Jaroslava Mendez with a photo of her daughter, Karla Brada, who was killed by her fiance while both were in Alcoholics Anonymous. Mendez has kept Karla’s bedroom as a memorial to her. Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
‘The 13th step’: Alcoholics Anonymous wrestles with subculture of sexual predators
Abram Tuvov had been sober so long that Alcoholics Anonymous members in Palm Springs just assumed he was a good guy.
One female AA member who was new in town felt comfortable enough to go on an afternoon bicycle ride with him, even stopping at his house for waffles. The November 2014 outing ended with Tuvov, 72, raping the woman so viciously that she played dead until it was over.
Tuvov, who lives minutes away from the woman, was convicted, but is out on $150,000 bail while awaiting sentencing.
Sexual predation among AA groups is so common that it is known in many circles as the 13th step of the famed 12-step program. Victims, former officials and some members say the culture of the organization — unregulated and loosely organized — puts vulnerable alcoholics at risk to predatory leaders whose only credential is their longtime sobriety.
And while many members are in Alcoholics Anonymous of their own volition, some criminal offenders are there as part of their court sentences. Unless they volunteer it, other members of the group don’t know their criminal history.
“It’s a bad set-up,” said the 48-year-old rape victim, who remains sober. “It’s a predator’s party.”
Tuvov was found guilty last year of rape, oral copulation by force, penetration with a foreign object and sexual battery. Neither he nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.
A representative for Alcoholics Anonymous’ General Service Office in New York stressed that each local group in the fellowship operates independently. However, top leaders in the United States and Canada have developed guidelines and reading material that acknowledge the dangers and advise members to be watchful. Leaders also warn that wrongdoers cannot hide behind the cloak of anonymity.
The fellowship even created a “safety card” that reads, in part: “We request that members and others refrain from any behavior which might compromise another person’s safety.”
But it is up to each group to decide what to do with the card.
“G.S.O. often shares the experience that has been shared with us to help AA groups study and decide how they will apply AA principles to their daily lives — to reach an informed group conscience — as every AA group gets to do,” said the representative, who requested anonymity.
Former directors and victims advocates insist the Alcoholics Anonymous General Service Board can do more to protect local members.
“Each group is autonomous. That’s … an excuse not to use the power the board has to stop abusive behavior,” said James Branscome, a former board director. “There are groups in AA where you could call it a meat market. You have older guys hitting on newcomer women. Some groups are hijacked by gurus, and AA will claim they have no power to do anything about it.”
And the attacks keep stacking up:
• In Santa Clarita, an AA member killed his 31-year-old fiancee, whom he met through the group, in 2011. Eric Allen Earle is now serving 26 years to life at R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
• In Ventura County, two women were sexually assaulted by an AA leader who gained their trust and then gave them booze. William Beliveau is behind bars serving a 10-year sentence at Chino state prison.
• In Covina, an AA member and owner of a sober living home had to shut down his facility after his history of arrests for indecent exposure, sexual battery and unlawful touching came to light in 2012. Lance Paul Glock is listed in Megan’s Law as an offender in violation of parole.
‘Feeding grounds for predators’
Monica Richardson, who spent 36 years in Alcoholics Anonymous, produced the 2015 documentary, “The 13th Step,” tracking such sexual assaults across the world.
“How has this been tolerated?” Richardson said. “These (AA) meetings have become the feeding grounds for predators. It’s all over the world.”
Richardson and others are pushing for Alcoholics Anonymous to adopt a zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment and force leaders to undergo anti-harassment training. They also want the fellowship to create separate meetings for people under 21 years old and discourage courts and related services from dispatching criminal offenders.
According to the AA Worldwide website, there are 2 million members in 180 countries practicing the 12 steps toward self-reliance and inner faith.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 4.5 percent of U.S. men are alcoholics, with women at 2.5 percent.
Richardson said most alcoholics are downtrodden and accustomed to being scolded by family members, bosses and parents. Already yearning for acceptance, they get “love-bombed” at the meetings, she said.
“People come very, very lonely. Then they get hugged and love-bombed and told, ‘I love you, I love you,’’’ Richardson said. “A lot of them don’t have the assertiveness to say, ‘No’ (after that.)”
Meanwhile, those with the most years of sobriety are considered “elders,” with almost instant credibility, she said.
In an internal letter to the AA General Service Board in 2008, former board member Paul Cleary offered his concern that minors in Alcoholics Anonymous are especially endangered.
“Of course, alcoholics are not exempt from the problems of society, and this includes child sexual abuse. Alcoholics are not well-known for their even-keeled relationships, their well-defined boundaries or their maturity in sexual situations,” said the document obtained by the Southern California News Group. “It is not surprising that these problems continue into the sobriety period of some AA members. For all we know, the rate of child sexual abuse in AA may be higher than that of other organizations that are specifically set up to address the concerns of youth.”
The letter led to few, if any, changes.
