By Graham E. Berry more
25 May 2002
Source:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/msg/8143931a5b90379f
First, allow me state a legal disclaimer. The things that I
am about to tell you are only my own, personal opinions based
upon my own personal experience and knowledge. The Church of
Scientology will have its own, separate opinions and
explanations, both as to me personally and as to my opinions
expressed below. Scientology is America's own Taliban. It may
not be destroying America by crashing planes into buildings.
Nevertheless, it is destroying America, family-by-family and
individual-by-individual.
President
Carter was the last American President who did anything to
try and stop Scientology from carrying out its corruption and
crime. Under President Carter, the Church of Scientology's
leadership was
convicted of conducting the largest ever known criminal
infiltration of the United States government. Subsequent
American administrations have each refused to investigate the
massive evidence of Scientology's crimes, frauds and its
unrelenting "psycho-terrorism." The official position is that
Scientology cannot be investigated because it is a "church".
Officials also say that an investigation would be messy, time
consuming and controversial. As we all know, politicians prefer
power and campaign money to conscience and controversy.
Scientology is a small but powerful cult, which masquerades
as a peaceful church. In reality, Scientology is the most
dangerous of all of the mind control groups as well as being the
most dangerous of the over 600 cults operating in both Europe
and the United States. It is a common terrorist threat to both
continents. Scientology uses its founder,
L. Ron Hubbard's,
pseudo-scientific technology, mental manipulation and
mind-control techniques to extract vast sums of money from its
victims. It sells them "self help" type courses on what it calls
the "Bridge to Total Freedom." It uses trade secret processes,
and secret "unpublished" copyrighted materials in both dangerous
medical practices and switch and bait type financial frauds.
Scientology aggressively enforces these "trade secrets" and
copyrights with armies of lawyers, litigation wars of attrition,
and tax-exempt litigation budgets that exceed $40 million USD
per year. Government officials and judges are intimidated,
corrupted and compromised. "Noisy investigations," defamation,
harassment and blackmail are frequently the Church of
Scientology's weapons of destruction. Often Scientology, through
its Office of Special Affairs
or "OSA," does not even have to harass or intimidate a
government official or judge. Past examples of its massive abuse
of the legal system and government officials are well known and
quietly spoken of. Most judges and public officials appear to
conclude that complying with the demands of lawyers and
lobbyists for the Church of Scientology is easier and safer than
risking their own personal destruction by Scientology as a form
of revenge. In effect, a judge will allow Scientology to
victimize the litigant who is before the court rather than they
themselves risking becoming another victim of Scientology. A
cartoon in the Washington Post newspaper once demonstrated the
evil choice. The cartoonist drew a Church of Scientology
representative meeting with a United States Senator. The cartoon
caption read, "Mr. Senator, will you co-operate with us or will
we destroy you?" This dark side of the Church of Scientology may
sound as if it were from the science fiction. However, I know
from my own experience that the dark side of Scientology is
true.
Ten years ago I knew nothing of the Church of Scientology.
When I was told of it I immediately thought of the
Christian Scientists. I was wrong. I have learned that the
Church of Scientology intends to destroy the Christian
Scientists, the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans and all of the
world's religions and governments. One year ago, Scientology's
lawyers renewed the copyright on its confidential document
entitled "Targets
Defense." They did this in Washington, DC. In this United
States government protected document, all Scientologists are
ordered to take over the heads of all of the governments,
businesses and the news media. Europe has the historical
experience, national maturity and perceptive vision to stop this
new
totalitarism and to stop it now. Typically, the United
States is ignoring the lessons of the past until they repeat
themselves anew with devastating tragedy. Meanwhile, Scientology
corrupts and infiltrates America's governments, courts and
businesses. Power, money and public opinion polls come before
protecting individual citizens and victims from "psycho-terror"
and injustice.
I am now a victim of the Church of Scientology and of
American injustice. My home, career and car have been taken from
me by Scientology. I now live on State of California general
relief payments of $221 USD per month. My work and travel, such
as this, is paid for anonymously by concerned citizens living in
fear of the Scientology organization. However, ten years ago I
was an affluent lawyer in a big Los Angeles law firm. I was part
of a legal team that defended other lawyers being sued for
professional negligence. I believed that lawyers and judges
should always do the right and proper thing no matter what the
personal costs. I had learned that putting one's personal
interests before those of a client or litigant was a conflict of
interest. Ten years later, the Church of Scientology has
destroyed my career and my life, as I knew it, yet I still
believe that that lawyers and judges should always do the right
and proper thing no matter what the personal costs.
In 1991, the Church of Scientology was litigating two
lawsuits against Los Angeles lawyer
Joe Yanny. Yanny had been
Scientology's lead copyright and trade secrets lawyer. Yanny had
stopped representing the Church when it asked him to illegally
obtain the confidential medical records of former scientologist
Larry Wollersheim's
lawyer who had sued the Church of Scientology and won a judgment
of $ 30 million USD for fraud and harassment. Around the same
time, in the year 1986, Scientology's founder,
L. Ron Hubbard died under
very mysterious circumstances. Scientology's current leader,
"Captain" David Miscavige,
took over the church in a putsch. Miscavige dealt ruthlessly
with Hubbard's heirs, designated successors and potential
rivals. Pat and Annie Broeker were Hubbard's designated
successors. Pat Broeker now lives in secret seclusion under the
watchful eye of Scientology operatives, as does Hubbard's widow.
