The Moonies’ lies about their identity actually happened ON THE 12 TH DAY (Mr. Molko) and on the 23rd Day (Ms. Leal - another Plaintiff) of the intensive indoctrination. I cut & pasted the Facts from the case, so you can read for yourself.
FACTS
A. Facts as to David Molko n5
n5 Molko, Leal, and the Church have stipulated that the deposition testimony of Tracy Leal, David Molko, Stanley F. Leal, Collette Zeilinski, and Ernest Gibbs Patton, Jr. -- which was extensively quoted in the papers supporting and opposing the Church's motion for summary judgment -- be included in the clerk's transcript on appeal. Accordingly, we take judicial notice of the deposition transcripts and consider them part of the record for purposes of this appeal. (Evid. Code, § 452, subd. (d).)
In June 1978 27-year-old David Molko graduated from Temple University School of Law. A month later he took and passed the
On Sunday, January 21, Mark Bush and Ernest Patton approached Molko as he waited at a bus stop in . Bush and Patton told Molko they lived in an "international community" of socially conscious people from different occupations who met in the evenings to discuss important issues. They invited Molko to come to dinner that evening. Molko asked the two their occupations and was told they did social work and worked with environmental programs. He asked if Bush and Patton had a "religious connection." They said "no." Bush and Patton did not reveal to Molko that they were members of the , or that their purpose in approaching him and inviting him to dinner was to recruit him into the Church.
Molko attended the dinner, at which there appeared to be a number of other invited guests. He was kept apart from the other guests, and during [*1103] dinner was held in constant conversation with group members. After dinner there was a lecture on general social problems, followed by a slide show on "Boonville" -- a "farm" a few hours to the north, owned by the group at the house. The slide show depicted Boonville as a rural getaway where people from the house went for relaxation and pleasure. When the presentation was concluded, all the dinner guests were invited to visit the farm. Bush, Patton, and another group member, David Hager, strongly urged Molko to accept the invitation, and told him a van would be leaving for Boonville in a few minutes. Molko said he had no personal belongings with him, and he preferred to think about it. The group members assured him they would provide for all his needs, and again urged him to go. Impressed by this hospitality and enthusiasm, Molko finally agreed to go. At their request he then filled out and signed a form declaring his name, address, and telephone number, n6 and 15 minutes later was in a van on his way to Boonville. He did not know and was not told Boonville was an indoctrination facility for the .
n6 The Church claims the form identified the program at Boonville as being associated with the . Molko claims it did not. The Court of Appeal acknowledged this created a factual dispute, but deemed the dispute immaterial because of the conclusions the court reached in holding the Church was entitled to summary judgment. Because we reach different conclusions, we do not, as will be seen, find the dispute immaterial.
The van arrived at Boonville several hours later. Molko was given a sleeping bag and shown to a shelter where others were already sleeping. He quickly fell asleep, and awoke the next morning to discover that many more people than just the 12 from the van were sleeping in the large room. When he arose and walked to the bathroom, a group member arose and walked with him. Wherever he went, a group member accompanied him.
Molko expected to spend some relaxed time in the country, but soon learned the day's schedule was tightly planned and left him no time to himself. First came group calisthenics, then breakfast, then a lecture on moral and ethical issues, followed by small group discussions of the lecture. Next came lunch, more exercise, another lecture and discussion, then a break to take a shower. Finally came dinner, "testimonials" by individuals about their lives and their impressions of the day at Boonville, and group singing followed by yet another small group discussion. At the end of the day Molko was exhausted and quickly fell asleep.
Tuesday was a repeat of Monday, except that Molko became acquainted with group member Bethie Rubenstein. He asked her the name of the group, and she told him it was the "Creative Community Project." He asked if the group was associated with any religious organization, and she told him "no." By the end of Tuesday, Molko was tired, uncomfortable and [*1104] concerned about the direction his life was taking. He informed Patton and Bush he desired to return to . They told him he was free to leave and that a bus would depart at three o'clock in the morning, but they strongly urged him to stay and hear [***127] the important information that would be [**51] discussed in the days to come. Molko agreed to stay on a little longer.
Wednesday and Thursday were exactly like Monday and Tuesday -- even the two-day cycle of lectures was repeated verbatim. The lecturers spoke of brotherly love and social problems, and included references to God and some amount of prayer. On Wednesday, Rubenstein informed Molko the group's teachings derived from many philosophical sources, including Aristotle, Jefferson, and Reverend Sun Myung Moon. She did not disclose that Reverend Moon was the group's spiritual leader.
On Friday night, Molko was told the group was about to leave Boonville for "" -- another group-owned retreat used on weekends. Molko said he wanted to return to , but again was urged to give the group a few more days. He agreed and made the trip to , still oblivious of his involvement with the .