“We’ve got murderers sitting next to movie stars. Everybody is thrown into the crucible because we all got the same problem,” said one former board member who requested anonymity. “For people to think, ‘You are not drinking, therefore, you are fine,’ is naive and inaccurate.”
‘Everybody knew she was in danger’
Eric Allen Earle had attended the program for 20 years, both voluntarily and at times as part of his court sentences, for such things as assault and domestic violence, according to news accounts. It was at an AA meeting in Santa Clarita that he met future fiancée Karla Brada, who had her own condo, a good job at a medical firm and an addiction to drugs and alcohol.
Earle pursued and eventually moved in with Brada. Then the beatings began. Earle punched Brada in the face and tried to drown her in the kitchen sink in August 2011, said Brada’s mother, Jaroslava Mendez, 72, of Sylmar.
Earle was arrested and jailed. Brada was ready to leave him there, but AA leaders besieged her to bail him out, Mendez said. The leaders even drove her to the jail to pay the bond.
Three weeks later, Earle again choked and beat Brada, this time to death.
“Everybody knew he had beaten her (the first time), everybody knew she was in danger. Nobody did anything,” Mendez said. “I mean, HELLO!”
The grieving mother tried unsuccessfully to sue Alcoholics Anonymous for wrongful death. Still, Mendez keeps trying to get out the message:
“It‘s very dangerous in AA.”
The mentor
William Beliveau was a go-to guy at AA meetings in Thousand Oaks. Beliveau taught lessons on the AA “big book” — the unofficial bible of Alcoholics Anonymous — and handed out sobriety coins at meetings. He was steeped in the culture.
And, according to prosecutors, he sponsored alcoholic women with an eye toward mentoring them into bed.
On one occasion, Beliveau showed up for a date with a bottle of booze under his arm. On another, he started the evening by purchasing an alcoholic drink for his date, another AA member.
Beliveau never imbibed himself, said Ventura County Senior Deputy District Attorney Erik Nasarenko.
“His whole notion of being a sponsor was a ruse,” Nasarenko said. “He knew first-hand how vulnerable these women were.”
Nasarenko continued: “He was someone who was looked up to and gained the trust and confidence of certain women. At the meetings he appeared to have some recognition.”
Beliveau was convicted in July 2017 of raping one woman who was intoxicated and another who was unconscious. Both were in their 50s and pressed charges using their first names only, Susan and Heidi.
Nasarenko said Beliveau put his victims up in hotels under the pretense of sponsoring them.
In addition to the two rapes, Beliveau was suspected of assaulting two other AA members, again plying them with alcohol.
“It became clear to the government, this was part of a pattern, something the defendant did with multiple women,” Nasarenko said. “He was somebody who would take advantage.”
Megan’s Law
Lance Paul Glock, owner of a Covina sober living home and AA member, wasn’t afraid to fight City Hall. Glock sued Covina for trying to regulate his Johnson Sober Living Home in 2011.
Glock had to drop the litigation and close the facility, according to his former lawyer, Lou Fazzi, after his criminal history caught up with him in 2012.
In a two-day period, Glock, then 51, was arrested for allegedly sexually touching a woman in a discount store and again hauled away the next day for child annoyance in a Covina business, according to news accounts.
It wasn’t Glock’s first arrests. According to court records, Glock had been charged with six sex crimes — including indecent exposure — and two counts of vandalism since 1988.
His friend, Shane, who requested to be identified by only his first name in keeping with the tenets of AA, said Glock is not a rarity at group meetings.
“The people that come in are not poster children. We get all kinds of people,” said Shane, 70, who has spent most of his life in Alcoholics Anonymous. “It’s men on women, women on men, sick people on sick people. The only requirement is you have to desire to stop drinking.”
‘You’re not broken’
It seemed there was an extra requirement for the woman raped by Tuvov — don’t go to police.
Moments after the rape, the woman said, she went to her sponsor of three years, who advised her against reporting the attack to authorities or going to the hospital.
“She said, ‘You were not violently raped, you’re not broken,’ ” remembers the woman. ” ‘If you talk about this, you’re going to get a reputation in AA and everybody will hate you.’ “
The woman said her female sponsor advised her to work on her inner self and pray because she was a sinner. AA Daytona Beach Meetings are dangerous!
“I knew in my heart that what she was telling me was crazy. I knew it wasn’t the best advice,” the woman said. Holly Hill NA Daytona meetings are dangerous!
She called a rape hotline, which advised her to put her clothes in a sealed bag, preserving the DNA that Tuvov had left behind.
She said she didn’t report the rape to police until nearly a month later and the case file lingered for more months before the DNA was processed. While the investigation was slow going, the repercussions were immediate, she recalls.
Female members cornered her in bathrooms or hallways and told her to stop talking about the attack at meetings, because she was scaring off newcomers.
“They said I was ruining people’s chance to get sober. Rape was an outside issue,” the woman said. Sunrise Park Holly Hill Florida AA and NA Meetings are dangerous!
“There’s a lot of bad things that go on in the hush-hush.”