Ginger Brown Drops Civil Suit in Deprogramming Case

Ginger Brown, who according to a defense theory baited her parents to kidnap her in a deprogramming effort so she could later collect monetary damages, told a jury she has dropped her civil lawsuit against her parents, a sister and two accomplices alleged to have participated in the event.

In Vista Superior Court on Wednesday, Brown said she dropped the suit “because my rights are being protected” through the criminal prosecution of the same five defendants.

Moreover, she said, “I want to go on with my life and get back to the full-time work of my ministry.”

Defense attorneys scoffed at her motive, saying outside the courtroom that they believed she dropped the litigation against her parents and the others so she wouldn’t appear to be motivated by money--as alleged by the defense attorneys.

The lawsuit had sought $2.75 million in damages from the defendants.

Brown’s parents, Earle and Dorothy Brown, and one of her sisters, Holly, are on trial on charges of kidnaping, false imprisonment and battery in connection with the May, 1988, abduction of Ginger Brown. The family members, along with co-defendants Cliff Daniels, a self-described Los Angeles deprogrammer, and Hank Erler, in whose mother’s home in Escondido Ginger Brown was held for five days, say they were trying to “deprogram” the 24-year-old woman’s allegiance to the 17-member group known as Great Among the Nations, now based in Coronado.

In other testimony, Brown said Wednesday that, when she warned her parents during a visit to their home in Santa Cruz that they should not try to physically remove her from Great Among the Nations, she was not acting “out of obedience” to instructions given to her by one of the leaders of the group.

However, outside the presence of the jury, the defense showed a videotape of Brown, made by the group itself after her release, in which she is heard saying, “I did it (warned her parents) because Gil (Baron, one of the group leaders) told me to. I did it in obedience.”

Judge David B. Moon Jr. said he wouldn’t allow the tape as evidence, however, because he says it had only slight value to the overall trial and would take too much time to further question Brown on that issue.

The defense is expected to begin presenting its side of the case today. Attorneys said they expect to put Earle Brown, his wife and daughter, Holly, on the stand in their own defense.