Original subtitles

- (crowd chatter) - (upbeat guitar music playing)

Reporter: We're way up in northern Marin County

at Synanon's Ranch. The event? A fat-a-thon.

Mike Gimbel: At the beginning,

everybody was very excited

about the idea of losing weight.

(singing to the tune "When the Saints Go Marching In")

♪ Oh, when the fat, it turns to thin ♪

Reporter: Synanon believes in healthy living.

No smoking, no drinking, no drugs.

And now, no body fat.

(singing continues)

Mike: The Lean Normal Diet actually started as a good thing.

You met with the doctor. He said, "You should weigh this."

Everyone got, like, a physical.

- (intense upbeat music playing) - (cafeteria chatter)

We ate this Jell-O every night.

Yeah, I mean, how do you make things

without sugar that taste good? (laughs)

(sizzling)

But then, Chuck mandated we had to exercise.

(heavy breathing)

(dark music playing)

Most of it was running in place or step-ups.

And then, you had to be honest about the hours.

But it felt a little weird that it was mandated.

Was a different feeling that you had to do it.

(birds chirping)

Your name goes up on a chart

and what is your ideal weight.

♪♪

And then, we would have weekly weigh-ins.

♪♪

It was a little bit funny to watch,

but I can tell you the truth, the honest-to-God truth,

it was humiliating to a lot of people.

(applause, cheering)

You talk about a charismatic leader

who was getting people to do things

that they don't think about.

And Chuck, his-his power

and his control

makes people do things.

Whether it's for him or his cause.

And that's what started happening.

(projector whirring)

(whirring slows down)

(dull whooshing)

(click)

(quiet chatter)

(laughter)

Terry Hurst: Chuck had a big ego,

and everybody contributed to it.

We had people just adoring him.

I mean, people were just bowing

and scraping to him in every way.

The show must go on.

Buddy Jones: Betty Dederich called me in

one day and said,

"How come you don't like Chuck?"

I said, what do you mean I don't like Chuck? She says,

"Well, I don't see you around him that much.

"I don't see you jumping through hoops

to get next to him and his guys."

(cutlery clinking)

And I said, "You know, Betty, I don't see anybody else

"pulling something like Synanon off

"other than Chuck. So I have great respect for him.

"But when you see him, you have his followers.

"They're very obedient

and he likes that."

Chuck Dederich: You make everybody make their beds

the way you want them to.

You insist that they have manners

and that they smile and so on.

That kind of a place makes people healthy.

It makes them healthy in mind

and body and heart and soul.

♪♪

Bill Goodson: I didn't really put Chuck on some kind of pedestal.

That might have something to do with the fact

that I was in Synanon in the early years

when it was crude and rough and new.

And what Synanon was becoming

with money and success and power,

you could sense that people looked at him

through a different lens and listened to him

in a different way.

Chuck: Now, it seems very simple.

Just do the things we do in Synanon.

Keep the joint clean.

(over PA) The reason you fail...

Mike: Anything Chuck was saying was being recorded,

was being sent over the Wire.

It's on in every building. It's on everywhere.

I mean, everywhere you go.

It kinda built into this thing of "Chuck said."

And that was really a big thing there. "Well, Chuck said this,"

you know, "Chuck said, Chuck said, Chuck."

It was always Chuck.

(Chuck speaking indistinctly over the Wire)

Things would start that way on the Wire,

and because it was on the Wire,

all the other facilities heard.

Chuck (on PA): Learn to live the way we do!

If you don't or won't or can't do that,

go somewhere else!

We stop being...

Rod Mullen: The benign explanation for the Wire

was keeping the community together.

- (beeping) - There were over 2,000 members of the community.

You had all these different facilities.

You had three campuses at Tomales Bay,

you had Oakland,

you had Santa Monica.

But, you know, like any powerful tool,

a sharp knife is great for cutting a steak.

It also is pretty good for cutting off a finger.

And as time went on,

the Wire was used very deliberately politically.

Rod: The Synanon Game, in many ways,

was the primary ritual and social glue for Synanon.

One of the really important things about that ritual

was that it was private.

What was said in the Game

was left in the Game.

The Wire, of course, was a complete antithesis of that.

All of a sudden, what was being said in Games was public

for anybody to hear,

and, essentially, the Games became

a way of conveying a message.

Are you gonna get in on this act or are you gonna sit...

Terry: I had loved Synanon at one point.

I grew to not love it

when I saw all the manipulation going on.

Things had started to deteriorate.

It was a regular Synanon Game

when I was talking about how Synanon was changing,

everybody had to show their loyalty to Synanon,

you had to prove that you were worthy of Synanon.

(indistinct chatter)

I don't remember what all I said,

but Chuck didn't like it when he heard it.

