The Supreme Court Monday expanded its study of whether payments made to the Church of Scientology by members may be claimed as federal income tax deductions. The justices, who last month agreed to review the issue, added other test cases and appeals to their study of the Scientology appeal and are expected to make a ruling next year. Their decision will determine whether fees for educational services of the Church of Scientology can be considerd deductible contributions. Scientologists call the payments ...

THE church of Scientology has been ruled a profit making organisation. In the Supreme Court, Washington DC, last Monday, the cult was refused leave to appeal against a 1984 tax exempt ruling and must now pay $1.2 million back taxes for 1970 to 1972 and $287,614 in penalties for late filing. This will come as a severe blow to the church which has been fighting the Internal Revenue Service since the late 1960's to keep its tax exemption status. The United ...

The Supreme Court refused yesterday to review the federal government's decision to strip the controversial Church of Scientology of California of its tax-exempt status from 1970 through 1972. The justices, without comment, rejected the church's appeal of a ruling by a federal appeals court. The court, however, will consider a similar issue next term in connection with another case it has agreed to hear, involving whether Scientologists may deduct from their taxable income money spent on spiritual awareness courses. A spokesman ...

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled that there is insufficient evidence in a $1-billion lawsuit against the Church of Scientology to support charges that two corporations helped the religion's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, plunder church coffers. The action last Friday by Judge Norman R. Dowds undercut a key portion of the class-action lawsuit, filed in December by a group of disaffected church members who claim to represent 400 ex-Scientologists. The suit alleged that a profit-making firm run by high-ranking ...

THE author of a book that allegedly blows the whistle on the bizarre founder of the Church of Scientology says he has been terrorized by cult fanatics seeking to suppress the shocking exposé. "They've sent out thugs to intimidate me, threatened my family, tried to bribe us and even tried to jail the publisher," says Bent Corydon, author of L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah Or Madman? (Lyle Stuart). Corydon, a loyal disciple of Hubbard and his cult for nearly 22 years, now ...

Concluding that L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology of California, had "unfettered control" over millions of dollars in church assets, a federal appeals court Tuesday upheld the revocation of the church's tax-exempt status. In a ruling that rejected nearly every argument the church had raised, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said there is evidence that the late church founder held millions of dollars of church funds in private trust funds, Swiss bank accounts and in a ...

Description of video is in italics. VO=VOICEOVER shot of Church of Scientology, Los Angeles; apparently group of ex-members VOICEOVER: The Church of Scientology, one of the largest and richest new religious movements, is being sued for a billion dollars by former members for fraud and breach of trust. They regard Scientology as a dangerous cult. group of Scientologists VO: Yet the church goes on expanding, making converts and claiming it is "The Road to Total Freedom". ''"Panorama" opening credits; while music ...

Former members of the Church of Scientology filed a $1-billion class-action lawsuit against the organization Wednesday, accusing its late founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and a cadre of his most trusted aides of plundering church coffers, intimidating critics and breaching the confidentiality of sacred confessional folders. The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court at a time when the church had hoped that its legal wars with its critics had been put largely to rest. Two weeks ago, the organization reached ...

A History of Controversy As anyone who follows the news knows, Scientology has been involved in a series of controversial cases, many of them involving vengeful church actions against its critics. (More on this below.) Although the church always paints itself as the victim, its critics suggest that Scientology hasn't been persecuted from the outside, but rather is the victim of warped and misplaced priorities inside the church. The critics — and there are more than the church is willing to ...

MONEY PROBLEMS AS NOTED IN THE MAIN ARTICLE, the one subject church leaders would not discuss in detail is money — notably, how much the church takes in and where it specifically goes. With 40,000 members in L.A alone, some of them spending tens of thousands on auditing, the sums can clearly be large. A 1974 internal memo indicated the church grossed $24 million that year; former Scientologists have put the current gross at $100 million, a figure that cannot be ...

The San Luis Obispo County coroner attempted to independently confirm Tuesday that Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard has indeed died, while church critics voiced skepticism over the circumstances surrounding the death. Sheriff-Coroner George S. Whiting said his office was trying to verify Hubbard's death by checking fingerprints taken from what church officials said was Hubbard's body shortly before it was cremated Saturday. Whiting said he would take several days to match the prints with a copy known to be ...

