How the Scientology Organization uses and exploits
How the Scientology Organization uses and exploits the United States’ legal system for its own ends.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Ten years ago I gave a speech here in Hamburg. That speech was called “The Dark Side of Scientology” and it can be found on the Internet if you are interested. In that speech I said that Scientology could be reduced to three fundamental concepts: Power, Purge and Punish. Power referred to the goal of Scientology to “clear the planet” and eliminate all opposition to Scientology. Purge referred to Scientology removing all critical or negative documents and information from government files and public accessibility. Punish, I said, was the darkest of all sides of Scientology. It took two forms: an internal Orwellian form of eliminating any dissent or critical thought and an external form of punishing critics and the uncooperative government officials with copyrighted policies of terror and psycho-terror for the “Handling of Suppressive Persons;” persons who oppose or impede Scientology’s objectives. These written policies am loosely called “Fair Game” and they take different forms: intelligence, investigation, intimidation, litigation, fraud and deception. These six forms of Scientology “Fair Game” are the principal means with which the Scientology enterprise uses and exploits the United States legal system for its own ends
The Church of Scientology has a well deserved reputation for being the most fearsome and intimidating litigant in America. Many lawyers are willing to deal with “hard ball” litigation tactics but few are willing to confront criminal tactics: public corruption, bribery, blackmail, extortion, perjury, obstruction of justice, fraud, false claims, lying, defamation, deception, intimidation and psycho-terror. All of these things are well documented as being the regular litigation tactics of the Church of Scientology, its lawyers and its private investigators.
The fraud starts with the deceitful claim that it is simply a misunderstood peaceful ethical religion. However, only Scientology’s conduct, and not its science fiction, space opera beliefs, is relevant to my own opinions being expressed here today. Scientology’s well documented criminal conduct demonstrates that its religiosity is merely a public relations facade and fraud, along with its many other “false front” tentacles such as W.I.S.E., Narconon and Applied Scholastics. The written policies and records of Scientology demonstrate that it really seeks global totalitarian political domination. One Scientology policy document classifies all governments as Suppressive Persons, to be “utterly destroyed” and “eliminated,” “quietly and without sorrow.” In 1960 Scientology issued the ‘Special Zone Plan – The Scientologists Role in Life.” Scientologists who are not on Church staff are ordered to achieve influence in the society at large, by taking positions next to the high and mighty. “Don’t bother to get elected. Get a job on the secretarial staff or the body guard.” For example, Scientologist John Danielson was Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush’s former Secretary of Education Rod Paige. They are still working together as the Chartwell Education Group and they are continuing to support Scientology as “Applied Scholastics” in ten states to receive tax-payer monies as part of the Supplemental Educational Services under the “No Child Left Behind” program. Bruce Wiseman, the President of Scientology’s anti-psychiatry false front, the Citizens Commission for Human Rights (C.C.H.R.), is also the Treasurer of the National Foundation of Woman Legislators. Former lead Scientology lawyer Gerald Chaleff is now the Los Angeles Police Department attorney and command team member. The Los Angeles County Sheriff publicly supports and promotes Scientology. It is said he even tried to introduce scientology training into the Los Angeles sheriffs department. The assistant city attorney in charge of ensuring that the Los Angeles police Department does not engage in any racketeering conduct ironically is a scientologist who is married to OSA legal unit lawyer Ava Paquette.
The list of infiltrated, corrupt and compromised public officials, including judges, is a long and tawdry one. For example, Scientologists are placed into law firm word processing departments, and into congressional mail rooms, to intercept and report on litigation documents and citizen complaints. These people are coercively indoctrinated into ignoring their oaths and obligations of office and to always advance Scientology’s agenda. To them, as written policies demand, the ends really do justify the means. As you know here in Europe, no democratic state can survive such pervasive criminal behavior, but the United States now has an institutional tolerance of Scientology crimes and abuses, frauds and sedition.