If I was talking negatively about Synanon,

I was talking negatively about Chuck.

That was not acceptable.

And... boy, we got demoted very fast after that.

(soft music playing)

You know, Jack had been president,

and he was demoted to being a truck driver.

Then, Chuck started doing things to Jack.

Undermining our marriage.

Chuck: You know, Jack's always talking about

being married 21 years and everything.

Well, you know, for what we look at,

they seem to be hooked up with each other. But goddamn,

they don't seem to be very happy very much of the time.

And that-that could certainly be a...

Terry: In the end, Jack was in a Game with Chuck,

and I heard on the Wire what Chuck was saying to Jack.

(Chuck continues)

Chuck said, "Get rid of your wife,

or get the hell outta here."

I started packing.

Jack wasn't gonna leave.

(somber music playing)

I felt like the world was ending.

I had never been hurt so badly.

It was horrible.

But Jack said,

"Chuck saved my life."

(water lapping)

(birds chirping)

Phil Ritter: There was another woman who lived in Synanon.

When she thought she had something

on somebody in a Game,

she would not let go.

(indistinct)

She thought she had

and indictment on Chuck in a Game.

And she kept going on and on and on.

I'm just talking about the contradiction.

I'm just getting at the contradiction

in the way you act and the line you run.

- Chuck: Anybody who lives the life can be... What? - I look at the way you act.

Phil: And he walked across the room

with a can of root beer

and poured it on top of her head.

- That was as big a no-no as you could have. - Yeah.

Short of picking up a weapon

and going over there and clubbing her with it.

Jady Dederich Montgomery: We're talking about not just a member of management,

but the founder of the organization

crossing a physical line with a subordinate.

Chuck Dederich Jr.: But if he apologized for it and said, "Look,

"you know, I just lost it, you know,

and I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have done it."

- Jady: He did apologize. - Chuck Jr.: He did!

- Jady: And then do you remember what happened after? - Chuck Jr.: No.

- Jady: Then he apologized for apologizing. - Chuck Jr.: Oh. Mm-hmm.

Jady: And then, he threw his table upside down

in the middle of the Game. "I'll do whatever I want."

When people do things in groups, they must have leaders.

And the autocracy works,

the... dictatorship works.

When you try to practice democracy,

you get an animal like that pure half-cured drunk,

that menopausal goddamn fool that was talking

when she should've been listening.

In a room that contained people like my wife,

me, you see?

You know, I did a kindly thing.

I threw some root beer over her.

If Betty hadn't let her outta the room, the next thing,

I was gonna throw her out the window.

You see? Because, uh,

no physical violence is not an absolute in the world.

There aren't any absolutes! There aren't any.

No physical violence is the policy, I suppose,

that we will use here in Synanon,

as long as it is feasible and works for us.

♪♪

Pretty good, huh? Hm...

That was the beginning of breaking the cardinal rule

of no violence or threat of physical violence.

That was it.

My dad was betraying his own moral compass,

his own rules.

Everything he had set up.

It was a sort of demarcation point

where Synanon departed from,

you know, nonviolence and stuff

to some kind of activity that was not...

not good. You know? It wasn't good.

Bill: If Synanon was going to make some big changes,

that was also going to trickle down to us,

the kids,

and how it would trickle down

sometimes was-was traumatic.

Members: One, two, three, four, one, two... Three! Four!

- Leader: Go left! Right! Go left! Right! - Followers: Left! Right!

- Leader: Hidey hidey hidey ho! - Followers: Hidey hidey hidey ho!

Leader: Oh, oh, oh, oh!

Followers: Oh, oh, oh, oh!

Leader: That's the boot camp boogie!

Followers: That's the boot camp boogie!

Leader: What a crazy sound!

Rod: We had a group of kids in the Synanon school

who were getting large enough and aggressive enough

that they were threatening the teachers.

Pushing up against the women in the school

and getting away with it.

That was very dangerous.

- (dark music playing) - (quiet chatter)

Rod: Chuck said, you know,

"I want you to take those kids out of the school,

"and I want you to run a little, uh...

"experiment with them. And if they get outta line,

I want you to use some physical discipline."

Chuck had himself been in Catholic Jesuit school.

I think from his own experience,

he thought that was perfectly acceptable.

Rod: We started what Chuck called Punk Squad,

and, uh, Buddy Jones joined me.

Buddy: I was in construction and called in

for working with the Punk Squad kids.

The job was to let these guys know

what it was like to push up against some men

and to have some of that kind of discipline.

♪♪

At the time, getting corporal punishment was normal.

Know what I mean? Was not a big deal.

That was part of, you know, I mean...

Did your mother ever send you after a switch?

