Paul Morantz

Paul Robert Morantz (August 16, 1945 – October 23, 2022) was an American attorney and investigative journalist.

He was known for taking legal cases alleging brainwashing by cults and self-help groups and for sexual misconduct by psychotherapists.

His successful prosecution of Synanon led to an attempt against his life by means of a rattlesnake placed in his mailbox.

Morantz was born and raised in Southern California.

Its founder, Charles Dederich, a former alcoholic, established Synanon 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.

After high school, he served in the United States Army in 1963 for six months as a reservist.

He then attended Santa Monica City College and the University of Southern California (USC) as a journalism major.

Morantz became a sportswriter for the USC school newspaper the Daily Trojan.

In 1967, he interviewed O. J. Simpson.

Later that year he became co-sports editor of the Daily Trojan along with Lance Spiegel.

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, Tulare County and eventually Lake Havasu.

In 1968, the Los Angeles Times offered Morantz a job as a sportswriter but he chose to go to law school instead.

While in law school, Morantz took a position writing for the Pigskin Review.

He played for USC Law School in the basketball intramural league.

After graduation, Morantz became a Los Angeles public defender.

He left the public defender's office in 1973 and worked part-time as both a lawyer and writer.

During this 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.

In 1974, Morantz uncovered a criminal conspiracy to kidnap homeless alcoholics and place them in nursing homes where they were kept sedated with Thorazine while the state was billed through Medical/Medicare and their social security checks taken.

In 1974, Synanon declared itself a religion and centered on middle-class searching for utopia rather than addiction curing.

By then Synanon's assets, including real estate, ten aircraft, 400 cars, trucks, and motorcycles, totaled around $33 million.

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 were detained in facilities behind locked gates and barbed wire if they tried to leave.

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.

Its advertising and specialty-gifts business netted $2.4 million in 1976, while donations and other income added another $5.5 million.

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 commit violence against their enemies.

In 1977, Morantz investigated the drug rehabilitation institution Synanon, which had a reputation as a seemingly successful program for rehabilitating drug addicts where existing traditional hospitals had failed.

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.

Synanon members began to exhibit violent behavior, which culminated in 1978 when Dederich inspired followers to try to kill Morantz.

Three weeks earlier, Morantz had won a $300,000 judgment against Synanon on behalf of a married couple.

The couple claimed that the wife had been held captive by Synanon and that during her stay, leaders at Synanon had attempted to brainwash her.

On October 10, 1978, 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 in an attempt to save 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.

Morantz was hospitalized for six days.

In May 1978, Werner Erhard and est officials offered to train the entire city of Parlier, located in the San Joaquin Valley, for free.

Two city councilmen who had taken training endorsed it but many town members dropped out after training started and a controversy over est's presence in the community arose.

Morantz came to Parlier to help the town.

Morantz called the free training offer an attempt to use the tools of coercive persuasion on an entire community.

Morantz would later state in 1985 that he was among 50 victims of a Synanon "reign of terror" from 1975 to 1978.