Ex-Prosecutor Files Suit Over Alleged Harassment on Synanon Ties

A former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney filed a $10-million federal civil rights suit Friday against the county and half a dozen former and current county prosecutors, charging that he was driven from his job because of ties to Synanon.

Jay BloomBecker, 41, charged in the lawsuit that the alleged harassment began shortly after the start of an investigation into the 1978 rattlesnake attack on Los Angeles attorney Paul Morantz, while BloomBecker was serving in the district attorney’s consumer and environmental protection unit.

The investigation led to the murder conspiracy prosecution of Synanon’s founder, Charles E. Dederich, who was fined $5,000 and placed on five years’ probation in 1980, after pleading no contest to conspiring with two Synanon members to kill Morantz.

Among those named in the lawsuit were former Dist. Atty. John Van de Kamp, now state attorney general, and Stephen S. Trott, former chief deputy district attorney, who now heads the U.S. Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Rattlesnake Attack

BloomBecker, who currently directs a private research firm called the National Center for Computer Crime Data, said he was told by Van de Kamp shortly after the rattlesnake attack that he was in “extremely dangerous waters” and was warned that any continued association with Synanon would jeopardize his career.

He said Trott and several county prosecutors conducting the actual investigation continued to harass him until he finally quit the district attorney’s office in 1980, because of “intolerable pressures and lack of potential for advancement.”

In July, 1984, BloomBecker was one of 13 past and present Synanon members charged with unlawfully obstructing the prosecution of Dederich. He was charged with perjury, after telling a grand jury that he could not recall if he had helped prepare Dederich’s defense while he was still a county prosecutor.

Charge Dropped

Five months later, however, the district attorney’s office dropped the perjury charge against BloomBecker, also moving to dismiss obstruction of justice charges against eight of the other defendants. Deputy Dist. Atty. Karen Rizzo said “there was absolutely no credible evidence” to corroborate the perjury charge.

BloomBecker said that as a result of the perjury charges and other actions by the district attorney’s office, he was deprived of his right to free association, exposed to the “contempt and ridicule of his fellow professionals” and suffered a “diminished opportunity” for future employment.

The district attorney’s office had no comment on the lawsuit.