Rod: In the Punk Squad,

we just did a lot of physical exercise

and then physical projects.

Had some kids who just, phew, blossomed.

They're looking pretty compliant

and doing really well.

They beat 'em. And I just remember

hearing rumors and stuff

about kids getting beat,

and it was so antithetical

to the way I grew up at Synanon.

♪♪

Rod: Chuck, like the megalomaniac he was,

thought if you did something and it worked,

that you should apply it to everybody, you know?

Let's do this with the kids who are currently in the school

who are not behavioral problems.

One minute, you were a happy-go-lucky kid, sort of,

and then, you were in the military.

(indistinct boot camp boogie)

They built this tent city.

We had these huge barrack-type tents.

And you had a bed

and this military trunk

and that was all you had.

Josh Silvers: I'm, like, 10 or 11 years old.

We woke up at 5:00 in the morning,

and then we would run for four or five miles.

And I remember getting smacked in the head

a bunch of times. Like, "Run!" (imitates smack)

Then, you had to shower,

make your bed, military-style,

so you can bounce a quarter off it.

If it wasn't perfectly straight underneath,

they would rip up your bed, and you would miss breakfast.

There was a lot of marching. You had to dig holes.

And I remember my hands bleeding.

And, you know, you're a kid. You have no say.

Sometimes, at, like, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning,

they'd wake you up.

Everybody would have to come to attention.

Bill: Screaming and yelling.

"You bratty kids. You take everything for granted.

You think you're this, you think you're that."

I remember one of my best friends, Buddy Jones,

just hitting him, like, doubling him over.

Like, he's a little kid, and Buddy Jones' a big dude.

I just remember being really afraid of him.

- (gentle music playing) - (birds chirping)

Marshall Carder: I moved in when I was 4.

And corporal punishment was already a thing.

Buddy had a paddle called his assistant.

"It's my assistant."

You fucked up, they brought you in front of the whole crew,

and they'd spank you, paddle you, knock you down.

(acoustic guitar strumming)

I didn't... I didn't abuse kids.

And I wouldn't abuse a child.

But in today's culture, there is that thin line.

I don't... The older I get, I don't know if...

if, um, if that truly is the right way to...

treat kids.

But I-I don't see... At the same time,

I don't see a swat on the butt as any big thing.

(birds chirping)

Marshall: Now, Buddy and I have a weird relationship

because Buddy whacked me around pretty good.

A bunch of times.

And I still talk to Buddy.

And I... But, I always thought Buddy was fair.

With Buddy, I knew where the line was.

But there was a lot of people that were just irrational.

Rod: You know, people just thought

if you disagreed with a kid, you hit him.

And who were not some of them...

Yeah, I... (stammers)

You know, part of the thing with Punk squad. Yeah.

I did, and I regret it deeply.

I don't wanna go there, Rory.

I-I don't.

When I said we got woken up at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning,

it was Rod Mullen waking us up and yelling

and in your face.

He was like our nightm... Like my nightm...

I don't know everybody else,

but he was like one of my nightmares.

Um, I remember him hitting me in the head

and hitting my ear so hard

that I went flying,

and that my ear rang the whole entire day.

And that's like one of those memories that's never...

gone away.

Norm Johnson: My nephew was one of the first kids

thrown into that Punk Squad.

He was so brutalized that by the time he left,

um...

he could not fit into society.

I tried to take him to therapy.

I did a lot

in conjunction with my sister to try to support him,

but eventually, Danny killed himself

with an intentional overdose of heroin, so...

Um, and that's the result of Synanon.

His death weighs heavily on me.

(quiet street noise)

Newscaster: At the Alameda County Courthouse.

The board is being asked by the Alameda Probation Department

to add the Synanon Foundation to a list of private agencies

for the custody of various types of juvenile offenders.

Synanon medical director Dr. KJ Deisler.

I think it would be ridiculous not to utilize Synanon

as an outstandingly known, successful,

and highly specialized organization.

Ron Cook: It was decided

that Synanon would bring in juvenile delinquents.

These are a bunch of punks.

And no other way to describe it.

Bad attitude people.

Their parents couldn't handle them.

The schools couldn't handle them. Nobody could handle them.

And now, they're in Synanon in a boot camp.

(marching band music playing)

Narrator: Synanon is for boys and girls

between the ages of 10 and 18,

whose behavior is going to force them out of their homes

and into a juvenile prison.

For a child to enter Synanon's program,

call one of Synanon's California communities.

Rod: Synanon started making a real effort

to recruit more of these juvenile delinquent kids.

(microfiche clicks)

We went to counties and said, you know,

you have juvenile delinquents.

We have a program based on the Punk Squad.

Guess what? We'll take 'em for free.

- Reporter: How old are you? - 12.

