Exclusive A former cult security guard blows apart the star's squeaky clean image with claims of shocking abuse HOLLYWOOD megastar Tom Cruise has been sensationally named in a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the United States alleging receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of illicit perks from the controversial Scientology religious cult. The 32-year-old Oscar winner is alleged to have turned a blind eye to the use of slave labour to build him a gym, an apartment and other gifts ...

Jury deliberations were to begin this morning in a lawsuit brought by an Ann Arbor Scientologist against television talk show host Sally Jessy Raphael over the airing of a secretly taped family conversation. After four weeks of testimony by dozens of witnesses, including Raphael and the plaintiff, Dorothy Jean Dickerson, attorneys Tuesday made closing arguments in a case that puts an individual's right to privacy against the public's right to know. Washtenaw Circuit Judge Melinda Morris was to give jury instructions ...

Making her courtroom debut in Ann Arbor, Sally Jessy Raphael hosted the morning round of testimony Thursday, defending herself in a lawsuit over an edition of her talk show about the Church of Scientology. Raphael, in a taupe suit and her trademark red eyeglasses, nodded deferentially to the jury, as if it were an audience, and interrogated lawyers. Finally, Washtenaw County Circuit Judge Melinda Morris told her to knock it off. "Put yourself in the position of people you ask questions ...

At trial over Scientologist's suit, Sally Jessy Raphael testifies to defend herself and freedom of the press. Sally Jessy Raphael canceled her show today to testify in an Ann Arbor courtroom, saying she wants to defend the freedom of the press, but she also has to defend herself. The television talk show host is one of several defendants in a $72 million lawsuit brought by a member of the Church of Scientology who claimed Raphael's show maligned her and her faith. ...

Tabloid TV queen Sally Jessy Raphael, who peers through her trademark red eyeglasses and titillates talk-show audiences with tough questions, will be asked to answer some zingers herself today in Ann Arbor. Raphael is to testify in a high-profile, lawsuit stemming from an episode about the Church of Scientology. Church staffer Dorothy Dickerson, 61, of Albion claims Raphael invaded her privacy and caused her emotional distress in 1991, after a conversation between Dickerson and her children was secretly recorded by a ...

CLEARWATER — Church of Scientology officials are installing concealed cameras and microphones in at least 69 counseling rooms where church members reveal their innermost thoughts, a church spokesman confirms. What transpires behind the closed doors of an auditing session — one-on-one counseling — is as confidential as a confession from a parishioner to a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, said Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth. "It's subject to what's called the priest-penitent privilege," Haworth said. Occasionally, be said, sessions are videotaped ...