when Dederich inspired followers to try to kill attorney Paul Morantz.[2][23] Three weeks earlier Morantz had won a $300,000 judgment against Synanon on behalf of a married couple who claimed the wife had been held captive by Synanon and brainwashing was attempted by the organization.[15][2][23][24]
On October 10, 1978, Paul Morantz was bitten by a rattlesnake which had been placed in his Pacific Palisades home mailbox by two members of the Synanon Imperial Marines, Lance Kenton and Joe Musico. A neighbor applied a tourniquet that saved Morantz’s life. Arriving fire department paramedics chopped off the snake's head with a shovel, and discovered that the rattles had been removed so that the snake could attack without warning.[17][18][23][24][25]
Neighbors had reported seeing a suspicious vehicle making rounds near Morantz's home and reported the license number to the police. The police found that the license plate had been registered to an address at Synanon in Visalia, California and an officer checked the grounds at Morantz's house, but found nothing out of the ordinary and no one informed Morantz of the activity. Upon returning home, Morantz was bitten on the wrist as he grabbed for the mail. Morantz stumbled outside and yelled for help from neighbors who quickly came to his assistance and called for an ambulance. Morantz was rushed to the Santa Monica Emergency Room where anti-venom could be administered and then subsequently transferred to the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center where he made a recovery over the next several days.[26][27][28]
The attack occurred three weeks after Morantz won a $300,000 judgment against the member organization on behalf of a married couple who claimed the wife had been held captive and subjected to brainwashing by Synanon members.[17][24][28][29]
Earlier, Charles Dederich, founder of the Synanon program, had made recorded announcements over the internal P.A. system that played in all Synanon's compounds called "The Wire."[30] These announcements made mention of enemies of Synanon and encouraged acts of violence towards them and their families. Dederich specifically mentioned targeting lawyers such as Morantz in these speeches. Included was Sept. 5, 1977 tape of Dederich's explaining, "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 and then I'll cut your kid's arm off."[23]
After the attack on Morantz, Synanon's compound in Badger, Tulare County was searched and authorities recovered the tape recordings of these speeches. Dederich was drunk in Lake Havasu when he was taken into custody.[19] All who were arrested plead no-contest to conspiracy to commit murder.[15][24] Instrumental in the exposure of the Synanon conspiracies was the local newspaper, Point Reyes Light, where David V. Mitchell's work on Synanon won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service.[17][1][31]
In 1991, Synanon's doors closed as a result of a successful Federal tax evasion lawsuit, which concluded that Synanon was not entitled to its past tax-exempt charitable status as it had been attacking people in violation of public policy. Morantz assisted the United States Department of Justice with the investigation and prosecution of this case.[32][33]
Paul Morantz represented approximately forty ex-members of the Center for Feeling Therapy whom after nine years rebelled against the Center, leading to its closure in 1980.[34] Many of its former members later sued the founding therapists in what was then the largest psychology malpractice lawsuit in California history.[35][36] The Center, a product of the Human Potential Movement, splintered from Primal Therapy, and was led by Richard "Riggs" Corriere and Joseph Hart who referred to themselves as the "Butch Cassidy and Sundance kid of Psychotherapy" and as the "New Freuds." It also resulted in the removal of many of their therapists licenses.[37][38][39]
The Center was heavy into recruitment and coincidentally they attempted to recruit Morantz who was taken to an open house in 1978 by two Center women who had sold him office plants.[40]
Morantz was introduced to patients at a restaurant in Hollywood who he believed wanted to instantly "love me." He later recounted it didn’t take long for him to see that this was actual recruitment. Two years later his first two Center clients contacted for Morantz help. Physical brutality and sexual abuse occurred plus class divisions, race derogation, rejection of parents and use of humiliating assignments intended to submit members to Center control. Morantz stated "I kind of felt that that day I had been there for a reason."[39][40]
During the course of litigation, the California court of appeals in Rains v. Superior Court (Center for Feeling Therapy Psychological Corp.) ruled in Morantz’s favor that the Center’s use of physical punching ("Sluggo therapy") could be the basis for a battery claim despite patient consent to being hit, because of allegations the therapists made that patients being struck was good therapy while concealing the therapists’ true intent to use slugging as a method of control over the patients.[41]