Reporter: 12, huh? How long you been in Synanon?

- Six months. - Reporter: Six months? Where are you from?

- Bronx. - Reporter: The Bronx, huh?

It's a lot different from the Bronx?

- Yeah. - Reporter: It sure is, huh?

Rod: The real motivation

for expanding the juvenile delinquents

was that it would ensure that Synanon could maintain

its 501(c)(3) tax exempt certificate,

which people were getting worried about

because there weren't enough drug addicts

to justify its nonprofit status.

The kids,

some of the youngsters that we were working with,

of course, didn't like the regimen very much

and would leave.

The punks ran away,

and they ran away to some neighbors.

You know, I could still see,

or hear to this day, all of a sudden,

you get a frantic knock at the door,

and it's anywhere from, you know, 10 o'clock at night

till 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

"We need to get outta here. They're beating us."

We just saw the fear.

(curious music playing)

We're in rural Marin County.

Synanon bought the ranch behind our family property.

When they first moved in,

they seemed like normal people.

Dad didn't have a problem with them.

But then, he really started noticing the change.

Alvina Balistreri: All of a sudden, their heads were shaved.

And just more and more traffic.

Robert Gambonini: It started being

a back-and-forth bad blood situation

with the Synanon people.

You know, with-with the runaways we were getting and...

You know, something was definitely wrong.

♪♪

Dad would let the runaways call their parents

and get them to go back home.

Alvin Gambonini: The youngest we ever had was 11 years old.

They're just scared. They wanna get away,

and they're scared Synanon will catch them again.

Alvina: Dad would take them to the bus stop,

give them some money.

"Dear Mr. Gambonini, we deeply appreciate the kindness

and compassion you showed to our son."

"Dear Mr. Gambonini, thank you for helping me get home.

You are the nicest man I ever met."

Rod: Synanon, seeing the Gamboninis

as facilitating escapes,

began to characterize them as the enemy.

Bob Navarro: To be fair, we were out in the country,

and most of the people around us were ranchers

and country folk, you know?

People would come by in their trucks,

and they see a Synanon person on these country roads,

and they would just drive them off the road.

They would hurl insults

and racial epithets at people.

And it was, it was frightening.

(quiet chatter)

We were taught to yell, "Hey, rube,"

if any stranger came onto the property.

That was kind of the call to arms.

Bill: If you felt threatened,

if you felt like there was something that was going on,

we all needed to gather, grab a bat,

grab a this, grab a that,

and come running to the, "Hey, rube."

- (insects chirping) - (car rumbling)

(somber music playing)

Alvina: And it was probably 10:30 at night maybe.

I actually was asleep

in the front seat between my mom and dad.

♪♪

There was some meeting that Synanon had,

and people were all pumped up.

I guess my dad saw a vehicle parked.

And so, my dad parked, and they came over.

Things happened so fast.

I just remember punches and then blood.

- (yelling) - (punching)

♪♪

They pulled the door open in the car.

Some jumped on the hood,

and they were kicking the windshield.

Then, they started pounding me in the face,

and my wife put her hand over my face.

I wrapped my arm around the steering wheel,

and they couldn't get me out.

And there's one standing there with an open knife in his hand

and another one had a picket in his hand.

And by the time we did get the door shut of the car,

we noticed our son was gone.

(dogs barking)

I-I just, I guess, got scared. I mean, well, I did get scared.

So, I jumped out,

I ran, and I just remembered,

I could still see it to this day, looking back,

and it's like a sea of people.

People and flashlights and posts

and whatever they were carrying

were just trying to get in the car.

So I just continued on, and I went up to the neighbors,

and I just pounded on the door and said,

"They got my dad, they got my dad."

We went into the house and called the sheriff

and told him what was going on.

(police radio chatter)

The next morning, when we did see the car,

it was shoved in a ditch.

(chatter continues)

Alvina: Synanon thought Dad was gonna try to drive away,

so they shoved us into the ditch so we couldn't go anywhere.

Robert: Finally, when we see my dad,

he had a bloody nose. His shirt was torn.

They kept saying, "We're gonna finish...

"We'll finish you, you two-bit farmer.

We're gonna finish you tonight, you two-bit farmer."

Robert: He said, "If they'd gotten me out of the car,

it would've been the end."

When people get pumped up like that, there was just no...

no stopping them.

♪♪

Bill: I remember thinking to myself,

this, this isn't Synanon. What...

What in the hell is happening?

I had grown up in a place

where there's no threat of physical violence,

let alone physical violence.

I felt like... I'm 19.

I have my life in front of me,

and I'm not sure that I wanna be here.

Um, and...

that's when I left.

♪♪

Narrator: This is backcountry in the Sierra foothills,

neighboring Sequoia National Park.

