Editor: Scientology is basically an applied religious philosophy. Scientology traces its religious roots back 2500 years to a man named Gautama Siddhartha, better known to the Western world as Buddha. Buddha was concerned with increasing the individual's awareness of himself or herself as a spiritual being. He achieved this increased awareness for himself and devoted the remainder of his life to helping others achieve the same state. In Scientology today, we have an extension and expansion of Buddha's work with the ...

Pinellas County tax officials are preparing to wade through thousands of financial documents belonging to the Church of Scientology, in the wake of an agreement hammered out in court earlier this week. According to Assistant County Attorney Susan Churuti, the development may not constitute a major breakthrough in relations between the county and the sect, but is at least a change in the Scientologists' position. She said the agreement was worked out under Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge B.J. Driver, and ...

The young man — by all appearances a teen-ager — crouched on the dark, narrow stairway as he scrubbed the sixth-floor landing in the former Fort Harrison Hotel, the "Flag Land Base" headquarters of the Church of Scientology. "Are you in RPF?" queried a reporter. "Sir?" he asked quietly, peering up from his work. "Are you in RPF?" "Yes sir, I am." RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which, depending on who is speaking, is either a businessman's approach to ...

It's ironic that Scientology spokesman Richard Haworth has accused Clearwater Sun Staff Writer George-Wayne Shelor of "bizarre behavior." Haworth has announced he will no longer respond to questions from the reporter. He accused Shelor of a long list of offenses, including an attempt to break into the sect's headquarters on S. Fort Harrison Avenue. And, Haworth added, Shelor was abetted in the attempted break-in by Clearwater Sun Managing Editor Sam Fenton. Flabbergasted by the charge, Fenton said he and Shelor were ...

Church of Scientology public affairs director Richard Haworth has accused Clearwater Sun Managing Editor Samuel E. Fenton and staff writer George-Wayne Shelor of attempting to break into the church's Clearwater headquarters earlier this month, after attending a sect press conference. As a result of the alleged break-in attempt and other "bizarre actions" on Shelor's part, Haworth said the reporter is banned from church property and is allowed to communicate with him only in writing. Shelor has written a series of stories ...

A Church of Scientology security guard, charged with false imprisonment late Thursday after police said he tackled and handcuffed a 21-year-old Clearwater man, was released on $5,000 bond Friday. Roy Rosa Rodriguez, 30, who listed his address as the sect's headquarters at 210 S. Fort Harrison Ave., was arrested after he tried unsuccessfully to spray a suspected vandal with "Paralyzer" mace and subsequently tackled him and handcuffed the man's hands behind his back, police said. A Church of Scientology official refused ...

The Church of Scientology has begun reimbursement of money to a number of current and former members who claimed refunds were owed them for services not delivered when they took courses in Clearwater, a California attorney said Thursday. California attorney David Jordan, himself a former Scientologist, said about $160,000 has been repaid 14 of his clients in recent months, and another 19 persons with claims totaling about $240,000 should be paid within 30 days. Jordan also represents another 237 current and ...

The 11th District Court of Appeal in Atlanta has issued a temporary injunction against Clearwater's charitable-solicitation ordinance, at the request of the Church of Scientology. The order is expected to put the law on the shelf for at least four months. The ruling came only three weeks after a lower federal court in Tampa refused to issue a restraining order against the ordinance, ruling that the city could begin enforcing at least a portion of it, even as the appeals process ...

There is an implicit journalistic canon that "the other side" must always be given an opportunity to respond to an attack. So the press has bent over backward to let leaders of the Church of Scientology rebut allegations of reprehensible practices by their organization. It seems the sect, leaders, have devised a strategy to take an unfair advantage of this access to the media. They are traveling about America holding press conferences and making startling accusations, with little or no documentation ...

An unnamed, $2 billion corporation has been making a bid to control Clearwater real estate by buying more than 300 parcels of property since 1973, according to Heber C. Jentzsch, international president of the Church of Scientology. And when the church began buying downtown property in 1975, he said, that phantom corporation began a campaign to discredit the church and to keep property values low until it could complete its own acquisition program. "We must have cut across the plans of ...

CLEARWATER — The Church of Scientology has transferred mortgages on nine of its 10 North Pinellas properties to a "religious trust" whose beneficiaries the church refuses to name. The new mortgage holder is the Church of Scientology Religious Trust, according to records filed July 31 in the Pinellas County Courthouse. The records say the trust will receive $872,148.75 in annual mortgage payments from the owner of the property — which is another Scientology organization. A church spokesman said that money to ...

Editor: I read your recent editorial with interest and noted the deep support and warmth that you feel for Mr. Michael Flynn. My concern is that such support is not based on facts. The facts are that Mr. Flynn was part of a criminal conspiracy to forge a check on the account of L. Ron Hubbard. This has now been turned over to federal authorities as this is a criminal act. Mr. Flynn may be opposed to several religions and indeed ...

Editor: The Sun's Aug. 4 editorial concerning the Church of Scientology and Michael Flynn further reflects the Sun's continuing bias and blindness to matters concerning the "sect" as you put it. I recall when Richard Nixon appeared before the world and contented he had done no wrong in the Watergate affair. The press and the public wanted to believe him and placed confidence in his honesty as a man and as our president. However, the facts soon proved that trust to ...

