Years of ‘Brainwashing’ Alleged : Man Accused in Torture of 2 Women to Stand Trial

A Van Nuys Municipal Court judge Tuesday ordered a Canoga Park man to stand trial on six felony counts involving the torture of two women he allegedly “brainwashed” into living with him.

Judge Kathryne A. Stoltz scheduled the trial of Gregory L. Schafer, 38, for April 22 on one count of mayhem, one count of assault with a caustic chemical and four counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

Schafer, an unemployed woodworker, was arrested Feb. 21 at the Canoga Park home of a 36-year-old woman who told police that he had burned her with cigarettes, smeared paint remover on her face and mutilated one of her breasts with a pair of pliers. She testified that, on the advice of her boss, she had taken refuge at a home for battered women and then notified police.

The woman, who lived with Schafer from September, 1983, to Feb. 19 of this year, testified at Schafer’s preliminary hearing that he lectured her for up to seven hours a day on such topics as the Bible and their past lives. The woman, who works as a bookkeeper, said Schafer told her that he had regular contact with Leonardo da Vinci, the apostle Peter and a Comanche Indian chief.

‘Told Me I Owed Him’

“I was very attracted to him,” she testified. “He told me I owed him everything. He told me I was no good.”

Another woman, a 28-year-old mortgage loan officer, testified that she lived with Schafer from 1980 to 1983 in Reseda and in Iowa and was subjected to similar beatings and daily lectures on numerology and reincarnation.

‘Controlled and Brainwashed’

The woman was “controlled and brainwashed,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Katherine K. Mader said. Schafer would select the woman’s clothes in the morning and cut her hair, saying that his hands were being controlled by Da Vinci, Mader said.

Schafer, who could be sentenced to a maximum of 16 years in prison if convicted, is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail at Los Angeles County Jail.