By all appearances, Noah Lottick of Kingston, Pa., had been a normal, happy 24-year-old who was looking for his place in the world. On the day last June when his parents drove to New York City to obtain his body, they were nearly catatonic with grief.

This young Russian-studies scholar had jumped from a 10th-floor window of the Milford Plaza Hotel and bounced off the hood of a stretch limousine. When the police arrived, his fingers were still clutching $171 in cash, virtually the only money he hadn't turned over to the Church of Scientology, the self-help "philosophy" group he had discovered just seven months earlier.

But by then the money was so big Hubbard was able to buy a 342-foot oceangoing ship, the Apollo. On it, he withdrew from his government persecutors and cruised safely in international waters with an adoring retinue of followers. The IRS was later able to prove in court that he was meanwhile skimming money, at least $3 million in 1972 alone, and laundering it through schemes involving phony billings, a dummy corporation in Panama and secret Swiss bank accounts.

New York --- Time Inc. and another unit of AOL Time Warner Inc. have persuaded a federal appeals panel to uphold the dismissal of a libel suit brought by the Church of Scientology International. The lawsuit stemmed from a 1991 cover story in Time magazine titled ''Scientology: The Cult of Greed,'' which called Scientology ''a ruthless global scam.'' The 7,500-word story by journalist Richard Behar said the church survives by ''intimidating members and critics in a Mafia-like manner,'' and called Scientology a ''ruthless . . . terroristic'' cult. The church sued Behar, Time and Time Warner for libel, claiming that these and other statements were defamatory.

Richard Behar is an investigative journalist who has written on the staffs of leading magazines including Forbes, Time and Fortune over a twenty-two year period from 1982-2004. His work has also appeared on CNN and PBS. As of July, 2005, Behar coordinates Project Klebnikov, a global media alliance launched to investigate the murder of journalist Paul Klebnikov and related lines of inquiry. Since 2004, his freelance investigate stories have also appeared at BBC, Forbes.com and FoxNews.com. [...]

Behar was included among the 100 best business journalists (the "100 luminaries") of the 20th century by the TJFR business journalism trade group. [...]

Behar has won many awards for his reporting, including:

• The Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial journalism,^[1]
• The 'Leo J. Ryan' award from the (original) Cult Awareness Network, 1992
• A 'Conscience in Media' award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors,^[1], 1992
• The 'Worth Bingham Prize',^[1], 1992.
• Behar won the 'George Polk' award for his 1995 story about the strong-arm tactics used by the Allstate Insurance Co. against its own employees.
• Behar won the 2001 'Business Journalist of the Year' award from the Corporation of London.
• The 'Daniel Pearl Award', post 9/11 journalism.
• The 'Overseas Press Club Award' for post 9/11 journalism in Pakistan
• The 'Jack Anderson Award' (twice) for 'Top Investigative Reporter of the Year'.
• In 1997, Fortune was awarded the 'National Magazine Award' for public interest for two articles written by Behar on organized crime's influence in the garbage-hauling industry.