Prosecutor Assails Both Lapins as Trial Winds Down

For two weeks, the stormy marriage and divorce of Orly and Ron Lapin have been scrutinized in testimony during her trial on charges that she kidnaped the couple’s two young children.

Tuesday, in closing arguments in Superior Court in Santa Ana, the prosecutor suggested to jurors that neither of the Lapins is much of a parent.

“Children are not intended to be two pawns in a power struggle between two adults,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth O. Chinn. “Orly and Ron Lapin are two people bent on destroying each other.”

The 32-year-old Israeli actress looked on grimly as Chinn wondered aloud if the Lapins “would want their children to grow up to be like either one of them.”

Dr. Ron Lapin, a 48-year-old Santa Ana surgeon, had been granted by court order what prosecutors called “primary” custody of the children when the couple were divorced in the summer of 1987. Orly Lapin was granted custody of the children on weekends and for a minimum of two weeks in the summer.

Spirited Children Away

It was during the children’s summer visit with her in July, 1987, that Orly Lapin ran off with them. She was arrested in November, 1987, at an apartment in Paso Robles where she was living with the children under the name of Dominique Francon. She later testified that she chose the name because it was that of a leading character in her favorite novel, “The Fountainhead.”

Chinn told jurors that child stealing by a parent is “cruel to the children; it’s cruel to the parent left behind.”

Both sides agree that the critical issue at her trial is this: What was her state of mind when she left with the children?

Orly Lapin claims she was convinced that her ex-husband had been molesting their daughter, and that she had no choice but to flee with them for their protection. Prosecutors say she tried to use the children to force a reconciliation with Ron Lapin.

Ron Lapin has denied molesting the girl. In an attempt to shore up their positions, lawyers on both sides have brought before the jury a parade of witnesses, including both Lapins, who have put the marriage under a microscope.

She hammers him about purported use of drugs, extramarital affairs, improper actions with the daughter. He accuses her of hiding the children from him in Palm Springs, threatening to kill them, and constantly whining for more money.

Baby-Sitter’s Testimony

The defense has put on testimony from a baby-sitter who not only claimed that she

saw Ron Lapin molest the little girl, but that she herself was raped by him several times. One of those rapes resulted in her giving birth two months ago, she said, and she filed a paternity suit against him in January, 1988. Lapin has denied raping the baby-sitter, but admits that he had a sexual relationship with her.

The defense also brought on one of Lapin’s ex-wives and an ex-mistress, who had scathing things to say about his character.

The prosecution has put on evidence that Orly Lapin at one point admitted making up the molestation story. (She claims the officer who gave that testimony is mistaken.) But the heart of the prosecution case concerning her state of mind was shown by two letters she wrote while on the run.

Prosecutor Chinn took nearly an hour in closing arguments to read for jurors both letters from beginning to end.

One was addressed to an Israeli magazine. It accused Dr. Lapin of homosexuality, child molestation, killing patients in surgery, and insurance fraud. The second letter, written the next day, was sent to Lapin. In that one, she wrote page after page about her undying love for him, and how her greatest hope was for the family to be together again. It also described their sex life together, and how she could not stand for another man to touch her.

But no matter how the jurors might feel about either one of the Lapins, the defense contends, it is only Orly Lapin who was put on trial.

‘Selective Prosecution’

“Orly Lapin is the victim of selective prosecution,” her attorney, John B. Horwitz, told the jury in closing arguments Tuesday. “Ron Lapin walks without any criminal charges against him to this day. . . . The prosecution has to explain why Ron Lapin is walking free today.”

Prosecutor Chinn asked jurors why Orly Lapin never mentions a word about Dr. Lapin being a child molester in her letter to him. Defense attorney Horwitz says that only proves that Chinn doesn’t understand love.

“You can excuse most things, everything, when you are in true love,” Horwitz said. Orly Lapin testified last week that she was still in love with Lapin when she wrote that letter, and had hoped he would seek psychiatric help so that they could be reconciled.

Chinn argued that the letters show Orly Lapin’s real state of mind.

“Her position was: ‘If I can’t have you, Dr. Lapin, then I’m going to destroy you,’ ” Chinn told the jurors. “She was using every tool at her disposal.”

Chinn added that the letters show her “Jekyll-and-Hyde personality.”

But the defense claims the letters are the prosecution’s way of leading the jurors away from two critical issues: One, that shortly before Orly Lapin ran off with the children, she learned from the baby-sitter that Ron Lapin had insisted on bathing their daughter himself, and that the girl slept naked with him every night. Two, a psychiatrist told her shortly before she disappeared with the children that he believed someone had sexually molested the girl.

“What mother, what father wouldn’t do what Orly Lapin did?” Horwitz asked the jury. “She did what she had to do to protect her children.”

Chinn conceded to jurors that he was jolted by the molestation allegations by the baby-sitter.

In the paternity suit filed with the district attorney’s office against Ron Lapin, the baby-sitter mentioned suspicions that he had molested his daughter. But Chinn said he was unaware of the baby-sitter’s allegations of child molestation until she showed up in court last week as a defense witness. Chinn said he deliberately did not look at her paternity suit file because it was confidential.

But Chinn went on to attack the baby-sitter’s credibility. For example, she claims Lapin raped her on a Thursday in her room at the Lapin home. She left for the weekend, but returned on Monday. She went on to live at the Lapin home for several months after that. What rape victim would do that, Chinn asked.

Also, the baby-sitter did not report the rape until she filed her paternity action, even though in November, 1987, she filed an assault and battery report against Ron Lapin. If she was bold enough to report her assault and battery charge to police, why did she fear reporting the rape, Chinn asked.

Horwitz’s answer during his closing argument was that rape victims are sometimes too humiliated, too confused, to know what to do. The baby-sitter returned to the Lapin house that Monday because she was afraid of what Lapin would do to her if she did not return, he told the jury.

Horwitz’s closing argument continues today. Chinn will then make his final rebuttal argument. The jury is expected to begin deliberations this afternoon.

If Orly Lapin is convicted, she could face up to three years in prison. However, judges in Orange County have rarely done anything but place first-time offenders on probation for such a conviction.