LOS ANGELES -- Two secret indictments naming 13 past and present members of Synanon, the controversial drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization, charge they obstructed justice after a 1978 rattlesnake attack on a lawyer.
Synanon founder Charles Dederich, although not named in the Los Angeles County Grand Jury indictments returned late last month and unsealed Tuesday, appeared in Superior Court to face allegations of violating terms of his probation for the snake attack on the lawyer.
In that assault, Dederich and two Synanon 'Imperial Marines' were charged with conspiring to murder lawyer Paul Morantz by placing a rattlesnake in the mailbox of his Pacific Palisades home.
Morantz, who had represented two former Synanon members in lawsuits against the organization, survived the snake bite. Dederich, Lance Kenton, then 21, and Joseph Musico, then 29, later pleaded no contest to the charges.
The new charges involve a cover-up by the defendants, said Deputy District Attorney John Watson, who presented the case to the grand jury.
'I characterize the charges as a cover-up stemming from the original rattlesnake case,' Watson told reporters outside court. He refused further comment, citing the secrecy of grand jury proceedings.
Charges against the 13 include conspiracy to obstruct justice in the prosecution of the rattlesnake case, perjury and false evidence.
In court documents filed previously, prosecutors said, 'The destruction included over 100 tapes, hundreds of computer entries, hundreds of computer cards, labels, transcripts and summaries of tape recordings concerning violence, rattlesnakes, Paul Morantz, as well as many, many subjects thought to be incriminating.'
Indicted were Philip Bourdette, Synanon's chief legal counsel; Steve Simon, Synanon's director of archives; Dan Garret, Synanon's former chief counsel, and Dan Sorkin and Chris Haberman, two other Synanon officers.
Also indicted were Sybil Schiff, Miriam Bourdette, Matt Rand, Walter Lewbel, Rosa Gomez-Simon, Jady Dederich, Elizabeth Missakian and Jay Bloom-Becker.
The defendants were arraigned before Superior Court Judge Ronald George but did not enter pleas because defense lawyers wanted more time to study the indictments. They will enter pleas on Sept. 24.
George ordered the defendants, many of whom sported Synanon's characteristic short haircuts, to be booked immediately.
The portly Dederich was mobbed by reporters as he left court but made no comment on the indictments or his alleged probation violations. Watson also declined comment on the nature of the probation violations.
George ordered an affidavit containing the alleged violations sealed and scheduled a hearing for Sept. 24. He also set a July 23 hearing on a defense motion to keep transcripts of the grand jury proceedings sealed.
According to the indictments, some of the defendants, including Bourdette and Simon, prepared 'a false and ante-dated book, paper, record and instrument in writing' and allowed it 'to be produced for a fraudulent and deceitful purpose as genuine and true' at the rattlesnake trial.
The indictment said Simon and Bourdette perjured themselves at the March 1980 trial and that Ms. Missakian, Ms. Dederich and Bloom-Becker perjured themselves during grand jury proceedings earlier this year. It said Lewbel and Rand erased tapes on Synanon property in Tulare County in 1978.
