They are stepping forward — from Dallas and Denver, Portland, Las Vegas, Montana — talking about what happened, to them and their friends, during their years in the Church of Scientology. Jackie Wolff wept as she recalled the chaotic night she was ordered to stand at a microphone in the mess hall and confess her "crimes" in front of 300 fellow workers, many jeering and heckling her. Gary Morehead dredged up his recollection of Scientology leader David Miscavige punishing venerable church ...

This is the Church of Scientology's response to the St. Petersburg Times story that, in addition to the four church defectors the newspaper wrote about in June, quotes 11 more defectors who have provided accounts of physical or mental abuse by Scientology leader David Miscavige. The Church of Scientology provided 25 affidavits and declarations from current and former church executives and staffers who uniformly describe David Miscavige as a kind, compassionate, inspiring leader who never has been violent or abusive, physically ...

The four high-ranking executives who left Scientology say that church leader David Miscavige not only physically attacked members of his executive staff, he messed with their minds. He frequently had groups of managers jump into a pool or a lake. He mustered them into group confessions that sometimes spun into free-for-alls, with people hitting one another. Mike Rinder, who defended the church to the media for two decades, couldn't stomach what was happening on the inside. The tactics to keep executives ...

The night after Lisa McPherson died, the leader of the Church of Scientology sent word for one of his top lieutenants to wait by a pay phone at the Holiday Inn Surfside on Clearwater Beach. When Marty Rathbun answered the ringing phone in the lobby, David Miscavige let him have it: Why aren’t you all over this mess? The police are poking around. Do something. "Yes sir," Rathbun said. McPherson, a 36-year-old parishioner in apparent good health, had spent 17 days ...

Part ONE of THREE The leader of the Church of Scientology strode into the room with a boom box and an announcement: Time for a game of musical chairs. David Miscavige had kept more than 30 members of his church's executive staff cooped up for weeks in a small office building outside Los Angeles, not letting them leave except to grab a shower. They slept on the floor, their food carted in. Their assignment was to develop strategic plans for the ...

The Church of Scientology pressed vigorously Friday (June 19, 2009) to delay publication of the Times' Scientology story. Its spokesmen and lawyers said that the few days the newspaper gave the church to respond to Mike Rinder, who only recently agreed to go public, was not enough time. The church also said the Times needs to talk to more people. Church spokesmen, executives, attorneys and others flew in from around the country to meet with reporters in Clearwater. The parade started ...

Fox News bowed to pressure from Kelly Preston, Tom Cruise and other members of the Church of Scientology when it fired columnist Roger Friedman, the entertainment journo is expected to charge in a wrongful termination lawsuit this week. In April, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. announced it had “terminated” Friedman after he wrote on FoxNews.com about watching a pirated Internet copy of 20th Century Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Friedman is convinced that was a cover story. Last August, Friedman went to Memphis ...

In Santa Barbara’s Church of Scientology, as in each such outpost worldwide, an innocuous office sits equipped but vacant. This office is located beyond shelves of shrink-wrapped books, beyond training rooms, the “comm” rooms, and a room occupied by enigmatic bowls of stones and other obscure objects. The office, with white walls and plush blue-and-gray carpeting, waits, should he somehow return, for the man once known as L. Ron Hubbard. His full name was Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. His followers—in keeping with ...

PART TEN Former Scientologist Maureen Bolstad continues her account of her years at the church headquarters near Hemet. "I was actually one of the older ones at 17. There were 13-year-olds, 12-year-olds," Bolstad recollects. "There was just one kid, 12-years-old that was given an executive responsibility doing something. He had a complete nervous breakdown." This is how Maureen spent her teenage years: making videos for the church. Looking at her social security tax forms, she says nobody ever told her about ...

Two former employees who worked more than a decade at the Church of Scientology's Golden Era Productions enclave near Hemet have filed lawsuits alleging the church violated federal and state labor laws and engaged in human trafficking. Church of Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis called the lawsuits "utterly meritless," noting that hundreds of staff would boast about working conditions at the nearly 700-acre compound in Gilman Hot Springs. "Working conditions at Gold Base are nothing short of spectacular," Davis said. In separate ...

[Picture of interior] [DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times] [Caption:] The Crystal Ballroom at the Fort Harrison Hotel houses a 12,000-crystal chandelier. The hotel opened 82 years ago as the New Fort Harrison Hotel, and was a focal point of the community during the Great Depression and World War II. CLEARWATER — Marble floors from Spain. Gold leaf painted on elaborate crown moldings. Richly colored carpets from South Africa. Decorative plaster cornices. A 12,000-crystal chandelier for the ballroom. The Church of Scientology ...

PART SIX News Channel 3 sent former Scientology marketing director and Portland resident Jeff Hawkins to KATU-TV, the local ABC television station, where he revealed what happened during his years inside Scientology's world headquarters in Hemet, called "IntBase." His account of what goes on behind these fences is one of religious punishment and imprisonment. "Within that Hemet compound, they work 100 hour weeks, seven days a week. They have no breaks. They have no vacations of any kind. They work around ...

