S1|E5: The Breeders

Summary

The Sunshine Place: Episode S1|E5 - The Breeders

Release Date: August 31, 2022
Hosted by: Sari Crawford
Executive Producers: Robert Downey Jr., Susan Downey, Emily Barclay Ford, Josh McLaughlin

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Introduction to Synanon and Key Figures

Season 2 of The Sunshine Place dives deep into the controversial world of Synanon, an experimental teen rehab program that evolved into a manipulative and abusive cult. This episode, titled "The Breeders," focuses on the inner workings of Synanon, shedding light on its leadership, policies, and the harrowing experiences of those involved.

Key Figures:

• Chuck Diederich: Founder and charismatic leader of Synanon.
• Ron Cook: President of Synanon, responsible for financial management.
• Mike Gimbel: Director of Synanon's boot camp and former high school heroin addict.
• Elena Broslovsky: Survivor who gave birth and raised her child in Synanon's hatchery.
• Corey Becker: Last generation parent in Synanon's breeder program.
• Phil and Lynn Ritter: Participants in Synanon's breeding program.

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Leadership and Control: Chuck’s Dominance

Chuck Diederich wielded immense power within Synanon, using the organization's internal broadcasting system, "The Wire," to disseminate his commands and ideologies. His approach was authoritarian, often enforcing drastic measures to maintain control and ensure loyalty.

• Chuck’s Authority:
  • [02:33] Chuck addressed a woman who stole a camera, enforcing punitive measures: "If you were a man, we'd already have you in a pot sink with your head shaved."
  • [05:14] Chuck imposed lifestyle changes: “When his doctor told him he should quit smoking, everyone in Synanon had to give up smoking, too.”

Chuck’s methods extended to using social pressure and peer enforcement to ensure compliance. For instance, when Ron Cook objected to women shaving their heads, Chuck responded vehemently:

• [03:30] Ron Cook recalls confronting the plan for women to shave their heads, leading to widespread compliance: “Within two hours, every woman in Synanon shaved their head, even Betty.”

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Financial Management and Expansion

Synanon operated with a business-like structure, significantly diverging from typical rehab programs. Under Ron Cook's leadership, the organization managed millions in assets, utilizing donations and real estate holdings to sustain and expand its influence.

• Financial Strategies:
  • [06:18] Ron Cook discusses the financial salvation Synanon experienced through unexpected donations: “A wealthy woman made a donation… If that money had not come, then we would have been in trouble.”
  • [11:23] Chuck began paying himself and the board substantial salaries, transforming Synanon into a corporate-like entity: “I run Synanon like Gulf Oil.”

This corporate approach led to internal tensions regarding financial distribution, with board members receiving significant compensation while the broader community struggled with resource allocation.

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The Breeders Program: Control Over Parenthood

A pivotal aspect of Synanon's control was its stance on parenthood and child-rearing. The "Breeders" program was an initiative where Synanon members were encouraged—or coerced—to relinquish their biological children, placing them in controlled environments.

• Hatchery System:
  • [20:19] Corey Becker explains the breeder program: “Anybody that had a child in Synanon at that point, the child went into the hatchery.”
  • [23:36] Elena Broslovsky describes the hatchery as an experimental nursery separated from the community: “It was like a beautiful bed for me and my child. It looked out over Tamales Bay… It was like heaven for me.”

Children were initially placed in the "hatchery," an experimental nursery, and later transitioned to the Synanon School. The process was emotionally devastating for parents, exemplified by Corey Becker’s recounting of her forced separation from her daughter:

• [24:08] Corey Becker: “I was a good soldier. I'm making this sacrifice for Synanon because I'm a true believer… I gave my child up for adoption at birth to Synanon.”

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Enforcement of Childlessness

Synanon's policies evolved to enforce childlessness among its members, under the guise of liberating women from traditional familial bonds. This policy was aggressively promoted and enforced through surgeries and social pressures.

• Mandatory Vasectomies:
  • [36:09] Chuck explains the rationale behind vasectomies: “There's no profit in this community in raising children…”
  • [37:39] Members like Andre James describe the pressure to comply: “Social pressure is a… Social pressure will make you feel you have to do something when no one has said you have to do it.”

Nearly 200 men underwent vasectomies, a move justified by Chuck as a step towards women’s liberation from "the bondage" of single-child motherhood:

• [40:33] Chuck draws parallels between childbirth and trivial acts: “He compared the act of giving birth to, quote, crapping a football.”

Women, on the other hand, faced coerced abortions, reflecting the organization's extreme control over reproductive rights:

• [37:05] Chuck admits a personal conflict: “I feel more guilty than anything else I ever did in Synanon not speaking up about that near term abortion.”

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Abuse and Resistance Within Synanon

The episode highlights severe abuses inflicted upon members, particularly children, and showcases the resistance from those who dared to oppose Chuck’s directives.

