Rattlesnake Tale (Contd.)

Synanon 's founder is arrested

Late one afternoon, about 30 Arizona and California law officers descended on a sparsely developed section of Lake Havasu City, Ariz. Their quarry was Charles ("Chuck") Dederich, 65, the founder of Synanon, who was wanted in connection with an attempt in October to murder Los Angeles Attorney Paul Morantz with a rattlesnake hidden in his mail box. The officers found Dederich at home. Said Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney John Watson: "He was in a stupor, staring straight ahead, with an empty bottle of Chivas Regal in front of him." Because his physical condition did not permit him to be formally arraigned in the local sheriffs office, Dederich was moved to the jail ward of Arizona's Mohave General Hospital.

From the first, Los Angeles police suspected that Synanon members were responsible for the attack on Morantz, who had won, for a client, a $300,000 lawsuit against the 900-member group. Synanon, founded by Dederich 20 years ago as a rehabilitation organization for alcoholics and drug addicts, had done worthy work, but in recent years had become a capriciously governed and toughly disciplined cult. Soon after the snake attack, police arrested two suspects: Synanon Members Joseph Musico, 28, and Lance Kenton, 20, the son of Bandleader Stan Kenton. Synanon has steadfastly maintained that it "had no involvement in the attack."

But Los Angeles police investigators were told by Synanon defectors that Dederich had explicitly urged violent retaliation against Morantz. According to affidavits obtained by the police from the ex-Synanon members, Dederich had said, "Why doesn't someone get Paul Morantz?" and "Someone ought to break this guy's legs." Police later seized 13 tapes and 35 pages of documents from a ranch owned by Synanon in Tulare County, Calif.

Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Mike Carroll last week played to reporters a tape dated Sept. 5, 1977, which was more than a year before the attack on Morantz. On the tape, a voice identified by the D.A. as Dederich's exhorted, "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."

Whether Dederich will have to face trial in California may be decided at an extradition hearing scheduled for Jan. 2. He faces charges of solicitation to commit murder and conspiracy to commit murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Although free on $100,000 bail, Dederich remains hospitalized. His attorney, Thomas Thinnes, argued that Dederich was "in no condition to return to California because he needs medical attention." Thinnes says that he has been told by doctors that the Synanon founder has a drinking problem, suffers from a heart ailment and obesity and is in a deep depression. Last week Dederich's wife Regina and daughter Cecelia Jason filed a petition in Mohave County Superior Court stating that he is an "incapacitated person" and asking for guardianship of him.

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