BOSTON (AP) — A former Church of Scientology member has dropped her $200 million harassment claim against the organization, and group leaders say she settled for $150,000. Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday in U.S. District Court when Judge W. Arthur Garrity announced that attorneys for La Venda Van Schaick, 35, asked for a dismissal, which he granted. Garrity then cleared the courtroom, which was filled with Scientologist members, after denying requests from attorney Harvey Silverglate and the group's president, ...

Some extremist religious sects and a number of related self-help therapies employ communication techniques that may over time "alter or impair fundamental information-processing abilities" and may result in severe physical, emotional and mental disorders, a team of University researchers announced at a press conference Tuesday. Authors and research associates Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman released a study titled "Information Disease," presenting findings of a nationwide study on the effects of covert induction and deprogramming. These results are the culmination of four ...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Thousands of Scientologists, buoyed by an appearance by church member John Travolta, marched downtown yesterday in the third day of protests over a $39 million fraud judgment against their church and its leader. Police Sgt. Jay Decker estimated "a few thousand" Church of Scientology members participated in the demonstration. "There will be more," he predicted, as the week-long series of rallies progresses. Scientologists had been arriving in Portland from across the United States, Europe and Australia since ...

An estimated 500 members of the Church of Scientology rallied in downtown Portland late into the night Sunday, anticipating the early morning arrival of film star John Travolta. Travolta, flying his private plane from Los Angeles for a quick stop in Portland to show solidarity with other Scientology members, arrived at Portland International Airport shortly after midnight. He was greeted by more than 200 supporters who had been bused to the airport after a day of protest against a $39 million ...

Several thousand members of the Church of Scientology are planning to converge on Portland, Ore., today and Monday to protest a jury's $39-million damage award to a former church member who claimed that she was defrauded out of $3,253 by the group. The Rev. Kathleen Gorgon, president of the Church of Scientology of California, said that several hundred members left Saturday from the church's Hollywood headquarters by car, bus, train and plane to join others from around the world in a ...

The Church of Scientology struck back Wednesday against a former member who testified against the church by playing to a Portland jury videotapes, made surreptitiously, in which the man discussed placing phony documents in church files. Multnomah Circuit Judge Donald H. Londer allowed the 108 minutes of tapes, made in a Los Angeles park last November, to be played to the jury as evidence of bias on the part of Gerald D. Armstrong against the church. "I can create documents with ...

An attempt to discredit a witness testifying against the Church of Scientology in a fraud trial hit a snag Thursday when a Portland judge called surreptitiously made videotapes an "amateurish performance" and refused to let them be shown to the jury. "I think they are devastating, devastating against the church," Multnomah Circuit Judge Donald H. Londer said out of the presence of the jury after viewing 108 minutes of tape recorded in a Los Angeles park last November. The tapes involved ...

A Los Angeles federal judge dismissed Monday a $2-million libel suit by the Church of Scientology of California against a Boston lawyer because of the failure of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard to appear at a court-ordered deposition. Lawyers for the Church of Scientology had argued that they had no way of contacting Hubbard, who was last seen in public in 1980 while living in the Hemet area. Hubbard, 74, had been ordered to appear for a deposition in Los Angeles ...

LOS ANGELES — A U.S. District Court judge Monday dismissed a $2 million libel suit by the Church of Scientology, of California against a Boston lawyer because of the failure of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard to appear at a court-ordered deposition. Lawyers for the Church of Scientology had argued that they had no way of contacting Hubbard, who was last seen in public in 1980 while living near Hemet, 70 miles east of Los Angeles. Hubbard, 74, had been ordered ...