Topanga Healer Facing Legal Ills

By Caitlin Liu

Aug. 1, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Deep in the mountains above Topanga Canyon, past ramshackle dwellings, horse stables and flower gardens, India-born Felix Babu Stephen is at work inside his yurt.

The giant, green, dome-like tent is where the self-described Ayurvedic spiritualist -- whom clients call a guru, a healer and a spiritual teacher -- leads meditation sessions, teaches yoga breathing and performs deep-tissue massages.

In a T-shirt and baggy surfer shorts, the wiry 43-year-old UC Davis dropout doesn’t look like a guru. His face is unlined, he has a curly crop of dark hair and he looks 15 years younger than his age. His slightly accented Southern California drawl is punctuated with the occasional exclamation “Dude!”

New Age is bunk, he says, but clients tell him he can predict the future. He saw through walls as a child in India, he says, but he has lost that power.

Stephen, who is also known as Felix Sinnappan, boasts of a jet-set clientele -- from as far away as Britain, Germany and the Bahamas -- seeking relief from all kinds of pain: physical, emotional and spiritual.

He doesn’t advertise but attracts business through word of mouth. His celebrity clients include British rock musician Sting and actor Robert Downey Jr., who, sheriff’s deputies said in a report, paid Stephen for his services with a 2001 black BMW station wagon.

Stephen said he charges on a donation basis, depending on a person’s ability to pay. One client said she paid $800 for a full-day session. Another mops his floor in exchange.

“I have so many clients that I don’t go looking for them. If they need my help, they find me,” said Stephen, standing in flip-flops under a shady tree on his hilly compound, which includes main and guest houses, as well as the yurt. Peacocks strut nearby.

But the cloud of criminal prosecution now hangs over the Topanga spiritualist and his yurt.

Stephen, who has been out on bail since last summer, is scheduled to go on trial in Malibu this month. He is charged with practicing medicine without certification; illegally possessing a controlled substance, codeine; and defrauding a client of more than $200,000. He faces more than six years in prison if convicted.

Authorities say Stephen provided clients drugs, including hallucinogens and pills, during meditation sessions. Only licensed professionals are permitted to dispense pharmaceuticals, according to state law.

Authorities intend to show that one client, Anita Lenaburg, paid Stephen more than $200,000 over three years for what they said was essentially quackery.

“He was holding himself out to be a healer,” said Sgt. Steven Opferman of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, who supervised the criminal investigation. “Basically, this was a cult

Stephen denies the charges; the codeine was for a cold, he says. Michael Levin, his lawyer, said the case presents a classic clash between spiritual beliefs and the practice of medicine.

“Because Ayurvedic medicine has its roots in Indian religion, there will be 1st Amendment issues in this case,” Levin said. “What constitutes medicine cannot be construed to broadly include a yoga class or meditation class. All of Christian Science has to do with not using doctors and treating [illness] through prayers. Scientology rejects conventional psychiatry for its own therapy sessions.... Faith healers [use] laying of hands.”

Lenaburg, 44, a Covina tile company owner, and her stepdaughter went to deputies in June 2004 complaining that Stephen had sex with them as part of their treatment, in her case, for a pinched nerve, two sheriff’s incident reports said.

Lenaburg said Stephen fondled her in an act of “Tantric sex” until she passed out; her stepdaughter said Stephen had her perform oral sex on him until she threw up, the reports said. A third woman told authorities Stephen had touched her inappropriately, one of the reports said.

Stephen would gather men and women in “various states of undress” inside the yurt and administer brightly colored drinks that made them feel like they were on hallucinogenic drugs, according to interviews and a sheriff’s report. The participants put on blindfolds and headsets playing East Indian music.

“Each person then lays on the mat and focuses on their inner self. The session lasts eight hours,” a sheriff’s report said.

In an interview, Lenaburg repeated the “Tantric sex” allegation. Tantra is a form of yoga that teaches the attainment of spiritual ecstasy through sometimes erotic techniques.

“My mind got all mixed up from the drugs that I couldn’t think straight,” Lenaburg said.

“My family’s been hurt very deeply,” she said, declining to answer additional questions for this report.

