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 It uses trade secret processes, and secret "unpublished" copyrighted materials in both dangerous medical practices and switch and bait type financial frauds.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.