Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 29, 1993 TAG: 9305290194
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE:
DATELINE: ALEXANDRIA LENGTH: Short
Sentencing has been scheduled for June 30 for self-proclaimed "cult deprogrammer" Galen Kelly of Esopus, N.Y., who was found guilty of abducting a District of Columbia woman in an apparently botched deprogramming attempt, the U.S. attorney's office said Friday.
Kelly was convicted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.
Prosecutors said Debra Dobkowski was abducted while on her way to work in May 1992, shortly after a woman hired Kelly to abduct and deprogram her daughter, Dobkowski's roommate.
In Leesburg, an older woman got into the van and told the abductors they had the wrong women, Leiser said. Dobkowski was then taken back to Washington and released.
Kelly left fingerprints on a thermos that Dobkowski was carrying at the time of the kidnapping, Leiser said.
Kelly was acquitted in December 1992 of conspiring to kidnap Lewis duPont Smith and his wife, both of Philadelphia, in order to deprogram them of their devotion to political extremist Lyndon LaRouche.
Kelly remains under investigation in New York City for a September 1991 kidnapping, Leiser said.
- Associated Press
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.