ALCOHOLISM `CURE' ENDS IN ONE DEATH

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Enrique Bravo lost his battle with alcohol. And
prosecutors contend it was the cure that killed him.

Four members of a storefront alcohol and drug recovery group were being held
Wednesday on charges that they killed the 32-year-old man by tying him up
and force-feeding him alcohol May 25 in a misguided aversion therapy.

The Los Angeles County coroner's office has not determined the cause of
death, but it was being investigated as a homicide, coroner's spokesman
Scott Carrier said.

District attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said she could not confirm
details of the allegations on Wednesday.

However, Deputy District Attorney Craig Renetzky, quoted in the Los Angeles
Times, alleged that Bravo was fed ``nothing but alcohol'' and was kept
restrained in a room with another man, who survived the treatment.

``The idea was that the guy would later hate alcohol so much he wouldn't
drink anymore,'' Renetzky said. ``But the guy died.''

Bravo, of Little Rock, was pronounced dead at Grupo Liberacion y Fortaleza
on Lankershim Boulevard in the Sun Valley area of the San Fernando Valley.

The four defendants were workers or volunteers, and some had been through
the same program, the prosecutor said.

Alberto Saguache, 38; Armando Nestor Sakaqil, 29; Dante Rosillo Barrera, 32
and Jose Robert Rodriguez, 45, pleaded not guilty on June 2 to one count
each of involuntary manslaughter and two counts each of false imprisonment.

They remained jailed in lieu of $50,000 each pending a preliminary hearing
today, Gibbons said.

Those familiar with alcohol-treatment programs said the treatment allegedly
given Bravo was neither common nor accepted.

``This is obviously some kind of bizarre notion of how you help people get
clean and sober,'' said Bill Gallegos, chairman of the Los Angeles County
Alcohol, Tobacco and Drug Policy Coalition, a coalition of 50 organizations
involved in drug- and alcohol-abuse prevention.

Effectively dealing with alcoholism requires programs to deal with
psychological, emotional and even genetic roots of the problem and requires
patients to ``commit their lives to a day-by-day process of staying clean,''
Gallegos said.

Bravo may have been one of those who turned to an unlicensed and
unsupervised program because of a widespread shortage of treatment
facilities, Gallegos said.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett