Pat Broeker could say what no one else in Scientology could: He outranked David Miscavige. But he left the church in 1989 and started a new life in Colorado. Still, Miscavige worried about him. "He (Miscavige) came directly to me," Marty Rathbun recalled. "He said, 'Marty, you get on this guy. I want to know every move he makes.' " Broeker and his wife, Annie, assisted Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard in the months before he died in 1986. Hubbard bestowed ...

Robert S. Minton seemed to surface out of nowhere in late 1997. • A retired investment banker and millionaire from New England, he began to show up at anti-Scientology demonstrations in Boston and Clearwater. He gave millions to groups critical of the church. • He became the money man behind a wrongful death lawsuit by the family of Lisa McPherson, whose unexplained death at Scientology's Clearwater mecca threw the church into crisis. • Minton quickly became the Church of Scientology's No. ...

The church said its leader, David Miscavige, and other church officials did not hire private investigators, church attorneys did. The church directs that its attorneys and their agents follow all laws and regulations and adhere to the highest ethical standards. "If Rathbun and Rinder used PIs to 'abuse poor innocent people,' they are the only ones to blame," spokesman Tommy Davis said. The Times submitted written questions to the church about David Lubow and Ferris Khan's involvement with former church staff ...

They squeezed into a two bedroom apartment, all they could afford. Two couples and a single guy had left the Church of Scientology and joined up in Las Vegas, starting a mortgage business near the Palace Station Casino. They were faces in the crowd. Except that the two wives were important in Scientology history, sisters Terri and Janis Gillham. They were two of the original four "messengers" for L. Ron Hubbard. The founder ran his church from his ship, the Apollo, ...

[Picture / Caption: Responding to written questions, church spokesman Tommy Davis sent a binder addressing issues with individual sources.] The church said the Times is relying on sources who, before they left Scientology, admitted in sworn declarations, affidavits and confessions that all responsibility was theirs and they held the church blameless. For every person but one (Sinar Parman), Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis provided documents from church files, including confessions, ethics orders and Suppressive Person declarations. SINAR PARMAN AND JACKIE WOLFF ====FROM ...

Church spokesman Tommy Davis says the Times' sources admitted they left Scientology because they could not meet the church's strict ethical standards. Now they are lying, he says, and the Times is helping advance their agenda. Here is the Church of Scientology's response to their allegations, submitted as a 10-page letter: + + + CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL 15 October 2009 VIA HAND DELIVERY Mr. Joe Childs Mr. Tom Tobin St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South St. Petersburg, Florida 33701 ...

David Miscavige, 49 Born: Suburban Philadelphia Joined Scientology: As a child, with his parents; joined Sea Org at age 16. Family status: Married to Sea Org member Michelle Miscavige. They have no children. Career highlights: The ecclesiastical leader of Scientology since 1987, when he became chairman of the board of the Religious Technology Center. The RTC is responsible for preserving, maintaining and protecting Scientology and ensuring that its practices hold true to the original "technology" set out by founder L. Ron ...

For years, the Church of Scientology chased down and brought back staff members who tried to leave. Ex-staffers describe being pursued by their church and detained, cut off from family and friends and subjected to months of interrogation, humiliation and manual labor. One said he was locked in a room and guarded around the clock. Some who did leave said the church spied on them for years. Others said that, as a condition for leaving, the church cowed them into signing ...

Most religious organisations can weather a high-profile defection or two. Many might successfully explain away a fraud conviction in a foreign criminal court, or deal with the spectacular suicide of a member, or muddle through a less than stellar public performance by a prominent spokesman. Rarely, though, does a religion have to face up to all these challenges in the same week. The past few days have been little short of a nightmare for Scientology, the strange, secretive religion that thrives ...

In his first detailed interview since walking off Nightline last week, church spokesman Tommy Davis talks to Kim Masters about Monday's startling public defection by Paul Haggis, addresses drug allegations—and explains his relationship with Tom Cruise. Plus, his former colleague speaks out. Tommy Davis has been busy lately. In the past week, the spokesman for the Church of Scientology tore off his lapel microphone and stormed out of an interview when Nightline correspondent Martin Bashir tried to question him about whether ...

Ex-members say leader David Miscavige hit subordinates; church denies accusations. Some call it a manipulative cult. Others say it's a well-established religion that helps people reach their potential. Since its inception in the 1950s, the Church of Scientology has rarely been far from controversy. And now the Church is under attack again. Former senior insiders claim the Church's current leader, David Miscavige, has created and encouraged a climate of violence within senior staff and was frequently violent himself. Marty Rathbun was ...

A Bahamanian politician blamed a misunderstanding yesterday for the sudden collapse of the trial of two people accused of trying to extort $25 million from actor John Travolta. A Bahamanian Supreme Court judge declared a mistrial on Wednesday just two hours after the politician, Picewell Forbes, announced at his party’s annual convention on live television that one of the accused had been cleared - even though jurors were still deliberating. Tarino Lightbourne, an ambulance driver, and Pleasant Bridgewater, a lawyer and ...

