30 years ago: Synanon founder Charles Dederich pleads no contest in murder plot

On July 15, 1980 Charles Dederich, the founder of the drug rehabilitation organization known as Synanon, and two members of the group’s security force (including Lance Kenton, son of jazz musician Stan Kenton) pleaded no contest to charges that they had conspired to commit murder with a rattlesnake. California Superior Court Judge William Hogoboom declared that the effect of the plea was identical to that of guilty pleas. As a result of the plea bargain, Mr. Dederich agreed not to participate in the management of Synanon, while prosecutors decided not to pursue a prison term for Mr. Dederich, who was 67 and suffering from heart and circulatory problems. If the prosecutors had known that Mr. Dederich would live another 17 years, they may have acted differently. The charges stemmed from an attack in 1978 on a lawyer named Paul Morantz, who had sued Synanon on behalf of former members and relatives of former members who contended that they were being kept in the group against their will. In October 1978, Mr. Morantz was bitten by a de-rattled rattlesnake placed in his mailbox (the old rattlesnake-in-the-mailbox trick), and was hospitalized for six days.

Mr. Dederich had been a drunkard and had gone through Alcoholics Anonymous, but AA had no program to treat hard drug users, so Mr. Dederich founded Synanon for that purpose. Synanon was the subject of international publicity in the 1960s (including a movie in 1965) for success in rehabilitating drug addicts, but in the 1970s members of the organization complained that Synanon was being transformed into a profit-making, authoritarian cult (it actually became a church and acquired tax-exempt status) centred around Mr. Dederich. The California Attorney General’s office investigated the organization and found a large cache of weapons in the group’s possession and improper usage by Synanon of its tax-exempt status.

Wikipedia entries should always come with a warning of caveat emptor, but their entry on Synanon may be useful as the starting point for further research. A search under "Synanon" at the the Rick Ross Institute will yield much information. As well, Synanon alumni have created a site that includes a museum open to the public.