From: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ALERT                         April 2, 1990
     Date: March, 1990
     Page: 3
     HEAD: Interviews Confirm Cult Awareness Role In Criminal
           Kidnappings
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       Three "anti-cult" activists have recently confirmed the role of
     the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) in setting up illegal kidnappings
     of adults belonging to minority religious groups.
       In published interviews, Mr. Arnold Berendsen of Illinois, Rev.
     Art Morgan of Oregon, and Mr. Bob Geary of Ohio each named CAN as
     responsible for putting them in contact with "deprogrammers" whom
     they then hired to commit criminal acts.
       Victims of deprogrammings have long reported that their
     abductions were orchestrated by the Cult Awareness Network.  Last
     August Ginger Brown, a Christian woman in San Diego, identified CAN
     as responsible for her five-day ordeal at the hands of so-called
     "deprogrammers".
       More recently, Johnathon Nordquist, a deprogrammer formerly
     employed by CAN, gave press conferences in New York and Chicago
     exposing CAN's role in setting up deprogrammings.
       Now three CAN supporters have confirmed the Brown and Nordquist
     accounts in separate newspaper interviews.
       In the Peoria, Illinois _Journal_Star_ of October 24, 1989,
     Arnold Berendsen tells of CAN's role in kidnapping his adult
     daughter, a member of The Way International church.
       "Finally, Berendsen sought the help of Cult Awareness Network
     Response Center in Evanston, which bragged a deprogramming success
     rate of 80 percent, Berendsen said."
       Berendsen paid his daughter's kidnappers "about $10,000," but it
     is not known how much of the $10,000 was received by CAN.
     According to ex-deprogrammer John Nordquist, CAN usually receives
     donations from both the parents and the deprogrammers when it sets
     up a deprogramming.
       Rev. Art Morgan of Corvallis, Oregon told the
     _Corvallis_Gazette_Times of January 19, 1990, about CAN's role in
     the kidnapping of his daughter-in-law.
       "Through the Cult Awareness Network her parents traced her to
     Texas, kidnapped her screaming and fighting, and had her
     deprogrammed....  It cost about $25,000 to get her out."
       The Akron, Ohio _Beacon_Journal_ of January 21, 1990 tells of how
     Bob Geary found a deprogrammer for his wife Dorothy through CAN.
       "The Geary's sought help from the local chapter of the Cult
     Awareness Network, and were referred to a Canadian
     deprogrammer...."
       "In the Geary case, however, it is possible that Mrs. Geary
     consented to being deprogrammed."
       Despite such evidence as this, CAN officials continue to deny
     that the organization has any ties to deprogramming.  According to
     the Creskill, New Jersey _Teaneck_Suburbanite_ of November 1, 1989,
     "CAN President, Ron Loomis, a youth services administrator at
     Cornell University, and other CAN officials vehemently denied that
     the organization was ever involved with the kidnapping method or
     deprogrammers like Ted Patrick."
       Critics of CAN, however, point to a 1980 memo as evidence that
     CAN has a deliberate policy of lying about its role in
     deprogramming.
       The memo is by John Sweeney, National Director of CAN, which was
     then calling itself the Citizens Freedom Foundation (CFF), Sweeney
     writes:
       "CFF is an anti-cult organization and like it or not we're
     involved in rescues, deprogramming and lobbying.  So it is okay to
     present another face to the public but lets not try to conn (sic)
     each other.