Steven Fishman declaration

3 Nov 1993


I, Steven Fishman, declare as follows:

1. I have personal knowledge of the facts stated herein, unless stated on information and belief, and if called upon to testify to these facts I could and would competently do so.

2. I am a Defendant in the case of Church of Scientology v. Steven Fishman and Uwe W. Geertz, Case Number 91-6416-HLH(Tx), United States District Court, Central District of California. I am currently serving a five year sentence for mail fraud and I am on Parole, under the direction of the United States Parole Commission until November 28, 1993, followed by Prohation, under the direction of the United States Probation Office, until July 29, 1995.

3. I was on lines with the Church of Scientology from March 14, 1979 through July 20, 1990. Specifically and particularly, and since the Church of Scientology does not have an actual membership per se, I was a member of the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International (HASI) from March 14, 1979 until it was renamed the International Association of Scientologists on October 7, 1984. On February 8, 1986, I joined the International Association of Scientologists (IAS) and I became a Lifetime Member Number 12540-221-0002-2061 of the International Association of Scientologists in 1988, until I voluntarily exited the Church on July 20, 1990. I was on public lines with the Church from March 14, 1979 until November 9, 1980, when I was hatted as the Fields Financial Planner of Fort Lauderdale, a non-salaried position. I renewed by contract on November 9, 1985 as the Fields Financial Planner of Miami, and continued actively on post until the day of my arrest, which was July 31, 1988.

4. I was arrested for mail fraud in connection with my participation in Operating Acting Classes, which was a covert Scientology operation which involved the filing of false proof of claim forms in derivative shareholder suits for the purpose of creating income. My post was in Division 3 Treasury, Department 7 Income. I was supervised by various Mission and Org staff, including Peter and Barbara Letterese, Denise Franklin Monce, Fred and Dori Hare, Michael Hambrick, Frank Thompson, Iiay Jourdain, Leona Littler Grimm and others.

5. After my arrest, I assisted the Church in the initiative to quash an FBI investigation into their complicity with the crimes for which I was charged. At the same time, agents of the Office of Special Affairs, including Lynn Farny, Ken Long, Laurie Bartilson and Tim Bowles were actively assisting the Assistant United States Attorney in their prosecution against me, without my knowledge or consent. I was later charged with Obstruction of Justice in a reverse sting action which was orchestrated by my Ethics Officer, Frank Thompson.

6. I settled the charges pursuant to an Alford Plea, (United States v. Alford, a North Carolina case), which to my best understanding is a guilty plea in which I contended that I was innocent but nevertheless responsible for the charges alleged in the complaint. I did so because the District Court relied upon Frye v. United States, 293 F. 1013 (D.C. Cir. 1923), and various Ninth Circuit decisions which followed Frye. The Frye test was found to be wrong under the recent United States Supreme Court Case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceutical (1993), 113 S.Ct. 2786. Had my expert witnesses Drs. Margaret Singer and Dr. Richard Ofshe been allowed to testify in full, I would not have settled the charges at that time.

7. As a convicted felon, Scientology will vehemently argue that I am a criminal and I am not to be believed. By their own policies regarding sources of trouble, I would now be labeled "PTS Type B." However, I maintain that even someone who has been to prison and has been convicted of a crime can nevertheless be honest and forthright; and I personally know that my most worthwhile asset is my integrity.

8. During August 1986, and as part of the Wollersheim Crusade also known as the Battle of Los Angeles, I attended a meeting at the War Room of the Office of Special Affairs which was located at the 1300 block of Berendo Street in Los Angeles at the time. In attendance were Deborah Truax of Golden Era Productions, John Stachelrodt and Sarita Alvarez of Bridge Publications, Candy Healey of Golden Era Productions, and several OSA personnel including the Director of Special Affairs of Golden Era Productions and others whom I do not remember.

9. I had been invited to the meeting to report on surveillance I had undertaken at the office of Charles O'Reilly, as well as to turn in my Completed Staff Work on the Bingoing Project, which involved the flooding of the law office of Charles O'Reilly with unwanted junk mail during the past thirty days.

10. It was at that time that I was given the telephone number of Dr. Louis Jolyon West, and directed to repeatedly call his home between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM for three successive days before he was scheduled to testify on behalf of Lawrence Wollersheim in the Wollersheim Case, which as I stated earlier was referred to as the Battle of Los Angeles and/or the 1986 Crusade.

11. I also turned in materials which I had accumulated by raiding the trash dumpster of Charles O'Reilly, attorney for Lawrence Wollersheim, located at his law office which to the best of my recollection was on a main thoroughfare in Santa Monica, California.