• Harsh Punishments:

  • [30:00 – 33:03] Elena Broslovsky narrates the punitive measures against children, including public humiliation and physical abuse: “They would pull your pants down so that you're naked from the waist down and spanking your bare ass with a paddle.”

• Internal Dissent:

  • [44:52] Phil Ritter challenges Synanon’s policies, leading to his ostracization: “It was wrong for Synanon to put pressure on people to [get vasectomies], and I wasn't gonna do it.”

Phil's resistance culminates in a dramatic confrontation where Chuck threatens severe repercussions:

• [46:14] Chuck declares, “If you go against Chuck, you might pay with your life.”

This instilled a climate of fear, ensuring strict adherence to Chuck’s mandates and suppressing any form of dissent.

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Synanon’s Decline and Final Days

The culmination of relentless control, financial mismanagement, and systemic abuse led to Synanon's downfall. As internal conflicts intensified and legal scrutiny mounted, the facade of a supportive rehab community crumbled, revealing its true nature as a manipulative cult.

• Final Struggles:
  • [47:33] Ron Cook recounts a critical confrontation with law enforcement: “He wanted me to send sheriffs over there to stop them. And then he called Synanon and basically said, I've got one of your crazies over here.”

This incident underscores the law enforcement's awareness of Synanon's problematic practices, further pressuring the organization.

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Personal Accounts and Emotional Toll

The episode is enriched with personal testimonies from former members, detailing the emotional and psychological trauma endured within Synanon.

• Elena Broslovsky on Childhood Abuse:

  • [28:31] Elena describes idyllic early memories: “We had a creek near where we lived… It was charming. And even now, thinking back on it, it's so lovely and so pure.”
  • However, she details the rapid deterioration: “When I was six years old, we moved to a different property… it was pure hell.”

• Corey Becker on Forced Separation:

  • [23:54] Corey shares her painful experience of having her daughter placed in the Synanon School: “Putting her in the school was one of the most painful experiences of my life.”

These narratives highlight the profound human cost of Synanon's manipulative practices, emphasizing the lasting scars left on its members.

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Conclusion

"The Breeders" episode of The Sunshine Place offers a comprehensive and harrowing exploration of Synanon's transformation from a rehab program to a controlling cult. Through detailed personal accounts and insightful commentary, the episode sheds light on the mechanisms of power, manipulation, and abuse perpetrated by leadership, particularly Chuck Diederich. The testimonies of former members underscore the profound emotional and psychological impacts, serving as a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked authority and the vulnerability of those seeking help.

Notable Quotes:

• Ron Cook [01:30]: "If everybody shaves their head, somebody needs to keep their hair in order to show the contrast."
• Chuck Diederich [12:04]: “That's the way it is all over the world. I'm glad that the world is filled with such. It leaves more for me.”
• Elena Broslovsky [28:31]: “What they had started to do was incorporate all the things for the punk squad into day to day life for all the kids.”
• Phil Ritter [44:52]: “It was wrong for Synanon to put pressure on people to do it, and I wasn't gonna do it.”

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For those interested in exploring the dark intersections of parenting, cult dynamics, and systemic abuse within rehabilitation programs, "The Breeders" serves as a poignant and eye-opening episode of The Sunshine Place.

Transcript

[Sari Crawford]

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[Ron Cook]

Somebody in the engineering department designed a building, and there was a beam. Well, the beam was right here at this level. So if you walked, you smack your head if you're not looking. So Chuck saw that, and he says, that's the stupidest thing I ever saw. Why don't they cut a piece out of the beam? It's not going to ruin the structure of the building. And then he says, I think anybody that had anything to do with that stupid thing there should have their head shaved. So the whole construction department ended up with bald heads. Then Chuck said, you know, I think that anybody who lives in a community where that kind of stupidity goes on should have a bald head. And he shaved his head, too. All the men shaved their heads except for one. Me.

[Sari Crawford]

This is Ron Cook. Ron held the title of president in Synanon, just below Chuck in the hierarchy.

[Ron Cook]

And I said, if everybody shaves their head, somebody needs to keep their hair in order to show the contrast. And it isn't just a bunch of crazy people shaving their heads. And so my wife and I are having lunch with Chuck and Betty, and Betty Diederich is saying, you know, I don't think it's fair all these years. The men always get to make the demonstrations, and the women never get to do it or participate, and we get left out. And there's a whole women's movement going on. And Betty was talking about it. My wife adored Betty, and she just kind of looking and nodding. A little later, Chuck Jr. Comes rushing into my offices. He says, listen to the Wire. The women are going to shave their heads. And I said, oh, my God, we can't do that. We're going to look like a kooky cult.

[Sari Crawford]

The Wire was Synanon's internal broadcasting network. It allowed for instant communication between facilities. It was a radio station, basically. And sometimes there would be a Synanon game broadcast live for the whole community. This time, Chuck was speaking on the Wire, as he often did.

