DECLARATION OF MARGERY WAKEFIELD I, Margery Wakefield, having personal knowledge of the following, hereby declare: 1. I was a member of the Church of Scientology of California from October of 1968 until February of 1980. I joined the Church in Los Angeles, California, where I was primarily based although I also took courses and/or worked at Church organizations in St. Louis, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Georgia and Miami, Florida. 2. While in Scientology I progressed to the level of OT 3 (an ...

Scientology's leaders say the best defense is a good offense. DID THE CHURCH of Scientology kill a judge's dog during a trial? Did the judge, who is now dead, think church members did? Did that lead him to be prejudiced, and bias the jury against the church? These and other issues are part of an intense battle by the church's litigation machine to overturn what remains of a $30 million verdict won in 1986 by former church member Larry Wollersheim. Mr. ...

Two UCLA extension students in the Church of Scientology have filed suit against UCLA professor Louis Jolyon West, the Board of Regents and Chancellor Charles Young for allegedly using taxpayer money to fund anti-religious activities. The university has yet to respond to the suit filed last month with the Santa Monica Superior Court. John Van Dyke and Mario Majorski charge that, while on the University of California payroll, West used his position to organize anti-religious seminars and two groups that target ...

PALM SPRINGS — A man accused of stalking former Mayor Sonny Bono was in a mental health ward pending prosecution on an arson charge, authorities said Friday. James Hamlin, 40, was under observation and treatment at Riverside General Hospital, said Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Martin Brhel. Prosecutors filed a felony arson complaint against Hamlin, 40, after a June fire in a room at the San Jacinto Hotel in Palm Springs, Brhel said. Municipal Judge Arthur Block set Hamlin's bail at ...

With its glass walls, classic architecture and limited space, the Church of Scientology's Garden Pavilion was hardly the place for the blasting riffs, slam pits and combat boots that accompanied Tool's performance Friday night. Although neither band nor audience seemed to mind the inappropriateness of the Hollywood venue, the heavy security present still hinted that the Church of Scientology may have been unnerved by the thought of 300 screaming fans talking over its beautiful West Hollywood building. Composed of Maynard James ...

The Davidians were a 'cult,' and thus exempted from justice and normal rules of evidence. Rodney King's beating captured the nation's attention for more than a year. The extermination of more than 80 Americans during an armed attack by federal agents outside Waco is already slipping off the front pages. But then, King is a black man whose maltreatment came to symbolize police violence against the poor. The Davidians were "a cult," and thus exempted from justice and compassion. Atty. Gen. ...

The Church of Scientology, bristling from public criticism by a nationally recognized psychiatrist and UCLA professor, has sued the outspoken educator and the university. In a lawsuit filed this week in Santa Monica Superior Court, two student followers of the controversial church claim that Dr. Louis J. West has waged a smear campaign of religious intolerance and hatred on university time. The verbal attacks by a representative of the state university system and his alleged "anti-religious activity" are violations of state ...

Some of Cocolat's ex-workers claim that the company's newest ingredient is Scientology by Erin McCormick of the Examiner Staff It was once the sweetheart of the Bay Area business world - a woman-run chocolate company that grew from a single storefront to a national success. Now, two years since an employee's embezzlement forced the sale of Cocolat Chocolate Co., an unlikely mix is brewing at the company's Hayward plant: Scientology and chocolate. The mixture has been volatile. Cocolat is the latest ...

Disenchanted with college, unsure about a career and turned off by his Orthodox Jewish upbringing, Henry Kriegel hitchhiked around the country 16 years ago on a personal and spiritual quest that ended at a lecture sponsored by Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant. As he listened, something clicked that hadn't with the other philosophies he'd explored–and after several months of study and reflection, Kriegel joined the controversial sect, which came to be widely known for its massive Montana bomb shelter. ...

For 50 years, the cult involved in a violent and bloody shootout Sunday with federal agents near Waco, Tex., has been preoccupied with the long-foretold catastrophic end of time–an awful day of reckoning when the wicked would be brought to judgment. But as federal agents stormed the cult's armed fortress on Sunday, it was the group's leader, David Koresh–a man who claims to be Jesus Christ–that agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were attempting to bring to justice. ...

