INDEPENDENT senator Nick Xenophon has accused the Church of Scientology of being a criminal organisation. The South Australian parliamentarian said he had been contacted by a number of former Scientologists, after he questioned the organisation's tax exempt status in a recent television interview. "They have provided long and detailed letters to me about the workings of this organisation," he told the Senate. "These people rightly see themselves as victims of Scientology." Senator Xenophon said their correspondence implicated the organisation in a ...

Scientologists are used to making the headlines in America, where only this month there has been a row over a TV interview and a high-profile defection by the Oscar-winning Crash director Paul Haggis. But the controversial sect now has problems on the other side of the world, in Australia. Questions are being asked about the role of local Scientologists in the suicide of Edward McBride, a Northern Ireland-born soldier who killed himself in Brisbane in 2007. It now transpires that his ...

The 110,000-volt electric charge that killed Edward McBride was so strong it caused an explosion capable of causing flash burns up to 10 metres away. Witnesses who saw it at the Energex substation in Everton, in Brisbane's north, two years ago likened it to fireworks that glowed red long after the Brisbane soldier's life had ended. There could be no doubt the 30-year-old Special Forces commando and trained electrician wanted to die, of that fact State Coroner John Lock could be ...

THE Church of Scientology has invoked "confessional privilege" for its refusal to hand over files to the Queensland Coroner. An inquest into the death of Edward Alexander McBride – a soldier who killed himself two days after finishing one of the church's intensive courses in 2007 – revealed last week his "audit" file had been sent to the church's US headquarters. Scientology spokeswoman Vicki Dunstan yesterday said the file requested by the Coroner was "privileged and sacrosanct". "Essentially these are notations ...

THE Church of Scientology refused to provide records demanded by a coroner investigating the death of a soldier who committed suicide two days after finishing one of the church's intensive courses. It emerged yesterday that the American headquarters of the church instructed its Australian branch to send the soldier's "audit file" to the US — which is outside the coroner's jurisdiction — before warrants were issued. Edward Alexander McBride was found electrocuted and hanged at an Energex substation at Everton Park, ...

Ex-members say leader David Miscavige hit subordinates; church denies accusations. Some call it a manipulative cult. Others say it's a well-established religion that helps people reach their potential. Since its inception in the 1950s, the Church of Scientology has rarely been far from controversy. And now the Church is under attack again. Former senior insiders claim the Church's current leader, David Miscavige, has created and encouraged a climate of violence within senior staff and was frequently violent himself. Marty Rathbun was ...

A much-abbreviated list of Earle Cooley’s law clients might read like this: Boston University, the Celtics, and the Church of Scientology, along with divorce cases, patent infringement challenges for Fortune 500 companies, and criminal defendants who included those accused of drug dealing or murder. “He said to me: ‘Look, when you have skills as a trial lawyer, you can try anything. The rules may change from venue to venue, but show me the rules, and I’ll play,’ ’’ said his son ...

Comparing the attempted extortion trial of ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne to the absurdity of Alice's trial in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Ad-ventures in Wonderland, Light-bourne's attorney Carlson Shurland yesterday emphatically asked a Supreme Court jury, "where's the evidence?" against his client. "The facts will show, will demonstrate unequivocally that Tarino Lightbourne never committed a crime and should be acquitted of the charges," Shurland said. "Tarino Lightbourne was manoeuvred, was cornered, and he is a victim." Lightbourne and former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater are ...

In his final submissions in the attempted extortion trial of former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday, Chief Prosecutor Bernard Turner said that Bridgewater was not set up as she has claimed, but she knew exactly what she was doing when she and Lightbourne tried to extort $25 million from American actor John Travolta earlier this year. "Up to the bitter end there was no distancing herself from this plan," said Turner, referencing Bridgewater's statement during a videotaped ...

CLOSING addresses began in the attempted extortion trial of ex-PLP Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and former ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday. Director of Public Prosecutions and lead prosecutor Bernard Turner told the nine member jury that the prosecution has discharged its burden in proving that Bridgewater and Lightbourne are guilty of the offences for which they are charged. The two are accused of conspiring to extort and attempting to extort $25 million from American actor John Travolta. Bridgewater is also charged with ...

A CORONER has cleared the Australian Defence Force of contributing to the suicide of a young private who had been bullied by other soldiers. In written findings handed down late last week, Brisbane coroner John Lock found there was nothing to suggest that bullying and harassment in the army was instrumental in Edward Alexander McBride's decision to end his life. Mr McBride, 30, was found hanging from a rope at the Energex substation in Brisbane's Everton Park on February 7, 2007. ...