This 360-acre camp was once a riding academy.

Now, it's been reshaped into a Synanon facility.

Badger was kind of isolated up there in the mountains.

(birds chirping)

That property was really lovely,

and it was very sort of wild.

(beep)

Badger was two facilities.

The home place because Chuck moved there with Betty.

The other property was called The Strip.

We built a runway that could land a 737.

It was that big an airstrip.

Speaker 1: We cut a road in and dammed up the creek.

- (laughing) - Speaker 2: Much to our neighbors' surprise.

Yeah, much to our neighbors' surprise.

(trucks idling)

Chuck: There's some very powerful people who were fixing

to make a barrel of money on an airstrip.

Well, we put one in first!

So, uh, um, some people may be mad at us.

We may need some defense.

We will not attack. We won't go to where they are,

but if they come to where we are

and drive on our property

and threaten to kill our people,

then, of course, we will mark them up

worse and worse and worse

until they get sick of it. That's what we will do. Now...

Bob: By this point, policies were being adopted

as to how Synanon

would actually, physically,

respond to-to violence committed against us.

And so,

Chuck came up with the idea of the Imperial Marines.

- (military music playing) - (footsteps marching)

Rod: It was the Punk Squad on steroids.

And they were gonna be the protectors of Synanon

and make sure that no one messed with us, you know?

Lance Kenton: The Imperial Marines were an attempt to develop

a sort of cohesive response team

that could deal with any kind of incident.

I got picked! I didn't pick it.

(birds chirping)

They just put us in the middle of nowhere with nothing.

We didn't see anybody for three months.

We got up in the morning, we ran,

we did karate,

we built a huge obstacle course,

we meditated,

and at nights, we'd sit around the fire,

and we would talk, you know, and we spent hours doing that.

Someone said, "What are we gonna call ourselves?" And then,

"How about this? Her Majesty's Imperial Marines."

Like, okay.

And then, "Ah, Her Majesty sounds a bit funky.

Let's just make it the Imperial Marines."

It was a joke.

♪♪

Bob: Synanon had adopted a policy

of zero tolerance toward

any type of insult or intrusion

to our properties and to our people,

and that it would be met

with this aggressive response.

Reporter: The number of violent incidents involving outsiders

who crossed Synanon's path has increased sharply.

Richard Marino and Calvin Smith

say they were run off this road by Synanon trucks.

Synanon accused them of attempting to run down

some Synanon bicyclists.

Then, Marino and Smith say they were handcuffed and beaten

and their heads were shaved.

Hell, I thought they was, for real, they was gonna kill us.

The one man came up there and told us,

"We gotta take them both out and shoot them."

♪♪

Rod: Synanon did this frequently.

We had scrapes with the neighbors

and were involved in some violent incidents,

showed up at somebody's property and threatened them

and beat up some of the neighbors.

It was all part and parcel of the increasing paranoia.

There were only two categories of people.

People who were 100% in favor of Synanon

and everybody else who was the enemy.

Mike: As things started to progress with the kids,

and we started taking in more and more of these delinquents,

Chuck really got on his bandwagon

in one of those talks

that he so often had, and he goes,

"Why do we have children? Why do we have them?

"Just to carry our name or have something to look like us? You know?

"Why people are having children? They can't take care of them.

They can't... afford them. They end up in trouble."

Then he all of a sudden turned into this,

"Why don't we just stop having children?"

Chuck: But what about childlessness? You don't have any!

(on PA) We're going to take care of the world's children

and not indulge ourselves by having our own!

What about that? That's a revolutionary idea!

That was his edict. No more children in Synanon.

Therefore,

men should get vasectomies.

I think it was such advanced thinking.

I see sexual freedom for women,

I see men, who loved women and cared about them,

who did that,

and I see people who could make the decision to leave.

You could always leave.

You did not have to stay.

You were not being held captive.

Now, a lot of people left.

You know, a lot of people left. There's no question.

But I stayed. And I was...

Maybe I was brainwashed or committed

or whatever you wanna call it.

(upbeat music playing)

We have Synanon doctors in-house.

Next thing I know, here I am,

with a group of guys,

getting a vasectomy.

It was bizarre. No doubt it was bizarre.

And then afterwards, we're all... (laughs)

We're all in the same boat. We're all sitting there

with ice on ourselves. (laughs)

- (gentle splashing) - (seagulls cawing)

We all went back our little separate ways to heal.

I didn't know what a vasectomy was.

I didn't know what they actually did.

I was maybe 25.

I was so young and immature,

and I didn't understand anything

'cause I'd been on drugs or in Synanon.

No one even discussed it.

Phil: I felt right from the get-go

that to put any pressure at all

on one of these young kids

to permanently sterilize themselves

was a terrible idea, and it would make the organization

look like... a nuthouse.

