Brown Changed Radically, Kidnaping Trial Is Told

Earle and Dorothy Brown were doting parents of Ginger Brown and encouraged her independence, but they abducted her last year after she changed from a “happy-go-lucky young lady to one different and strange and distant from her family,” their attorneys told a Vista Superior Court jury Thursday.

Ginger Brown’s personality changed radically, the attorneys said, after her association with a small, tight-knit group known as Great Among the Nations and its leader, Benjamin Altschul.

During their deprogramming efforts, Ginger Brown’s parents “didn’t try to get her to renounce her faith in Jesus Christ or the Bible . . . or anything, except to say, ‘Listen, Ginger, watch out for Benjamin Altschul,’ ” Saul Wright, Earle Brown’s defense attorney, told the jury in his opening arguments.

Contradicting testimony by Ginger Brown, who was on the witness stand for six days, Wright said her parents did everything possible to protect her from injury during the five-day deprogramming effort in Escondido after she was taken from an Encinitas parking lot in May, 1988.

A mattress was put on the floor of the get-away van after she was abducted, Wright said, so she wouldn’t hurt herself. Furthermore, her father slapped at her only after she bit him on the shoulder.

The only injuries suffered by Brown, he said, were those she caused while thrashing about during the incident.

“As a father, if he had to do it again, he’d do it again,” Wright said.

Outside the courtroom, Deputy Dist. Atty. Gary Rempel scoffed at Wright’s remarks to the jury, saying the defense attorney’s own argument “proves our case” of alleged kidnaping, false imprisonment and battery.

“She obviously didn’t want to be there,” Rempel said. “She fought and kicked and scratched. Their opening statement admits the forcible abduction and forcible false imprisonment. It basically concedes the case, and he closes with a whining request for holiday sympathy.”

Wright responded later: “My experience is that jurors aren’t fools, and they’re going to believe that Dorothy and Earle should get a medal, and not be standing here on kidnaping charges. If the jury can find anything to hang their hats on, they’ll acquit the Browns.”

Attorneys say this is the first case known where the parents themselves have stood trial for kidnaping a child in a deprogramming effort. Brown, 22 at the time, returned to Great Among the Nations and was the prosecution’s chief witness against her parents and the other three co-defendants.

Earlier in the week, Ginger Brown testified that she dropped a $2.75-million civil lawsuit against her parents; her sister, co-defendant Holly Brown; Hank Erler, in whose mother’s Escondido home the deprogramming attempt occured, and deprogrammer Cliff Daniels.

But on Thursday Judge David B. Moon Jr. told the jury that, according to court records, the lawsuit has not been dismissed. Ginger Brown’s attorney, Carlye Christianson, declined comment Thursday.

The first defense witness Thursday was Dr. Jeffrey Smith, a San Diego plastic surgeon, who testified that several injuries on Ginger Brown, based on photographs taken by Sheriff’s Department investigators, appeared to have been only several hours old, perhaps caused by a several-days-old scab being re-opened.

But Smith acknowledged that he couldn’t tell whether the old scabs had been deliberately picked off--a defense contention based on their theory that Ginger Brown deliberately hurt herself in order to build a better civil and criminal case against her parents.

Smith also said there was no physical evidence, including a bruise, fat lip or fracture, to confirm that Ginger Brown was struck hard in the jaw when she was abducted, as she had testified.

The 3-week-old trial continues Monday, when a former member of Great Among the Nations is scheduled to testify on behalf of the defense.