Why a Portland jury awarded $39 million in damages against one of the world's most profitable cults. ONE SUNNY AFTERNOON last week, an elderly man, who looked as though he had probably spent the past few nights sleeping under the stars, stood in the southeast corner of Lownsdale Square in downtown Portland gazing in bewilderment at the scene before him. Several hundred people, many wearing T-shirts proclaiming something about a crusade for religious freedom, gathered around a large stage in the ...

Three years after publishing a best-selling book in 1950 about his theories for improving mental health, L. Ron Hubbard, 42, was living in Spain and worrying about money. An idea struck him. Why not present Scientology as a religion, he suggested in a letter written to Helen O'Brien, then the head of an organization for marketing his mental health concepts known as the Hubbard Association of Scientologists. This was the formative stage of the Church of Scientology. Over the next 30 ...

After winning a $39 million judgment against the Church of Scientology late Friday afternoon, Julie Christofferson Titchbourne said she hoped to establish a foundation to help other victims of thought-control organizations. Titchbourne, a soft-spoken civil engineer who hugged her mother, husband and lawyers after hearing the jury's decision, said she hoped her experience could be turned to an advantage for others whose lives need rebuilding. During a brief appearance before reporters outside the courtroom door, neither Titchbourne nor one of her ...

The Church of Scientology started making plans in 1980 to "insulate" church founder L. Ron Hubbard from legal attack and to protect his secret church-related income in advance of his disappearance from public view, a former Scientologist testified Friday. Laurel J. Sullivan, who used to work on Hubbard's personal staff, said she learned in February 1980 that Hubbard planned to go into hiding. She said she was assigned to a special mission "to insulate L. Ron Hubbard and his income lines ...

A former personal secretary to L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology, told a Portland jury Thursday about a secret system Hubbard used in the 1970s for collecting personal income from church organizations. Laurel J. Sullivan, who said she worked closely with Hubbard until he disappeared from public view in 1980, also testified that Hubbard held managerial control over numerous Scientology organizations despite his publicly announced "retirement" from church management in 1966. Contrary to a 1972 church policy ...

A former Scientologist who said he helped manage L. Ron Hubbard's bank accounts testified Monday that the Scientology founder collected income of $200,000 to $1 million per week during a six-month period in 1982. Howard D. Schoemer, who left the Church of Scientology in December 1982, told a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury that the money was routed to Hubbard through Author Services Inc., a corporation that "supposedly had nothing to do with the church." Schoemer said the income to Hubbard ...

It was just before midnight, May 28, 1984, when the orders were issued. Confidentially. "Mission information: ... recent reports from contacts made with Homer he is likely to go over to the enemy camp. He is thinking of turning against us completely. "Mission purpose: To prevent Homer from going over to the enemy camp and get him moving back onto The Bridge. "Vital Targets: ... Stay in close comm (communication) with MSN OPS (mission operations). Do not implement any decisions without ...

CLEARWATER—Possibly the highest-ranking, most influential Scientologist to defect from the Clearwater-based, international sect has sued Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard for more than $225 million. Citing physical abuse, the intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and the violation of his civil rights, Howard D. "Homer" Schomer, the 49-year-old former treasury secretary of the sect's Author Services Inc. branch, is demanding a jury trial and damages of $226,528,200. Schomer's claims, if proved true, offer a dark view of the ...

"Corrupt, sinister and dangerous" were the words used to describe the Church of Scientology in a judgment given by Mr Justice Latey this summer. He also referred to it as "immoral and socially obnoxious". But who controls the Church now? A major Sunday Times Magazine investigation into the activities of the cult in America and Britain has uncovered a disturbing and extraordinary story — the takeover of the organisation by a small band of youthful fanatics following the disappearance of the ...

LOS ANGELES — Michael J. Flynn, a Boston lawyer, was piloting a light aircraft toward South Bend, Ind., in October 1979 when its engine quit mysteriously at 8,500 feet. After making an emergency landing, he said he found several quarts of water in the fuel tank. Since then, Mr. Flynn, who has led a legal battle against the Church of Scientology, a group that has long been the subject of Government investigations, says he has been followed by as many as ...

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 ...

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 ...