(overlapping arguing)

Speaker: What's wrong with it, Ritter?

Phil: There were a couple of hundred,

maybe 300 guys,

who hadn't had vasectomies yet.

I guess it was Chuck, or probably Chuck,

who decided, you know, "Hey, it's time to wrap this up.

"Let's do all these vasectomies

over the next two or three days."

And I just went nuts.

(motorcycle engine revving)

(rumbling)

I got on my motorcycle and rode over

to the Marin County Sheriff's Office.

His response was,

"Let me get this straight.

"We got a bunch of drug addicts over there,

"who are all over 18 years old,

"and they have decided

"to voluntarily sterilize themselves,

and you want me to go over there and stop them?"

(Lynn laughs weakly)

That was his response.

The big shots in Synanon

made it clear that I was not welcome to return.

I was thrown out of Synanon.

And Lynn and I broke up over it.

Lynn Ritter: It was just a power move by Chuck.

"I can do this to you."

You know, "I can do anything with you guys."

Mike: The childlessness edict

turned into women who got pregnant

would also have to have an abortion.

Less than a week after my vasectomy,

you know, Stephanie found out that she was pregnant.

♪♪

And I'm like, "Oh crud, Jesus Christ,

what are we gonna do?"

And she said, "Well,

they're gonna probably make me get an abortion."

And so, that's what happened.

Stephanie and I were just

you know, troopers for-for the cause,

and never looked back, really,

and never talked about it very much.

(seagulls cawing)

The older I get, obviously,

the sadder it is.

When I look at my brothers, they all have grandkids now,

and I look at, you know, when the family gets together and...

I-I think about how old my child would have been

and what life would have been like and...

You think about it because, you know,

whatever time I have left on this earth,

it's something that I know I'll continue to miss

all the way till the day I die.

For sure. For sure.

- (gentle splashing) - (seagulls cawing)

Rod: It just... The drumbeat of this in Synanon,

first this, and then this, and then this.

And each one of them becoming much more difficult.

- (tense music playing) - The shaved heads,

the vasectomies, the abortions.

All these things were ways of stripping people

of their decision-making process.

That was Chuck's thing.

"I'm gonna do it 'cause I can do it,

"and I'm gonna see how far I can push you guys.

And if you revolt, I'ma throw you out."

So it really became authoritarian and dictatorial.

Jady: We no longer had board members

that had any kind of check on my dad.

There was nobody that ever

stood up to him in a real way.

It's the cautionary tale of what happens in groups

and what happens when someone has too much power

and that power is unfettered.

Marshall: Chuck was a master manipulator

in so many ways,

and he kept everyone in check.

And I can guarantee you, most of the people in Synanon

had no idea of the violence that was happening.

It was very compartmentalized.

For the kids,

corporal punishment was definitely something

that came from the top.

(somber music playing)

But, uh, for me, that really wasn't the trauma part.

Because Chuck also used humiliation

as a way to-to treat people.

Now here, we have demonstrators.

And these were the people that were assigned

to work in the school.

I guess you could call it a caretaker.

They were ostensibly demonstrating to us

how adults behave.

And very quickly,

I developed an adversarial relationship

to the demonstrators.

I found them to be, uh, fearsome.

I really was quite terrified by most of them.

Some of them legitimately so

because they had cruel streaks

and should not have been anywhere near children.

I remember getting a public spanking

in front of the whole school,

where they made me take down my pants all the way,

and my underwear. So, you know,

I had to drop trou in front of everybody

and getting just...

And I don't remember what I did wrong, but whatever it was,

they, you know, the entire school was there...

you know, all the kids... in front of all my friends.

It felt horrible.

Rebekah Crawford: The truth is that human beings,

we need our dignity.

And the one fear was that you would lose that dignity,

and that's, you know, by being humiliated.

And I think that was kind of what Synanon's power was.

Marshall: Imagine, like, a 9-year-old girl.

And they wanna humiliate you

because they say that your hygiene is not perfect.

And in front of an entire room of people,

they make you take off your pants

and your underwear and show that your underwear are clean...

In front of an entire... (stammers)

And still, to this day, I can see this person's,

like, utter, like...

you know, fear and, like, just absolutely petrified

that she's doing this or...

Yeah, pulling down people's pants

and beating the daylights out of them with a paddle

while they're naked in front of a huge group of people.

(birds chirping)

Rebekah: We were not bad kids.

We really were not bad kids.

But, the smallest transgression... I mean,

even just not having a smile on your face

could get you in trouble.

It didn't-didn't feel safe. It felt, you know...

I mean, it was terrifying.

Jady: I was titularly responsible for the school for years,

from 1976 on.

