28 ICSA TODAY
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Robert Capellini is friendly and forthcoming (“Call me Cap—
everyone always has”) as he answers my questions in a lively
voice. Early on, he quips that, at 90, he’s trying marijuana.
“Medical marijuana! For my back.” But he quickly, naturally, veers
to talking about his wife, Joan Capellini, who passed away in
2014, and their children Steve, Tina, and Jim. “We’ve always been
a close family,” he says. It becomes clear that any profile about
Mr. Capellini will necessarily be about him and his loved ones, so
much a part of him.
Cap was born in 1928. He spent the first 7 years of his life in
Rockville Center, Long Island, moving to California with his
family when he was 8 years old. After the Second World War, he
began working for the phone company now known as Verizon,
where he met Joan, to whom he was married for 56 years. They
had three children. Cap was promoted a few times. They lived in
Chicago for 6 years. Cap was eventually promoted to a position
in Tampa, Florida. He worked for the company for 37 years,
retiring at 59. A Time magazine article about older adults using
the Internet, published in 1998 when he was 70, featured Cap
prominently. He had discovered the Internet and email, and had
gotten quite adept at using both, volunteering to teach others.
Part of the article reads, “…A product of the Depression, he shops
at Sears and clips coupons despite having earned a comfortable
retirement for himself and his wife…”
~
It was in 1978 that Cap’s middle son, Steve, was recruited into the
Unification Church, aka the Moonies, setting off a family crisis.
Cap speaks with tremendous pride and affection about Steve.
“When he was only 12, he asked, ‘Why is there anything?’ He was
reading Plato and Socrates at that age! He was always a seeker.”
Cap paints Steve as a “free spirit” and explains that he went
to college directly after high school but stayed for only one
semester, leaving to sail the Caribbean for a few months, then
hitchhike from Miami to San Francisco. While in San Francisco, he
encountered Rev. Moon’s organization. The members engaged
the inquisitive young man, taking him to their farm 100 miles
north of the city. Steve continued to call his parents every
weekend, so Cap at first suspected nothing. Joan, however,
with a mother’s intuition, pronounced after the first phone call,
“Something is wrong.”
To isolate Steve from his parents, the group sent him to Colorado.
After 6 months, Steve finally told his parents the name of the
organization. There was little information about the group
then however, in doing research, they came upon a book
entitled ominously Let Our Children Go, by Ted Patrick. The Moon
organization was covered in the book on page 113.
Thoroughly alarmed, Cap and Joan tried to tell Steve about what
they’d found. He spurned the information. The Moonies had
already made a lot of headway. They were, however, unsuccessful
in turning him completely away from his parents. Cap relates,
“Everything they said about his mom he rejected.”
The Capellinis realized the depth of the situation. After a family
conference, they arrived at a sobering, frightening conclusion:
They would have to take the extreme measure of rescuing their
son via kidnapping and deprogramming. Unlike today, when
parents have access to a range of resources to help them deal
with a loved one in a group, in those days, deprogramming often
seemed like the only option for families.
This part of the story is in turn terrifying, funny, and heart-
rending. With Joan at home holding down the fort, Cap, the
loving and devoted father, left everything behind and set off
alone on a journey to save his son’s life. He travelled to a place
he’d never been had to put his trust in people he didn’t know
and had to be at times incredibly patient, at others as quick and
fleet-footed as the protagonist in a spy novel.
He met with strangers who were part of a kind of underground
railroad at the time and willing to help. They managed to
grab Steve, take him to a safe house, and proceed, led by the
deprogrammer, Ted Patrick. A crucial point in the rescue finally
came when Cap
broke down in tears
in front of his boy.
“He’d never seen his
father cry. I think
it shocked him it
moved him.” That
was the beginning
of Steve’s return to
himself.
They were
successful at getting
Steve home. It was
Christmas time. As
Robert Capellini
Joan and Robert Capellini.

