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On the Ron

Title: On the Ron
Date: Thursday, 11 August 1988
Publisher: NY Daily News (New York)
Author: Anne L. Adams
Main source: link (58 KiB)

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A brutal bio of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, will get to see the light. Again.

The News' Alex Michellini reports that New Era Publications, a Danish corporation related to the church, tried to enjoin the distribution of Russel Miller's "Bare-Faced: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard."

New Era charged that the book and its publisher, Henry Holt & Co. infringed on certain copyrighted material.

Maybe it does, just a little, said Federal Judge Pierre Leval. But not enough to keep Holt from putting the second printing of 10,000 in as many stores as it wants to.

Leval's ruling stated that the book's central theme was that "Hubbard was dishonest, pretentious, boastful, paranoid, cowardly, cruel, disloyal, aggressive, bizarre and finally even insane in his pseudo-scientific fantasies and obsessions."

And he upheld Miller's use of published and unpublished materials to make his point. Yes, there were small instances of where Miller overstepped the boundaries on some of Hubbard's unpublished material.

But, Leval said, "This is one of those special circumstances in which the interests of free speech overwhelmingly exceed the plaintiff's interest."

New Era attorney Michael Lee Hertzberg plans an appeal.