Church of Scientology "plants" infiltrated Metro police and the Ontario Provincial Police and succeeded in obtaining copies of investigators' files, a trial has been told. A church member also obtained a file from the attorney-general's office by telephoning a central registry, pretending to be a government lawyer and sending a phony secretary to pick it up, witness Bryan Levman testified. "It was considered a big win. Everybody was very happy," Levman testified yesterday. He added that a Scientology plant later obtained ...

Scientology engaged in worldwide break-ins and espionage because its founder believed he was the focus of a global conspiracy, court heard yesterday. At least 12 police forces and government agencies in Canada were targeted for penetration by Scientology spies in the mid-1970s, Bryan Levman, a former top Scientology official, testified. Levman, testifying under immunity, said L. Ron Hubbard, a former science fiction writer who founded the organization, believed mental health professions were behind a conspiracy to destroy Scientology in concert with ...

THE CHURCH of Scientology has mounted a campaign of intimidation and harassment against the author and publisher of a new book on the founder of the religious cult to be serialised shortly by The Sunday Times. Scientologists and private detectives have been used to put pressure on people in Britain and the United States involved in the forthcoming publication of Bare Faced Messiah: the True Story of L Ron Hubbard. Russell Miller, the author, who spent more than two years researching ...

Robert Dardano and Warren Friske were trusted members of the Boston mission of the Church of Scientology in the mid-1970s when they say they were recruited to join a group of other church members intent on carrying out "dirty tricks" against critics and others deemed enemies of the church in this area. The activities of the group included break-ins, the theft of documents, harassment and misrepresentation, according to sworn testimony by Dardano in Florida last year and affidavits from him and ...

The 16 witnesses who testified in Clearwater's public hearings on Church of Scientology activities provided the first-hand information city officials will use if they decide to design ordinances to regulate the sect. Boston attorney Michael Flynn, who gathered the witnesses, said he questioned them extensively about their Scientology experiences and people they knew in the sect. He confirmed that information through other witnesses and contacts inside the church, he said. If they had not been in the sect, Flynn said, "I'd ...

CLEARWATER — Why, Robert Dardano was asked, had he done it — why had he participated with other Scientologists in burglaries and theft of documents and smear campaigns against the church's perceived enemies? Because he was convinced, the slender, soft-spoken Dardano told Clearwater city commissioners, "that Scientology was going to save the planet and free the world. "That we were right and everyone else was wrong," Dardano, a 31-year-old Boston resident, was one of eight witnesses to testify Saturday during commission ...

In a story of international intrigue, a former senior executive of the Church of Scientology testified Saturday about a worldwide sect network involving infiltrations, conspiracies and smuggling. Scott Mayer, 38, told Clearwater city commissioners "I have personal experiences of all of these," in the forth day of the city's Scientology hearings, where legal consultant Michael Flynn paraded seven of his most damaging witnesses. Commissioners heard also from a former Guardian Office worker who said she used the sect's "confessional files" during ...

CLEARWATER — The Church of Scientology deceives, brainwashes and takes money from its followers, and its founder is a man who beat his wife and is preoccupied with sex, two witnesses told the City Commission Wednesday. The hearings are being held by the city to investigate church practices. One of those witnesses was the 47-year-old son of church founder L Ron Hubbard. Another witness was Ed Walters, a former high-ranking church official, who said followers are encouraged to donate all their ...

CLEARWATER — Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney James T. Russell said Tuesday that members of the Church of Scientology have attempted to infiltrate his office at least five times since 1976. The alleged infiltration attempts failed because routine background checks on the job applicants revealed that hey were members of the Church of Scientology, Russell said. Asked if it was legal to turn down job applicants solely because they are Scientologists, Russell said, "I don't know, but I'd like to fight a lawsuit ...

DAVID BERESFORD investigates the activities of Scientology's secret intelligence unit whose director is based in Britain IT WAS a familiar beginning to an American public scandal: soon after 7 pm on the night of June 11, 1976, two burglars were caught in the US Court House in Washington DC. In the Watergate tradition frantic attempts were made to localise responsibility. But the cover-up finally cracked and disclosures followed which were to lead, not to the top of the Republican Party, but ...

New light has been shed on the Canadian operations of the controversial Church of Scientology by files made public by a U.S. District Court in Washington. The evidence refutes denials by Toronto cult leaders of information I reported more than five years ago in a series of articles based on internal cult documents and interviews with defectors. Other accounts since then of clandestine operations by the cult in Canada are also supported by the files, submitted in court after being seized ...

Eleven high officials and agents of the Church of Scientology, including the wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard, were charged here yesterday in an allegedly widespread conspiracy to plant spies in government agencies, break into government offices, steal official documents and bug government meetings. Much of the evidence outlined against the church's officials in the 28-count criminal indictment appears to be based on the church's own internal memorandums and other documents. The memorandums directed church operatives to "use any method" in ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michael Meisner, disillusioned and frightened by the religion he once embraced, holds the key to FBI allegations that the Church of Scientology carried out a secret spy plot against the government. Meisner, who remains in protective custody under an assumed name, is being guarded around the clock because he and federal officials fear for his safety. Based largely on Meisner's statements to federal investigators, the FBI obtained a search warrant and raided Scientology church offices in Washington and ...