Judgment for Ted Patrick
He may charge $7,500 per case, but Ted Patrick, 50, says he has been hired more than 2,000 times as a professional abductor. His targets are converts to zealous faiths he calls "cults." He helps harangue them out of their new beliefs through "deprogramming." Mostly they have been enthralled by the likes of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon or the Hare Krishnas. Patrick has also processed a woman whose mother opposed her impending marriage and—just this year—Susan Wirth, 35, a San Francisco college teacher whose mother wanted to wean her away from far-left politics.
In eight years, Patrick has been tried 13 times and convicted only twice—of misdemeanors. His usual defense: cult-naping is justified if parents think a convert, of whatever age, is in danger. Finally, in San Diego, he was convicted of felony kidnaping, for planning an abduction of a woman he never met. Last week, after hearing a parade of anticult witnesses, the judge gave him a light $5,000 fine and a year in local custody, during which he will be confined to the city.