The IRS, which earlier took on the Scientologists in Washington and Los Angeles, now has brought its court battle to federal court in Tampa. Its target is Scientology's worldwide spiritual headquarters in Clearwater. Scientologists vehemently disagree, calling the IRS corrupt and accusing it of pursuing a vendetta against Scientology. ``We feel the federal government should investigate illegal drug running in Florida and should investigate money laundering in Florida banks,`` said spokesman Humberto Fontana. Scientologists also are in court with Pinellas County ...

Pomona police said Friday they are investigating whether beliefs espoused by the Church of Scientology led a family to confine a mentally disabled woman in a cell-like bedroom at a Phillips Ranch house. While stressing that neither the church nor its beliefs are under investigation, police said they want to know if Scientology practices could explain why the woman was kept in confinement. Police and Los Angeles County mental health workers discovered Marianne Coenan, 31, locked in a sparsely furnished room ...

The storage facility on Sunset View Ranch, now owned by The Church of Spiritual Technology, will be used to preserve the religious and philosophic writings for generations to come of the late L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology. Michel Ouelette, 40, formerly of Montreal in French-speaking Quebec, Canada, who said he is manager of the 3,000-acre ranch, explained the purpose of the Church of Spiritual Technology over coffee in the handsomely remodeled former Ben Walker residence, now called ...

The Church of Spiritual Technology may need a permit for its vault to store church documents. According to Thomas Conlon, county planning director, the church said state geologists have told it no permit is needed to excavate on Walker Mountain for the vault. Conlon said the matter is now under review. Michel Oullette, spokesman, said earlier the church has 45 members and the vault was needed to store church records or documents. Unconfirmed reports say excavation has started and the vault ...

The Church of Spiritual Technology began buying land in The Mattole in 1980 and is paying taxes on the more than 3,000 acres it owns there, according to reports in the County Assessor's office. The county apparently has given permission to the church to build its "quasi-public archival storage facility" for church documents and a new "primary residence" on the land on which two ranch houses already exist. One, the former Ben Walker home, has been remodeled for the present caretaker. ...

The Church of Spiritual Technology, which owns some 3,000 acres in The Mattole, has a membership of 45 people; this, according to Michele Ouelette of "the Los Angeles area," who represents himself as a spokesman for the church. Those associated with the church are reluctant to speak, giving rise to rumors, many of them. The church is not L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology, as many thought, according to Ouelette, nor is it the Church of Science and Technology, as reported ...

A rare-coin business that was the subject of a seven-month undercover investigation by the Internal Revenue Service has links through several company officials to the Church of Scientology. A spokeswoman for Bernstein, McCaffrey & Lee at 401 Cleveland St. in downtown clearwater said this fall that the owners were Scientologists. A lawyer whose address is given as the corporate address for the business is listed as a Scientologist in a directory published by the organization. A former employee of the business ...