In the early 1960s, Scientology also established a Department of Government Affairs. Hubbard wrote that “[t]he goal of the Department of Government Affairs is to bring the government and hostile philosophies into complete compliance with the goals of Scientology. This is done by high level control, and in its absence, by low level ability to overwhelm. Introvert such agencies. Control such agencies.’ Later Scientology also established a Department of Official Affairs, to create “[h]eavy influence through our own and similarly minded groups on the public and official mind.” Next came the Scientology “Public Investigations” section. In 1966, these Scientology departments were merged into the Guardian’s Office, the church’s very own intelligence agency. It handled public relations, litigation, and intelligence gathering. The Intelligence Bureau not only conducted “black ops” but also engaged in intimidation and worse; what has been property classified here in Europe as “psycho-terror” and even “terrorism,” being perpetrated by a California based religious corporation calling itself a church, which now alleges about 50,000 active members worldwide. Falsely inflated membership claims are part of the fraud on the public.
In 1982, as part of Scientology’s deceptive and fraudulent corporate re-organization, Scientology’s Guardians Office was renamed the Office of Special Affairs or O.S.A. Contrary to sworn representations to the United States government, many Guardian’s Office staff continued to work for O.S.A. One example is O.S.A.s lead in-house lawyer Kendrick Moxon who was named in the 266 page Stipulation of Evidence in the case of US. v. Hubbard, for providing fabricated evidence to the F.B.I. Today, lead Scientology attorney Moxon continues to fabricate evidence, and the Office of Special Affairs is headquartered in Hollywood and Gilman Hot Springs, California. David Miscavige, the totalitarian leader of this para-military cult, lives there in an armored building and often travels by armored vehicle. His actions and orders go out around the world and the money comes back into the United States from around the world, or it flows into bank accounts in Luxembourg and in the Caribbean. Obviously, all the money does not come from church members paying for courses and auditing. The real money comes from other sources and activities. How the money comes and where it goes is another subject for another day.
On October 9, 2001, less than 30 days after the Al Qaeda attacks on the United States, the OSA legal unit known as Moxon & Kobrin renewed the copyright of Scientology’s policy document called “Targets Defense.” In this church policy and practice document, certain “vital targets” are identified. “T1, Depopularizing the enemy to a point of total obliteration; T2, Taking over the control or allegiance of the heads or proprietors of all news media; T3, Taking over the control or allegiance of key political figures; T4, Taking over the control or allegiance of those who monitor international finance.” Hubbard also wrote, “All man shall be my slaves … all men shall grovel at my feet and not know why.”
With Hubbard’s Manual on Brainwashing, and his auditing processes and training drills, Scientology enslaves minds, and with Scientology’s promises to cure all ills and ailments, it unlawfully practices medicine; stealing people’s health, and sacrificing their lives for more and more auditing dollars, until it is too late for conventional medicine to work. You can read about some of the deaths at WhyAreTheyDead.com. The list of victims, who art dead (often through mysterious and shockingly similar suicides) is long and covers decades. The list of people who have disappeared is also long and likewise covers decades. Meanwhile, the Church of Scientology continues to insist that only Scientology and its auditing processes, and copyrighted procedures such as NOTS 34, can cure physical and mental conditions and diseases. The Church of Scientology is killing people by the unlawful practice of medicine as well as via its Fair Game retaliation against those who impede its goals. Scientology is destroying lives, liberties and the pursuit of happiness of countless people.
If this United States government protected racketeering and terror group was not called a church, it would require medical and other licenses, and the fully informed consent of the medical patient or commercial customer. In fact, instead of full and informed disclosure, the Scientology Enterprise requires its parishioners to sign away all of their civil rights. Scientology killed Lisa McPherson, holding her captive in a room for 17 days, denying her non-scientology medical care, untill she was dehydrated, covered with 110 cockroach bites and dead. Dead, as part of a Scientology policy and procedure for handling a person having a psychotic break, or going crazy, while engaged in Scientology mental processing. Scientology’s leader, David Miscavige, was personally involved in Lisa’s isolation, introspection rundown and death. “People sometimes die,” he callously said.
