Riverside County supervisors Tuesday backed off from picketing restrictions supported by the Church of Scientology that supervisors had preliminarily approved last month. Supervisors stopped final approval of the ordinance and voted unanimously to re-examine its prohibition on picketing within 300 feet of a targeted residence. They agreed to have county counsel and staff retool the ordinance in consultation with the county sheriff's office and Samuel Alhadeff, an attorney representing the Church of Scientology. "I think we may be going too far ...

RIVERSIDE – With two colleagues prepared to vote against the measure, Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone on Tuesday temporarily withdrew his proposed ban on protests that target and take place in front of homes. Stone said that, in consultation with county lawyers, he will try to tweak the ordinance so it lets protesters picket residences for what he considers legitimate purposes, such as when they are home to sex offenders, without trespassing on the constitutional right to free speech. Legal experts, ...

I had never been this close to a real cobra before. As it rose up and spread its hood, I could feel my hackles raise and a primordial fear tickle some primitive level of my brain. The handler said we were perfectly safe, but even so, I didn’t want to get too close to the thing. [...]

It was well after midnight and the Tampa airport terminal was almost empty. Just a few late-night travelers sitting on the benches, reading, trying to sleep or, like me, watching the movie on the screen hanging above the waiting area. They were showing Pancho Villa, the 1972 Eugenio Martin film with Telly Savalas as Villa. I was identifying with Villa – his betrayal and imprisonment, his escape, his revolt against his enemy, Huerta. I could feel Villa’s hot outrage. ''¡Viva la ...

Meet at the Umbrella Man. 11:00, Saturday. The crowd, wearing British folk-hero Guy Fawkes masks in the style of the book and film V for Vendetta, surrounded the bronze man with a parasol and were heading towards a clash with the disciples of Hubbard and Cruise. “We are Anonymous, we are legion, we do not forget,” they proclaim. The Anonymous, or anons as they’re called in the wiki-shpere and chat rooms, have taken part in sabotage and cyber-disruption and have called ...

2TheAdvocate.com, USA - February 8, 2006 - www.2theadvocate.com - Narconon Louisiana-New Life Retreat plans to open a drug rehabilitation center on a 12-acre site in Denham Springs. Narconon paid $750,000 to Claude and Janice Penn Jr. at 35059 Bend Road, according to Livingston Parish Clerk of Court records. The rehabilitation center is expected to open at the beginning of March, said Cathy Davis, a spokeswoman for the center. Narconon is a nonprofit that tries to eliminate drug abuse and addiction through ...

Cathy Mullins was, for a time, a hippie; a vintage 1960s model of a flower child. She knew all about peace protests and human rights marches. She knew, too, all the key ingredients of turning on, tuning in and dropping out. That's why, at 55, she says, with her characteristic straightforwardness, her generation is largely to blame for some of the greatest problems facing younger ones today. "Drugs," for example, says Mullins, "we glorified them and made it romantic to be ...

Type: Tort, intentional infliction of emotion distress, alter ego. Bench decision: Amendment of judgment - $6,025,857 ($4,649,328 renewed judgment plus $1,376,529 accrued interest). Case/Number: Larry Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology of California / C332027. Court/Date: L.A. Superior Central / Oct. 29, 1997. Judge: John P. Shook. Attorneys: Plaintiff - Craig J. Stein (Gartenberg, Jaffe, Gelfand & Stein, LLP, L.A.); Daniel A. Leipold, Cathy Shipe, Robert F. Donohue (Hagenbaugh & Murphy, Orange); Lita Schlosser (Encino); Ford Greene (Hub Law Offices, San Anselmo). ...

A NEW pressure group calling for government action to raise public awareness of cults has come under fire from the Church of Scientology. Founders of Families Under Scientology Stress (Fuss) say that in the few weeks it has been formed it has been amazed at how many people have come forward from all parts of the country pledging support. A group spokesman said: "Most of our supporters have been through difficulties of having a family member in Scientology and it is ...