The exercise-lecture-discussion regimen continued throughout both the weekend at and the following week back at Boonville, during which Molko became increasingly disoriented and despairing of his future. On Friday -- his 12th day of continuous group activity -- Molko once again asked if the group was involved with any larger organization. Finally, a member named Gloria revealed to him for the first time that the group was part of the . He was confused and angry, but was informed the deception was necessary because people who had heard negative stories about the Church tended to be unreceptive if they knew the group's identity before hearing what it had to say. He agreed to stay and try to work out his confusion.
That night he returned to , where he remained for approximately five to seven weeks of "advanced training." The same regimen and structure continued during this period. Molko's parents, concerned about his welfare, flew from in late February to talk to him. They stayed a week, but saw their son for only a few hours, and only in the presence of Church members. The parents urged him to come home briefly, but he refused. Molko -- who by this time had been taught that his parents were agents of Satan trying to tempt him away from the Church -- was confused by the visit, but remained with the Church. His parents returned to .
[*1105] On finishing his advanced training at , Molko was judged ready to go back to the city to sell flowers and "witness" n7 for the Church. Shortly thereafter, in early April, two Church leaders told Molko the Church desperately needed funds for taxes, and urged him to give money. He donated $ 6,000 to the Church. Sometime during this period he also became a formal Church member.
n7 "Witnessing" is the 's name for the process of recruiting new members on the street. Bush and Patton, for example, were witnessing when they persuaded Molko to come to dinner.
Open and candid witnessing is employed by other religious denominations.
Church leaders advised Molko he could help the Church most by becoming a member of the bar, and promised that the Church would pay for his bar review course. He agreed, and studied for and took the bar examination while living in the Church's house. As he left the final session of the bar examination, however, Molko was abducted and taken to a motel by "deprogrammers" hired by his parents. After three days of deprogramming, Molko terminated his association with the .
B. Facts as to Leal
In June 1979 19-year-old Tracy Leal completed her freshman year at . She had found the college large and impersonal; she considered transferring to in northern , but desired to visit the school before applying for admission. To that end she bought a bus ticket to Humboldt and set out on Sunday, June 7. [***128] The trip required changing busses in .
[**52] While waiting for her bus in , Leal was approached by member Collette Zielinski, who was witnessing for the Church. Zielinski told Leal she was waiting for a friend arriving from . Leal remarked that she loved to ski and had always wanted to go to . Zielinski said her friend was also a skier and perhaps Leal would like to talk to her. Church member Bradford Parker then arrived, and Zielinski and Parker told Leal about the house in which they lived. They said they were part of the "Creative Community Project," described as a group of socially concerned professional people involved in good works such as giving food to the poor. They invited Leal to have lunch and go sightseeing with them, then join them for dinner at the house. They assured Leal she could catch another bus to Humboldt later that evening. Leal asked if Zielinski and Parker were part of a religious group, and said she did not want to get involved with them if they were. They replied only [*1106] that the people in their group "all came from different religious backgrounds." Leal accepted their invitation.
That evening Leal went to the group's house for dinner. Like David Molko, she was kept apart from other dinner guests and was held in constant conversation with Church members. She heard the same lecture, saw the slide show on Boonville, and received the same invitation to go there. She accepted the invitation, signed the same kind of form, n8 and a few minutes later was on the bus to Boonville. Like Molko, she did not know Boonville was part of the .
n8 Leal states the form she signed did not identify the . She took it to be some kind of "hold harmless" form for the trip to Boonville.
At Boonville Leal experienced the same exercise-lecture-discussion regimen Molko received five months earlier. On Tuesday, her second day at Boonville, she asked Joshua, a codirector of the camp, whether the group was part of a religious organization, and specifically whether they were "Moonies." Joshua said they were not Moonies, but were a form of Christian group. He said, however, they were "keeping quiet about it for a while" because they did not want to frighten people away.
After two days at Boonville, Leal went for a two-week seminar at During this period she experienced the same type of doubts and fears as had Molko. At the end of the two weeks, she again asked Zielinski and Parker if the organization was "part of the Moonies." They assured her it was not. Later that evening they added that, while they were not Moonies, they did follow some of the teachings of Reverend Moon. Five days later -- twenty-two days after recruiting Leal at the bus depot -- they informed Leal they were in fact part of the .
Leal remained with the group after learning its identity. During the next two months her family visited her and tried to convince her to get away from the Church for a while. She told her parents she would not leave the house with them for fear of being abducted and deprogrammed. On September 1 Leal flew to , for a month-long series of advanced lectures, at the conclusion of which she became a formal Church member. From she went to , where she sold flowers on the street to raise money for the Church. On October 29, Leal was abducted from a by deprogrammers hired by her parents. The deprogrammers successfully persuaded Leal to abandon her association with the
