Author Services, Inc. (ASI)

ASI (Author Services) is setup to manage Hubbard fiction works and otherwise his copyrighted works as a for profit corporation. It is to take all that out of the church corporately. It is to have nothing to do with the management of the church. Later, Author Services is to become owned by CST [Church of Spiritual Technology] [...]

Norman F. Starkey, as Trustee of Author's Family Trust B, shall, no later than December 31, 1993, effectuate the transfer of substantially all of the corpus and income in Author's Family Trust B, including all the shares of Author Services, Inc. ("ASI") as permitted under the will of L. Ron Hubbard to the Church of Spiritual Technology ("CST") without consideration. Mr. Starkey, as trustee, may retain sufficient cash and securities to cover any remaining actual or contingent liabilities of the Trust until those liabilities have been resolved or satisfied. The members of the CTCC shall use their best efforts to assure that such transfer is accomplished. [...]

FN9. After the church was "simplified," the record suggests that at least the following organizations constitute the church of Scientology: Founding Church of Scientology; Church of Scientology International; [...] Author Services Inc., Cancorp, Religious Research Foundation; International Association of Scientologists; Church of Scientology Religious Trust. [...]

FN20. [...] Many of the staff have held positions of authority in other Scientology organizations. Three of the four trustees of CST worked previously for CSC, which was dismantled in 1981. Terri Gamboa is a trustee of CST. She was also at the same time a Director, the President, and a shareholder of Author Services, Inc. ("ASI"), a Scientology organization. She had formerly been an employee of CSC and of LRH personally. [...]

The church uses two businesses to peddle its books, Author Services Inc., a Hollywood literary agency, sells the rights to publish Hubbard's works to Bridge Publications Inc., a Los Angeles company. [...]

A Church of Scientology spokeswoman, Leisa Goodman, said that the church, Author Services and Bridge are seperate and independent. But former Scientology officials say that Bridge and Author Services are staffed almost exclusively by Scientologists and operate within the church hierarchy.

"Author Services used to always think of schemes to make more money," said Vicki Azneran, the former inspector general of the Religious Technology Center, an organization that former church members say runs the entire Scientology empire. "Bridge gets the money from a totally controlled cult population.

"They send people into bookstores. You get a phone call: 'Your job is to go down to the B. Dalton. Take as many people as you need to buy up all the books so they'll have to reorder.'"

Numerous calls to Author Services were not returned. Church and Bridge officials denied that sales of Hubbard's books have been artificially inflated.

[...]

The book was published in August 1982. The church, Haber said, transferred funds from its international reserves to buy 25,000 copies of "Battlefield Earth" from St. Martin's. Bridge Publications and its European affiliate, New Era Publications, were then ordered to replace the money. About the same time, Author Services was created, allegedly to manage Hubbard's finances and those of the church.

St. Martin's senior editor Michael Denneny confirmed that a deal was struck. He recalled, however, that Author Services guaranteed to buy 15,000 to 20,000 copies. But when "Battlefield Earth" was published, he said, Author Services bought more copies than originally promised.

"The Author Services people were very rambunctious," Denneny said. "They wanted to make it a New York Times best seller. They were obsessed by that." [...]

1 The United States petitioned the district court to enforce an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) summons served on Author Services, Inc. (ASI) in connection with a criminal tax investigation of L. Ron Hubbard.¹ ASI contended the IRS was not acting in good faith and sought an evidentiary hearing to support that contention. ASI appeals from the district court's denial of its request for an evidentiary hearing and from the enforcement order; the United States appeals from the district court's restriction on the IRS's use of the documents, prohibiting release of the documents to any other government agency without a court order unless criminal tax prosecution is sought. We affirm. [...]

HOMER SCHOMER was formerly Treasury Secretary of ASI (Author Services Inc.) and his lawsuit names Hubbard, ASI, and includes David Miscavige and Pat Broeker who had subjected him to a ten-hour 'Sec-Check' and threatened him that he would go to jail when he showed reluctance in doing his job. This was to prepare fictitious invoices for services rendered to ASI by Hubbard. In the period during which Schomer did this (March-November 1982) Hubbard's personal assets grew from $10 million to $44 million. Schomer's own suit is for a cool $226 million. [...]