

In December, a retired NYPD detective was sitting in a silver minivan with Texas plates when our source, who we’re not going to name, got into a conversation with him.

The detective was parked outside a movie set in Brooklyn, working as a private investigator, and our source asked him what his assignment was.

Following Leah Remini, he said. He told our source that he was working for the Church of Scientology, and his assignment was to watch Remini for twelve hours a day, Monday to Friday, for two weeks.

The movie being filmed at the set was “Second Act,” which also stars Remini’s close friend Jennifer Lopez and is scheduled to be released this fall.


He related to our source that earlier, when the set had been located in Manhattan’s Soho, he had almost got into an accident following Remini on a wild drive on a highway.

We confirmed that with Remini’s driver, who tells us that two cars, one of them a silver minivan with Texas plates, began following them one late night after the filming at the Soho set had finished.

The driver made a quick turn onto a highway offramp, and when he did, the two cars following missed the turn and tried to back up — a very dangerous move on the busy road.

It was very risky, the driver told us, adding how shocked he was that someone would put lives in danger to follow around an actress.

We called up the retired detective to ask him about that incident, and to ask him why he was following Leah Remini.

“I don’t know who that is,” he told us, and said he wasn’t the person we were looking for.

We asked him if he really wanted us to believe that a retired New York police detective had never heard of Leah Remini and The King of Queens.

“I never watched the show because I was working,” he said. “I’m a guy who’s always working.”

He also denied that he’d ever worked for the Church of Scientology.

During the filming of Leah’s first season of Scientology and the Aftermath, her crew caught Daril Cinquanta, a well known former Denver policeman, following Leah. When we called Cinquanta to ask him why he was tailing her, he quipped, “Does she want an autograph?”

No doubt, the money for tailing Leah is pretty good. In 2013, when two private investigators were detained by police in Wisconsin while they were stalking Scientology leader David Miscavige’s own father, Ron Miscavige, they revealed that they were being paid $10,000 a week, in cash, by the church.

Scientology never changes. It will continue to spend tax-free money it gets from its members on campaigns to follow and harass former members and journalists — even if it means putting people at risk.

In another sign that Scientology is amping up its “noisy investigations” in reaction to the news that a third season of Aftermath is coming, yesterday Angelo Pagan’s son from a previous marriage was accosted by a person claiming to be a reporter, who asked if he had been mistreated by Leah, his stepmother.

We could find no evidence of publications by the supposed reporter, who gave her name as Valerie Morgan on a very generic-looking business card. We sent her an email, asking if she was working for Freedom magazine or some other publication, and we’ll let you know if she gets back to us.

Meanwhile, other Aftermath participants continue to find themselves in the crosshairs. Online attacks on Remini’s co-star, Mike Rinder, happen pretty continuously, but a new accusatory video featuring his estranged daughter Taryn was more visible than previous efforts. And we can also report that your proprietor has experienced an increase in online harassment in the last two months, aimed at his wife and her family.

So while David Miscavige tries to burnish Scientology’s image at his new television network, we can confirm that the church is still following its old playbook, and has sent out the usual goons in force.



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SMERSH Madness 2018

Today we’re continuing the third round of our big dance featuring the people we think are working hardest to defend Scientology against its enemies. These are not only Scientologists, but also the people who enable the church as it works against its foes. Which of them do you think deserves the most recognition for Keeping Scientology Working, spreading disconnection, and litigating former Scientologists into the ground?

Our match today features our #3 seed, actor John Travolta, who defeated spokeswoman Karin Pouw in the second round. One of the most well known icons of Scientology, he was lured into the church while he was acting in his first movie, 1975’s The Devil’s Rain. In recent years, he’s fended off questions about Scientology’s bad press by saying he doesn’t pay attention to it. Probably the number one question we get asked about Travolta is whether he’s really a true believer or just afraid to leave the church and face its wrath with leaks about his sex life. According to our best celebrity source, “The blackmail thing? No. That’s not what keeps him in. Nobody cares. If he was open about his sex life, no one, even in Hollywood, would care. Blackmail would only make him resentful, and he’s not resentful. He’s just convinced that every success he’s had comes from Scientology, and it’s the positive things he believes he’s gotten from it that keep him from believing any criticism of it.”

Travolta is taking on our #11 seed and former top Scientology official Mark “Marty” Rathbun, who has certainly been earning his stripes lately as Scientology’s go-to attack dog. (Rathbun defeated Danny Masterson in the first round and Trish Duggan in the second.) It’s a pretty stunning turn of events for people who were watching Rathbun’s gradual trajectory from Miscavige enforcer (1980s to 2004) to reclusive defector (2004-2008) to Indie champion (2009-2012) to anti-church litigant (2013-2015) and then back to Miscavige defender (2016- ). In his professionally-prepared attack videos, he’s taken a shotgun approach with blasts at everyone from Lawrence Wright to Paul Haggis to Leah Remini. But it’s his vicious swipes at Mike Rinder, formerly such a good and supportive friend, that really strike us as ugly in the extreme. It’s a pretty bewildering U-turn for a man who once said, “Just so everybody knows, as Miscavige just won’t seem to get it through his head, I will never fold to any pressure no matter how intense, and I am not for sale – at any price.”





[John Travolta and Marty Rathbun]

Who deserves to move on as champions of Scientology? Who has done more to perpetuate the church’s reputation in this time of crisis? Cast your votes!







Yesterday’s winner: Monique Yingling bested Kendrick Moxon!



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Make your plans now!

Head over to our HowdyCon 2018 website to start making your travel plans!







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Posted by Tony Ortega on March 26, 2018 at 07:00

E-mail tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2017 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2017), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward

UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists

GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice

SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news