DEFENCE attorneys in the attempted extortion trial of ex-PLP senator Pleasant Bridgewater and former ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday attacked the credibility of a key prosecution witness and told the jury that their clients were the victims. "This case that the prosecution has brought to you, is like a jigsaw puzzle and they have asked you to put it together," Bridgewater's attorney Murrio Ducille told the nine-member jury. Continuing his closing submissions yesterday, Mr Ducille told the jury that one of ...

Comparing the attempted extortion trial of ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne to the absurdity of Alice's trial in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Ad-ventures in Wonderland, Light-bourne's attorney Carlson Shurland yesterday emphatically asked a Supreme Court jury, "where's the evidence?" against his client. "The facts will show, will demonstrate unequivocally that Tarino Lightbourne never committed a crime and should be acquitted of the charges," Shurland said. "Tarino Lightbourne was manoeuvred, was cornered, and he is a victim." Lightbourne and former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater are ...

WEST END and Bimini MP Obie Wilchombe was described yesterday the "initiator" in the attempted extortion case against ex-PLP Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and former ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne. During his closing arguments yesterday, Bridgewater's attorney Murrio Ducille told the nine member jury that Mr Wilchombe had been the "initiator". "Had there been no call from him, we would not be here," he told the jury. Mr Wilchombe had testified that he had phoned Dr Mark Smith and Mr Travolta's lead attorney ...

In his final submissions in the attempted extortion trial of former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday, Chief Prosecutor Bernard Turner said that Bridgewater was not set up as she has claimed, but she knew exactly what she was doing when she and Lightbourne tried to extort $25 million from American actor John Travolta earlier this year. "Up to the bitter end there was no distancing herself from this plan," said Turner, referencing Bridgewater's statement during a videotaped ...

CLOSING addresses began in the attempted extortion trial of ex-PLP Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and former ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday. Director of Public Prosecutions and lead prosecutor Bernard Turner told the nine member jury that the prosecution has discharged its burden in proving that Bridgewater and Lightbourne are guilty of the offences for which they are charged. The two are accused of conspiring to extort and attempting to extort $25 million from American actor John Travolta. Bridgewater is also charged with ...

By JUAN MCCARTNEY ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ juan@nasguard.com: An emotional Pleasant Bridgewater yesterday held back tears as she professed her innocence and claimed she was the victim of a set-up by people she trusted, including PLP Senate leader Allyson Maynard-Gibson, who she said told a lie on the witness stand. Bridgewater gave an unsworn statement to the jury from the bar as the defense began submissions in her attempted extortion trial in the Supreme Court. "I maintain my innocence today," ...

DECLARATION OF KURT WEILAND 1. I, Kurt Weiland, declare under penalty of perjury that the following is true and correct. 2. I have worked for the Church of Scientology International (CSI) since 1987. Since that time, I have primarily worked in executive positions concerned with the direction, management and supervision of the Office of Special Affairs International, the CSI department responsible for the legal, government and other external affairs of the Church. I am therefore personally knowledgeable and competent to put ...

By JUAN MCCARTNEY ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ juan@nasguard.com: Former ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday told the jury in his attempted extortion trial that "I know that it appears as if we're guilty, but we're not" as he made his unsworn statement from the bar. Lightbourne told the jury that he was confident that he would be found innocent. "I'm not really worried about this trial," Lightbourne said. "If I sound arrogant, I'm not. I'm standing on (God's) word." Lightbourne asked ...

(CNN) – A paramedic accused of plotting to extort $25 million from actor John Travolta after his 16-year-old son died in the Bahamas told a jury Wednesday the boy had been dead for some time before the ambulance service was called. Tarino Lightbourn said in his statement to the Nassau, Bahamas, jury that a doctor told medics to keep administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Jett Travolta despite knowing the teen was dead, and that the ambulance company was told to transport him ...

By JUAN MCCARTNEY ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ juan@nasguard.com: A police detective who was the final witness for the prosecution in the attempted extortion trial of former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne testified yesterday that Bridgewater told her that she burned and discarded the remains of a document at the heart of the extortion case, after she realized that the "situation was about to explode." Bridgewater and Lightbourne are accused of attempting to extort $25 million from American ...

By JUAN MCCARTNEY ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ juan@nasguard.com: A firestorm erupted in the trial of former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday, as Lightbourne's attorney Carlson Shurland cross-examined an attorney for American actor John Travolta. As Shurland shot a barrage of questions at Michael McDermott, things reached a fever pitch in the courtroom as the two men traded barbs and made commentary during the cross-examination in direct contravention of repeated warnings by Senior Justice Anita Allen. It ...