By JUAN McCARTNEY ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ juan@nasguard.com: The defense in the trial of former Senator Pleasant Bridgewater and ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne rested its case yesterday, after its only witness finished his testimony. Final arguments in the case will be delivered on Monday. And Senior Justice Anita Allen is expected sum up the case and give instructions to the jury on Tuesday. Bridgewater and Lightbourne are accused of attempting to extort $25 million from American actor John Travolta after ...

The director of Milk and the author of American Psycho are to write a film about the lives and deaths of artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake [Picture / Caption: Pens at the ready … Gus van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis. Photographs: Focus Features/Everett/Rex Features and Jennifer Graylock/AP] It is a tale of intrigue, paranoia and harassment by unseen forces, one which takes in the rock star Beck, the Church of Scientology and 9/11 conspiracies. It ends with the deaths ...

By JUAN MCCARTNEY ~ Guardian Senior Reporter ~ juan@nasguard.com: Former ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne yesterday told the jury in his attempted extortion trial that "I know that it appears as if we're guilty, but we're not" as he made his unsworn statement from the bar. Lightbourne told the jury that he was confident that he would be found innocent. "I'm not really worried about this trial," Lightbourne said. "If I sound arrogant, I'm not. I'm standing on (God's) word." Lightbourne asked ...

(CNN) – A paramedic accused of plotting to extort $25 million from actor John Travolta after his 16-year-old son died in the Bahamas told a jury Wednesday the boy had been dead for some time before the ambulance service was called. Tarino Lightbourn said in his statement to the Nassau, Bahamas, jury that a doctor told medics to keep administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Jett Travolta despite knowing the teen was dead, and that the ambulance company was told to transport him ...

By 10 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2007, the temperatures were well on their way to 93 degrees when Jackson Police Sgt. Eric Wall pulled his cruiser into the turn lane on Northside Drive east of Interstate 55, ready to make a left onto Ridgewood Road and head north. That's when he noticed the black Jeep with a man driving and a woman in the passenger seat. "[T]he black Jeep was pulling into my lane of traffic, and the white male driver ...

It was a twisted scheme playing on a broken dad's unbearable grief. A blackmailing medic and his brazen lawyer threatened to tell the world John Travolta "intentionally killed" his son unless they got $25 million in hush money, the star's lawyer testified Thursday. Paramedic Tarino Lightbourne planned to make public a routine waiver Travolta signed initially refusing local medical treatment after his autistic son, Jett, 16, suffered a massive seizure in the family's Bahamas resort villa. The actor had considered flying ...

Hollywood A-Lister John Travolta testified in a Bahamian extortion trial yesterday that he was told unless he paid $25 million, stories would be sold to the news media implying he was to blame for his is son’s death. Travolta said his longtime friend and employee Ronald Zupancic first told him of the alleged threat Jan. 16 - two weeks after Travolta’s son, Jett, 16, died of a seizure during a family vacation in the Bahamas. Former paramedic Tarino Lightbourne and former ...

On Jan. 19, Pleasant Bridgewater, who had been a Bahamian senator and well-respected member of the Progressive Liberal Party at the time, met with John Travolta's attorney to iron out payment for a document regarding medical treatment for the actor's son on the day he died. Three days later, Bridgewater was under arrest for extortion and, according to a police report, admitted to the Bahamian authorities that she had destroyed a copy of the document in question – a "Refusal of ...

The actor’s public acknowledgement that his son, who died in January, was autistic has former Scientologists convinced that he will leave the church—which they say has little tolerance for chronic conditions. When John Travolta took the witness stand last week and testified that his late son, Jett, was autistic, it came as a grim relief to some former Scientologists. “Wasn’t that amazing?” said a fallen-away church member after Travolta appeared in an extortion case that followed the death of his 16-year-old ...

Lawyer for actor seen negotiating with two defendants in Bahamas trial Is it the smoking gun? The trial of two defendants accused of trying to extort $25 million from John Travolta in return for handing over a document relating to the death of the star's 16-year-old son, Jett, continued in the Bahamas Friday. Meanwhile, PEOPLE has watched videotape of conversations recorded by the Royal Bahamas Police between Travolta's attorney and the two defendants — paramedic Tarino Lightbourn and his lawyer, Pleasant ...