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). ...

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Late on a November afternoon two years ago, a 36-year-old Scientologist named Lisa McPherson was involved in a minor traffic accident. She was not injured, but she inexplicably stripped off her clothes and began to walk naked down the street. A paramedic rushed her into an ambulance and asked why she had taken off her clothes. Ms. McPherson replied: "I wanted help. I wanted help." She was taken to a nearby hospital for a psychiatric examination, but several ...

Lisa McPherson turned to the Church of Scientology in her 20s as she tried to shed the emotional baggage of a rocky youth. By age 36, with a high school education, she was earning a handsome salary as a sales representative in Clearwater. Today, as the church tries to rebut assertions that it caused her sudden death, it also credits Scientology for her successes in life. But McPherson's turnaround came at a financial price. From 1991 until she died in December ...

EVANSTON, Ill. — This week the president finally got together with Congress on a plan to reshape the Internal Revenue Service. Washington's aim is to treat the symptoms of antitax fever. Out here in the rest of the country, though, the Republican leadership is trying to find a way to go after the underlying disease. They're hosting a series of debates to give the public a chance to consider fundamental tax change that would go far beyond the destructive tweaking of ...

CANBERRA, July 1 (Reuter) — Australian bosses might prefer blondes, but the tax office won't give their secretaries a rebate for changing their hair colour. As Australia entered its annual fiscal silly season on Tuesday, when millions of workers fiddle their figures to try to claw back tax payments, the association of tax accountants published a list of enthusiastic claims destined for failure. Among them were a car repairer's claim for the cost of his "guard dog" — a miniature poodle ...

In the early fall of 1991 Atlanta businessman Ralph Regan participated in a local radio talk show dealing with abuses by the Internal Revenue Service and problems with the federal tax system. Shortly afterward, the 35-year old nurseryman received a call from Victor Krohn, the head of Citizens for an Alternative Tax System (CATS), who asked Mr. Regan to start up an Atlanta area CATS chapter. A few months later Mr. Regan resigned his post after discovering that CATS had been ...

As no doubt befits a society founded by Pilgrims, America has a long tradition of controversial movements maturing to success, whether Mormons or Christian Scientists or Jehovah's Witnesses. Today, the latest cult forcing itself to our attention is the Church of Scientology. Scientology was founded in the early 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer. He fashioned a creation myth around Xenu, who froze and transported thetan souls to volcanoes in Teegeeack, now earth. The creed holds that humans ...

There is a peculiar response coming from Washington regarding new questions about the Internal Revenue Service's decision to give the Church of Scientology the tax exemption granted to churches. Silence. In a city where every politician searches for publicity and demands for investigations are commonplace, no one has heard a peep from Congress. It has been more than a week since the New York Times raised serious concerns about the circumstances surrounding the IRS' decision to reverse course in 1993 and ...

The truth is, there is no "humane" way to destroy the developing child in the womb. Other than the "partial-birth" abortion, the current methods are: ripping the body apart with a powerful suction machine (sometimes requiring that the child's body be sliced up by a sharp curette before suctioning, depending on the child's size); poisoning the child with a caustic salt solution, causing the child to writhe in pain for a number of hours prior to being violently expelled; or chemical ...

The Church of Scientology has denied that its leader and another official had an unscheduled meeting in October 1991 with Fred T. Goldberg Jr., then the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. A statement released by the church, which was sharply critical of an article on March 9 in The New York Times, said that its leader, David Miscavige, had not had an impromptu meeting with Mr. Goldberg and that all meetings between church representatives and I.R.S. officials had been attended ...

To the Editor: Contrary to Scientology's Puzzling Journey From Tax Rebel to Tax Exempt (front page, March 9), the Internal Revenue Service made its decision to issue exemption rulings to the Church of Scientology in 1993 on the merits following the most in-depth examination in the history of the I.R.S. The role of the I.R.S. committee that was formed to address issues involving the church was not to negotiate a deal but independently and objectively to review the church's qualification for ...