[Mike Gimbel]

This woman got caught stealing a camera. And so Chuck, he's going to address this girl who stole the camera.

[Chuck Diederich]

I want to use what you just did.

[Sari Crawford]

Mike Gimbel worked his way up from high school heroin addict to the director of Synanon's boot camp. And he remembers hearing Chuck on the wire that day.

[Mike Gimbel]

And he says, hey, if you were a man, we'd already have you in a pot sink with your head shaved. Now, if you really believe in women's lib, go shave your head and get in the pot sink. And she got up and she walked out, and they shaved her head.

[Ron Cook]

So I ran into the game. I was going to say something, and there was my wife sitting in the chair, and somebody was about to remove her hair. And I said, before you turn yourself into an ugly pig, I want to talk about this in a Synanon game. They stopped. I turned around and walked out. I'm halfway back to where the game was, and I looked behind me, and all the women are walking with their heads hanging low, including the founder's wife, Betty. So I knew I was in fucking trouble, you know? So we walk in, we sit down, and I got into my protest to the women shaving their heads. And Chuck bellows out. He says, ron, that's the problem with you. You're always getting in the way of change. And the girls went, yay. Ran out, shaved their head. And this was broadcast through the whole Synanon community.

[Mike Gimbel]

Within two hours, every woman in Synanon shaved their head, even Betty. Even though a lot of the women didn't want to do it, that peer pressure was there. It showed the power of the group to get people to do things. Chuck, he really knew what he was doing because he called this special game, Put it on the Wire. Everybody was listening, and he was given a message out to everybody. It was pretty amazing, that power.

[Sari Crawford]

Chuck used that power to move Synanon in any direction he wanted, sometimes on a whim. And usually what was good for Chuck was good for everybody else. Like when his doctor told him he should quit smoking, everyone in Synanon had to give up smoking, too. And when Betty was diagnosed with diabetes, it was sugar.

[Mike Gimbel]

And he said, maybe we should all do it. Maybe everybody should just give it up. And within a day or two, it became law. He would do that a lot. There was another way for Chuck to test the. The loyalty. Because every time he would do something, any kind of change, people would leave. That was a big part of his plan anyway. Those that left made everyone else stronger towards Synanon, and he knew how to sell what he wanted. To do to the masses. Little did we know what was in store.

[Sari Crawford]

My name is Sari Crawford, and this is the sunshine place. Here again is Ron Cook, who was the president of Synanon.

[Ron Cook]

Shortly after I got involved with Synanon, we had bought a lot of properties on the first of the month, every month, there was a $50,000 mortgage payment that had to be made one day on the 31st of the month. We had no money. We were going to be in default on all these properties. I really didn't know what to do. On the first day of the month, opened up the mail, and in the mail was a deposit receipt from the San Francisco facility for $50,000, exactly the amount we were short. A wealthy woman made a donation. And I said, you know, we didn't know that money was coming. If that money had not come, then we would have been in trouble. Chuck says, ron, did we default on our payments? And I said, no, sir, we did not. And he says, in the future, can you stop wasting time talking about things that never happened? That was my introduction to the financial management of Synanon.

[Sari Crawford]

Ron Cook came to Synanon as a lifestyler. He was an accountant, and his skill set made him very valuable to Chuck. Synanon had millions of dollars in assets like real estate and donated goods and services.

[Ron Cook]

People would come in, and whatever they had, they would give. Yeah, I got this old car. Great. Give your car. I got $1,000. Okay, we want the thousand dollars. Some of them contributed a lot through the years. Some of them just stole and left. And all of the people felt like they were contributors. Well, a lot of them weren't putting in enough money to support themselves if they had lived out of syn and on an apartment and had to buy food and provide medical. We had doctors who would donate their services. And then other people chime in and they say, well, what happened to all the money?

[Sari Crawford]

Mike Gimbel.

[Mike Gimbel]

I got called into a meeting with Ron Cook, the. At the time president, and he offered me this position of being the dog robber for all the board of directors. It was an old military job. The person who took care of the generals in the army was called a dog robber.

[Sari Crawford]

So Mike became a dog robber, which was like being an executive assistant for Ron Cook and the board of directors.

[Mike Gimbel]

And it was kind of like making sure that their houses were taken care of, their cars were taken care of, whatever they wanted, whatever they needed. The old man lived up on the hill in this beautiful home in this big, giant mansion. But Ron Cook and Chuck Jr. And Chuck's brother and J.D. his daughter. They had their own homes at the home place. They always stayed wherever the founder was. There was no question that they lived a different lifestyle than everybody else. But they would intermingle with everyone and be close to the people as much as possible. He would come down often to the main dining room, but he had his own table in the corner. And every once in a while he would invite people to eat with him there. Usually the big shots would sit there with him and eat.