Annie Broeker is confined at the Scientology headquarters base
in the high desert near Hemet, California. Potential leadership
rivals Vicki Aznaran and
Jesse Prince were sent to
the Scientology Gulag, which this "church" calls the "Rehabilitation
Project Force" or "RPF" at Happy Valley, which is also near
Hemet, California. Vicki Aznaran was kept under armed guard and
spent 12 hours a day
running around a pole. She was required to run one hour
one-way and one hour the reverse. She did this for three months
until she escaped. Aznaran fled to Texas and then California,
looking in vain for a lawyer to sue Scientology for what had
been done to her. Eventually, she contacted Yanny, a friend from
her days in Scientology. He had been a lawyer for Scientology so
he could not sue the church himself, instead he found another
lawyer for her. Scientology sued Yanny twice for assisting
Aznaran in facing injustice. The first lawyer to defend Yanny
had a secret meeting with Scientology's lawyers and engaged in
conduct that was improper.
Yanny fired that lawyer and hired new lawyers, which included
me. We conducted a very effective defense and we won the second
Yanny case. We also successfully defended the two Yanny cases on
appeal. Scientology was particularly annoyed by the devastating
manner in which I had conducted discovery against the church,
which had set the stage for Scientology's loss of the second
Yanny case.
On May 6, 1991, Time Magazine published a cover story it
called "Scientology,
Thriving Cult of Greed and Power." In essence, it called the
Church of Scientology a "ruthless global scam." The Church of
Scientology sued Time Magazine and lost and continued to lose
all of the way to United States Supreme Court. It has been
reported that the case cost Time Magazine $20 M USD. The Time
Magazine article included a statement that Scientology had been
involved in financial fraud, instructions to commit murder and
orders to commit suicide. Scientology sued the Time Magazine
sources Stephen Fishman &
Uwe Geertz for defamation. Fishman was a former Scientologist as
well as having been a Scientology secret operative. Dr. Geertz
was his German born psychologist. I led a team of lawyers, and
former Scientologist experts, and we produced evidence that
Scientology had indeed been involved in fraud, instructions to
commit murder and suicide. There was evidence that Scientology's
lawyer, Kendrick Moxon, and Scientology's chief investigator,
Eugene Ingram, had been involved in instructions to murder
two opponents. There was also evidence that during the
Wollersheim case,
Scientology lawyer Moxon had been involved in the drowning of
the trial judge's dog. Later, the Scientology organization
claimed that therefore the trial judge must have been biased and
prejudiced against it. We served subpoenas for the depositions,
or questioning under oath, of a number of Scientology
celebrities including John Travolta and Kelly Preston. We also served deposition notices upon the entire upper management of the church
and its leader Captain Miscavige. The court ordered all of the depositions to go
forward despite the vigorous opposition of Scientology's lawyers. Rather than
comply with the court orders, Scientology dismissed the Fishman-Geertz case
several weeks before the trial. The court ruled that Fishman and Geertz had won
the case. During the Fishman case, we had filed over forty affidavits containing
evidence of Scientology's concentration camps in America, its heavily armed
headquarters, dangerous mental manipulation, mind control, murders, induced
suicides, compulsory abortions, financial fraud and tax fraud. There was
evidence that this tax fraud involved the actor Tom Cruise and his then wife
Nicole Kidman. The evidence included the Church of Scientology's expensive
"trade secrets" explaining its "religious" dogma that our human bodies are
infested with the spirits of dead space aliens.
The Church of Scientology then attempted to have me agree to
have this evidence recanted. I refused. Two church executives
then offered former Scientologists
Robert Vaughn Young and
his then wife Stacy Brooks
$200,000 USD each to recant their testimony and to testify that
I had suborned perjury by them. They refused and testified as to
the criminal conduct the church was engaging in. Former
Scientologist Andre
Tabayoyon was threatened and offered $25,000 USD to recant
his testimony in the Fishman case and to accuse me of suborning
perjury. He also refused and testified as to this version of
what had happened. Scientology lawyers flew a former Scientology
secret agent from Florida to California and had him recant his
Fishman-Geertz case testimony on videotape and to accuse me of
having suborned his perjury. Several weeks later, Scarff thought
better of this criminal conduct and obstruction of justice and
testified as to what had just happened. The United States
Department of Justice refused to investigate. It stated that it
lacked the resources to investigate crime on this magnitude. As
L. Ron Hubbard once wrote, the more outrageous the church's
conduct the less likely it will be believed, investigated and
prosecuted. Scientology repeatedly asked the Fishman court to
seal all of this damaging evidence and the supporting documents,
and to keep them from the public. The courts repeatedly refused.