What did this Church do after they had killed Lisa McPherson and paid over $50 million tax exempt dollars, to defeat the court claims of her family through international public corruption, litigation terrorism, international psycho-terrorism, blackmail and fraud? This Church, claiming to be the most ethical group on the planet ordered its lawyers to draft, and its parishioners to sign, a new general release and waiver of all liability agreeing that the Church of Scientology is free of any liability for death, “injury or damage suffered in any way or connected with Scientology Religious Services or Spiritual Assistance.”
Why should the name ”Church of Scientology” be enough to enable the Scientology enterprise to change and waive the laws, rules and consequences that apply to all other organisations including The Roman Catholic Church? The Roman Catholic Church was liable for the sexual abuse perpetrated by its clergy. In fact the Church of Scientology itself has repeatedly covered up staff sexual abuse and rape with the use of psycho-terror and gag agreements. Hubbard also wrote that a Scientologist can get away with murder. Amazingly, the one racketeering enterprise in the United States that is now above the law is the Church of Scientology.
Perhaps that is because of the 1993 Secret Tax Agreement between the IRS and Scientology which, in effect, makes Scientology the established state religion of America by giving it tax benefits, global promotion and protection from Interpol. These are unique privileges and government assistance that are denied to all other religions. Last February, in the Sklar v. I.R.S. case, where Jewish parents were seeking the same religious education deductions exclusively allowed to Scientologists, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge said that “… the view of the I.R.S. that it can unconstitutionally violate the Constitution by treating [Scientology] more favorably than other religions in terms of what is allowed as deductions … does intrude into the Establishment Clause.” How did this constitutional outrage happen?
Three decades age Scientology agents broke into and infiltrated 135 government departments and embassies in Washington, DC, as part of “Operation Snow White,” which is an ongoing Scientology project. The worst criminal infiltration of the United States government in our nation’s history, was perpetrated by none other than the Church of Scientology. Eleven of Scientology’s top executives were convicted. Hubbard’s own wife went to federal prison. Scientology’s current lead lawyer Kendrick Moxon narrowly avoided a similar sentence. Accordingly, it seems unbelievable that on October 1, 1993, the United States Government, as a result of criminal blackmail, intimidation, litigation terrorism and public corruption, granted the Church of Scientology tax exempt status with unique tax privileges, tax benefits and tax deductions that are expressly and constitutionally denied to alt other churches, both by law and the I.R.S. secret agreement with Scientology.
I.R.S. agents and their families had been terrorized. Two died under apparently suspicious circumstances. Scientology had filed over 2,500 law suits against the I.R.S. and Scientology lawyer Kendrick Moxon had reportedly paid over a million dollars to Maryland private investigators to “dig up the dirt” on top I.R.S. officials. Scientology’s leader has publicly claimed that this tax agreement, based upon a blatantly fraudulent and “specially handled” application, along with a merely superficial I.R.S. investigation, saved Scientology over one billion dollars in past due taxes, interest and penalties. David Miscavige is also reported as saying that he and Martin C. Rathbun would go to prison for a very long time if it were ever known how, during one half hour unannounced visit to then I.R.S. Commissioner Fred Goldberg, they reversed twenty five years of Federal Government resistance, and blackmailed the I.R.S. into ignoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Hernandez case.
The more than 166 corporations and churches of Scientology are an elaborate fraud and religious cloak, designed to shield the true nature of what is really a racketeering enterprise that satisfies all of the elements of the United States Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act known as R.I.C.O.. There is no corporate integrity among this deceptive conglomerate. The conditions of the secret tax agreement are ignored and unenforced. David Miscavige controls and micro-manages the entire enterprise with sole control over the organization and its assets. This tax exempt church is managing agent David Miscaviges’ tax free totalitarian empire and gulag, and any time he likes he can run with all the tax free money. This is Scientology in America today, and it adversely affects America’s image and reputation around the world.