[Ron Cook]

He had a special table and there was always some young waitress that would wait on his table. Only he had servants, maids, cooks. He drove an expensive car. He lived very lavishly.

[Chuck Diederich]

A lot of guys could do this from an old Ford roadster. I need a Cadillac.

[Ron Cook]

Chuck used to say, synanon is not the Salvation Army. I run Synanon like Gulf Oil.

[Sari Crawford]

When Chuck was a young man, he worked for Gulf Oil in a management position. So he had an understanding of corporate structure.

[Ron Cook]

So he took what he knew from a big business and started applying it to Synanon very early on. And he said, as chairman of the board and founder of Synanon, why should I live in a building sitting on a soapbox when somebody who does the same job as I do gets paid millions of dollars every year to do that? That's not the American way.

[Sari Crawford]

Chuck started paying himself a salary of $100,000 a year and gave himself a pre retirement bonus of a half a million dollars. He also started paying salaries to the board of directors and other high ranking people in Synanon. Here's Robert Navarro who spoke in an earlier episode about how the influx of lifestylers caught the attention of the irs.

[Ron Cook]

The board started paying itself really well. There were tensions about that. You know, who got the money, how much money.

[Mike Gimbel]

It was a lot of dough for Synanon's purposes that the rest of us.

[Ron Cook]

Were getting walking around money.

[Chuck Diederich]

The asshole that's doing all the work, of course, doesn't get any of the pay. That's the way it is all over the world. I'm glad that the world is filled with such. It leaves more for me. The world can't support all the assholes the way I want to be supported. Not many people know how to live like I do. They don't. They don't know how to be rich. It takes a long time.

[Sari Crawford]

Chuck never had much success as a family man, but he'd become a very successful businessman and it seemed like he was trying to consolidate his efforts. He had been estranged from his children early in their Lives, but. But now they both lived with him in Synanon and followed him into the family business. And it was expanding. Synanon bought some land near Fresno, close to Sequoia national park in Yosemite, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, in a place called Badger. Chuck and his family moved there in 1974, and Badger became the new home place.

[Mike Gimbel]

Mike Gimbel and Synanon, like, just went in there and just started building. Badger had an old airfield. We refurbished the airfield and helped build the Synanine Air Force. They gone out and bought half a dozen planes, Cessnas, and Ron Cook and a couple of them got their pilot's license. Then Badger became very accessible. You could go from Badger now to Santa Monica. You could go to Badger to San Francisco. And it made everything much more mobile. Now, between their motorcycles and their airplanes and all these facilities, they were moving around a lot. And then Chuck had his place. His home place was gorgeous. And that's where the best of everything was. And everything was for him and the rest of us, even Ron Cook and some of the other board members lived down the road a little bit in these trailers. But believe me, people would fly in and drive right over to Home Place. It was a place people could go and have vacation. And that's why he kept his brother Bill and his son Chuck Jr. And J.D. over there with him to be close. They had everything really organized. The place was growing. They were buying more land. They hooked the wire up.

[Sari Crawford]

Communications tool that also entertained.

[Mike Gimbel]

Every table at every facility was wired to the radio station.

[Sari Crawford]

Keep listening to the wire.

[Mike Gimbel]

It might be live, it might be a tape, but it was 24 7. Chuck Dieterik on the wire. He was able to reach out to everyone at a moment's notice. I was expected to audio tape all their meetings and all their big Synanon games. Diedrich was really big about taping everything and keeping records with everything. Literally, we had to just sit there and, you know, I'd have a room to the side. Everything was set up so I wouldn't be seen. And I would listen Chuck talking about changes or talking about things that were going to happen, hearing about, you know, how much money they made this month or lots of different things at that point. Everything was very exciting to hear that because I knew, you know, within hours or a day, it would end up reverberating throughout the whole foundation. And the next thing, you know, it would become the gospel. And he really had this thing about the children, and we were taking in more kids than ever, problem kids. The punks from the punk squad. And so Chuck would get on his high horse and start talking about, we've got throwaways, we got runaways, we got young kids on drugs, the violence. And that's selfish because we're not taking care of those kids. Why do we have to have kids anyway?

[Sari Crawford]

To Chuck, the world was full of children that needed help and Synanon could help them. That's what the punk squad was for. And taking in the punks helped with the irs. Raising the children of Synanon members was expensive. Chuck was in his 60s now. He was on his third marriage. His kids were grown and he was a grandfather. He was done having kids. So now everyone else in Synanon would be done having kids too. I think children are a very bad investment.

[Chuck Diederich]

We have not cashed in on any children born into Synanon. As we gather with loved ones this.

[Sari Crawford]

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[Chuck Diederich]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Chuck Diederich]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Chuck Diederich]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Chuck Diederich]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Chuck Diederich]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Chuck Diederich]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Elena Broslovsky]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Chuck Diederich]

Rashawn, that's My child was born in Synanon in 1975. I was about 28 when he was born, and three years previously I was a dopene in Rikers Island.

