WASHINGTON — Six boxes of documents make it clear: People in Pinellas County — a newspaper editor, a reporter, a mayor, a state attorney — were targets three years ago of the "fair game" policy of members of the Church of Scientology. The documents were among thousands seized by the FBI in 1977 raids on church headquarters in Washington and Los Angeles. They were the basis for indictments against nine church leaders on charges of conspiring to steal government documents and ...

CLEARWATER — Church of Scientology documents released Thursday that outline the Scientologists' intention to control or "take over" the city left local government officials wondering Friday how the group planned to reach that goal — and what it should do about it. Mayor Charles LeCher and City Manager Anthony Shoemaker agreed the city’s first move is to seek copies of the documents released Thursday in Washington, D.C., by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Richey. "We have to find out what the ...

WASHINGTON — (AP) Leaders of the Church of Scientology considered the American Medical Association (AMA) and the National Institute of Mental Health enemies and infiltrated the AMA as part of an effort to discredit it, according to documents made public yesterday. The documents released by a federal judge show that the church planted spies and had a "doom program" aimed at the AMA. Church leaders also planned to "take over control" of the National Institute of Mental Health near Washington, the ...

WASHINGTON — Nine Church of Scientology leaders were convicted Friday on charges stemming from a four-year church program to burglarize, bug and infiltrate various federal agencies with which Scientology has battled for two decades. On two occasions during the four-hour court proceeding, a fragile plea-bargaining agreement between the defendants and federal prosecutors almost collapsed. But finally all the legal obstacles presented by defense attorneys were overcome and U.S. Dist. Judge Charles R. Richey pronounced all nine defendants guilty of one count ...

WASHINGTON — (AP) — A federal judge Friday convicted nine members of the Church of Scientology, including the wife of the founder, of taking part in a major conspiracy to steal government documents about the church. As the defendants and their lawyers clustered in front of him, U.S. District. Judge Charles Richey said the evidence "establishes each and every element" of the crimes that resulted in convictions. RICHEY SET no date for sentencing the defendants, who included Mary Sue Hubbard, wife ...

WASHINGTON (UPI) — Nine scientologists, who faced a 28-count indictment on charges of stealing government documents, each would plead guilty to only one count of conspiracy under an agreement upheld by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge Charles Richey ruled Monday that the disputed plea arrangement between defense and prosecution attorneys is valid. Chief prosecutor Raymond Banoun promptly said the U.S. attorney's office would file a notice of appeal. Richey had held closed hearings for nearly two weeks on the defense ...

WASHINGTON — Nine leaders of the Church of Scientology, in a rare legal maneuver, have agreed to be found guilty by a federal judge on reduced charges of conspiracy and theft as an outgrowth of their long battle with the federal government over allegedly stolen U.S. documents. Under a procedure called a "stipulated record," the defendants agreed to be found guilty after the government presented its case in a written court record without challenge or a trial, which could have lasted ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 (UPI) — A Federal judge today upheld a disputed agreement under which nine leaders of the Church of Scientology would plead guilty to a single count in connection with an alleged conspiracy to steal Government documents. District Judge Charles Richey entered his ruling just 24 hours before the church members were to stand trial on a 28-count indictment. He ordered the opposing lawyers to appear Friday, "whereupon the court will pronounce its findings with respect to guilt or ...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Friday that the U.S. government had "illegally and unconstitutionally" seized documents during a raid on the Church of Scientology here in 1977. U.S. Dist. Judge William J. Bryant ordered the government to return all of the documents seized by 25 FBI agents during their search on July 8, 1977. Asst. U.S. Atty. Raymond Banoun said that the government would appeal Bryant's ruling and that it would have no effect on an up-coming criminal trial of ...

RIVERSIDE — A Superior Court judge here upheld a search warrant Tuesday used by authorities to raid the local mission of the Church of Scientology in search of evidence of possible bank loan fraud. But at the same time, Judge Ronald Deissler delayed action on a church motion that the 17 boxes of Scientology records seized during the June 13 raid be returned. A hearing on that matter has been set for Aug. 20. More than two dozen Riverside County sheriff's ...

RIVERSIDE (AP) —The Church of Scientology has filed suit to retrieve documents seized in a sheriff's raid on the church's Riverside Mission and to quash a search warrant used in the June 13 raid. "The seizure," said Christopher Ashworth, a Los Angeles attorney representing the church, "was offensive to the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens who were part of the church." The suit contends: — That most of the information used in support of the warrant was more than a year ...

Church of Scientology officials said they will attempt to repay any defaulted loans they may have taken out fraudulently by Scientology members in Riverside, an attorney for the organization said Friday. Christopher Ashworth, a Century City attorney, said the church will take a nationwide collection from its members to set up a trust fund to reimburse any lender "who may have been harmed by credit misrepresentation." The offer came a week after Riverside sheriff's deputies raided the church's Riverside mission in ...