The U.S. government claims it is fearless and tireless against extremist Islamic terrorism, but it is intimidated, impotent and complicit in mattes of Scientology domestic terrorism, crime and abuse. The law in the United Stales only requires that the government, and the courts, respect freedom of religious belief. The law and the court decisions are clear that wrongful church conduct, whether religiously motivated or not, may be regulated and punished like any other crimes and abuses. Despite that, nearly all complaints about Scientology crimes and abuses ate ignored by the Federal and State governments and their law enforcement authorities. Over the past ten years many hundreds of complaints have been made to the F.B.I., the Department of Justice, the I.R.S. and the Congress. All are ignored or rejected with a specious excuse. Outraged government officials take in complaints, input them into the system and then are stunned speechless when higher ups “spike” any investigation or prosecution. In part, it is this official inaction and hypocrisy that is prompting tens of thousands around the world to protest Anonymously against what is widely acknowledged as the world’s most dangerous cult.
In the mid 1970s a few brave citizens banded together against cults in general. They formed the Cult Awareness Network or CAN. It provided information and assistance to the families of cult member and to former cult members. To summarize a very long saga, Scientology’s O.S.A. infiltrated CAN. Scientology lawyer Moxon devised the “Bowles & Moxon Plan 100” to have 100 frivolous law suits on file at any one time against CAN. Scientology intended to drive CAN into bankruptcy. Deposition testimony detailed Moxon being involved in plans to murder Cynthia Kisser, the President of CAN, and Ford Greene, an anti-cult lawyer. A former scientology operative has testified he got as far as the CAN offices before deciding to ignore his orders. However, he did infiltrate Ford Greene’s law offices to obtain confidential information. Scientology has infiltrated many government, congressional, media and law offices; even my own former law offices. It has blackmailed and extorted my then law partners and it has intimidated professional associates, clients and friends. Scientology did all of these thing in the dozens of cases it filed against the Cult Awareness Network, a non-profit tax exempt charitable organization. Scientology did drive CAN into bankruptcy and then it persuaded the bankruptcy judge to give Scientology the name, postal address and telephone number of the Cult Awareness Network to use itself, which it still does. Worse still, the bankruptcy trustee and judge were persuaded to transfer all of the files and records of the Cult Awareness Network to the Church of Scientology. Those who had sought confidential assistance against Seientology were then subjected to Scientology Fair Game and psycho-terror retaliation and handling.
In the United States, justice and fair play, on a level playing field, are not possible in litigation involving the Church of Scientology. The government, law enforcement, the courts and the media have all been terrorized into abdicating their oaths of office and obligations. A copyrighted Scientology document provides that “[t]he purpose of the law suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway … would generally be sufficient to cause his professional demise. If possible, of course, ruin utterly.” Scientology takes this even further by engaging in institutional organized perjury. “The only way to control someone is to lie to them,” wrote Hubbard. He also wrote a document called the “Manual of Justice.” In that document Hubbard wrote: “’People attack Scientology … always even the score … overt investigation of someone or something attacking us by an outside detective agency should be done more often and hang the expense … Hire them and damn the costs when you need to … the critic will sure shudder into silence … [Scientology] punishment is gruesome … there are people hiding in terror on Earth because they attacked us. There are men dead because they attacked us.” In another Scientology policy document Hubbard wrote, “We will become interested in the crimes of people who seek to stop us. If you oppose Scientology we will promptly look up – and will find and expose – your crimes. If you leave us alone we will leave you alone. It’s very simple. Even a fool can grasp that.” There are many dozens of written copyrighted Scientology policies along these lines and even worse. In another Scientology policy document Hubbard directs the church to conduct “wars of attrition on the basis of total attrition of the enemy … Just go all the way in and obliterate them … cut off enemy communications, funds, and connections … raid and harass.”