A Scientology spokesman has confirmed that Scientologists believe that mankind's problems stem from brainwashed alien soul remnants created millions of years ago by genocidal alien overlord Xenu. The admission follows years of attempts to dismiss the story, first leaked by defectors, as anti-church propaganda. In an interview with KESQ News Channel 3, Scientology spokesman Tommy Davis was quizzed over the Xenu story, which leaked papers show is revealed to senior Scientologists as part of their induction to "Operating Thetan Level III". ...

Wise Beard Man tipped us recently that KESQ, a local television station in Palm Springs, California, has put together a pretty terrific 5-part investigation of Scientology. Why Palm Springs? Well, one of Scientology's stranger facilities is located in the California desert, well away from the prying eyes of big-town journalists. For years, the Hubbard cabal in Hemet, California has been able to push around local politicians and law enforcement, convincing them, for example, that protesters at the desert site should be ...

PART FIVE Our second half of our one-on-one interview with one of Scientology's leaders continues in Hollywood. We confront spokesman Tommy Davis with the confidential works of L. Ron Hubbard and ask why there are threats of death by pneumonia for those who read it. Nathan Baca: Somebody from the Village Voice apparently said the Church of Scientology is about "ridding the body of space alien parasites." And your reaction then and now is what exactly to that claim? Tommy Davis: ...

By Nathan Baca News Channel 3 PART FOUR In the shadow of the conflict between Scientology and "Anonymous," we go inside Scientology's Hollywood complex for the first part of an exclusive one-on-one interview with one of the church's top leaders, Tommy Davis. Davis serves as the Church's spokesman. During the visit, we showed him video shot by members of "Anonymous" as they were being accosted and arrested by guards hired by the Church at the Scientology grounds in Hemet. Davis contends ...

By Nathan Baca News Channel 3 PART THREE Protests in front of the Church of Scientology's headquarters near Hemet may soon be illegal. Sheriff's deputies keep reminding protestors with the group known as "Anonymous" to stay within 50 feet from the center of the road going through the Scientology compound. Video shown in our first segment shows just how forceful Scientology guards are willing to confront those who get a dozen feet past the line. Last fall, Riverside County Supervisor Jeff ...

By JULIA GLICK The Press-Enterprise Riverside County supervisors Tuesday adopted restrictions on residential picketing despite opponents and Supervisor Bob Buster saying the ordinance could lead to costly litigation. The ordinance, supported by Supervisor Jeff Stone and representatives of the Church of Scientology, prohibits protesters within 30 feet of the property line of a residence they are targeting in unincorporated Riverside County. The rules are scheduled to go into effect in 30 days. "I can't support this ordinance," said Buster, the only ...

CLEARWATER — Taking on the Church of Scientology in court is like picking a fight with the Russian army. When attacked, the church defends itself aggressively, wearing down opponents with a barrage of litigation while peering into their personal lives. Ken Dandar knows this better than anyone. In the 7-year-long Lisa McPherson case, the Tampa lawyer and the church waged one of the most grueling, fiercely contested legal battles in Tampa Bay history. The wrongful death lawsuit became intensely acrimonious, with ...

CLEARWATER — Police investigated the role Scientology played in the suicide of a troubled young man two years ago, but did not conclude church members forced him off his antidepressant medication or contributed to his death. Last week, the mother of Kyle Brennan filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Scientology's Clearwater-based Flag Service Organization and three Scientologists, claiming they took away Brennan's medication. The suit names the boy's father, Thomas Brennan, as a defendant; along with Denise Gentile, who is the ...

CLEARWATER — A mother has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Church of Scientology, its Flag Service Organization and three parishioners, claiming they brought about her son's death by denying him access to his antidepression medication. Among the three parishioners named as defendants: Denise Gentile, the twin sister of the church's current worldwide leader, David Miscavige, as well as her husband, Gerald Gentile. The lawsuit stems from the death of Kyle T. Brennan, 20, who shot himself in the head ...

TAMPA - A mother is blaming Scientologists for her disabled son's death, which police ruled a suicide. Victoria L. Britton has filed a federal lawsuit accusing Scientologists, including her son's father, of taking his antidepressant prescription from him and giving him access to a loaded gun. A police investigation, however, concluded that Kyle Brennan, exhibiting symptoms of schizophrenia, willingly stopped taking medication before he visited his father and that there was "no evidence they were purposely kept from" him. Brennan, 20, ...

THOUSANDS of members of the Church of Scientology may be suffering from untreated mental and neurological conditions, according to a former follower who taught John Travolta, the Hollywood star. Sufferers are told to cure themselves with vitamins and saunas while it is denied that they have problems such as epilepsy or autism, said Tory Christman, now a fierce critic of the church. Christman left after suffering epileptic fits, culminating in a seizure which caused her to fall in the bath, knocking ...