"Corrupt, sinister and dangerous" were the words used to describe the Church of Scientology in a judgment given by Mr Justice Latey this summer. He also referred to it as "immoral and socially obnoxious". But who controls the Church now? A major Sunday Times Magazine investigation into the activities of the cult in America and Britain has uncovered a disturbing and extraordinary story — the takeover of the organisation by a small band of youthful fanatics following the disappearance of the ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A $20 million-plus lawsuit has been filed by two branches of the Church of Scientology accusing a Boston lawyer, his brother, his law partner and a former Scientologist of violating the civil rights of church members. The federal lawsuit claims attorneys Michael Flynn and Thomas Hoffman, Washington, D.C. restaurateur Kevin Flynn and former Scientologist Laurel Sullivan conspired to violate the church members civil rights by a campaign of lies that led to government investigations and adverse publicity. ...

LOS ANGELES — Michael J. Flynn, a Boston lawyer, was piloting a light aircraft toward South Bend, Ind., in October 1979 when its engine quit mysteriously at 8,500 feet. After making an emergency landing, he said he found several quarts of water in the fuel tank. Since then, Mr. Flynn, who has led a legal battle against the Church of Scientology, a group that has long been the subject of Government investigations, says he has been followed by as many as ...

The young man — by all appearances a teen-ager — crouched on the dark, narrow stairway as he scrubbed the sixth-floor landing in the former Fort Harrison Hotel, the "Flag Land Base" headquarters of the Church of Scientology. "Are you in RPF?" queried a reporter. "Sir?" he asked quietly, peering up from his work. "Are you in RPF?" "Yes sir, I am." RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which, depending on who is speaking, is either a businessman's approach to ...

Several former high-ranking Church of Scientology officials have provided state, federal and municipal law enforcement investigators with detailed information regarding the Clearwater-based sect's alleged criminal activities in the Tampa Bay area, the Clearwater Sun has learned. Although the same testimony provided to investigators in Clearwater has furthered large-scale criminal investigations in Canada and resulted in court rulings against the sect in California, no similar action has been implemented in the Clearwater area, a seven-month Sun inquiry has determined. And Gerald Armstrong, ...

Charges by church defectors that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard diverted more than $100 million in church funds to foreign bank accounts was described Wednesday as "garbage" by the sect's president. "I call it hyperspace junk writing," said Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International. The former senior church officials, who have testified about the church's inner workings in Los Angeles court, told the New York Times that Hubbard directed them to establish shell corporations to channel much of ...

Former officials of the Church of Scientology say they helped L. Ron Hubbard, the reclusive founder of the cult-like organization, to secretly divert more than $100 million from the church into foreign bank accounts he controlled. The organization, long a subject of investigations in this country, Britain, France, Australia, South Africa, Spain and elsewhere, has maintained that Mr. Hubbard cut his ties to it in the mid-1970's, that he has received only a token consulting fee of $35,000 annually since then ...

In this matter heretofore taken under submission, the Court announces its intended decision as follows: As to the tort causes of action, plaintiff, and plaintiff in intervention are to take nothing, and the defendant is entitled to Judgment and costs. As to the equitable actions, the court finds that neither plaintiff has clean hands, and that at least as of this time, are not entitled to the immediate return of any document or objects previously retained by the court clerk. All ...

Editor: In response to the your recent editorial headlined "Silence on Scientology—I'm afraid you misinterpret this "silence." It doesn't mean apathy or lack at interest, it means "So, what's new?" or "What more is there to say?" Nothing has come out at the trial that surprises anyone. So L. Ron Hubbard is not what he claims to be: Who knows what he claims to be? Who reads his writings, except those poor troubled people, most of them young, I imagine, ...

LOS ANGELES (AP)—Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard had a split personality that triggered outbursts of anger against church staffers, his former publicist testified Tuesday. "In a sense he was warm, friendly. In a sense, he could be irrational, erratic," said Laurel Sullivan, a defense witness in a lawsuit filed by the church and Hubbard's wife against former sect archivist Gerald Armstrong. Ms. Sullivan's description was in response to defense counsel Michael Flynn's questions about Hubbard's behavior in 1978 and ...

LOS ANGELES—A former Scientology publicist who was working on a biography of church founder L. Ron Hubbard says she left the organization because she had become "a target" by other church members. Laurel Sullivan, 34, testified Friday in a suit brought by the church and the founder's wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, to recover documents allegedly stolen by former church archivist Gerald Armstrong. Ms. Sullivan said she feared some church members saw the biography as a downgrading of Hubbard's image and that ...

A former personal assistant to Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard testified Thursday that she feared that discovery of documents discrediting Hubbard's background would make her a target of the organization. Laurel Sullivan, 34, who left Scientology in 1981 after 14 years of working directly for Hubbard in a public relations role, described her fears during the fourth week of trial of the church's civil suit against its former archivist, Gerald Armstrong. The church is asking Los Angeles Superior Court ...

Former assistant to L. Ron Hubbard testifies in suit to recover documents. LOS ANGELES — A former publicist for Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard testified Friday that she left the church in November 1981 because she had become "a target" of hostility by church members. Ex-publicist Laurel Sullivan, 34, was cross-examined by church attorney Robert Harris in a lawsuit brought by the church and Mary Sue Hubbard, the founder's wife, seeking to recover allegedly stolen documents from former ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman who worked as a publicist for Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard testified Thursday that orders were given in February 1980 to shred documents indicating bard was in control of church management. Laurel Sullivan, 34, said the orders for the massive shredding came as church personnel feared a raid by federal agents. Such raids previously took place in Los Angeles, Boston and Washington in July 1979. Sullivan testified before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ...

LOS ANGELES—Court-sealed tapes reveal that Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard used a myriad of corporations to funnel millions of dollars from the sect into his personal bank account in Liechtenstein, a lawyer representing a man accused of taking thousands of documents and tapes from the church charged in Superior Court here Friday. Michael Flynn, who represents former Scientologist Gerald Armstrong, said the tape recordings of a Sept. 29, 1980, meeting between Hubbard's personal lawyer and legal officials of the ...