DAYTONA BEACH — The Church of Scientology is not entitled to collect legal fees of $740,000 from the former mayor of Clearwater and his wife who filed and later dropped a lawsuit against the organization, an appeal court ruled Tuesday. Ruling without comment, the 5th District Court of Appeal upheld a lower court decision in the case involving Gabriel and Margaret Cazares. Volusia Circuit Judge Robert Miller said last August the church had failed to prove that the $1.5 million lawsuit ...

The 19 people charged in connection with an investigation of the Church of Scientology of Toronto include employees of the Ontario Provincial Police, Metro Toronto Police, the RCMP and the Ministry of the Attorney-General, according to information the OPP has sworn before a justice of the peace. And the alleged stolen documents the church is charged with possessing include photocopies of files belonging to legal firms, the Canadian Mental Health Association, the Ontario Medical Association, the College of Physicians and Surgeons ...

WHAT THE JUDGE SAID * THE CHURCH USED SEX TO SEDUCE PEOPLE HIGH IN GOVERNMENT * RAN A CAMPAIGN OF LIES AND PERSECUTION AGAINST OPPONENTS * AND USED SINISTER TRAINING METHODS AND IRON DISCIPLINE —– THE "sinister" Church of Scientology was dammed by its own undisputed evidence in yesterday's High Court case. Evidence from memos, letters, directives and bulletins presented to the court by a young mother desperate to win her children back from its clutches. The church, according to Mr ...

Several former high-ranking Church of Scientology officials have provided state, federal and municipal law enforcement investigators with detailed information regarding the Clearwater-based sect's alleged criminal activities in the Tampa Bay area, the Clearwater Sun has learned. Although the same testimony provided to investigators in Clearwater has furthered large-scale criminal investigations in Canada and resulted in court rulings against the sect in California, no similar action has been implemented in the Clearwater area, a seven-month Sun inquiry has determined. And Gerald Armstrong, ...

CLEARWATER — A poker-faced doorman bows slightly at the entrance of the Fort Harrison and motions visitors to the lobby, where a crowd waits at the front desk and dozens of guests rush up and down the marble staircases beneath the crystal chandeliers. A larger-than-life portrait of L. Ron Hubbard, the reclusive founder of Scientology, stares down upon his followers from high on the wall. Many of them wear the sea merchant uniform that is part of their code. Most criss-cross ...

Robert Dardano and Warren Friske were trusted members of the Boston mission of the Church of Scientology in the mid-1970s when they say they were recruited to join a group of other church members intent on carrying out "dirty tricks" against critics and others deemed enemies of the church in this area. The activities of the group included break-ins, the theft of documents, harassment and misrepresentation, according to sworn testimony by Dardano in Florida last year and affidavits from him and ...

The D.C. Police Department is conducting an internal investigation to determine how members of the Church of Scientology, a controversial religious group that has been investigated by law enforcement agencies, were able to set up a course for recruits at the D.C. Police Training Academy, police officials said. The course, taught by church members, was set up without the approval of Chief Maurice T. Turner Jr. and is contrary to the department's procedures regarding outsiders teaching police academy courses, according to ...

The film would star a former science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard who founded a religion — or what his critics call a "cult." Also included in the cast would be Charles Manson, John Travolta, numerous former cultists turned "deprogrammers," and billions of Thetans, or immortal beings trapped in "meat bodies" on the planet earth — and don't forget Hubbard's renegade son, who works in a Nevada casino and suspects his father is either dead or hopelessly insane. Scenery in ...

The 16 witnesses who testified in Clearwater's public hearings on Church of Scientology activities provided the first-hand information city officials will use if they decide to design ordinances to regulate the sect. Boston attorney Michael Flynn, who gathered the witnesses, said he questioned them extensively about their Scientology experiences and people they knew in the sect. He confirmed that information through other witnesses and contacts inside the church, he said. If they had not been in the sect, Flynn said, "I'd ...

Clearwater city commissioners received a warning and some advice Saturday as witnesses gave final testimony against the Church of Scientology during public hearings on the sect's activities. Scientologists' four-day time slot to present their side in the controversy begins Monday. Church spokesman Hugh Wilhere said Saturday night it has not been decided whether the sect will take advantage of its rebuttal time. The warning came near the end of the hearings as consultant Michael Flynn, the Boston attorney hired by the ...

The Clearwater City Commission opens the second half of its public hearings on the Church of Scientology at 9 a.m. today. The next four days have been set aside for the sect to present its side of the story. As of Sunday, however, church spokesman Hugh Wilhere said no decision had been reached as to whether the organization will take advantage of its half of the forum. This past week, Tampa attorney Paul B. Johnson, the sect's attorney, said it is ...

CLEARWATER — Why, Robert Dardano was asked, had he done it — why had he participated with other Scientologists in burglaries and theft of documents and smear campaigns against the church's perceived enemies? Because he was convinced, the slender, soft-spoken Dardano told Clearwater city commissioners, "that Scientology was going to save the planet and free the world. "That we were right and everyone else was wrong," Dardano, a 31-year-old Boston resident, was one of eight witnesses to testify Saturday during commission ...

In a story of international intrigue, a former senior executive of the Church of Scientology testified Saturday about a worldwide sect network involving infiltrations, conspiracies and smuggling. Scott Mayer, 38, told Clearwater city commissioners "I have personal experiences of all of these," in the forth day of the city's Scientology hearings, where legal consultant Michael Flynn paraded seven of his most damaging witnesses. Commissioners heard also from a former Guardian Office worker who said she used the sect's "confessional files" during ...

CLEARWATER — Unlike some of his colleagues in the Clearwater business community, developer Alan Bomstein doesn't regard the Church of Scientology as a threat to the city's economic future. But he does agree that L. Ron Hubbard's 32-year-old, self-styled "religion" has an image problem. "The Church of Scientology," Bomstein says, "is the classic, textbook example of bad public relations." On the eve of City Commission hearings into church activities, there is little doubt that Scientology is the least popular institution in ...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court Monday let stand the convictions of two former leaders of the Church of Scientology, rejecting their final efforts to contest the legality of the FBI's search of the church's Los Angeles offices in 1977. The court's action apparently clears the way for Mary Sue Hubbard - the one-time "controller" for the church group and wife of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, who was not charged in the case—to begin serving a five-year prison term on a ...

Mitchell Hermann and Francine Vannier now have a choice: They can talk to a federal grand jury about the Church of Scientology or they can go to jail. The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to hear appeals by the two Scientologists of their contempt of court convictions. The contempt finds were issued in June 1981 by U.S. District Judge Ben Krentzman in Tampa after Hermann and Mrs. Vannier refused to testify before the grand jury about the church's activities in Clearwater. ...

Eighteen months ago, the U.S.-based Church of Scientology launched a global—and unsuccessful—campaign to prevent publication of a Reader's Digest report called "Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult." The church engaged a detective agency to investigate the author, Digest Senior Editor Eugene H. Methvin. Digest offices in a half-dozen nations were picketed or bombarded with nuisance phone calls. In Denmark, South Africa and Australia, the church sued unsuccessfully to prevent publication. In the months since the article appeared, in May 1980, a ...

TAMPA — A federal grand jury in Tampa is once again investigating alleged plots by the Church of Scientology to discredit former Clearwater Mayor Gabriel Cazares. Three members of the Church of Scientology testified for an hour and a half at the secret grand jury session in the federal courthouse in Tampa Wednesday afternoon. Cazares himself testified before the grand jury for more than an hour on Tuesday. Asked about his testimony, Cazares said he told the grand jurors about the ...