[Sari Crawford]

This is Gary Williams. He came to Synanon as a heroin addict from Harlem. After meeting his wife and getting married, he was presented with an opportunity to be part of the last generation of parents to have children in Synanon.

[Chuck Diederich]

I was part of a group called the Breeders. It was a proposition that was given to us that this is going to be the last group of children that were born in Synanon and raised in Synanon. If you want, you can be part of this breeder program and that's what we did. Anybody that had a child in Synanon at that point, the child went into the hatchery.

[Sari Crawford]

The hatchery was another one of those uniquely Synanon terms. It was an experimental nursery where a group of newborn Synanon babies lived together with their mothers apart from the rest of the community. Elena Broslovsky, who spoke in an earlier episode about the trip, gave birth in Synanon and raised her son in the hatchery along with three other new moms. Not long before Chuck declared Synanon to be childless.

[Elena Broslovsky]

We had an entire house. The men stayed in their housing and the women set up for the hatchery. The woman who was closest to giving birth had what was called a nesting room in the main room, where the kitchen and the living room was. We had cribs and toys and all kinds of things set up changing tables, everything a new mother would need. And then this woman's baby was born. First, it was a beautiful girl. We were all excited. I'd never had a child. I had not been around infants before, and so my job became one of helping the other mothers while I was still pregnant and we shared the responsibilities of nursing each other's children. I did not mind being woken up in the middle of the night to nurse the children. I absolutely loved it. I remember sitting in a rocking chair taking a baby and feeling this strong and beautiful connection while I was able to feed from my body this growing child, and our eyes locked and connected, looking deep into her soul before she could talk, and the oxytocin flowed. I guess because I'm still close to that baby today who is in her 40s, and I view her as my daughter, I couldn't be closer to her than if blood rather than breast milk flowed between us. Then it was time for my baby to be born. And because my baby was the youngest, I had the nesting room. I had this beautiful bed for me and my child. And this room looked out over Tamales Bay. You know, I'm looking out at this sparkling water. It smelled amazing of pine trees. I had a beautiful, healthy child. It was like heaven for me.

[Sari Crawford]

After six months, all children left the hatchery and their biological parents and were placed into the care of the Synanon School. Parents could visit anytime they wanted. But visiting too much was discouraged. Chuck had a term for that, too. It made you a head sucker.

[Chuck Diederich]

Our worst problem might be very well removed, that is the parent. The worst thing that can happen to a child is that it has to have a parent, literally.

[Sari Crawford]

Here's Corey Becker, whose daughter Zoe was one of the last three children ever born in Synanon. Literally, weeks after my daughter was born, Chuck decided that Synanon would be childless. So I didn't have as pure an experience as Elena because I had that hanging over my head. It was the last hatchery in Synanon. I used to joke that I felt like I was walking around Synanon with a cigarette or a bottle of booze. You know, I was a walking enemy of the state because I had this newborn baby. So all the magic of it kind of disappeared. I had an experience that caused me stress because it was, in a sense, putting me at odds with Synanon. But when Zoe was six months old and ready to leave the hatchery, Corey had the chance to get back in the good graces of the community. She was asked to join the sales team, which meant she'd be on the road most of the time, away from her daughter. Putting her in the school was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Senan needs money, you know, and if you can string a sentence together, let's get you out on the sales team bringing money in. And I was a good soldier. I'm making this sacrifice for Sinan because I'm a true believer, and I know that Synanon is going to take care of my child better than I could. In a sense, I gave my child up for adoption at birth to Synanon. Ron Cook mentioned earlier that money was always tight. But that changed when Synanon Developed a sales division called Ad Gap, which stood for advertising gifts and premiums.

[Ron Cook]

Synanon Advertising gifts became bigger and bigger. It was a major source of our revenue.

[Sari Crawford]

That's where Corey was assigned to work. Her husband Jeff, who had been working for the punk squad, was reassigned to Ad Gap, too. We sold branded merchandise. Like, you know, a company would buy pens with their name on it, baseball caps, jackets, shirts, coffee cups, all that kind of material. Our salespeople were always really respected as being some of the best salespeople in the industry. But, you know, an added incentive is by buying from Synanon, you were supporting this program and people like me who.

[Chuck Diederich]

Had their life saved, literally.

[Sari Crawford]

Ad Gap salespeople were trained to tell their stories as part of the pitch. Jeff was a heroin addict from Philadelphia, and the mere fact that he was able to tell a story at all was miraculous. I was also a one man crime wave. I mean, I stall every day of.

[Chuck Diederich]

My life to support my habit.

[Sari Crawford]

I was arrested again. They took me down to the police station. As soon as they put me in a cell, I took off my blue jeans and I hung myself. Just remember waking up on the floor of the cell being pissed that it didn't work. Knowing how close.