12. During that meeting, I overheard Deborah Truax tell John Stachelrodt that the Office of Special Affairs had assigned an agent to work in the law office of Charles O'Reilly as a typist/clerk/receptionist, The typist, whose name I do not recall or may not have been privy to, was placed there by OSA for two purposes, or major operating targets. I do, however, recall what these targets were.

13. The primary operating target was to copy legal briefs prepared by Charles O'Reilly and turn them over to Marty Rathbun at the Office of Special Affairs.

14. The secondary operating target was to make things go right and influence Charles O'Reilly into forcing Lawrence Wollersheim to accept a settlement from the Church of Scientology International. This operation was simultaneously designed to create an irreparable ARC Break or rift between O'Reilly and Mr. Wollersheim since Deborah Truax stated that the differences between the two regarding their positions on the settlement negatiations would be successful in driving a wedge between them, and ultimately would result in O'Reilly dropping Wollersheim as his client and leaving him without counsel. Jahn Stachelrodt mentioned that there were two settlement offers; "one for six million and then another for ten million and that Charles O'Reilly wanted Wollersheim to accept them, but that Wollersheim was unwilling to do so, according to the typist who worked there."

15. The OSA representative also told us that they had access to a botulism culture from a medical laboratory which he wanted the typist to introduce into O'Reilly's food, in order to induce a "terror stomach" (his exact words) to O'Reilly, in order that he would be less effective during the days of the trial. I have no idea whether that project was ever adopted or not.

16. In the fall of 1986, I was taking training at the American Saint Hill Organization in LOs Angeles. I was studying the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course and I was supervised on this course by Course Supervisor Ken Shapiro, who had also been an active registrar for the course. 17. I was assigned to do "twinning" with another Scientologist, by the name of Lenny Leibowitz. Twinning is a process whereby two Scientologists work together and co-audit each other, and at the same time they are responsible for each other's progress on the course and indicate each other's gains on worksheets which become part of the preclear folder, or record of progress of the student or preclear in Scientology.

18. I made written entries in the preclear folder of Lenny Leibowitz, and this folder was turned in to the Course Supervisor, Ken Shapiro.

19. Thc particular part of the Saint Hill Special Briefing Course with which I co-audited Lenny Leibowitz was Section B. One of the subjects which Lenny Leibowitz and I co-audited each other on was Checksheet Number 48, Chapter 24 Column V, The Ability to Handle Responsibility. The Demo for this chapter was the section on the responsibility level at 1.1 (covert hostility) on the tone scale.

20. Mr. Leibowitz is from White Plains, Westchester, New York, and was working as an intern with the Office of Special Affairs for the Church of Scientology. He told me that his mother's first name was "Doris" and that she had a complex because she was very short. I also recall Lenny Leibowitz's birth date of October 26, 1949, since he is exactly one month older than I am. During the course of handling a "present time problem" within the context of the material we were studying relating to The Ability to Handle Responsibility, Mr. Leibowitz related to me that he was having difficulty handling the fact that he had drowned a dog. Mr. Leibowitz informed me that the dog was a collie by the name of "Duke", and that he belonged to a Judge Swearinger who lived in the hills of Los Angeles. When he disclosed this, I ran Mr. Leibowitz on "rudiments" in order to fully handle this present time problem and bring it to its end phenomena, in order that we could go on with the course and not get hung up on the checksheet.

21. In running the rudiments, Lenny Leihowitz indicated to me that he was driven to the Judge's house in a white late model Jeep Cherokee by another intern with the Office of Special Affairs of Scientology. The intern who drove him to the Judge's house was named Clarice Guidice. Mr. Leibowitz told me that Clarice Guidice was on an internship from the Milan Org in Italy, and she spoke with a thick italian accent. He described her as a girl in her mid-twenties, who had a "chunky pot belly." He further stated that she did not own the white jeep, but rather it was a car owned by a senior staff member at the Office of Special Affairs in Los Angeles. Mr. Leibowitz told me that Clarice Guidice had something he called an "international driver's license." I remember that vividly because I had never heard of an "international driver's license" before.

