At 6:30 on the morning of July 26, a contingent of off-duty U.S. marshals and officials from software maker Novell Inc. rang the doorbell at Joseph and Miki Casalino's home outside Salt Lake City. Thinking her husband had forgotten something when he left for work, Miki padded to the door in her robe and was shocked to find a marshal flashing his badge. They were there, they told her, to search and seize any and all computer bulletin board (bbs) equipment ...

[A classic: Heber Jentzsch going nuts to prevent Dennis Erlich from disclosing information about Scientology's secret levels]

TOKYO — Four California activists are investigating charges of religious persecution against Aum Supreme Truth, the sect suspected in a poison gas attack against subway riders here in March. In an interview Friday, Los Angeles lawyer Barry Fisher said he and the others decided to visit after hearing that authorities had conducted mass arrests of Supreme Truth members, that sect children had been removed from their families and that officials were making allegations of mind control against the group. These actions, ...

Thousands of workers participated in seminars that taught them to disregard ethics in the quest for productivity Allstate Corp. acknowledged Wednesday that it hired a consultant who taught "unacceptable" Church of Scientology management principles to the insurance company's agents and supervisors between 1988 and 1992. The company denied allegations some workers were hounded, intimidated and wrongfully fired as a result of the training program. Scientology is a religious-scientific movement founded in the 1950s by the late author L. Ron Hubbard that ...

SAN JOSE - A Glendale critic of the Church of Scientology lost a round in federal court Tuesday as a judge declined to lift an order barring him from transmitting copyrighted religious texts onto the Internet. The order remains in effect against Dennis L. Erlich, a former church member. But U. S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte rejected arguments by church lawyers and lifted restraining orders against a North Hollywood computer bulletin board operator and a San Jose-based Internet access supplier, ...

Something happened recently on the Internet that no doubt sent chills down an awful lot of spines. A government used its power to breach anon.penet.fi. Before you write this off as another of the arcane tempests that generate so much ire among the get-a-life set, take heed. This one goes to the heart of what the electronic frontier is like, how it is changing and what the future holds for this new medium. Anon.penet.fi is basically a computer in Helsinki, Finland, ...

Glendale: Church representatives with court order remove files allegedly containing copyrighted texts from home of outspoken critic. BYLINE: ALAN ABRAHAMSON and NICHOLAS RICCARDI TIMES STAFF WRITERS GLENDALE – Led by a lawyer brandishing a federal court order and backed up by a pair of off-duty police officers, a handful of Church of Scientology representatives searched a Glendale house Monday and seized hundreds of computer disks and files allegedly containing copyrighted religious texts. In the latest twist to a fractious dispute that ...

WHY DID LISA Marie Presley and Michael Jackson get married? Love, if you believe her press release, the one pledging to "dedicate my life to being his wife." Or, according to speculation from Hollywood, Jackson is rehabbing his image and simultaneously consummating the ultimate entertainment empire merger. But another possibility is circulating among the conspiracy-minded former members of the Church of Scientology. It's an astounding theory — that the church itself helped arrange the Presley-Jackson union. But these defectors say that ...

Courts: Staff members oust founder of Holocaust denial center. They are now entangled in lawsuits and poisonous prose. COSTA MESA — On the sunny autumn morning of the coup d'etat, Willis Carto could be found clinging to the glass doors of his cherished institute like a tough sea barnacle. Swiftly, the mutineers moved to oust Carto, 67, a stubborn and wiry man who had founded and shaped the obscure Institute for Historical Review into a revisionist think tank that critics call ...

[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 ...

No one would ever accuse the Church of Scientology of not being vigilant about its press coverage, especially when it comes to its famous Hollywood members. One of the latest cases in point was the 2,000-word response in Premiere magazine after a recent story about Scientology's ties to the entertainment industry. This was followed by the publication of a 16-page booklet dubbed "Premiere Propaganda." "Premiere's reporter was not interested in writing a fair story on the church. Instead he went out ...

After decades of feuding, the Internal Revenue Service has granted the Church of Scientology and more than 150 of its corporate entities tax-exempt status, ruling that they are charitable, religious organizations entitled to be free from federal income taxes. Marty Rathbun, president of one of the Scientology organizations that received the tax exemptions, said the government sent 30 exemption letters to Scientology groups earlier this month. All told, the exemptions apply to 153 corporate entities, said Rathbun, who is the president ...

There is a story that Steve Tisch, producer of the 1983 coming-of-age classic Risky Business, the film that would eventually vault Tom Cruise into the warm aerie of megastardom, likes to tell. After a tough day of shooting, Cruise approached Tisch, his partner Jon Avnet and the film's director, Paul Brickman. It seemed Cruise was concerned: He felt that his costar, Rebecca DeMornay, a newcomer who had snatched the part of sexy hooker Lana from Michelle Pfeiffer, was miscast. Things just ...

PALM SPRINGS — A man accused of stalking former Mayor Sonny Bono was in a mental health ward pending prosecution on an arson charge, authorities said Friday. James Hamlin, 40, was under observation and treatment at Riverside General Hospital, said Riverside County Deputy Dist. Atty. Martin Brhel. Prosecutors filed a felony arson complaint against Hamlin, 40, after a June fire in a room at the San Jacinto Hotel in Palm Springs, Brhel said. Municipal Judge Arthur Block set Hamlin's bail at ...

With its glass walls, classic architecture and limited space, the Church of Scientology's Garden Pavilion was hardly the place for the blasting riffs, slam pits and combat boots that accompanied Tool's performance Friday night. Although neither band nor audience seemed to mind the inappropriateness of the Hollywood venue, the heavy security present still hinted that the Church of Scientology may have been unnerved by the thought of 300 screaming fans talking over its beautiful West Hollywood building. Composed of Maynard James ...

The Davidians were a 'cult,' and thus exempted from justice and normal rules of evidence. Rodney King's beating captured the nation's attention for more than a year. The extermination of more than 80 Americans during an armed attack by federal agents outside Waco is already slipping off the front pages. But then, King is a black man whose maltreatment came to symbolize police violence against the poor. The Davidians were "a cult," and thus exempted from justice and compassion. Atty. Gen. ...

Disenchanted with college, unsure about a career and turned off by his Orthodox Jewish upbringing, Henry Kriegel hitchhiked around the country 16 years ago on a personal and spiritual quest that ended at a lecture sponsored by Elizabeth Clare Prophet's Church Universal and Triumphant. As he listened, something clicked that hadn't with the other philosophies he'd explored–and after several months of study and reflection, Kriegel joined the controversial sect, which came to be widely known for its massive Montana bomb shelter. ...

For 50 years, the cult involved in a violent and bloody shootout Sunday with federal agents near Waco, Tex., has been preoccupied with the long-foretold catastrophic end of time–an awful day of reckoning when the wicked would be brought to judgment. But as federal agents stormed the cult's armed fortress on Sunday, it was the group's leader, David Koresh–a man who claims to be Jesus Christ–that agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were attempting to bring to justice. ...