“This is our only chance at possible compensation, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it,” she said.

Stephen denied having sex with clients and said Lenaburg is angry because they had a falling-out and he cut off communications with her. He also said she was out for money.

The drinks, he said, contained only herbs such as St. John’s wort and camomile. He helps clients with substance-abuse problems to stay sober and does not condone any form of illegal drugs, he said.

“I’m a spiritualist. I teach people how to bring their spirit home and live with it,” he said.

Authorities rejected filing sex charges because there were no witnesses and the alleged abuse was not reported in time to gather physical evidence.

They also deemed other alleged sex acts as consensual, because the women by their own admission didn’t object and continued to seek treatment and pay Stephen for his services.

“You have to ask yourself the question: Would you go back? Most people would say no,” Opferman said.

Sexual misconduct allegations against alternative medicine practitioners are not uncommon, said John Holmstrom, former president of the California Assn. of Ayurvedic Medicine.

“People talk about this openly. It’s a lot of ‘he said, she said,’ ” Holmstrom said.

“If I were alone with a lady, I would do everything in the presence of someone else,” said Holmstrom, who directs the Ayurveda certificate program at American University of Complementary Medicine in Los Angeles.

Stephen’s supporters believe he is being persecuted for his Indian origins and exotic spiritual beliefs, not because of sexual misconduct, which they never witnessed.

Neighbor Gail Wronsky, who sometimes had Stephen lecture her creative writing students at Loyola Marymount University, called the prosecution “a horrible example of overzealous law enforcement taking the word of people who have other, illogical and misguided agendas.”

Ayurveda, which means “science of life,” is a holistic medical system from India involving herbs, diet, yoga and aromatherapy that was popularized in the United States by author Deepak Chopra and singer Madonna.

Though 1,000 to 2,000 people, and more than a dozen schools, teach or offer Ayurvedic treatments in the United States, the practice is largely unregulated.

Former Gov. Gray Davis signed a law in 2002 prohibiting alternative healthcare practitioners from performing surgery, administering X-rays or dispensing controlled substances. But anyone can claim to be an Ayurvedic practitioner.

Stephen does not have any certificates or degrees in Ayurvedic medicine, does not belong to any Ayurvedic associations and is not known, by name or reputation, to leaders in the Los Angeles Ayurvedic community. He said he practices a more esoteric branch of Ayurveda.

“It’s not voodoo or anything,” he said.

His special powers emerged when he was stung by a scorpion as a child in Bangalore, he said. Local priests took him under their wing and tutored him in the principles of Ayurveda.

He immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 15 and became a legal resident. Stephen attended UC Davis from 1979 to 1983, but didn’t graduate, according to university records.

The former Venice resident, who once didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, said he first began taking friends on as clients and the word spread.

“I help people become successful,” he said.

Stephen was one of 57 people arrested in Los Angeles County last year by a law enforcement task force targeting the practice of medicine without a license and the illegal dispensing of pharmaceuticals.

Most of those cases involve doctors with lapsed credentials, foreign doctors who haven’t passed U.S. exams or homeopaths in poor immigrant communities illegally prescribing medication.

“A lot of these quacks ... they’re selling false hopes,” said Erick Aguilar, a county health officer on the task force. “We’re not necessarily against these alternative therapies as long as customers understand the risks.”

Many of Stephen’s clients believe in his healing and spiritual powers.

Sting recalls dropping by Stephen’s Topanga compound for a couple of massages a few years ago, said the singer’s manager, Kathryn Schenker.

“Sting absolutely visits a lot of therapists and body workers around the world.... Evidently, this person must have been very highly recommended,” Schenker said. “He’s sorry about the guy’s troubles.”

Downey is a frequent visitor, according to several of Stephen’s clients. The actor couldn’t be reached for comment.

“He’s pretty amazing, what he does,” said Michelle Agasi, co-owner of a plumbing company in Tarzana, who is battling colon cancer and said she goes to Stephen to learn how to relax.

“He teaches me different breathing techniques, and we talk about anger management.... It’s just another form of natural healing. Is that illegal?”