GRAHAM E. BERRY, State Bar No. 128503 GORDON J. CALHOUN, State Bar No. 84509 LEWIS, D'AMATO, BRISBOIS & BISGAARD 221 N. Figueroa Street, Suite 1200 Los Angeles, California 90012 Telephone: (213) 250-1800 Attorneys for Defendants UWE GEERTZ, PH.D. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA No. CV 91-6426 HLH (Tx) DECLARATION OF VICKI AZNARAN RE: MOTION FOR COSTS Date: APRIL 4, 1994 Time: 10:00 a.m. Courtroom: 7 CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL, Plaintiff, VS. STEVEN FISHMAN and UWE GEERTZ, Defendants. —– ...

[This appears to be an OCR'ed version of a paper document. I wish to find a copy of the original document in order to fix the typos troughout.] —– To Whom It May Concern To the best of my memory - I, Lorna Levett was a Scientologist from 1961 to 1974, from 1966 to 1974 full time, from 1968 to 1974 a franchise holder and received rewards for being the top recruiter on the planet 1969 to 1970. In late 1969/early ...

A man who left a Catholic seminary to eventually head the Church of Scientology in Canada said he knew church members were infiltrating police and government offices, and his wife was one of them. Emile Gilbert, 44, who now lives with his former wife and her new husband in Fonthill, Ont., testified he studied 5½ years for the priesthood then left to join the Church of Scientology in September, 1968. There he met his wife, Cathy Wilkins, who was infiltrating the ...

Church of Scientology "plants" infiltrated Metro police and the Ontario Provincial Police and succeeded in obtaining copies of investigators' files, a trial has been told. A church member also obtained a file from the attorney-general's office by telephoning a central registry, pretending to be a government lawyer and sending a phony secretary to pick it up, witness Bryan Levman testified. "It was considered a big win. Everybody was very happy," Levman testified yesterday. He added that a Scientology plant later obtained ...

THE ANNOUNCEMENT that the Scientologists have kicked out 12 key members of their UK headquarters staff at Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, as part of a policy change, has received a mixed reception in the town. East Grinstead's mayor Cr Ray Boulger said that if the Scientologists were genuinely trying to purge themselves, then it was in everyone's interests to try to promote better relations. But the Rev Roger Brown, vicar of St Swithun's parish church, East Grinstead, said the history ...

[Picture / Caption: Scientology's headquarters in L.A. was formerly the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. The church purchased It for $5 million In 1977.] Last October in San Francisco, some 70 local leaders of the Church of Scientology gathered to hear nine church executives harangue them about their shortcomings. Styling themselves with titles that ranged from the quasi-military ("Commander," "Warrant Officer") to the quasi-lunatic ("International Finance Dictator"), the men announced that they represented the new hierarchy of the organization, and that they ...

Throughout its nearly 30 years of existence, the Church of Scientology has had problems with its image in the media. Newspaper articles have called it a "bizarre brain-washing cult" founded by a former science fiction writer. Television coverage of recent hearings in Clearwater, Florida — home of the Church's U.S. headquarters — emphasized testimony that the group's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, is in hiding and, according to his son, might even be dead. And the Reader's Digest recently printed two controversial ...

The year was 1950. The book was Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, written by a 39-year-old "pulp" writer of science fiction, L. Ron Hubbard. A few months earlier, Hubbard had outlined the book's tenets in a magazine called Astounding Science Fiction. And a year before that, at a lecture for science fiction writers, Hubbard had mused, "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way would be ...

"Narconon is the ONLY successful drug rehabilitation program on the planet." L. Ron Hubbard, Founder of Church of Scientology "Narconon was definitely a con. It was bullsh•t. Those guys were forcing guys into Scientology." Narconon graduate St. Cloud Prison, Minnesota [Picture of internal memo: "We are expanding the Scientology drug rehabilitation programs, primarily through NARCONON. During the coming months we plan to get NARCONON programs into many additional prisons, rehabilitation centers and the armed forces. We also have plans to open ...

A downtown Clearwater businessman who last year joined the Church of Scientology was committed to a Mental hospital Monday after a psychiatrist testified that Scientology apparently contributed to the man's insanity. Francis G. Diamond, 45, a successful antique dealer before his breakdown, told Circuit Judge William Walker that other Scientologists' "thetans," or spirits, had invaded his body during counseling sessions and now control him. "It's not something out of Star Trek-it happens," insisted Diamond, who brought a book by Scientology founder ...