Love with an Improper Stranger

Sexual deprogramming goes on trial in Cincinnati

It started out like a quickie Hollywood knockoff of the Patty Hearst story. Pretty, dark-haired Stephanie Riethmiller and her roommate, Patty Thiemann, both 20, were walking home to their apartment in a Cincinnati suburb one evening last October when two young men stopped them, ostensibly to ask directions. Suddenly, the men grabbed Riethmiller and dragged her to a waiting van, squirting Mace in Thiemann's face to prevent her from following. As the van sped off, the terrified Riethmiller discovered that her father William was among her kidnapers. He recalls: "Stephanie looked up and I said, 'Hi, Stephanie.' And she said, 'Hi, Dad.' I said, 'Everything's O.K.' "

What happened next, Riethmiller told a packed courtroom in Cincinnati last week, was anything but O.K. After being transferred to a sedan driven by her mother Marita, she was taken 400 miles south to Cedar Bluff, Ala. There, in a secluded lakeside vacation cottage outside of town, Riethmiller says she was subjected to seven harrowing days of harassment and rape. Her parents say she was being deprogrammed. But their daughter was not a convert to some bizarre religious cult. Her parents believed that she had become estranged from them after falling into a lesbian relationship with Thiemann, a friend from high school days. Her daughter was under a form of mind control, said Marita Riethmiller, and "had become like a robot, glassy-eyed." When several doctors, psychiatrists and church groups refused to intercede, the Riethmillers sought out controversial California Deprogramming Specialist Ted Patrick, 52. Patrick, however, is forbidden to take on clients as a condition of probation on an earlier conviction related to deprogramming. So he referred them to Naomi Faye Goss, 25, of Cedar Bluff, an ex-Moonie he had deprogrammed just last year; James Roe, 25, of San Diego, a friend of his son's; and a second man identified only as Ray. On Goss's instructions, the couple sent a check for $8,000 to an address in San Diego.

At the cabin, Stephanie Riethmiller testified, she was harangued by Goss from morning to night on the evils of homosexuality. On the first night, Riethmiller shared a bed with her mother, while Roe slept beside them on the floor. The second night was different, according to the young woman; her mother retired to an adjacent bedroom, whereupon Roe locked the door and raped her. This pattern allegedly continued for five more days and nights. At times, Riethmiller was manacled to Roe with a pair of handcuffs purchased by her mother. Her ordeal ended when the kidnapers learned that the police were closing in, and they decided to surrender. The Riethmillers, Patrick, Roe, Goss and Ray (who fled rather than give up and is still missing) were variously charged with abduction, assault and sexual battery. The parents received immunity when they agreed to cooperate with the prosecution. In a separate civil suit, however, Riethmiller asked for damages of $2.75 million from her parents and the deprogrammers.

A weeping Marita Riethmiller testified that "Stephanie and Roe spent a lot of time by themselves, and I saw them holding hands, but my daughter never said anything to me about a sexual relationship, and I was unaware of it." Roe's lawyer claimed that the daughter had been a willing sex partner.

At week's end, the jury found Patrick innocent of all charges, Goss not guilty of assault and Roe not guilty of either assault or sexual battery. The jury was split on whether Goss and Roe were guilty of abduction. A retrial of the two seems unlikely. Said Judge Gilbert Bettman: "The whole deprogramming situation is a very complex problem. There is a basic social conflict on what is right and wrong."

Stephanie Riethmiller, who tried living with her parents after the abduction, is once more sharing quarters with Patty Thiemann.

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