Courts: Lawsuits allege Reed E. Slatkin bilked friends out of $35 million. SEC is also conducting an investigation. Investors are accusing Reed E. Slatkin, a co-founder of the giant Internet service provider EarthLink Inc., of operating a Ponzi scheme that may have resulted in the loss of least $35 million of their funds. Slatkin—a Santa Barbara socialite and venture capitalist—also is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for his financial activities, which allegedly included a day-trading operation that promised ...

I height [sic] Don Quixote, I live on peyote, marijuana, morphine and cocaine. I never knew sadness, but only a madness that burns at the heart and the brain. –John Whiteside Parsons * He was an unorthodox genius, a poet and rocket scientist who helped give birth to an institution that would become mankind's window on the universe. He was also a devotee of the black arts, a sci-fi junkie and host of backyard orgies on Pasadena's stately Millionaires' Row. John ...

So the French want to disband the Church of Scientology (Feb. 29). Which of the other 172 "sects" on the French list will be next? The French action is a blatant human rights violation that is opposed by many religious and human rights groups. The French government claims the right to dissolve religious organizations that have never been charged with a crime and never provided with due process of law. Apparently the French want the government to protect them from "false" ...

A former French Scientology official has been sentenced to two years in prison for fraud, along with four other Scientologists who received suspended sentences of six months to two years. Xavier Delamare, former head of Scientology's branch in the southern French city of Marseille, was sentenced Monday in connection with a 10-year-old case in which he was found guilty of operating sham "purification" courses between 1987 and 1990. As with the others, Delamare will not go to prison because 18 months ...

Q&A: Tom Cruise, co-star of Stanley Kubrick's final opus, talks about the challenges and rewards of working with the director he says was wrongly labeled as an eccentric. When Stanley Kubrick was first wooing Tom Cruise about starring in "Eyes Wide Shut," the director learned that Cruise was a pilot, as Kubrick himself had been before he crash-landed one day and never flew again. So the most all-controlling cinema master of our time decided that if Cruise was going to zoom ...

Television: As interviews for 'Eyes Wide Shut' begin, the actor's representatives go to new lengths. The publicity machinery surrounding "Eyes Wide Shut" raised the hackles of some television news organizations this week by attempting to place restrictions on TV accounts regarding the film's star that would ratchet up control over information to a new level. PMK, the publicity firm that represents Tom Cruise, distributed a waiver at the movie's press junket asking to see rough cuts in advance of any TV ...

THE MOST MAIL Daily Variety has received this year about a single article has come in response to a story that the newspaper will never run. The subject was Scientology and its influence on Hollywood. The story was in the process of being researched by our film editor, Dan Cox, who recently left the paper to accept a job as a literary agent without finishing the article. In approaching his story, Cox was impressed by the fact that the Scientologists, who've ...

Crowd of people outside Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles; picture of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman VO: The high profile role of Scientology’s celebrities– which include America’s most popular actor, Tom Cruise– adds to Scientology’s mystique. footage of Travolta being presented with a “1998 Celebrity with glamour of the year” (?) award from somebody (glass trophy with red and blue hand prints painted on it) JOHN TRAVOLTA (on movie set in Army camouflage outfit) (voice of and on camera): I’m part ...

Justice: Severe dehydration proved fatal to female believer who, family contends, was held against her will. Prosecutor files two felony counts. CLEARWATER, Fla. — The Church of Scientology was charged Friday in the 1995 death of a member whose family claimed she became severely dehydrated after being held against her will for 17 days. Prosecutor Bernie McCabe charged the church with abuse or neglect of a disabled adult and unauthorized practice of medicine, both felonies. The church noted that prosecutors did ...

John Travolta has denied those pesky gay rumors for years. but in a shocking lawsuit set to be filed in Los Angeles federal court at press time, Beverly-Hills-based artist Michael Pattinson alleges that the Church of Scientology used Travolta as an example of a homosexual "cured" by the church. Pattinson's complaint alleges that he "reasonably relied upon" Travolta's marriage to fellow Scientologist Kelly Preston as proof that Scientology processing and courses would 'handle' my own homosexuality." Pattinson is suing the church, ...

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). ...

BERLIN — Speaking from a vast video screen, actor John Travolta told a mass rally of Scientologists here Monday that there is no excuse for government discrimination against religious bodies. Singing and chanting, adherents from Germany, the United States and across Europe joined the L.A.-based Church of Scientology's largest demonstration in Germany against what it said is official discrimination against religious minorities. "Scientology is our religion," Travolta said in the video message, taped in Los Angeles. "It has helped us a ...

Rena Weinberg's column ("Education Is the Real Issue," Aug. 3) about L. Ron Hubbard's textbooks had a serious error. The materials which Weinberg refers to were reviewed in July 1996 and did not pass legal compliance. Therefore the books should not be in use in any California public school. During the past year, Bridge Publications has submitted proposed revisions to address the legal compliance concerns. However, until completely corrected versions of the books are reviewed, there is no final consideration ...

The problems facing schools are too great to ignore the methods of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. RENA WEINBERG, Rena Weinberg is president of the Assn. for Better Living and Education (ABLE), an organization formed to coordinate the use of L. Ron Hubbard's social betterment methods in society The proposal by a teacher to open a charter school in the Sunland-Tujunga area, one which will include among its textbooks some written by L. Ron Hubbard, has become something of a controversy—which ...