This past Saturday evening, I received a telephone call from a former Scientologist. This is some of what he told me. He was born into Scientology and he lived within Scientology until his mid twenties. As a child he was repeatedly imprisoned for hours and threatened with the loss of his “eternity,” and “the loss of this planet to the psychiatrists,” if he did not sign a billion year contract to join Scientology’s para-military group the Sea Organization where he would earn $46.20 per week. He was trained to go) out to psychiatrist’s offices where he was to set them up in compromising situations so that complaints could be filed to revoke their licenses. This is called “psych-busting” and I have taken many depositions of Scientologists confirming it. Scientology spent months training him to convincingly lie and perjure himself. They trained him to harass and psycho-terrorize critics of Scientology. Eventually this young man snapped, woke up and left Scientology. Now he suffers from horrible flashbacks and post traumatic stress disorder. This brave, but traumatized, young man was interested in suing Scientology for what they did to him, as well as to focus attention on the conduct the federal and state governments are allowing Scientology to perpetrate on others. This is some of what I told him, based upon my own experience as a lawyer and litigant against the cult.
“It is very expensive to sue Scientology and for lawyers it is worse than fighting the big tobacco companies or the Mafia. Even if a litigant has a million dollar litigation fund, the church will run that litigant out of money. Time Magazine spent over $20 million to prove that its cover story, “Scientology, Thriving Cult of Greed and Power,” was substantially true and not defamatory. In Scientology v. Yanny nearly three million dollars was spent to successfully defend Scientology’s former lawyer in two trials and two appeals. In Scientology v. Fishman & Geertz nearly $1.7 Million dollar was spent to successfully defend Dr. Geertz against a defamation claim. In the Scientology v. FACTnet and Scientology v. Lerma over two million dollars was spent to successfully defend and settle fraudulent copyright claims and fraudulent federal search and seizure orders. These few examples involve the expenditure of insurance proceeds and large corporate funds. Most individuals do not have that sort of money available; however Bob Minton did. He spent over $10 Million dollars before Scientology terrorism, bribery, blackmail and fraud upon the courts forced him into a form of settlement and stand-off. Mr. Minton is so terrorized and threatened, particularly financially and for his children, that he now lives abroad. In the Lopez v. Scientology fraudulent investment case, nearly $500,000 was spent on Mr. Lopez’s claims before a Scientology legal team, led by now L.A.P.D. in house attorney Gerald Chaleff, forced Mr. Lopez into a token settlement. The Pattinson v. Scientology case had to be dismissed when Scientology engaged in barratry and drove Michael Pattinson, and me, into bankruptcy. In the Christofferson case a jury awarded $30 million dollars in damages to former Scientologist Julie Christofferson. The church ensured that she never saw a penny. In the Wollersheim case, a jury awarded $30 Million in damages to Mr. Wollersheim. Eighteen years of endless appeals later Mr. Wollersheim netted less than one million dollars. “Not one thin dime to Wollersheim” was the order of David Miscavige who finally paid a much reduced amount on the same morning the fraudulent Scientology corporate structure was to be exposed in a judicial opinion and decision. In 1994, I delivered two boxes of incriminating racketeering testimony to the United States Attorney’s office in Los Angeles and was later told that the Federal government did not have the resources to fight crime on the scale that the Church of Scientology engages in. The same office has recently disbanded its “public corruption unit” which makes the situation even worse. However, unlimited tax exempt litigation funds are only part of the picture.
First, the potential litigant has to find a lawyer. There are less than a handful nationwide willing to take on the dangers of Scientology litigation. I know of one law firm who told a Scientology victim that “You cannot afford us and we cannot afford you.” A litigant’s lawyer can expect the Office of Special Affairs, its lawyers and investigators to immediately investigate his entire life, his family, friends, partners and colleagues. Law partners have been blackmailed and extorted. Clients visited and terrorized. Offices infiltrated with Scientology operatives and “sleeper agents.” Defamatory statements spread around the profession, media and internet. During the Wollersheim case, Scientology even placed a microphone under attorney Charlie O’Reilly’s bed and he was beaten up the night before a Court of Appeals appearance. Even his medical records were not safe. Over twenty false state bar complaints were filed in the 1980s against attorney Michael Flynn, Esq. Frivolous law suits were filed and false criminal reports made. In the 1990s over ten false state bar complaints were made against me. There were false police complaints and corroborated documented testimony of blackmail, bribery, obstruction of justice, perjury, fraud upon the courts, bankruptcy fraud and judicial misconduct. Multiple fraudulent law suits were filed against me and the fruits of all that criminal conduct and corruption are still being used against me, with impunity in the Los Angeles courts. Some of our judges are shameless. They are part of the problem.
