Transcript: Descriptions of video in italics. VO=Voiceover of Lesley Stahl. LESLEY STAHL (in studio): There was a time if you were worried about your son or daughter being in a cult, you could get help from a small, non-profit organization called the Cult Awareness Network, or CAN, for 20 years the nation’s best-known resource for information and advice about groups it considered dangerous. Among them was Scientology, a church not known for turning the other cheek. But church officials say Scientology ...

Re: Spreading pure innuendo, Dec. 11, 1997 When reading the letter from Scientology spokesman Mike Rinder, it is important to keep a crucial fact in mind. Rinder's department, the Office of Special Affairs (OSA), is part public relations machine and part covert intelligence agency. OSA is the successor to Scientology's Guardian's Office (GO), which was supposedly "disbanded" after its leaders were convicted of conspiracy against the U.S. government for executing "Operation Snow White". The GO also ran a number of operations, ...

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). ...

For years, Scientology has gone to great lengths to defend itself from critics. Often its defense has involved private investigators working for its lawyers. While the use of private investigators is common in the legal profession, some instances involving the church have been unusual. Scientology officials said that the investigators operated within the law and that the tactics were necessary to counter attacks made over the years by Internal Revenue Service agents and the press. "When people stop spreading lies about ...

On Oct. 8, 1993, 10,000 cheering Scientologists thronged the Los Angeles Sports Arena to celebrate the most important milestone in the church's recent history: victory in its all-out war against the Internal Revenue Service. For 25 years, I.R.S. agents had branded Scientology a commercial enterprise and refused to give it the tax exemption granted to churches. The refusals had been upheld in every court. But that night the crowd learned of an astonishing turnaround. The I.R.S. had granted tax exemptions to ...

A web of intrigue surrounds the high-stakes legal brawl between FACTnet and the Church of Scientology. Strange things happen around Lawrence Wollersheim. His businesses collapse. His Boulder apartment gets raided by federal marshals, his computers seized. When college students offer to help him rebuild his computer bulletin-board system, they receive threatening phone calls–anonymous voices urging them to stay away from Larry. A California judge who presided over a lawsuit in which Wollersheim was the plaintiff told reporters he'd encountered a lot ...

Earle Cooley, the chairman of Boston University's board of trustees, wants you to know that he believes in freedom of expression. Never mind that the gruff, avuncular 64-year-old, one of Boston's top trial attorneys, has played a leading role in the Church of Scientology's efforts to use copyright law to keep secret church documents off the Internet. Although the church has won some significant courtroom victories, critics, legal observers, and even judges criticize the zeal with which it has pursued its ...

It was last August 12, a Saturday morning, and Earle Cooley did not seem happy. Cooley was among several lawyers for the Church of Scientology who, accompanied by federal agents, had just raided the Arlington, Virginia, home of Arnaldo Lerma, a former church member who'd become a harsh critic. The lawyers took quite a haul: Lerma's computer, disks, a scanner, and other materials they thought he may have used to post secret, copyrighted Scientology documents on the Internet. The success of ...

As the Church of Scientology battles a band of cyberspace dissidents - seizing computers and papers from the homes of vocal online critics in the past two weeks - local defectors charge they are being harassed for speaking out against the church. Robert Vaughn Young and Stacy Young, longtime staff members who left the Church of Scientology in 1989, complained to police that Scientologists have picketed their house in West Seattle at least five times in the past two weeks. They ...

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA TAMPA DIVISION Case No. 94-292-CN-T-24A CITY OF CLEARWATER and SIDNEY R. KLEIN, Chief of Police, Clearwater Police Department, Plaintiffs, vs. CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION, INC., Defendant. —– AFFIDAVIT OF PAUL MASER STATE OF FLORIDA COUNTY OF PINELLAS I, Paul Maser, being duly sworn, deposes and says of my own personal knowledge and belief that: 1 . He is employed by the Clearwater Police Department and has been, so employed for 20 ...

Two years ago, an Allstate agent stood up at Sears's annual meeting to ask what then seemed a bizarre question. "To what extent," he inquired, "are the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology present today in Allstate and in Sears?" Edward Brennan, chairman of Sears, Roebuck & Co., and Wayne Hedien, then-chairman of Sears's Allstate Insurance Co. unit, both appeared bewildered. Mr. Brennan said he had no knowledge of any relationship at all. Mr. Hedien said he didn't even ...

It was a strange way to describe an aspect of a theology. But L. Ron Hubbard, the highly successful science-fiction writer who founded the Church of Scientology in the 1950s, had little tolerance for those who challenged his beliefs. And so it was, at one time, that Scientology scripture came to include an unusual litigation clause: "The only way to defend anything is to attack, and if you ever forget that, then you will lose every battle you are ever engaged ...

A heartbroken father begged the world's biggest cult yesterday: "Let my daughter go." And Eddie Forsyth wept when he learned that daughter Christine had been subjected to a nightmare ordeal at the hands of the Scientologists. A Mail investigation has discovered that the cult's "thought police" branded her a traitor for talking to an outsider. Blond Christine was hauled before a kangaroo court and convicted of "treason". Beans Experts believe she would have been sentenced to hard labour, ordered to wear ...

[Picture / Caption: RESOLUTION — "I think the judge just wanted to bring an end to this case," says Graham E. Berry, right, with Gordon J. Calhoun.] For years, the Church of Scientology has been synonymous with bitter litigation battles. But the 40-year-old religious organization, long known for its aggressive legal tactics, threw in the towel recently on a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles that it had been waging against two critics. Besides serving as a legal setback, the action in ...

THIS man is working for the Church of Scientology. But you won't find him hovering on a street corner with a smile and a clipboard. He is an American private detective. Ex-Los Angeles police officer Eugene Ingram was sent to Britain to investigate the alleged theft of confidential documents from Saint Hill in East Grinstead, the national headquarters of the cult. Relatives of one leading anti-Scientology campaigner in Sussex have found Mr Ingram on their doorstep. Clergymen who have attacked the ...

[Transcribed by Anonymous <nowhere@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> 21 May 1995 07:35:27 +0100] The Church of Scientology may call itself a religion, but it does not have a reputation for turning the other cheek. For a week last month Jon Atack and his family were subjected to scenes like this outside their home in Cranston Road, East Grinstead. Why? The placard-carrying demonstrators are Scientologists, and they do not like Mr. Atack because he is an outspoken critic of the cult. The police were twice called ...

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. —– ...