The United States Treasury Department's Criminal Investigations Division has mounted an in-depth investigation into the activities of the Clearwater-based Church of Scientology, the Clearwater Sun has learned. In the past several weeks, Treasury agents have traveled across the United States interviewing a number of former Scientologists—including some who held positions of immense power and influence in the worldwide sect prior to their defection, sources said. Spokesmen for the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service in Tampa and Los Angeles, citing Department ...

A London High Court judge characterized the Clearwater-based Church of Scientology as "corrupt, immoral, sinister (and) dangerous" in delivering a damning indictment of the sect during a civil trial. Mr. Justice Sir John Latey's July 23 comments concluded a six-month court battle over custody of two children whose father is a Scientologist but whose mother has left the sect. In awarding care and control of the children to their mother, the British judge minced no words in his condemnation of Scientology, ...

A man who told police he was detained at the Church of Scientology headquarters in Clearwater and later recanted that account will not be charged with filing a false police report. The Pinellas-Pasco state attorney's office declined to charge Daniel Cotrino, 30, of Brooklyn, N.Y., after reviewing a taped statement Cotrino made to police. Clearwater police had taken Cotrino to police headquarters for questioning March 5 after a police sergeant reported that he saw him being held by two Scientologists outside ...

Heber Jentzsch, the international president of the Church of Scientology, seriously underestimates the sophistication of Clearwater residents if he thinks they will believe a word of his diatribe against Boston lawyer Michael Flynn. Jentzsch gave a press conference on the steps of City Hall Wednesday to "expose" Flynn for conspiring to bilk the sect of $2 million. Flynn, as just about every Clearwater resident knows, has been a perennial foe of the Scientologists. It was Flynn who conducted a series of ...

U.S. District Court Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich Thursday denied a Church of Scientology request to restrain Clearwater officials from enforcing a charitable solicitations ordinance until after further hearings on the law in a higher court. City officials hailed the decision as added support for their position. But sect attorneys said after the Tampa hearing that they intend to continue their battle to have the ordinance ruled unconstitutional. "The judge also said that if the city should abuse the enforcement of the law, ...

CLEARWATER — The Church of Scientology brought a traveling press conference to the steps of Clearwater City Hall Wednesday, and its targets were old foes. Saying that Clearwater "has a chance to pull itself out of a really nasty mess," the church's international president Heber Jentzsch took shots at the city's charitable solicitation ordinance (a measure aimed at the Church of Scientology) and at Michael Flynn, the Boston lawyer who recommended its passage. Reading from a letter addressed to Mayor Kathy ...

The Church of Scientology brought a transcontinental traveling press conference to the steps of Clearwater City Hall Wednesday to publicly denounce outspoken Scientology critic Michael Flynn. Sect officials claim Flynn, a Boston attorney and longtime adversary of Scientology, orchestrated an elaborate but abortive scheme two years ago to forge a $2 million check drawn on a bank account of sect founder L. Ron Hubbard. The accusations made by the Clearwater-based sect are based on the declaration of a man a Scientology ...

A new Clearwater law, declared constitutional July 13 by the US. District Court in Tampa, could eventually have an impact on the money-raising practices of nearly all churches and other religious groups in the nation. Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich implied as much in issuing her opinion that the city's revised charitable solicitation ordinance does not violate constitutional guarantees of religious freedom. She described the law as "an issue that I believe is becoming a trend" and noted that it has "far-reaching implications." ...

LOS ANGELES (AP)—Church of Scientology officials are accusing a Boston lawyer of conspiring to pass a counterfeit $2 million check "to divert attention from himself." Michael Flynn, a prominent critic of the Church of Scientology who has filed 20 suits against the organization, also was accused of blaming the forgery on Scientologists in an attempt to destroy the controversial group. The allegations regarding the check on the account of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard surfaced Monday in documents filed in Los ...

Editor: I have been a reader of your newspaper for the past 2½ years during my semi-annual visits to your city. I like the paper as well as the people. However, I take strong exception to your consistently biased reports concerning the Church of Scientology; particularly, the recent period of May 28–June 13. I have been a member of the Church of Scientology since 1970. I have had the distinct pleasure of reading the more than 40 books by the founder, ...

How much evidence do area law enforcement agencies need before launching a full-scale investigation of the Church of Scientology? Apparently the agencies hereabouts are a lot less responsive than they are in Ontario, Canada. The same sworn statements alleging criminal activity on the part of the locally-headquartered sect given to authorities in the Tampa Bay area have prompted action by the Ontario Provincial Police and resulted in the dismissal in California of a civil suit against former Scientology archivist Gerald Armstrong. ...

TAMPA — In a major victory for the city of Clearwater, a federal judge Friday ruled that the city's revised charitable solicitation ordinance is constitutional. But U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich tied some strings to her decision, and Clearwater may still be months from enforcing the law that was aimed at the Church of Scientology but will affect nonprofit groups of all types. The law seeks to regulate the way religious organizations and other nonprofit groups raise money. Predicting that the ...