VISALIA, Calif. -- Charles Dederich, the Synanon founder who in 1978 pleaded no contest to conspiring to put a rattlesnake in a lawyer's mailbox, will not fight extradition to Arizona on fraud charges, officials say.
Dederich, 69, and eight other suspects in an alleged stock fraud scheme were arrested at the Synanon ranch in the Sierra foothills near Badger, Calif., Tuesday.
Three others were arrested at Visalia, Los Angeles and Phoenix. A 13th suspect was expected to surrender today.
Deputy Arizona Attorney General Dave McCormick said a grand jury indictment accused the 13 Synanon officials of securities fraud in an effort to get money out of California while Synanon was under investigation following the rattlesnake case.
Dederich was released on $100,000 bond and the others on $5,000 bond each. Dan L. Garrett, a former attorney for Synanon, surrendered in Phoenix and was released on $25,000 bond.
McCormick said the defendants indicated they would not fight return to Arizona.
Arizona Attorney General Bob Corbin said a Phoenix grand jury handed up the indictments Thursday, accusing the 13 Synanon officials of setting up an Arizona corporation, Home Place, Inc., 'for the purposes of securities fraud.'
The indictments said they conspired to make illegal sales of stock from September 1978 through December 1980.
Others arrested included Dederich's son; Cecilia Dederich Schiff, current foundation board chairman; David Ross, chief financial officer; Russ Mumford, investment adviser and Jack Harrison, the foundation's legal assistant.
Officials said it was not known how much money was involved in the alleged stock sales or how many people may have bought the stock.
A beefy, pugnacious-looking man of bluff charm, Dederich recovered from alcoholism and in 1958 started Synanon from a storefront in Ocean Beach, Calif., to treat other alcoholics.
Its success brought it praise and emulation in the 1960s, especially for 'the Synanon game.'
By the mid 1970s, however, former members claimed Synanon had become a band of fanatics. They told of obligatory head shaving for both men and women, compulsory divorces, marriages, arsenals of guns, and vengeance attacks on lists of enemies and 'splittees,' as former members were called.
In 1978, Dederich pleaded no contest to charges of conspiring to murder a Los Angeles attorney who was bitten by a 4 -foot rattlesnake planted in his mailbox after the lawyer won a large judgment from Synanon.
The judge fined him $10,000 and sentenced him to five years probation, on condition he 'cease any connection with Synanon in any way, shape or form' as its leader, but the judge said Dederich could continue to live at a Synanon facility.