I had no idea that was going on.

It's horrifying to me to hear.

And painful.

And I have to say to myself,

if I had known about it, or if I'd been sitting there...

you know, in the room when it had happened,

would I have done anything?

I don't know. Probably not.

I don't know.

And I have to, you know, I have to...

acknowledge that.

(birds chirping)

My dad, he was my boss.

He controlled my life.

And I was not the personality that was gonna stand up

on my own two legs

at, you know, 20 or whatever and say,

"I think I'm gonna do things differently."

I didn't have the courage.

I wish I'd had more courage. I do.

Even Betty. I mean, I loved her,

and she was amazing for Synanon.

And she couldn't control him either.

And she went along, too, with what was happening.

But that's not unique to the charismatic leader.

That happens in other families, too.

And then, Betty got really sick.

I just... I, uh...

Jady: In January of 1977,

Betty started having this terrible pain

and couldn't breathe and everything.

We took her to the hospital.

It was lung cancer.

Very shocking.

Heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking for my dad,

who went into overdrive and mania around it.

And heartbreaking for the community,

for Synanon.

It was the family business.

And he was Dad, and she was Mom.

Elena Broslovsky: We were stunned

and sad.

(deep sigh)

Suddenly, she got sicker and weaker.

I remember coming into the room.

She was set up in a bed.

Chuck was sitting next to her,

wiping her brow, giving her water to sip,

and saying, "It's alright to let go.

It's going to be beautiful. It's alright to let go."

(sighs)

Elena: Around 3:00 that night was when she left.

- (sighs) - (gentle piano music playing)

- (choir harmonizing) - ♪ Mother to so many children ♪

♪ More than you can see ♪

♪ Oh, yeah ♪

Elena: The entire community mourned.

It was a profound, profound loss.

♪ Singing your song, Betty D ♪

♪ Betty D, oh yeah ♪

Jady: She was diagnosed in January,

- and she died in April. - (piano stops)

I was absolutely bereft. Just outta my mind.

My dad was going crazy,

screaming all the time on the Wire.

You know, he covered the pain with anger

because he couldn't grieve.

(birds chirping)

And he was a forward-moving kind of a person,

so I think he was trying to move on because...

you know, within three months, four months,

he was... he had moved on.

♪♪

Rebekah: He went on the Wire and asked

for any single woman who wished to apply

to be his wife that they should do so.

And my teacher, Ginny, applied.

She was teaching us when she got the call

on the Wire that he would like to make her his wife.

And she kind of burst into tears,

and we were all set loose that day.

Bob: Obviously, he wasn't in love with this woman.

He had just selected her.

They were together, and so it was deemed good.

So, Chuck extrapolated from that,

as he tended to do, to the whole community.

"Well, it was good for me. It's good for you."

Jady: My dad started pressuring me

about my husband and the idea

of getting me a new mate

that he thought was somehow better for me.

I broke up with him,

and then, the gals were charged with finding me a new mate.

I never felt like I had an option.

It's like, oh, this is what we're doing now.

And then, he just started with my brother

to get him a new mate.

Like, he basically broke up our marriages.

But then, that snowballed into

this is what we're all gonna do now.

We're gonna do this experiment.

We're gonna make love happen.

The conversation was in the air

about relationships

and making... making love happen.

We needed to learn that love can be made,

and it's just a matter of

more or less kind of a discipline

of cherishing somebody and caring for them,

and then love would emerge.

(projector whirring)

Mike: It was a Friday night,

and we had gotten the "Rocky One" movie.

Adrian!

- Adrian: Rocky! - Referee: 8-7 for Creed!

Mike: I remember coming out.

Everybody's like yelling and screaming

and running around... (stammering) What's... What...

"Oh, my God! Chuck just said

"that all relationships are over,

"and we need to find another partner

because that's what he did with Ginny!"

It was total panic.

And it grew and grew and grew,

and changing partners happened.

Jady: It was like, you know, names and people being hooked up and...

It seems absolutely madness now,

looking back.

Bonkers. Bonkers.

Bob: It was more or less a psychotic event

for a significant portion of the people

who suddenly had to break up

with the person they were perfectly happy with.

And, in the way these things tended to happen,

it had this sort of crazy drama to it.

My friend Lori Cook changed partners,

and her life had gotten better.

I said, well, why not try it?

♪♪

Ron: I'd been married to my wife for 17 years.

I truly was unhappy,

and she wasn't that happy in it either.

Connie Chung: Ron is an accountant.

He was married to Lori.

Now, he's married to Pamela.

Lori is married to Buddy.

Buddy: The question came up,

who should be with another person?

Who wants to be with another person?

And it kinda caught on.

I lucked out. I ended up with Naya.

I chose her. She agreed.

