Leon Oziel

Passions

Vocation

Lifestyle

Traits

American psychotherapist who practiced Milton Ericksonian Hypnosis. With sessions ranging from $150 to $250 an hour, he would use vocal tones and key words to alter a patient's state of consciousness and receptivity. Around mid-1989, Judalon Smyth called him, and they began having phone sessions by the hour. She later alleged that he hypnotized her to fall in love with him. He also had the Menendez brothers as patients prior to the death of their parents in July 1989. When Erik confessed on 10/31/1989 that they had killed their parents, Oziel became afraid for his life and arranged for Judalon, now his lover, to listen at the door. She did and then called the police 3/5/90; they seized Oziel's tapes and the boys were arrested. As a chief witness for the indictment of murder of their parents by the Menendez boys, he lost his license in early January 1991 for violating the brothers' professional confidence, as well as alleged sexual misconduct and physical assault with a pair of female patients to whom he had also allegedly supplied illegal drugs. He was married to another psychiatrist, Dr. Laurel Oziel, they had two daughters.