Do you know what she was called while in the organization? What was her "Bible name"? That would help!

In a messy fight in Probate Court in Cambridge, Edward Redstone and his second wife, Madeline, sued to block a $6 million trust fund from going to Michael. They also asked to be compensated from three family trusts for the cost of raising his daughter, Ruth Ann, and her son, Adam. A judge recently ruled against them on all counts. Now the court is hearing arguments about who should pay the legal fees, which lawyers say run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The lawsuit opens a new wound in what Edward Redstone, a wealthy former banker, calls his "dysfunctional family."

The dispute centers on a series of trusts that Sumner and Edward Redstone's mother, Belle, established for her four grandchildren in 1959, according to the legal documents filed in the case. Sumner's children, Brent and Shari (who now runs National Amusements for her father), and Edward's children, Ruth Ann and Michael, were each named as beneficiaries.

But tragedy intervened. Ruth Ann disappeared in 1972 after joining a religious cult, the Children of God, during her first year at Brandeis University. Several years later, the family found her and hired a deprogrammer to work with her. But Ruth Ann escaped, and her family never saw her alive again. She turned up dead in Japan in 1987 at the age of 32. It was then the family discovered she had a son, Gabriel Adam, who was 3 years old at the time of his mother's death.

Edward Redstone and wife Madeline raised Adam as their own, and adopted him as their son in 2002. Redstone became both grandfather and father to Adam. "I, with Madeline, have spent more time with him 10-fold, 20-fold than I did with his mother [Ruth Ann] and uncle [Michael]," Redstone said in a magazine interview in 2003.

Tragedy would strike again, however. Last May Adam Redstone, an art student, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Los Angeles where he was going to school. He was 20 years old.

Family members continued FFing, and as they did, they continued getting venereal diseases-herpes, NSU, genital warts, etc. All these they took in stride. Then, something happened that changed things. In 1987, a Family FFer in Japan, an American woman named "Ruth", died of pneumonia. When her parents came from the States for the body, they had an autopsy done and discovered that their daughter had died of a full-blown case of AIDS.

The discovery sent shock waves through the Family. As much as they believed God was blessing them, as much as they felt that He would spare them from the "plagues of the Egyptians", they had to come face to face with grim reality: they weren't immune to AIDS. What made it so serious was that the woman had had sex with members of Berg's personal household. Berg himself might have been exposed to the HIV virus. That hit too close to home. Not only was Berg in danger, but Family disciples "shared" (had sex) freely amongst themselves, and it didn't take much to figure out that once the HIV virus found its way inside the group, it could spread like wildfire and untold numbers of people would become infected.

Fearful that unless they took sweeping measures, they would all die of AIDS, Berg restricted their use of FFing: HIV tests became mandatory for all Family disciples. The "Condom Revolution" was instituted. Sex with outsiders could continue, but it was mandatory to wear condoms (although exceptions were made with the most faithful, wealthy friends). From this point on, Family women would only FF outsiders whose sexual history they were intimately familiar with.

Was this the end of FFing? No, by now, Family women around the world already had a massive amount of regulars on the line—many of them wealthy and influential benefactors of the group—so, armed with condoms, they continued FFing.

Posted by I was there on November 14, 2003 at 09:16:34

In Reply to: How many died of AIDS? posted by Researcher on August 22, 2003 at 07:46:49:

An American girl named Crystal died of AIDS in Japan in about 1987-88. She was a single girl who had been a big FFer in Brazil. When she gave birth to her first child she had a lot of problems w/ the delivery & (I heard) got some kind of blood poisoining and almost died. She ended up with terrible bed sores and had most of her toes cut off. I don't know if she got AIDS from FFing but she could have gotten it from blood transfusions in Brazil. Poor thing, she was very sweet but always getting sick w/ one thing or the other. No one had any idea that she had AIDS. At the end, she was in a home where a brother got pneumonia, and she immediately caught it and died. That's when it was discovered she had AIDS. What a shock. There was even an article in the Japan Times about the number of AIDS cases in Japan and how "recently an American woman died of AIDS in Chiba-ken". They did not mention her name. In the group it was very hush-hush, but a few guys she shared with got tested and they were okay. She was estranged from her wealthy parents, but they came to Japan to pick up her 3 year old son and took him home with them.

Is there a photograph of her anywhere?

Ruth Ann's story is sadder. In 1972 she had dropped out of Brandeis University and left to wander the world; she was believed to have joined a cult. She never saw her family again. Three years after the 1984 share buyback she was found dead in Japan (of causes that have not been publicly revealed). Only then did her father, Edward, learn he had a grandson: Gabriel Adam Redstone, who was 3 at the time. Ruth Ann's proceeds from the 1984 buyback, when her stake went to NAI for $7.5 million, went into a trust for the toddler. Edward and his second wife raised his grandson.

By his teens Adam had a drug-abuse problem. He landed in Hazelden, a rehab program in Minnesota, then was arrested on drug charges, and later was treated at the Betty Ford clinic. In 2004 Adam died in a motorcycle accident, three weeks shy of age 21. Six months later Edward sued his grandson's trust, seeking to be repaid money he had spent caring for Adam. Edward lost and appealed. In October 2007 the appeals court decreed that the $21 million estate would be split up among various Redstone trusts--Sumner himself may get $2.3 million.

Re: ruth ann redstone
Ruth was an FF'er at Mario Torres and Sophia Dow's (aka "Paloma") FF home (i.e., cult brothel) in Buenos Aires that aimed to recruit rich and powerful supporters -- with some success.

I would recognize a photo of her.

Colonel wrote:

Is there a photograph of her anywhere?