Chuck: People are looking for a reason.

Well, why should I leave this person? And that's absurd!

You do it because that's what we're doing now. You see?

So there just isn't any reason not to at all!

♪♪

Nobody was ordered to do it, but it was suggested.

"Hey, why don't you try this?" You know?

"Try seeing if you can fall in love with this person."

When I say optional, there was a lot of pressure.

You know, there could be a lot of pressure on somebody.

When changing partners came on, I-I didn't wanna do it.

I was in love with Teri. I...

I thought we had a great relationship.

She was the one that said we need to do this.

So we did it.

Miriam Bourdette: Chuck decided that Phil would be a good person

for me to get with.

That was it. We were together. I mean,

there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Judi Ehrlich: At changing partners,

all of the couples that were married

had to get divorced.

I got assigned to, like, learn how to do divorces. (laughs)

And, um, I think I must have done hundreds of them.

I wound up with a woman named Stephanie.

Her name was Stephanie Andreucci.

She was a chef.

(breeze blowing)

Mike: Stephanie and I, we were in love.

There was no question about it.

We were best friends.

She was just a really, a really great girl.

But they said to change partners, and...

We changed partners, you know? And we did it.

(indistinct chatter)

If we were in a normal state of mind,

we would sit there, as the normal people, saying,

"What are we doing here? What's this? Crazy?"

But we didn't have those conversations.

And that's how we survived in Synanon.

Ron Cook hooked me up with a woman

who I thought was beautiful and great,

and I just couldn't do it.

I could not be with her.

We had a Game. Ron was there. Chuck was there.

I said, "I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try."

It just went to a point where I just said...

"I can't do it."

And I went to Ron Cook, and I said,

"Ron, I can't do this. I think I have to leave.

Just, you know, just let me go." And...

This is what we do. We live in an experimental community.

If you don't like it, go. And a bunch of people left.

- (car rumbling) - (gentle music playing)

Mike: Middle of the night, 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning,

they come and they get me,

and they put me in the back of a pickup truck.

They drove me to San Francisco.

(birds chirping)

♪♪

They dumped me out in the middle of the street

with just the clothes on my back

and no money or anything,

and that was it. So, I was out of Synanon.

♪♪

Phil: After I was kicked out of Synanon,

Lynn served me with divorce papers

and gave me full-time custody of our daughter.

Lynn stayed in Synanon.

Lynn: Synanon could exert

a lot of pressure on people, and I was beginning to feel it.

Phil: Lynn was welcome to take our daughter

any time she wanted, and one day,

she just didn't bring her back.

Synanon gave Lynn a plane ticket

and sent the two of them across state lines illegally.

They ended up at the Detroit, Michigan facility.

I filed a petition to the court to bring in Chuck

because Synanon was aiding

the kidnapping of our daughter.

You know, I knew that Chuck and the organization

were not gonna be thrilled about the prospect

of having him on the witness stand under oath.

I got a visit from two

high-ranking people in Synanon.

They basically said that if I forced the issue

with putting Chuck on the stand, that something bad might happen.

To be honest with you,

I really wasn't worried about it.

I really didn't believe in my heart of hearts

that Synanon would ever hurt me.

(tense music playing)

(insects chirping)

I came home,

pulled into the driveway,

and as I was heading toward the door,

two guys came up behind me

with stocking masks on with...

three-foot-long clubs

and started beating on me. (clears throat)

- (echoing beating) - (yelling)

I got knocked down. I got a broken leg.

I got a broken arm.

I got a fractured skull.

Due to the skull fracture, I got cerebral meningitis.

So I was out for 22 days.

♪♪

(car revving)

With us this morning is Jack Hurst,

one of the founding fathers of Synanon.

He is now formally out of the organization.

When I saw my good friend Phil Ritter

laying in a hospital bed with his head caved in,

it was very obvious to me that it's time that I spoke out.

Synanon has, in fact, turned violent.

They view it as their right to, to use

any means to bring people into line.

- (rhythmic footsteps) - Reporter: Synanon,

under siege in what it describes as a "holy war,"

has taken the offensive.

♪♪

Violence became a solution for Chuck at some point.

People come on the property, they beat the hell out of 'em.

People say bad things in the media,

they go chase them down at their house.

Synanon members (chant): Boycott "TIME"! Boycott "TIME"!

Marshall: People sue you,

you beat them with baseball bats.

If you have somebody who goes power unchecked, (laughs)

then they're gonna do something sooner or later,

and it's gonna spiral outta control.

(applause, cheering)

Nobody checked Chuck.

(motorcycle rumbling)

Chuck: We never start anything.

We never do and never have.

But, nobody is going to mess with us.

Nobody.

(tense sting)

♪♪