29 VOLUME 9 |ISSUE 3 |2018
Edited by Mary O’Connell
Cap tells it, he was overwhelmed with joy when, on Christmas
Eve, Steve joined him in putting together a bicycle for Steve’s
younger sibling, Jim, peace restored to the family. “That was the
happiest Christmas we’d ever had.”
~
Take one look at the picture of
Joan Capellini’s beautiful face
and you can see, behind the
energy and joy that radiates
there, a deeply felt tranquility.
This is a woman whose life was
built on something solid. Her
face tells the story of a woman
who was well-loved and who
shared that love with the world.
There’s an adage, “If you want
to know a man’s character, look
at his wife’s face.” While it is not politically correct in these days,
it certainly is true that one’s intimates have a great impact. Cap
is effusive in his praise of Joan and freely admits her superior
capability in certain things. When Steve became involved with
the Unification Church, it was a turning point for Joan. Cap puts it
this way:
Out of that bad experience, very good things
happened. Joan, very shy, became extremely
outspoken. She became a stronger person. Joan
had the touch. She could talk to anyone and reach
their heart. She spoke on radio, TV, in front of huge
audiences.
Joan became very active in the cult-awareness movement. She
reached out in any way she could, helping so many people along
the way, speaking at gatherings large and small. The Capellinis
hosted people at their home many times.
Joan was elected president of the local chapter of the original
CAN and served in that capacity from 1979 to 1988. She was
given the Hall of Fame Award on October 22, 1988. Cap says
of her, “She was small in stature but a giant when it came
to informing the world about destructive cults and being
instrumental in saving many from such a disastrous fate.”
Joan Capellini passed away on April 28, 2014. Cap and Joan had
been on a river cruise in Germany when she became ill with
influenza. Taken to a local hospital, she recovered nicely from
that problem but succumbed to a previously undiagnosed faulty
aortic valve. “I’m grateful that she passed away quickly, quietly,
and with no pain,” Cap reflects. Alone in Dresden, not speaking
one word of German, Cap was joined within 2 days by Steve and
later by his daughter Tina.
To honor his wife, Mr. Capellini set up a scholarship fund in
her name. Former cult members are welcome to apply for the
scholarship to help pay for ICSA memberships and registration
fees at ICSA events.
~
We don’t seem to speak as much about the devastating financial
effects of cult involvement, but those effects are devastating. For
so many people, dealing with them can be a lifelong struggle.
There are many stories of people whose financial lives have been
mangled by cult involvement—by donations they gave to the
cult while under undue influence by bad financial decisions they
made relative to taxes, student loans, or other things or simply
by their absorption in cult activities during those years when they
would normally be establishing a career and the financial stability
they could rely on in later life.
Cult involvement can and absolutely does often mean Herculean
struggle after one leaves the group to build some kind of financial
foundation in youth and middle age. In old age, that involvement
can mean impoverishment, which in turn can mean having to
choose between buying medication or buying food. It can mean
the choice to walk 50 blocks to save carfare or to splurge by
taking public transportation. It can mean having to forego social
occasions because you just don’t have the money not buying
a gift for a loved one not having money for a needed pair of
shoes, a coat, and so on. Such choices, lived on a daily basis, with
no reprieve in sight, can be grinding on the soul. They can eat
away at any precious, good feeling you might build up through
concentrated effort. The
constant lack can lead to
a lack of hope. The Joan
Capellini Scholarship Fund
may lessen the financial
burdens some former
members experience by
enabling them to connect
with the ICSA community,
where they can find
understanding and
camaraderie.
~
On May 7, 2018, Cap celebrated his 90th birthday. More than 100
guests and family members, including Michael Langone of ICSA,
helped commemorate the occasion with a party in his honor.
There is something so thrilling about a capable man who is also
responsible and loving: a Hector rather than an Achilles. Robert
Capellini—Cap to everyone who has ever known him —is one of
those. n