Scientology --- Randy Kretchmar, Esq

Randy Kretchmar, Esq

Aparil 4, 2002 St. Louis Post Dispatch

Bill McClellan : Mental illness is a myth, insists man in mental institution
By Bill McClellan
04/04/2002

Rodney Yoder was brought to the Randolph County courthouse Wednesday in chains.

The leg irons seemed ludicrous. No matter what you think of Yoder, he is not about to run. He is a man on a mission, and the end is within sight. He hopes to put the concept of mental illness on trial. He is convinced that his case will expose psychiatry the way the Scopes Monkey Trial exposed creationism.

For almost 11 years, Yoder has been confined at the Chester Mental Health Center. He was transferred to the high-security facility in June of 1991 after completing a three-year prison hitch for assault. The state claimed he was mentally ill and too dangerous to release. He said the Illinois correctional authorities were being vindictive because of various suits he had filed.

He has refused all treatment. He has argued that the state wants to silence him by drugging him into a stupor. He has had several hearings on his involuntary commitment, and each time he has lost. But now he has an attorney, and he has tapped into a subculture of people who are distrustful of, and hostile toward, the medical establishment's treatment of so-called mental illness. Yoder is convinced his trial will be a high-profile affair, with prominent witnesses and national media coverage. He may be right. Time magazine has already sent a reporter to interview him.

Partially to make it easy for witnesses and reporters, Yoder and his attorney went to court Wednesday afternoon to seek a change of venue from Randolph County. They wanted the trial moved to Edwardsville, closer to Lambert Field.

The hearing was brief. Judge William Schuwerk denied the motion. He said that the 75-mile drive from the St. Louis airport was not overly burdensome for out-of-state witnesses, and he said that Yoder could get a fair trial in Randolph County.

Maybe that's true, but this is an odd case in many respects. For instance, the judge used to be a prosecutor, and he represented the state against Yoder in a previous hearing. What's more, the judge's bailiff is expected to be one of the state's witnesses. Several years ago, he became involved in an altercation with Yoder, during which Yoder bit him.

Mainly, though, the oddness has to do with the charge. Is Yoder such a danger to the community that he should remain locked up indefinitely? It's as if the state is saying there are demons at work here, invisible to the uneducated eye.

This is all nonsense, Yoder responds. The demons are in their minds.

I have talked with him dozens of times. He is an intelligent fellow. Sometimes, though, he gets angry, and later, after I hang up, I wonder if this isn't like something out of a Joseph Heller novel. Should anger be held against a person if anger is the appropriate response?

Often, Yoder gets impatient with me. I believe in the existence of mental illness -- the state's invisible demons -- and Yoder acts like I am a member of the Flat Earth Society. Again, who knows?

One thing that is certain is that Yoder's case has attracted a following. The small courtroom was filled with his supporters. I spoke with a woman whose son is also confined at the Chester Mental Health Center. Another of Yoder's supporters was from the National Association for the Mentally Ill. She explained that she disagreed with his stance on mental illness, but she said she met Yoder during a visit to the center and was convinced that he ought to be released.

Several supporters had driven in from St. Louis, including the executive director of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of St. Louis, an organization dedicated to "investigating and exposing psychiatric violations of human rights." Still, other supporters had come on a bus from Chicago. Most of them seemed to be friends of Yoder's attorney, Randy Kretchmar, who has come to the practice of law in middle age. He is 50 years old, and was admitted to the bar in November. He has yet to try a case. His first one promises to be memorable.

Randy Kretchmar, Esq. His first case

In a surprise turn of events, Randy Kretchmar, a Chicago Scientologist, has sufaced with a brand new law degree and according to an article in the St.

Louis-Dispatch (04/04/2002), he was admitted to the Bar in Illinois last November.

Randy Kretchmar, aka Stuart Randolph Kretchmar, has for some years functioned as an OSA agent for the Chicago Church of Scientology. He is not actually believed to be on Scientology's payroll and his wife, Cheryl Berman, finances his OSA activities. Kretchmar operates a spy operation for Scientology out of his home in Wilmette, IL. and collects information to use against former members, critics and persons who are deemed to be enemies by the Church of Scientology. He also works with Scientology's CCHR front group which promotes Scientology's anti-psychiatry propaganda. Cheryl Berman is the head of the Creative Division in the prestigious advertising firm, the Leo Burnett Co.

Berman makes big money and is a major contributor to Scientolology's 'War Chest.' She has the designation of a "Patron Meritorious" which is bestowed on any Scientologist who contributes more than $250,000. Insiders say that Cheryl Berman has given close to one million dollars to Scientology's 'War Chest.' The War Chest money is used to finance covert campaigns against psychiatry and any group or persons that Scientology considers as enemies.

