Mel Wasserman

Merle Wasserman [2] participated in the cult Synanon.

After starting work with troubled teens in his home in Palm Springs, California, Wasserman decided to sell his furniture business and invest in a school to help teenagers and cash in on the troubled teen industry. Success of the CEDU program was dramatic and it rapidly expanded into other specialized educational programs possibly due to the massive profit potential Wasserman realized by charging in excess of $6,000 per month per student while hiring non-credentialed adults as staff. Although Wasserman had no training or credentials in the relevant fields, he allegedly surrounded himself with noted educators and professionals and created a system of education that included a strict adherence to his own discredited and cult-like set of principles. He has been quoted as saying to students and parents, "Take away boundaries and bring in a sewer, a biker society. The magic is not in the building itself, it is in the setting of boundaries, a certain posture and a certain way we act inside them, and then we have something which facilitates what we are trying to do here."