Religion: Judge says Cult Awareness Network must let church members attend L.A. convention. But conference organizers fear longtime foes will disrupt activities. Members of the Church of Scientology won a court victory over a longtime foe Friday, clearing the way for a group of Scientologists to attend the Cult Awareness Network's national convention in Los Angeles next week. The ruling in Los Angeles County Superior Court is the latest development in an escalating feud between the two organizations. The battle erupted ...

BOSTON — Scientologists, long a target of deprogrammers, have gone to court to try to turn the tables, claiming that they were illegally barred from joining an anti-cult group. In a flurry of lawsuits filed around the nation, dozens of members of the Church of Scientology said they tried to join the Cult Awareness Network but were rejected because of their church affiliation. Many of the lawsuits were filed last week after a federal grand jury indicted three alleged members of ...

Seven self-professed "parishioners" of the Church of Scientology have filed religious discrimination lawsuits against the Cult Awareness Network and five members of the group, including a Glendale resident, in Glendale Superior Court. In the lawsuits, filed Friday and Monday, the plaintiffs allege that they have been denied access to the Cult Awareness Network's national convention, to be held in November, on grounds of their religious beliefs. The seven lawsuits — practically identical except for the plaintiffs' names — claim that the ...

Members of a group led by a supporter of the Church of Scientology have alerted Glendale police to alleged "deprogramming" activities of a Glendale woman. Kevin Hulce, a member of the Church of Scientology, along with two members of the Deprogramming Survivor's Network, accused Priscilla Coates of conspiring with Hulce's parents to turn him away from the religious group formed by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard. "Because Priscilla Coates lives in Glendale, Kevin thought the police might like ...

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered the Internal Revenue Service to pay the Church of Scientology $16,881 for legal fees it incurred during a two-year battle over records requested under the Freedom of Information Act. In 1989, the Scientologists filed a request for any government files indicating that the church had been designated a "tax protester." The IRS refused to turn over that information, and the Scientologists filed suit to force its release. Eventually, the IRS turned over a ...

SANTA CLARA — Former employees of Applied Materials have filed suit alleging that the Silicon Valley manufacturing firm forced them to undergo Church of Scientology seminars. Trial proceedings began Tuesday as lawyers for both sides argued motions before Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Frank Cliff. In their suit, former employees Steven Hunziker, Virginia Sanders and Kate Schuchmann allege that Applied Materials hired an outside firm to teach workers communication and time-management skills. But the seminar firm, Applied Scholastics of Fremont, ...

Your article April 14 regarding the Church of Scientology boarding school gave a slightly false picture. The Church has owned the property on Bouquet Canyon Road, which is at least six miles southeast of Green Valley, for almost two years. Church representatives approached the Green Valley Town Council about 10 times since August of 1991 to present the plans for the school as a matter of courtesy to the community. However . . . we are not located in Green ...

INDIANAPOLIS — A federal judge in Arlington, Va., on Friday dismissed a $20-million libel lawsuit that the Church of Scientology had filed against an executive with Eli Lilly & Co., the maker of Prozac. The lawsuit accused Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., a vice president of the Indianapolis-based pharmaceuticals company, of maligning the church in comments published in USA Today. The newspaper was not named as a defendant. The church believes that Prozac, an antidepressant, is unsafe and can lead to suicidal ...

Green Valley: Under the proposal, 250 students would board at the campus. A county spokesman says approval of a permit would be based on land-use issues. The Church of Scientology is seeking permission from Los Angeles County to open a boarding school for 250 students on the site of a former juvenile detention camp near Green Valley. The proposal has worried some of the 1,200 residents in the rural community, who voiced concerns about it at a public meeting Monday night. ...

PETROLIA, Humboldt County — The people who have been allowed to see the colossal tube that's buried in a velvety green hill just up the road from Petrolia say it's the strangest thing they've ever laid eyes on. And the most mysterious. The huge, pipe-shaped vault is as wide and high as the cabin of a Boeing 747. It is more than 140 feet longer than one of the jumbo jets. Disciples of the late L. Ron Hubbard, founder of what ...

In October of 1989, a private detective was called into the Church of Scientology's offices in Los Angeles and asked to conduct an investigation in Northern California. Ted Heisig, a non-Scientologist based in Orange County, said he was led into a room and shown five file cabinets filled with documents Scientology had been collecting for years. The subject: Werner Erhard, founder of the worldwide self-awareness movement known as est. "They had contacts (in the file cabinets) dating back to his childhood ...