Kretchmar has a rather sordid history and it is puzzling that he was so readily admitted to the Bar. Kretchmar was an active agent in the Church of Scientology's extensive harassment campaign against the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). Though he was never offically charged, Randy Kretchmar was named as an accomplice in a bizarre plot allegedly initiated by the Church of Scientology to murder Cynthia kisser, the Executive Director of CAN. Fortunately, this plot was aborted. Recent information has come forth that strongly indicates that he was involved in the stolen identity-CAN spy matter. In this sordid affair, Jolie Steckart, an actress and Scientologist was given the name and stolen identity of a woman who had left Scientology. Steckart used this name and identity to infiltrate CAN as a phony traumatized cult survivor and she worked in the CAN office for several years as a Trusted CAN volunteer. The internal information that Steckart stole and turned over to Scientology agents was a contributing factor in the demise of CAN. Randy Kretchmar is believed to be one of those agents.

Randy Kretchmar has surfaced as the attorney for Rodney Yoder who calls himself a 'psychiatric prisoner'. Yoder has been held in the Chester Mental Health Center ( downstate Illinois) for 11 years after a 3 year prison hitch for assault. He had beaten up his wife and a girl friend and has made threats against a number of local and State officials. Yoder has beome very much a psychiatric celebrity and guess who should arrive on the scene to exploit this for their insane anti-psychiatry agenda? The Church of Scientology, of course.

Randy Kretchmar has signed on as Rodney Yoder's attorney and Scientology's front group, the CCHR or Citizens' Commission on Human Rights has gotten involved as Yoder's 'supporters.'

Some years back, L. Ron Hubbard, the Founder of Scientology declared that psychiatrists were 'enemies of mankind' and he mandated that the Church of Scientology would eradicate 'evil' psychiatry and would take over the field of mental health. Hubbard formed a front group, the CCHR to covertly attack psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. The CCHR publishes and distributes very rabid hate literature that is full of lies and distortions about psychiatric treatment and pharmaceutical medicines. Scientology agents like Randy Kretchmar scour the country for cases involving psychiatric treatment and then plot ways that they can use these to exploit their anti-psychiatry agenda.

These attacks have been very costly to the Eli Lilly co. (Prozac) and the Novartis Co. ( Ritalin)

The St. Louis Dispatch reports that Kretchmar has yet to try a case and "his first one promises to be memorable."

It is truly despicable that Randy Kretchmar and the malevolent Church of Scientology would so cynically use Rodney Yoder to further their bizarre anti-psychiatry hate campaign.

Patient says he is "psychiatric prisoner"
By Terry Hillig
Of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
02/21/2002 10:54 PM

The next time a jury considers whether Rodney Yoder should remain in the Chester (Ill.) Mental Health Center, it apparently will hear testimony that mental illness doesn't exist.

Yoder, 43, originally from Iroquois County, has been held at the Chester facility since June 26, 1991, when he completed a criminal sentence for hitting his former wife.

State-paid psychologists have routinely convinced Randolph County juries that Yoder is a dangerous person and should not be released. But Yoder calls himself a "psychiatric prisoner." He says the real reason he remains incarcerated is that he has angered people with power.

Yoder will claim that he does not qualify for involuntary commitment under state law and that mental illness doesn't exist in any case.

Yoder is one of only about two dozen people in Illinois who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility for 10 years or more.

Yoder has persistently sought news media attention and has filed numerous suits, some of which he has won. He has attracted a growing number of supporters among medical professionals and critics of psychiatry.

His next involuntary commitment hearing will be a "watershed event," drawing attention from around the country and the world, Yoder believes.

"It's the first time in U.S. history that the reality of mental illness will be challenged in a court of law," he said. "The trial will be standing-room-only."

The hearing is scheduled for March in Randolph County, but Yoder plans to seek a transfer of the proceeding to Madison County.

Yoder says Madison County would be more convenient - because of its proximity to Lambert Field - for the witnesses and observers who will want to attend the proceeding. Yoder said Madison County also has a larger courtroom and more hotel rooms than Randolph County.

His star witness likely will be Dr. Thomas S. Szasz, the author of "The Myth of Mental Illness." Szasz, 81, is a psychoanalyst from New York whose critiques of mental illness have made him an icon among those who oppose forced psychiatry.

Yoder calls Szasz "the greatest living moral philosopher" and "the world's foremost opponent of forced psychiatry."

Mental illness, Yoder contends, is a fiction created to "dispose of unwanted people," make psychiatrists feel important and enrich drug makers. He says there is no evidence of a biological basis for the reputed illness, which in fact, he claims, is "based on the worst kind of junk science."

Randy Kretchmar, a lawyer for Yoder, said mental illness was "a description of behavior that people don't like in others."

Spokesmen for the Illinois Department of Human Services, which operates Chester Mental Health Center, will not comment on Yoder's case but a psychologist who has performed most of Yoder's evaluations, has testified that Yoder suffers from paranoid personality disorder with a delusion that he is being persecuted.

The psychologist, Daniel J. Cuneo, said Yoder could "erupt" and hurt others.

Reporter Terry Hillig:

E-mail: thillig@post-dispatch.com Phone: 618-659-3638

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