[Chuck Diederich]

I mean, I had crapped myself. That's how close I was.

[Sari Crawford]

Imagine hearing that from the guy selling you office supplies. But it worked, and they would be impressed with my story. And I did have a tagline that always caught their attention, was that, you know, before Synanon, they went from Penn State to the state pen. They liked that. It's a good line. Admit it. As sales became a bigger priority in Synanon, it came at the expense of the school. I know it was an economic decision to not have children in Synonon. They started pulling out the best and the brightest of what we call demonstrators.

[Elena Broslovsky]

The people that were really, really good.

[Sari Crawford]

With kids and started putting them on the sales team. And other people came in. There were a few people that were a little damaged themselves, and they were given free reign. The care for the children devolved, and I didn't catch it, and I just feel terrible about it. Zoe had some horrible, miserable experiences that no kid should have to have.

[Elena Broslovsky]

My earliest memories of Synanon were actually really idyllic.

[Sari Crawford]

This is Zoe.

[Elena Broslovsky]

We had a demonstrator at night who would come in and tell us bedtime stories. And when I got sick, I would be in bed, and somebody would come and take care of me. There was a creek near where we lived in the Bay area in Marin county, where we got to turn over rocks, collect frogs. I mean, it was charming. And even now, thinking back on it, it's so lovely and so pure. And it got ruined so early. When I was six years old, we moved to a different property. We all got on a bus and moved to Badger, which was up in the foothills. All of the kids of various age groups were all kind of packed in there together. We had a uniform, a polo shirt with a pocket in it, and it had to be tucked into whatever crappy beige dance we had. We had to march in line. We are the script school, the mighty, mighty strip school. So what they had started to do was incorporate all the things for the punk squad into day to day life for all the kids. The intention behind it is these people should always be in trouble for something. I was in trouble for everything, every single day of my life. In synonym from the ages of 6 to 10 years old, I was in trouble in the morning because I wet the bed every single day. And since I wet the bed every day, I was supposed to wash my sheets every night. So I typically tried to hide them because I didn't want to deal with it. Then they'd find the sheets stuck in a closet and I'd get spanked. It varied from pulling your pants down so that you're naked from the waist down and spanking your bare ass with a paddle to allowing you to keep your pants on, but always in front of all of the kids. I got hit a lot too, but whatever, it hurt in the moment, and then we're done. In many ways, that's much easier to deal with than the psychological and mental abuse.

[Sari Crawford]

Zoe was forced to wear a sign around her neck with messages written on it.

[Elena Broslovsky]

The signs would say things like, I'm a liar. Ask me what I'm lying about. When I had to wear my signs, I would have to eat dinner at a table by myself, and if anybody tried to join me, I'd have to leave. I couldn't be seen eating with anybody else. If it was a bigger punishment, you would sit on the bench, which would indicate that you had done something so bad they were thinking about kicking you out of Synanon so that then you could endure communal humiliation where everybody who walked past you had the right to tell you what they thought about your behavior. We lived in dorm rooms, and then they ran out of space, so they moved us to a place that we called Depot Flats and had us all living in tents. And I don't mean like nice tents, I mean like tents where we would wake up in the middle of the night because it had been raining and there was water sitting on our face. And for a bedwetter, I'm here to tell you that was pure hell. There was no out, there was nowhere to go. It went from this experiment in raising children to who was it fucking Emerson. Emerson's essays about self reliance. Somebody took that to mean that we shouldn't be taking care of kids, they should be taking care of themselves. It was Chuck. He was always the boogeyman. The founder. The founder wants this to happen or the founder is going to say something over the wire.

[Ron Cook]

Our worst problem.

[Elena Broslovsky]

And then this gravelly, funky voice would come over the wire. I mean, we half expected him to, you know, come down on a cloud or something. It always felt weird. But for the kids, having each other has gotta be the only thing that kept us sane. We relied on each other because we were in a group of kids all going through the same thing. They're was this bonding that, you know, I just don't think happens outside of incredibly stressful, horrible long term situations. You know, brothers and sisters who grew up in abusive households tend to be closer throughout their life. You know, at the root of it is just this really heartbreaking neglect and abuse that occurred to us for most of our childhood. It was just lonely. It's just such a lonely childhood where I felt alone.

[Mike Gimbel]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Sari Crawford]

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[Mike Gimbel]

When I was working at the home place. I'd met Chuck's chef. Her and I became very close, very good friends, because she was a dope fiend, too. Her name was Stephanie.

[Sari Crawford]

This is Mike Gimbel again.

[Mike Gimbel]

And then Chuck said to us, you know, the two of you, really good role models, and, you know, you two should get married. Three days later, we were married. They wanted us to get married. We got married. Everything in Synanon was done to the extreme.

