Rick Alan Ross

Early life

Rick Alan Ross was adopted by Paul and Ethel Ross in Cleveland, Ohio in 1953. The family moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1956. Other than one year at South Carolina's Camden Military Academy, Ross grew up and was educated in Arizona. He graduated from Phoenix Union High School in 1971.

1980s

Ross became concerned about controversial religious groups in 1982 after a visit with his grandmother at Phoenix's Kivel Home, a Jewish residential and nursing facility. He learned that missionary affiliates of the locally produced Jewish Voice Broadcast had become staff members and sought to target residents for conversion to Pentecostal Christianity.

He brought this information to the attention of the home's director and the local Jewish community, later campaigning to have the group's activities stopped. Ross then began working as a volunteer, lecturer and researcher for various Jewish organizations. He worked for the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations appointed him to two national committees focusing on cults and inter-religious affairs.

During the 1980s, he represented the state's Jewish community by serving on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Arizona Department of Corrections; the committee later elected him as its chairman. As well, Ross was at one time chairman of the International Coalition of Jewish Prisoners Programs sponsored by B'nai Brith in Washington D.C. His work in the prison system covered inmate religious rights and educational efforts regarding hate groups. In addition to these involvements, Ross worked as a member of the professional staff of the Jewish Family and Children's Service (JFCS) and the Bureau of Jewish Education (BJE) in Phoenix, Arizona.

In 1986 Ross left JFCS and BJE to become a full-time private consultant and deprogrammer, In this capacity, he worked with the Cult Awareness Network (CAN).

In 1989 the CBS television program 48 Hours covered Ross's deprogramming of a 14-year-old boy, Aaron Paron, a member of the Potter's House Christian Fellowship. Aaron would not leave the organization, and saw his mother as "possessed by the devil". The program focused upon Ross' efforts to persuade Paron to view Potter's House as "a destructive Bible-based group" which took control of its members' lives. The case resulted in the parties entering into an agreement that Potter's House would not harbor Aaron, entice him away from his mother, attempt to influence his behavior or take any action that would interfere with his mother's parental rights.

Waco siege

In 1992 and 1993, Ross opposed actions of the Branch Davidian group led by David Koresh in Waco, Texas and had previously deprogrammed a member of the group. Ross was the only deprogrammer to work with Branch Davidian members prior to a siege involving the death of many of the group's members at Waco. Television network CBS hired Ross as an on-scene analyst for their coverage of the Waco siege. After offering unsolicited advice to the FBI during the standoff, a later-published Department of Justice report on the matter stated, "the FBI did not 'rely' on Ross for advice whatsoever during the standoff." According to the report, the FBI "politely declined his unsolicited offers of assistance throughout the standoff" and treated the information Ross supplied as it would any other unsolicited information received from the public.

Criticism of government agencies' involvement with Ross has come from Nancy Ammerman, a professor of sociology of religion, who cited FBI interview notes which stated Ross "has a personal hatred for all religious cults." She further stated the BATF and the FBI did rely on Ross when he recommended that agents "attempt to publicly humiliate Koresh, hoping to drive a wedge between him and his followers." Other scholars also criticized Ross' involvement. According to a 1995 article on Ross in the Phoenix, Arizona weekly newspaper, New Times, ""Ross has been reviled in print as a kidnaper and a vicious religion-hater. Some even blame him for the disaster at Waco, Texas. He's been hounded by private investigators and threatened with violence. Some of his friends fear for his life."

Jason Scott deprogramming

Ross faced criminal charges over a 1991 forcible deprogramming of United Pentecostal Church International member Jason Scott, whose mother was referred to Ross by the CAN. Ross was found "not guilty" by the jury at trial. Jason Scott later filed a civil suit against Ross in federal court. In September 1995, a nine-member jury unanimously held Ross and other defendants in the case liable for depriving Scott of his civil rights and awarded Scott US$5 million in punitive damages . Ross' share of the damages was US$3.1 million, which led to him declaring personal bankruptcy.

Scott later reconciled with his mother, who had originally hired Ross to deprogram him. Scott fired his lawyer, Kendrick Moxon, who was linked to the Church of Scientology and was persuaded by his mother to settle with Ross. Under the terms of the settlement, the two agreed that Ross would pay Scott US$5000 and provide 200 hours of his professional services.

In his 2014 book Ross wrote that after the Scott case he stopped involuntary cult-intervention work with adults, advising against such involuntary interventions with adults due to the possible legal consequences of such interventions.

Website

The Scott Case had resulted in the demise of the CAN; it had to file for bankruptcy in June 1996, the Church of Scientology eventually purchasing its name, phone number and post-office box address in the sell-out. The Church of Scientology also owning the CAN web address, Ross started a website with his archives in 1996.

Ross' website, launched under the name Rick A. Ross Institute, displayed material on controversial groups and movements, and their leaders, including the Westboro Baptist Church on which Ross had been collecting data since 1993. Content from the website and Ross' opinion surrounding it has been cited in books such as Andrew Breitbart's Hollywood, Interrupted, James J.F. Forest's Homeland Security: Protecting America's Targets, and Stuart A. Kallen's Prophecies and Soothsayers. The US Department of Justice made use of the website's content for their report, Pre-Incident Indicators of Terrorist Incidents. According to Ann E. Robertson the Institute "is an unusual source of considerable information about rather obscure groups".

The website was re-launched in 2013 as the Cult Education Institute (CEI). A non-profit institution, CEI is a member of the American Library Association and the New Jersey Library Association.

There were attempts to hack the website. In April 2004 NXIVM sued unsuccessfully against the Institute in NXIVM Corp. v. Ross Institute, claiming copyright infringement. In June 2004 Landmark Education filed a US$1 million lawsuit against the Institute, alleging that the Institute's online archives damaged Landmark Education's product. In December 2005, Landmark Education filed to dismiss its own lawsuit with prejudice, purportedly on the grounds of a material change in case law after the publication of an opinion in another case, Donato v. Moldow, regarding the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

Other activities

Ross has lectured at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago and University of Arizona, and has testified as an expert witness in court cases.

By 2004, Ross had handled more than 350 deprogramming cases in various countries. Out these cases, Ross claims a success-rate of 75%.

Ross has contributed to a number of books, including a foreword to Tim Madigan's See no Evil and a chapter to Roman Espejo's Cults: Opposing Viewpoints. In 2014 Ross published his own book: Cults Inside Out.