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 ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A $20 million-plus lawsuit has been filed by two branches of the Church of Scientology accusing a Boston lawyer, his brother, his law partner and a former Scientologist of violating the civil rights of church members. The federal lawsuit claims attorneys Michael Flynn and Thomas Hoffman, Washington, D.C. restaurateur Kevin Flynn and former Scientologist Laurel Sullivan conspired to violate the church members civil rights by a campaign of lies that led to government investigations and adverse publicity. ...

CLEARWATER — The Church of Scientology complied Tuesday with a court order directing the sect to allow Pinellas County Property Appraiser Ron Schultz to examine records relating to the controversial organization's tax status. Schultz, accompanied by a county accountant and an attorney, began examining the sect's financial records Tuesday morning on the top floor of the former Fort Harrison Hotel, which is the organization's world headquarters. "In effect, we are doing a financial audit," of the Church of Scientology's Flag Service ...

On Scientology Editor: People who deface church property are not new to this society, or to history. Swastikas on synagogues, property stolen from sanctuaries and a hundred other acts of violence depict only the depraved state of mind of their perpetrators. Recently, the Pinellas County State Attorney's Office vindicated a Church of Scientology security guard, who captured a man Suspected of throwing a rock through a church window, as charges were filed against the chief suspect for throwing a deadly missile ...

Question. Who receives more fan mail per week than the Queen of England, Harrison Ford, and Pope John combined? Answer. L. Ron Hubbard. Best known through his books and as the founder of the Scientology philosophy, Hubbard receives an average of 2400 letters a week from his friends and individuals who have been helped through his philosophies. On his 73rd birthday in March, he received greetings from the Governors of 36 states and proclamations from Mayors in New Orleans, Galveston, Houston ...

Editor: Scientology is basically an applied religious philosophy. Scientology traces its religious roots back 2500 years to a man named Gautama Siddhartha, better known to the Western world as Buddha. Buddha was concerned with increasing the individual's awareness of himself or herself as a spiritual being. He achieved this increased awareness for himself and devoted the remainder of his life to helping others achieve the same state. In Scientology today, we have an extension and expansion of Buddha's work with 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 ...

A Church of Scientology security guard, charged with false imprisonment late Thursday after police said he tackled and handcuffed a 21-year-old Clearwater man, was released on $5,000 bond Friday. Roy Rosa Rodriguez, 30, who listed his address as the sect's headquarters at 210 S. Fort Harrison Ave., was arrested after he tried unsuccessfully to spray a suspected vandal with "Paralyzer" mace and subsequently tackled him and handcuffed the man's hands behind his back, police said. A Church of Scientology official refused ...

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 ...

The United States Treasury Department's Criminal Investigations Division has mounted an in-depth investigation into the activities of the Clearwater-based Church of Scientology, the Clearwater Sun has learned. In the past several weeks, Treasury agents have traveled across the United States interviewing a number of former Scientologists—including some who held positions of immense power and influence in the worldwide sect prior to their defection, sources said. Spokesmen for the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service in Tampa and Los Angeles, citing Department ...

CLEARWATER — Church of Scientology President Heber C. Jentzsch renewed charges involving a forged $2 million check and a "conspiracy" by sect foe Michael Flynn during a Wednesday press conference. Flynn, a Boston attorney, represents more than a dozen ex-Scientologists who have sued the sect. In May 1982 Flynn coordinated highly-publicized city hearings on Scientology. "Mr. Flynn was involved and is involved in acts that involve organized crime," Jentzsch told reporters and 50 supporters on the steps of Clearwater City Hall. ...

A HIGH COURT judge has made the most outspoken condemnation yet of the Church of Scientology, which has its British headquarters at Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead. He condemned it as "corrupt sinister and dangerous". Its founder, former American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and his wife Mary Sue were condemned by Mr Justice Latey as "charlatans and worse." And the sect, said the judge, was "both immoral and socially obnoxious." Hubbard and his helpers were said to be "grimly ...

LOS ANGELES (AP)—Church of Scientology officials are accusing a Boston lawyer of conspiring to pass a counterfeit $2 million check "to divert attention from himself." Michael Flynn, a prominent critic of the Church of Scientology who has filed 20 suits against the organization, also was accused of blaming the forgery on Scientologists in an attempt to destroy the controversial group. The allegations regarding the check on the account of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard surfaced Monday in documents filed in Los ...

The Scientology cult was branded "corrupt, sinister and dangerous" by a High Court judge in London yesterday when he ordered two young children to be placed in the custody of their mother. He described the practices of the founder of the so-called "church", Ron Hubbard and his helpers, as "grimly reminiscent of the ranting and bullying of Hitler and his henchmen". Mr Justice Latey ordered a Scientologist father to hand over his son, aged 10, and daughter, aged eight ...

Church of Scientology officials Monday accused a Boston lawyer who has been a prominent critic of the organization of conspiring to pass a counterfeit $2-million check on the account of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and later blaming the forgery on members of the church as part of an "overall plan" to destroy the group. The charges were made against attorney Michael Flynn in documents filed in Los Angeles federal court in connection, with a lawsuit filed by a Scientology member, ...

A HIGH Court judge yesterday delivered a damning indictment of the Church of Scientology. Mr Justice Latey described the Californian-based sect as 'corrupt, immoral, sinister and dangerous'. And of its methods, he declared: 'For those of us old enough to remember, it is grimly reminiscent of the ranting and bullying of Hitler and his henchmen.' He was giving judgment in the High Court Family Division at the end of a six-month 'tug of love' battle over two children whose father is ...

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 ...

LAFAYETTE Ron Hubbard's face stares down from practically every wall in the Church of Scientology's headquarters in East Grinstead, Surrey. It is not especially prepossessing. It is the face of a foxy charlatan and begs the question: would you buy a used cult from this man? In previous years an insult like this to the great Hubbard would have been enough to guarantee perpetual harassment and investigation by his Scientology sect whose code of honour states: "Never fear to hurt another ...

Is it the beginning of the end for the Church of Scientology? In the past senior church officials have refused to discuss the inner workings of L. Ron Hubbard's empire, but according to a recent story in the New York Times, disillusionment with Hubbard and a power struggle within the organization have prompted several church officials to meet with police investigators and testify against Scientology in a number of court cases. At a trial that just ended in Los Angeles County ...

Charges by church defectors that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard diverted more than $100 million in church funds to foreign bank accounts was described Wednesday as "garbage" by the sect's president. "I call it hyperspace junk writing," said Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International. The former senior church officials, who have testified about the church's inner workings in Los Angeles court, told the New York Times that Hubbard directed them to establish shell corporations to channel much of ...

Former officials of the Church of Scientology say they helped L. Ron Hubbard, the reclusive founder of the cult-like organization, to secretly divert more than $100 million from the church into foreign bank accounts he controlled. The organization, long a subject of investigations in this country, Britain, France, Australia, South Africa, Spain and elsewhere, has maintained that Mr. Hubbard cut his ties to it in the mid-1970's, that he has received only a token consulting fee of $35,000 annually since then ...

Editor: Reports appearing in the Sun about the religious status of the Church of Scientology in Germany are incorrect. The current clumsy attempt by the German government is to DEecertify a fully certified religious group, the Church of Scientology. The world has seen a similar attempt before. Reynhard Heinrich of the German SS wrote a letter in 1937 instituting a decertification campaign against Catholic sects, evangelical ministers and Baptists in Germany. It was a prelude to the genocide that was to ...