[Sari Crawford]

Chuck's policy on childlessness was no different.

[Chuck Diederich]

There's no profit in this community in raising children. If people walk to have children, they probably shouldn't join Synanon.

[Sari Crawford]

Everyone in Sydenon had stopped having children of their own, and they did it voluntarily. But that wasn't good enough for Chuck.

[Mike Gimbel]

He started talking about, every male in Synanon should get a vasectomy to prove that we're dedicated to taking care of the children of the world, and we're not going to have our own children. Within a day or two, we had all these doctors who were volunteering to give vasectomies to all the men in Synanon.

[Sari Crawford]

Here's Gary Williams, who was part of the last generation of parents in Synanon, known as the breeders.

[Chuck Diederich]

I was one of the first ones to get the vasectomy, and the thing that sold me was women had to get birth control and put all these chemicals in their body, and all the men needed to do was get snipped. So that's exactly what I did. But it was only for people that were in Synanon five years at the time. I was in Synanon a little bit over three years, and they made an exception. To me.

[Sari Crawford]

The five year prerequisite was more of a suggestion than a rule. Here's Andre James, who was in his mid-20s when he got his vasectomy.

[Chuck Diederich]

The doc didn't even want to do it. Andre, you're too young. Why are you doing this? I said, no, I know what I'm doing. I saw myself moving up the ranks into the upper management of synonym at some point. If I did it, it would raise my prestige in the organization. It was strategic as well as being kind of a personal challenge to say, am I halfway committed or I really committed? It's like the thing that happens when guys go into the military. They know they got to be 100% committed because their lives might be on the line. Social pressure is a. Social pressure will make you feel you have to do something when no one has said you have to do it. We had the wire, you know, the wireless in every. It went from just being in every public room to in every bedroom. You were being basically propagandized, you know, being fed the party line on a 247 basis. I would turn it off because, see, I had worked for Chuck, okay? It was like working with the wizard of Oz. He took me behind the curtain and said, look, it's a show. He would drive up on his motorcycle to the Monday night game, and then he'd come in, I'd bring him his cup of coffee, and he'd listen. And then he would start an indictment on one of his managers and tell him that he was going to fire them. They were useless. Why did they just go back to the streets and use drugs again? I mean, he just would take you apart and show you everything you've done wrong in your life because he knew so much about the people that were there. And then I would go out to bring him something as he's leaving because he wouldn't stay in the whole game, okay? He say, hey, Andrew, what do you think? How did I deal with that, huh? It's pretty good. He's laughing. I'm gonna go back and listen and see what they do. I'm thinking, oh, my God, it's a game to him. There were 12 of us, I think.

[Sari Crawford]

Yeah.

[Chuck Diederich]

Yeah, 12 of us. They called us the Breeders.

[Sari Crawford]

This is Phil and Lynn Ritter. They were in the Breeders, too. Here's how Lynn felt about Chuck's policy on childlessness. He mostly thought about himself.

[Chuck Diederich]

He didn't like anything that wasn't him.

[Sari Crawford]

Is the way I looked at it. And, you know, babies are crowd stealers.

[Chuck Diederich]

I mean, that's what they do.

[Sari Crawford]

Well, he didn't know shit about that stuff. He didn't know anything about children. Chuck compared the act of giving birth to, quote, crapping a football. Lynn thinks his motivations were selfish, but Chuck pitched it as women's liberation. He said, the big slavery of women.

[Chuck Diederich]

In modern life is that they are.

[Sari Crawford]

Tied to that one child. For 18 years.

[Chuck Diederich]

What Synanon has done for women is to release them from that kind of bondage.

[Sari Crawford]

Mike Gimble said that everything in Synanon was done to the extreme. When Chuck gave up smoking, everybody else did too. Same with sugar. And when all the men shaved their heads, Chuck said, what about the women? And now all the men in Synanon were having vasectomies. So what about the women.

[Chuck Diederich]

At the time that the policy decision came down, the women that were pregnant? There were five. One may have left, but I think all four of the others had abortions, including a woman who was almost at term. Yeah, it was horrible. I mean, she ended up having to have one of those horrible abortions that you have when you're eight months along. One of the women, she had been your roommate. You had been like best buddies for a long time. And we tried to talk them out of having the abortion.

[Sari Crawford]

It happened quickly. The mothers were swift away and it was very little spoken of because it was just. It was. It was an earthquake.

[Chuck Diederich]

We all should have spoken up and we didn't. And you don't get away with that stuff in life.

[Elena Broslovsky]

You pay for it.

[Sari Crawford]

Chuck said this about the abortions, like.

[Chuck Diederich]

Squeezing a boil, nothing more.

[Sari Crawford]

Here's Mike Gimbel.

[Mike Gimbel]

I didn't know about abortions. And I went and I got my vasectomy and I came back and a couple days later my wife told me she was pregnant. I went with her to have an abortion, and then for probably close to six months to a year, she was having problems with her uterus every couple of months and needed to go in the hospital several times. We were just so brainwashed at that point.

