Affidavit of Robert Dardano (1 July 1981)

Reference: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/d10eda3b3645677f

I found the following affidavit in the files of the court case Paulette Cooper v. Scientology et al., docket number 81-681 in the U.S. Federal District Court in Boston. These files are stored at the Federal Records Center in Waltham, Massachusetts.

The affidavit is undated but has an official stamp "DOCKETED, United States District Court, Filed in Clerk's Office, Jul 1 1981, Mass. Dist."

Perhaps after reading this, some of you will have more understanding of what Paulette Cooper has gone through.

AFFIDAVIT OF ROBERT DARDANO

I, Robert Dardano, hereby depose and state under the pains penalties [sic] of perjury:

1. I have personal knowledge of the facts sworn to herein and if called as a witness to testify thereto could do so of my own personal knowledge.

2. I became involved with the Church of Scientology in Boston in early 1974.

3. In August, 1974 I began working for the Guardian's Office (G.O.) which is the secret police arm of Scientology.

4. My first assignment was for a group in the G.O. called "O.D.C.", Overt Data Collections. Four to five people worked in O.D.C. Our responsibility included collecting information and data on various people and interest groups including Mayor Kevin White, the heads of various banks in Boston, members of Congress, the Massachusetts Senate, owners and operators of radio and T.V. stations, lawyers, judges, etc.

5. After working in the O.D.C. for a short period which is part of the B-1 Bureau of the G.O., I was moved into the covert operations area of the B-1 Bureau called the C.D.C.

6. The agents in our group were installed in jobs at the Boston Globe as a security guard (Jeff Fahey), the Federal Reserve Bank (Kathy Brown), Consumer's Council (Nancy Foster), the Lindemann Mental Health Center (George Bristol), Better Business Bureau (Kathy Grace), the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General's office (George Bristol), the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (Susan Heffle) and other places where data could be collected.

7. In February - March 1975, the B1 Bureau placed an agent named David Grace with a cleaning company that was cleaning the law offices of Bingham, Dana, and Gould. The purpose of placing Grace at the cleaning company was to burglarize the offices of James McHugh, the attorney for the Boston Globe. The G.O. wanted all of the files of McHugh in order to find any damaging information that could be used against the Globe in law suits and also to block publication of a forthcoming article about Scientology by a Globe reporter named John Wood. The B-1 Bureau also believed that Paulette Cooper may have corresponded with Wood and was seeking to obtain that correspondence.

8. Grace stole the correspondence file of McHugh with the Globe and it was brought to the G.O. office where I examined it and then sent it "up lines" to the G.O. for the entire country headed by Mary Sue Hubbard.

9. At the same time, the B-1 Bureau placed Wood under surveillance with an agent named Peter Marquez.

10. The B-1 Bureau held a meeting and discussed a plan to place a revolver in the van of Wood, but the plan was never executed.

11. In February - March 1975, Gary Brown, Peter Marquez, Bill Foster and I were assigned to break into the offices of Stanley Cath, M.D. in Belmont, Massachusetts, for the purpose of stealing Paulette Cooper's medical records. Foster and I waited in a nearby restaurant while Brown and Marquez went in and stole the file.