In the 1980s, the American Lawyer Magazine published an article entitled “Scientology’s War against the Judges” today that war still continues. Sadly, I am not just talking about a lawyer leaving a paper bag full of money in the judge’s chamber and commenting that he used to represent the Mafia. Scientology actually investigates these judges and their law clerks. Scientology lawyers have been known to contact these law clerks and threaten them. They have had improper ex parte meetings with judges before a case is filed. They have left on midnight visits to other judges. Cases get reassigned to judges who are in Scientology’s pocket or who used to be an attorney for Scientology, or who are involved romantically with a Scientologist. Court clerks can be persuaded to receive court filings after hours. In one case, Scientology filed a motion to disqualify every judge in Los Angeles County. In another case they sued the judge for not allowing them to use the Scientology court reporting company of Atkinson Baker; the largest court reporting service in the nation. Using Atkinson Baker, Scientology lawyers have received copies of transcripts long before other counsel. In another Scientology case, there was even a transcript change. In another case, Scientology attorney Moxon was alleged to have drowned the judge’s dog. All this creates a climate of psycho-terror among the judges and that results in blatant miscarriages of justice. Even jury tampering is not out of Scientology bounds, as happened in another recent example involving the wife of an O.S.A. staffer.
Scientology policy documents hold that only Scientologists have civil rights and that those who impede, oppose or sue Scientology have no civil rights at all, and they may be destroyed with impunity. Another Scientology document directs its staff and lawyers to overwhelm an opposing litigant or uncooperative judge into submission. With massive litigation budgets and sometimes hundreds of lawyers, Scientology files endless motions, takes endless depositions and pursues every avenue of appeal. The goal is to delay the resolution of the case as long as possible, to totally frustrate the judge and to grind the opponent into submission financially, physically and emotionally. Some litigants and their lawyers have developed post traumatic stress disorder. When the ease ends, the documents and evidence often gets sealed, witnesses and litigants are coerced into “gag” agreements, access to court files become blocked and documents slowly disappear from those court files.
As I have explained, in my opinion, the Scientology racketeering enterprise now does almost whatever it wants in the Cities of Clearwater in Florida, and Los Angeles and Hemet in California. The last criminal organization to flourish under government and the courts was the Mafia, during J. Edgar Hoover’s reign at the F.B.I. Now the Scientology enterprise flourishes under the Clinton and Bush Justice Departments. How does it do this? The Church of Scientology does it through institutionalized and organized bribery, blackmail, perjury, lying and fraud. It uses criminal infiltration, burglary, false claims of religiosity, fraudulent copyrights, “false front” organizations, intimidation and terror. Terrorism can take many forms it isn’t always violent and spectacular. In these matters, our government and courts have failed us.
In the case of Allard versus the Church of Scientology the court accurately and courageously described some of the documents I have mentioned, and the conduct of a group of Scientologists. The judges said, “… these documents establish beyond question that the defendants, their convicted co-defendants and their un-indicted co-conspirators (including current Scientology lead attorney Moxon) as well as their organisation considered themselves above the law. They believe they had carte blanche to violate the rights of others, frame critics in order to destroy them, burglarize private and public offices and steal documents outlining the strategy of individuals and organizations that the church had sued. … The defendants and their cohorts launched vicious smear campaigns, spreading falsehood against those they perceive to be enemies of Scientology in order to discredit them and, in some instances, to cause them to lose their employment … To these defendants and associates … anyone who did not agree with them was considered to be an enemy against whom the so-called “Fair Game” doctrine could be invoked … In view of this, it defies the imagination that these [Church of Scientology] defendants have the unmitigated audacity to seek to defend their actions in the name of religion.” Thank you.
Graham E. Berry, Attorney & Counselor at Law,
3384 McLaughlin Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90066
Telephone: (310) 745-3771 Email: grahamberry@ca.rr.com