[Chuck Diederich]

These were people of substance in Synanon who felt that they were obliged to have this abortion if they wanted to. And I feel more guilty than anything else I ever did in Synanon not speaking up about that near term abortion. I should have started screaming to the skies about that one.

[Sari Crawford]

It was too late for Phil Ritter or anyone else to stop the abortions. But the vasectomies continued.

[Chuck Diederich]

Most men got the procedure. You know, there weren't that many that decided they didn't want it.

[Sari Crawford]

My dad was no exception. He used to write the year end report in Synanon. In 1977, he wrote 80 vasectomies were performed this year with the promise of more to follow. Sharpen up those scalpels. In total, nearly 200 men ended up having the procedure. But it wasn't everyone. Chuck didn't. Phil Ritter decided it was time to speak up.

[Chuck Diederich]

It was mostly older guys that were volunteering to do it. And I really didn't have that much of a problem with the pressure that was being put on the older guys because they were old enough to deal with it. Some of them already had kids. But I really had a problem with the 18 year olds. I knew that they were not old enough to make that kind of decision. And so I decided to take a position in the game that I thought it was wrong for Synanon to do it. I thought it was wrong for Synanon to put pressure on people to do it, and I wasn't gonna do it.

[Sari Crawford]

Phil's opposition to Chuck's edict didn't go over well with the rest of the community. He ended up losing his housing over it.

[Chuck Diederich]

Phil lost privileges. I didn't.

[Sari Crawford]

And there was pressure on me to just leave him. And I was getting gamed a lot. And we separated after a while.

[Elena Broslovsky]

I didn't want to be in that much trouble.

[Chuck Diederich]

I was not thinking much that made.

[Sari Crawford]

Any sense in those days. I was a mess. And I guess this is how a cult works.

[Chuck Diederich]

Well, it got down to the last three or four hundred young men mostly, who wanted to stay in Synanon and had not yet had their vasectomies. And they decided to bring it to a head on one weekend. And all the doctors were just going to perform factory vasectomies one after another. And I went nuts. Got on my motorcycle, rode my motorcycle over to the Marin County Sheriff's office and got interviewed by the sheriff. He said, let me get this straight. Synanon has a bunch of drug addicts over there who are all over 18, and they want to voluntarily sterilize themselves, and you want me to send sheriffs over there to stop them? Is that what you're asking me to do? And then he called Synanon and basically said, I've got one of your crazies over here. They told the sheriff to tell me that I was not welcome back and that there might be a problem if I tried to come back.

[Sari Crawford]

Phil Ritter was pushed out of the community. Soon a message would be sent to him and everyone else in Synanon. If you go against Chuck, you might pay with your life. Next time. The Sunshine Place, we had a demonstrator. She made an announcement to our classroom that she had been chosen to go on a date with Chuck. I remember thinking, what? Because Chuck looked like he could be her grandfather. Chuck finds a new partner, and he instructs everyone else to find a new partner too, Literally.

[Mike Gimbel]

Over the loud speakers, Chuck had said, all marriages, all relationships are over. Everyone is defined. A new partner, and he's having everybody change partners.

[Elena Broslovsky]

Everybody was dismantled.

[Mike Gimbel]

People were matching you.

[Sari Crawford]

You should be with him, and he.

[Elena Broslovsky]

Should be with you, and this one.

[Sari Crawford]

Should be with you.

[Chuck Diederich]

Chuck was making the Synon more important than your primary relationship. And that's what Diedrich was all about at that point. He's like, loyalty. Loyalty to the organization first. If I get them to do this, then I can get them to do anything.

[Sari Crawford]

Thank you for listening to the Sunshine Place. A creation and presentation of C13 originals, a Cadence 13 studio executive produced by Robert Downey Jr. Susan Downey and Emily Bar, Clay Ford for Team Downey, Chris Corcoran and Zach Levitt of Cadence 13 and Josh McLaughlin written and directed by Perry Kroll of C13 Originals editing by Alastair Sherman and Perry Kroll with production and editing assistance by Chris Basil and Ian Mott mixing and mastering by Bill Schultz narrated by Me Sari Crawford original music by Joseph Joel Goodman marketing pr, production coordination, sales and operations by Moira Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Schuff, Lauren Vieira, Lucas Santrone, Sean Cherry, Lizzie Roberti and Danny Kerch of Cadence 13. Cadence 13 is an Odyssey company. You might think financial crime is all about money, but sometimes it ends in murder. I'm Nicole Lapin, host of Money Crimes, a Crime House original podcast. Each episode features a thrilling story about the dark side of finance and how to protect yourself from it. Follow and listen to Money Crimes, an Odyssey Podcast in partnership with Crime House Studios. Available on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.