Can anyone stand up to the Church of Scientology? Such was the plaintive question asked by The St. Petersburg Times in an editorial last week, and with good reason. The great American religious saga of the 1990's may be the rise to power of a church that has successfully brought the Internal Revenue Service, the State Department and much of the American press to heel even as it did an end-run around the courts. As Douglas Frantz reported in The New ...

Most taxpayers would not be rewarded if they tried to intimidate the Internal Revenue Service into giving them a break. They also would be kicked out the door if they barged into the office of the head of the IRS and demanded to be seen without an appointment. But most taxpayers are not the Church of Scientology, which succeeded in doing both. The decision by the IRS in 1993 to give the Church of Scientology the tax exemption granted to churches ...

On Oct. 8, 1993, 10,000 cheering Scientologists thronged the Los Angeles Sports Arena to celebrate the most important milestone in the church's recent history: victory in its all-out war against the Internal Revenue Service. For 25 years, I.R.S. agents had branded Scientology a commercial enterprise and refused to give it the tax exemption granted to churches. The refusals had been upheld in every court. But that night the crowd learned of an astonishing turnaround. The I.R.S. had granted tax exemptions to ...

Title "The S Files" [S as in Scientology Logo] [Presenter Dermot Murnaghan (DM henceforth) no relation to any other DM] Tonight we're going to expose serious financial crime in one of the Scientology cult's most successful operations in Britain. We show how they cooked the books, made false statements to obtain bank loans, and changed invoices to fiddle their VAT. [Extract from "Trust" ad] This advert for the Church of Scientology was recently shown on cable TV. It was a major ...

PARIS, June 19 — Gilbert Bourdin wears a winged crown, calls himself Lord Manarah the Cosmic Messiah, and lives with his followers in the Holy City of Mandar'om on a mountaintop in Provence in southern France. From time to time, loudspeakers blare "ommm" over the compound, a place studded with temples and colossal statues of Buddha, Jesus and Mr. Bourdin himself. The "ommm" may now stop. The sect leader, 73, has sent out faxes announcing that he plans to renounce his ...

This is a business that was set up, according to the son of Scientology founder and science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, to avoid taxes. Its counseling process can cost a participant as much as $400,000, and it now claims offices in 78 countries. It reported $74.3-million in revenue last year from its Clearwater facility alone and says it will spend $185-million during the next five years to acquire more properties worldwide. It is a business that, according to records filed ...

Upon my return to Clearwater after a month's absence, I was greeted with the news that the Scientologists had been granted tax-free status by the IRS. I hurriedly resumed delivery of the St. Petersburg Times to discover the facts and the community reactions to the news. To my relief, Associate Editor Martin Dyckman's column the following day was a model of intelligent reporting and analysis. "Why should any religion enjoy tax exemptions?" he asked. Later in his column he quoted Justice ...

It is appalling to see the intense scrutiny and negative examination of the Church of Scientology by reporters who assume expertise in the subject. Obviously, the subject is sensational: "Church of Scientology declared a bona fide religion by IRS!" But to stir it all up again, to continue to try to get the fire going again, is not only insulting to Scientologists, but I would say to all religions. Has it been forgotten that the right to religious worship is one ...

When the IRS granted tax exemptions to the church, it did so mainly on the basis of what Scientology did with its money. WASHINGTON — It might be easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for the IRS to judge the merits of a religion. So when it comes to considering tax exemptions, the agency sticks to what it knows: money. For the Church of Scientology, which won a series of tax exemptions earlier this ...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — The Church of Scientology, the secretive and combative international organization that recently won a decades-long drive for Federal tax exemption, counts assets of about $400 million and appears to take in nearly $300 million a year from counseling fees, book sales, investments and other sources, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The financial disclosures are in documents the church was required to file with the I.R.S. in applying for tax-exempt status, conferred on 30 ...

[This is a shorter reprint of Scientologists profited from new members | St. Petersburg Times (Florida) | 15 October 1993.] WASHINGTON — It pays to pitch Scientology, according to earnings reports the church has filed with the Internal Revenue Service. One man averaged almost $200,000 a year in commissions from the fees of new members he had solicited to become Scientologists. The church gives its proselytizers 10 to 15 percent of what newcomers "donate" for church services, such as the ...