22. Mr. Leibowitz told me that when he arrived at the judge's house, he walked around the back of the house while Clarice Guidice remained in the jeep as she was driving. Mr. Leibowitz then threw the dog into the pool and "sat on the dog" until the dog drowned. Mr. Leibowitz also complained that his clothes were all wet and he foolishly had not brought a change of clothes with him. Mr. Leibowitz informed me that he was ordered to drown the dog by Kendrick "Rick" Moxon of the Office of Special Affairs of the Church of Scientology International. Mr. Leibowitz also stated to me that Mr. Moxon informed Mr. Leibowitz that "if he didn't do it, someone else would." After Lenny Leibowitz disclosed all of the above information to me, we were both but individually given a Security Check and I was assigned a new twin, whose name was Jay Grossfeld. I co-audited with him a short time before having to return to Florida to check on the pending status of various class action lawsuits in Operation Acting Classes.

23. I had not previously related this information to anyone prior to the signing of my preliminary affidavit on this issue in September, 1993, as I did not recall that Judge Swearinger was the trial judge in the case of Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology until August of 1993. I was personally involved with Scientology operations during that trial including calling up jurors and hanging up in the middle of the night.

24. On or about or prior to the above referenced incident, I was called upon to transcribe various hard copy documents into a terminal of the INCOMM computer located at the office at North Catalina Street, and I was brought in to INCOMM by Deborah Truax of Golden Era Production, who was also the junior to the OSA liaison there by the name of Linda Hamil. As the Fields Financial Planner of Miami, I was PBO cleared and held a password on the INCOMM system which was the word "wogdom" followed by the backslash and my clearance number which was 15223. I was assisted in logging on and accessing the correct data base by a Sea Org Member whose nickname was "Pacman." He looked about 19 years old. I was recruited to work on a OSA project which was called "Mission Find the Crimes" and I had volunteered 40 hours of computer time to INCOMM, and my computer time was approved by the Deputy Director of Intelligence for the Office of Special Affairs, who at the time was Marty Rathbun.

25. One of the documents which I had to transcribe into the INCOMM data base was an internal memo which described how OSA Investigator Eugene Ingram had hired and recruited a teenage Mexican male prostitute named Pablo Garcia to seduce the son of Judge Swearinger at a gay bar which Eugene Ingram had discovered was frequently visited by the Judge's son. I recall reading that Eugene Ingram found this boy in a park in East Los Angeles which was a "known spot" (according to the memo) frequented by young, latino male prostitutes. There was also a financial chit in the folder where Eugene Ingram wanted to be reimbursed from Rick Moxon for the two hundred dollars he gave Pablo Garcia to get the Judge's son to accompany him to an apartment on Vermont Avenue where he was photographed with the boy. The file later contained other data which confirmed that three or four encounters had taken place between Judge Swearinger's son and Pablo Garcia. Another OSA Investigator named Jose Ruiz was later sent out to question the boy, and to masquerade as a heavy "a policeman's valence" in order to compel the boy to make a coerced statement or confession indicating that the Judge's son was periodically having sex with him. However, there was no such document or statement written by Pablo Garcia in the file that needed to he transcribed.

26. I recall not knowing how to transcribe the financial chit into the data base and when I asked pacman for advice, he told me to just "handle it." Not wanting to leave anything out, I entered every word that was on the chit, in order from left to right, top to bottom. I recall that the file was signed by Linda Hamil, who was the same person who ordered Deborah Truax to give me the file and directed me to do the work. I never met Linda Hamil.

27. The file was a Program called Program Pablo Garcia, which was part of a Project called Project Wild Bill, which in turn was part of Operation Wolly, which I have since discovered related to the targeting of Lawrence Wollersheim and his lawyer at the time, Charles O'Reilly.

28. There is an ongoing policy in the Church of Scientology to harass and intimidate judges. I have read the neclaration of Robert Vaughn Young, an expert witness for the defense in my civil case, in which he described the following in Paragraph 49: "The other member of the Court that was being referred to was Federal District Court Judge Charles Richey who was the target of a sting operation conducted by a private investigator hired by Scientology that forced the Judge to recuse himself from the Scientology case on which he was sitting. The judge was allegedly set up with a prostitute. The action was Fair Game. Scientology publications however called it a "Big Win." In paragraph 53, R. Vaughn Young further describes the harassment of Judge James M. Ideman, wherein the Church of Scientology harassed his former law clerk. I have found these actions and operations to be thoroughly consistent with those events and occurrences which I have personally experienced and were involved with as stated, which have been described in my instant declaration herein.

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of Florida that the above is true and correct to the best of my recollection and understanding.

Executed November 3, 1993 at Sunrise, Florida.

Signed

   Dated; November 3. 1993 
   Boulevard
   Apartment 6
   851 Suint 1 Lakes
   Sunrise, Florida 33322-1413


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