1 02-24-88 01:49 pcs sweden, neb. DENVER (UPI) _ Two Nebraska men were placed on two

   1 02-24-88 01:49 pcs

   sweden, neb.

   DENVER  (UPI)  _  Two  Nebraska  men  were placed on two years
probation   Wednesday   for   the   kidnapping   and    attempted
deprogramming of a follower of the Rev.  Sun Myung Mon last year.

   Lawrence  G.  Whelan,  24, and Jim L. Hilzendeger, 28, both of
Omaha, could have been sent to prison for  two  years  and  fined
$5,000 each.    They  had  pleaded  guilty earlier to a charge of
third-degree  assault  in  a  plea  bargain,   and   charges   of
second-degree  kidnapping, conspiracy and false imprisonment were
dropped.

   Four others charged in the  abduction  of  Unification  Church
member  Britta  Adolfsson have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Dennis  Whelan,  Patrick  Kinney,   Juduth   Kowal   and   Robert
Brandyberry will go on trial March 28.

   Linda  Miller,  34,  pleaded  guilty last fall to a conspiracy
charge in the case and was given a deferred sentence.

   Adolfsson, 29, was abducted last May 26 as she walked down  an
east Denver street after her Swedish parents hired Dennis Whelan,
52,  an  Omaha  private  investigator, to find their daughter and
take her to deprogrammers.

   The parents became alarmed after learning that the young woman
planned to go to South Korea to marry a  man  she  had  not  met.
Adolfsson, 29, was delivered to deprogrammers in Lyons, Kan., but
escaped June 2.

   Lawrence Whelan is the son of Dennis Whelan and Hilzendeger is
Dennis Whelan's son-in-law.