So the Church of Scientology decided to remove the lawyers who
were defending the Fishman case. Scientology and its lawyers
found a former acquaintance of mine a Robert Cipriano. They
discovered that there was an arrest warrant for him in another
state. Scientology blackmailed Cipriano into signing a false
affidavit stating that I was a child molester with 40-60 victims
in one 6-month period. They published this perjury on the
Internet and to my professional colleagues and friends all over
America and around the world. Then they investigated several
senior partners of my law firm. They discovered things that they
threatened to publish unless I was stopped from being the
defense lawyer in the Fishman-Geertz case. Without my knowledge,
my senior partner entered into a secret agreement with the
Church of Scientology. My senior law partner and the Church of
Scientology stole the client's files. Because there was no
longer any defense lawyer, the Scientology lawyers were able to
have the court order the Fishman-Geertz court records sealed
from public and media access. Dr. Geertz complained to the
California State Bar. It did no investigation at all, denied Dr.
Geertz's complaint and remarkably said that none of the lawyers
had done anything wrong.
Despite the Scientology blackmail and extortion that resulted
in the United States Federal court sealing the Fishman-Geertz
court records, many of the damaging affidavits still ended up on
the Internet. One of the affidavits was the Fishman Declaration,
which included Scientology's secret upper levels dealing with
the evil ruler Xenu, and
the spirits of dead space aliens that infest our bodies, which
the Church of Scientology calls "Body
Thetans" or "BTs".
Scientology then misled three federal judges into issuing
special orders permitting the Church of Scientology, accompanied
by armed United States federal marshals, to raid the homes of a
number of its critics. Computers and books were seized. There
were a number of lawsuits in three different states. These were
the first major American Internet cases. One of these cases was
the FactNet case in which
I was one of the defense counsel. This case was eventually
settled.
Another of these cases involved
Keith Henson. Henson is a
computer engineer who has now fled America to seek political
asylum in Canada. Henson was never a Scientologist but he was
outraged that the Church of Scientology was misusing copyright
and trade secret laws to suppress free speech on the Internet
and to prevent public and government knowledge of the unlawful
practice of medicine by the Church of Scientology.
Henson posted a copyrighted Scientology document on the
Internet. It is called NOTS 34
and it describes how the Scientology
E-meter, its religious
artifact, is to be used to "handle" a physical condition or
illness. The United States government specifically forbids this.
The Church of Scientology sued Henson for breach of copyright.
Henson defended himself and lost the case. Henson then hired me
to be his lawyer to defend him as to the amount of damages to be
awarded Scientology for Henson's copyright breach. The jury
awarded the Church of Scientology $75,000 USD. The Wall Street
Journal newspaper then published
an editorial stating that the judge had turned copyright law
on its head. The church then asked the court to award costs of
$900,000 USD against me claiming that it had needed to use 28
lawyers at a cost of over $ 1.5 million USD to successfully
oppose me in court for one week. I had charged Henson merely
$5,000 USD. The court denied the church's request. Henson filed
for bankruptcy as he has few available assets, which the Church
of Scientology will never get. Despite that, in nearly four
years Scientology has spent over $ 1M USD on teams of expensive
lawyers from all over the United States to block his bankruptcy.
They have also used church operatives to harass and terminate
the employment he and his wife have tried to obtain.
Once unemployed, Henson then spent his time picketing the
church at several of its locations. Scientology responded with
six lawsuits to try and prevent Henson from exercising his
constitutional rights of free speech and protest. I appeared for
Henson in three of these lawsuits, which we won. Last year, the
sixth such lawsuit was tried in Hemet, California. Henson had
been picketing the church's heavily armed and guarded base near
Hemet. The church had Henson arrested and jailed. It claimed
that his solitary picketing was terrorizing the church and
interfering with the practice of a religion. The local
California police refused to prosecute but Scientology sent
lawyers from New York and Washington to "persuade" the District
Attorney to ignore the police and to prosecute Henson. The
District Attorney was running for re-election and agreed to
prosecute Henson with the assistance of Scientology lawyers from
New York and Los Angeles. The trial judge was manipulated and
misled, Henson was denied an effective defense; he was convicted
and sentenced to year in prison. Henson then learned that
Scientology agents were spreading rumors in prison that Henson
was coming to prison and that he was a child molester. Child
molesters are despicable people and they are often assaulted and
even killed in prison in the United States. To avoid being
imprisoned under these circumstances, Henson fled to Canada.
Henson is a smallish 60-year-old grandfather who has no other
convictions and no record of violence. Scientology told the
Toronto police that Henson was an armed and dangerous terrorist.
The Toronto SWAT team, all prepared for a machine gun shoot out,
took Henson and his Canadian host down with an awesome display
of firepower. Henson spent a week in a Toronto jail. He was
denied his blood pressure medication. Eventually, Henson was
released on bail and he applied for political asylum in Canada.
Predictably, Scientology is now providing the language for the
Canadian immigration minister's decisions and Henson now looks
to Europe for human rights and protection from Scientology's
corruption of the North American courts and governments. |