Ted Patrick's methods involved abduction, forced confinement, physical restraint, and a variety of other civil rights violations, which ultimately led to him facing multiple criminal charges and civil proceedings.
29 Facts About Ted Patrick
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Ted Patrick was eventually convicted of a number of crimes, including kidnapping, false imprisonment and conspiracy.
3.
Ted Patrick was born in a red-light district of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in which he was surrounded by "thieves, prostitutes, murderers [and] pimps".
4.
Ted Patrick dropped out of high school in tenth grade to help support his family, worked a variety of jobs and opened a nightclub, then became co-chairman of the Nineteenth Ward in Chattanooga.
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In 1971, Mrs Samuel Jackson sought Ted Patrick's help in relation to her missing son, Billy.
6.
Ted Patrick ultimately left his full-time job in order to work on deprogramming full time.
7.
In 1976, Ted Patrick claimed that he had been personally involved in over a thousand deprogrammings.
8.
Ted Patrick eventually came to regard thousands of groups as cults, all of them operating with the same techniques and objectives.
9.
When interviewed about the possibility of similar murders and mass suicides happening in the US, Ted Patrick said "I think they are going to start happening like wildfire".
10.
In 1980, Ted Patrick was paid US$27,000 to carry out the deprogramming of Susan Wirth, a 35-year-old teacher living in San Francisco.
11.
Ted Patrick was hired by her parents, who objected to her involvement with activist groups: the "Coalition to Fight the Death Penalty" and the "African People's Solidarity Committee".
12.
Ted Patrick was later released and after returning to San Francisco spoke out against deprogramming but declined to press legal charges against her parents or Patrick.
13.
Some criminal proceedings against Patrick have resulted in felony convictions for kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment resulting from his deprogramming efforts.
14.
In December 1974, Patrick was acquitted of kidnapping charges in Seattle, Washington.
15.
Ted Patrick broke free and returned to Seattle where she sued Patrick for false imprisonment, but Judge Walter T McGovern absolved Patrick, comparing his situation to a person rushing into a street to save a child from oncoming traffic.
16.
In January 1975, Wendy Helander alleged that Patrick attempted to deprogram her from the Unification Church for fourteen hours straight after her parents tricked her into coming to a house in northern Connecticut.
17.
In May 1975, Patrick was convicted of holding Joanne Rogin Bradley, a 19-year-old convert to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, against her will in Orange County, California.
18.
In May 1976, Ted Patrick failed to appeal the conviction in the Orange County Superior Court.
19.
Ted Patrick was sentenced to one year in prison in June 1976.
20.
Peter Rudie, a lawyer named as a defendant, claimed that Ted Patrick was not part of the conversation that took place in June 1976 and that he was not in Portland at the time.
21.
Ted Patrick failed to appeal the conviction in 1982 in the California Supreme Court.
22.
Ted Patrick's parents were seeking to "deprogram" her from her lesbian relationship with Thiemann.
23.
Ted Patrick had referred Goss and Roe, a friend of Ted Patrick's son, to Riethmiller's parents.
24.
Ted Patrick was on probation when the incident occurred, and Riethmiller's parents paid him US$8,000 to organize the deprogramming.
25.
In late 1983, Ted Patrick was found guilty of violating the civil rights of Richard Cooper, a member of the Divine Light Mission.
26.
The jury ordered Ted Patrick to pay US$40,000 in punitive damages and US$10,000 in compensatory damages.
27.
Ted Patrick was unable to pay the damages immediately due to the years of legal battles.
28.
In 1990, Patrick attempted to deprogram Elma Miller, an Amish woman who had joined a liberal sect.
29.
Ted Patrick was hired by her husband to return her to him and the Amish church.