LONDON (AP)—The Church of Scientology lost a London court battle Friday to prevent two of its members from being extradited to the United States on charges of counseling and procuring burglary of American government offices. But the church immediately announced an appeal to the Divisional Court in London and said that if necessary it would pursue the appeal through the House of Lords and the European Court, which has jurisdiction because of Britain's membership in the European Economic Community. Magistrate William ...

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals took under submission Monday arguments by the Church of Scientology of California that a July, 1977, search by 130 FBI agents of Scientology headquarters here was illegally conducted. An estimated 90,000 pages of documents were seized by the agents operating under a court-approved search warrant and much of the data was used to obtain criminal indictments against Scientology's top leaders in the United States and Great Britain earlier this year. ...

The U.S. Justice Department, at least for the next month, cannot disseminate to the public or other governmental agencies documents seized by the FBI from the Church of Scientology July 8, 1977, the U.S. 9th Circuit Circuit of Appeals has ruled. The appellate court said materials seized from the Scientology headquarters here can be presented to federal grand juries, but to no one else pending appeal of the court's order. A hearing on the merits of the Scientology suit seeking to ...

U.S. Customs Service officials did not violate constitutional guarantees against prior restraint of speech when they detained and reviewed thousands of documents sent to Los Angeles by the Church of Scientology in England two years ago, a three-judge federal panel has ruled. The unanimous opinion written by U.S. Dist. Judge William P. Gray held that a federal statute prohibiting importation into the United States of written material advocating treason, forcible resistance to any federal law or threats to harm or kill ...

The Church of Scientology contends that for more than 20 years it has been the target of a systematic campaign by the United States government, together with "vested-interest pressure groups" such as the medical professions, to "suppress the church's spiritual practice and expansion." The church advances this accusation as the fundamental rationale for its aggressive policies of defense-by-attack against individual critics, private groups and government agencies perceived as "harassing" Scientology. Church spokesmen, moreover, expand upon the allegation of systematic persecution to ...

WASHINGTON (UPI) — Nine members of the Church of Scientology, including the wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard, pleaded innocent today to charges they infiltrated federal agencies and stole government documents. U.S. District Judge George Hart made it clear during the hour-long arraignment that he would reject church attempts to turn their trial into a forum for alledging 28 years of government harassment. "The Church of Scientology is not on trial here and it's not going to be on trial," Hart ...

It started a little like Watergate. Late one night two years ago, two men made their way to the third floor of the U.S. courthouse in Washington. With stolen keys, they opened the office of assistant U.S. attorney Nathan Dodell and photocopied sheaves of government documents rifled from his files. They repeated the caper a few nights later, but when they showed up at the building again, a suspicious guard called the FBI. The two men, Gerald Wolfe and Michael Meisner, ...

On May 14, 1951, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard wrote to the U.S. attorney general to plead for help in fending off a Communist conspiracy, dedicated, he averred, to destroying him. "When, when, when," he wrote, "will we have a roundup?" Rambling through seven single-spaced typewritten pages, the letter was, to all appearances, the heartfelt cry of a troubled man. A successful science fiction writer in the 1940s, L. Ron Hubbard, as he signed himself, had gone on to bigger things. ...

Eleven high officials and agents of the Church of Scientology, including the wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard, were charged here yesterday in an allegedly widespread conspiracy to plant spies in government agencies, break into government offices, steal official documents and bug government meetings. Much of the evidence outlined against the church's officials in the 28-count criminal indictment appears to be based on the church's own internal memorandums and other documents. The memorandums directed church operatives to "use any method" in ...

Since its founding by a science fiction writer named L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, Scientology has been among the growth stocks on the self-help market: a quasireligious, quasiscientific cult that has attracted three million U.S. followers (some highly touted celebrities among them) and estimated annual revenues in the hundreds of millions, much of it tax-exempt. Until recently Scientology's only certifiable vice was eccentricity, but within a week a federal grand jury in Washington is expected to hand down a bulging sheaf ...

The church of Scientology held an unusual press reception yesterday to introduce two of its top officials who the church says will be indicted for alleged crimes against the government. Standing around fruit punch, soft drinks, cookies and open-faced sandwiches, church lawyer Philip J. Hirschkop told assembled reporters that the predicted indictments are part of a government effort "to break the back" of the church. Hirschkop said that a total of 12 church members - including Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of ...

LOS ANGELES, July 6 (AP) — The Government won a major victory in its battle with the Church of Scientology when a judge ruled yesterday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's seizure of thousands of church documents was legal. Federal District Judge Malcom M. Lucas rejected allegations by church attorneys that the F.B.I. had exceeded the scope of a search warrant in the seizures last July 8. Federal attorneys said that the ruling, unless appealed, cleared the way for the documents ...

The Church of Scientology, in its efforts to investigate and attack its "enemies," kept files on five Washington federal judges, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, other congressmen, Jacqueline Onassis, the Better Business Bureau and the American Medical Association, according to Scientology documents in the possession of federal investigators. The Scientologists' files, summarized in a 525-page inventory filed in court by the federal government, were in many cases marked "Eyes Only," "Top Secret," "Enemy Names" and "Battle Plans." Their contents were coded with ...