Seven years after the therapeutic community ended, Corriere and Hart’s licenses were removed, ending the longest, costliest and most complex psychotherapy malpractice license revocation in California history. Four psychologists were found guilty of acts of gross negligence, incompetence, patient abuse, aiding and abetting the unlicensed practice of psychology and false advertising after a 94-day hearing before Administrative Law Judge Robert A. Neher.[37][38][42]
Neher wrote the center therapists publicized themselves as the world’s premier therapists in order "to solicit money, sex or free labor from patients" and to coerce them into "obsessive devotion,” ruling: "By any definition it was a cult." Twelve therapists lost or surrendered their licenses. After the revocation hearings, Morantz lamented the state system is so inefficient "that it has taken seven years to halt these people's ability to harm others."[38]
Mr. Morantz participated pro bono in Molko v. Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity in 1988, along with another anti-cult lawyer, Ford Greene, wherein the California Supreme Court determined consistent with the free exercise clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and of article I, section 4, of the California Constitution, former members of a religious organization may sue that organization on various causes of action arising out of its allegedly deceptive recruitment practices.[25][43]
The court held the act of Brainwashing was outrageous conduct and victims could recover civil and punitive damages for its application. Unification Church members were accused of denying their religious affiliation in order to lure prospective recruits to camps where there beliefs could be psychologically manipulated through behavior modification techniques.[3][43]
In 1988 Paul Morantz successfully took on representation of former female patients of preacher-psychotherapist John Gottuso for sexual misconduct with his patients as an aid to their psychological and spiritual life.[44][45] As a result, the pastor/therapist of Park View Christian Fellowship in California lost his license to practice psychotherapy as well as the right to be involved in his church’s pre-school.[44][46]
A decade later Morantz again represented another six adults and five former students in a 1996 civil lawsuit against Gottuso, his church and its private school.[47][48] The suit for sexual abuse and psychological abuse was settled in March 1998 for $3,200,000.[47][49]
The later civil action stated Gottuso used sex to bind his followers into a cult devoted to him with allegations of Gottuso verbally abusing members, with sexually explicit street language and preaching/counseling they could only be free through uninhibited sexual participation.[47][48] Minor female students claimed Gottuso would pinch breasts, intimately hug and kiss them and watch as they disrobed at his orders.[47]
A month after the settlement, Gottuso came up for sentencing in a Pasadena, California after he pleaded no contest to demonstrating a sex act with a 15-year-old girl in late 1995 in front of a class at his Christ-Bridge Academy.[47][50] Sixteen of his past victims came to watch the sentencing on the misdemeanor charge, and Gottuso was placed on house arrest.[47][51]
Although the victim of the 1995 case was not Paul Morantz’s client, she allowed him to speak on her behalf at the sentencing.[51][52] After the criminal case proceedings, Morantz said, "We as a state owe the public some protection... to make sure that no one with this kind of track' record can teach in private schools."[47]
Following the case, California passed related legislation prohibiting private school teachers who by their past actions could not teach in public schools.[53][54][55][56]
Paul Morantz has been called a "Knight in the fight against destructive high control groups" by FACTnet.[57] He has litigated against the Church of Scientology, Peoples Temple, Hare Krishnas, Rajneesh movement and other controversial cults.[3][58][59][60] Morantz has also worked alongside of anti-cult attorney at law Ford Greene and Los Angeles County class action lawsuit king Thomas Girardi.[34][37][54][60]
Many of his cases included collaborating with thought reform experts Margaret Singer, Louis Jolyon West and others with notable mentions of his work defending cult victims published in Singer's Cults in Our Midst and Recovery from Cults by Michael Langone.[17][44][60][61] Additionally, Mr. Morantz helped write the California law setting forth requirements under which a religious organization could be sued for punitive damages.[54][62]
In Hall v. Great Western Bank (1991) 231 Cal. App. 3d 713 [282 Cal.Rptr. 640] Morantz argued successfully banks could not fire employees for reasons that would violate public policy.[63] His address to the court stated "We believe this rationale applies with even greater strength where, as in this case, a termination of employment in violation of public policy has been alleged. Appellant's complaint alleges, in essence, a retaliatory firing resulting from her refusal to withdraw her valid claim for partial unemployment benefits"[64]
Additionally, Paul Morantz has lectured publicly and counseled law enforcement agencies on the mindset of crusading terrorists. Morantz also taught a class at the University of Southern California on the subject of all kinds of undue influences,[3][65] where his legal files are being archived.[66]
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