Why the United States must investigate the crimes, abuses and frauds of the Scientology enterprise

WHY THE UNITED STATES MUST INVESTIGATE THE CRIMES, ABUSES AND FRAUDS OF THE SCIENTOLOGY ENTERPRISE

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Thank you F.E.C.R.I.S. for inviting me to present this paper and thank you to those governments and others who made it financially possible for me to be a presenter at this conference. Today, I address you in St. Petersburg, Russia, from where I urge and petition the United States federal government to investigate the extensive evidence of egregious human rights and civil rights abuses, criminal conduct and financial frauds committed by a tax-exempt American cult called the Church of Scientology. Scientology’s financial center is next door to another but much smaller St. Petersburg, a city near Clearwater, Florida.

The investigation and prosecution being called for is not about the truth or falsity of any Scientology religious belief or whether Scientology works to cure all physical, mental and emotional conditions, and will work as the universal world government and provider of all medical and mental health services; all of which Scientology claims, practices and is intent upon achieving. Instead, the investigation being demanded is about whether the Church of Scientology, directly or indirectly, is engaged in financial fraud and crime, human and civil rights abuses, human trafficking, unlicensed medical practice and other criminal conduct.

A full presentation of the reasons and evidence supporting such an investigation of the Scientology tax-exempt, racketeering enterprise would take many days and fill many volumes. Accordingly, in this paper I shall merely highlight some of the issues and information that, in my opinion, begs for investigation, correction and compensation.

Amazingly, the United States government already has voluminous evidence of Scientology criminal conduct. On July 7, 1977, the F.B.I. raided the Church of Scientology in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, California. Over 48,000 incriminating documents were seized and eleven Church of Scientology leaders were convicted of the largest ever-known criminal infiltration and burglary of the United States government. Scientology had code named this massive crime “Operation Snow White.”

More recently, the Church of Scientology itself was convicted in Canada and elsewhere for similar criminal conduct. Currently, the Scientology conglomerate is being criminally prosecuted in both Belgium and France. The government of Belgium is prosecuting Scientology on charges of extortion, fraud, organized crime, obstruction of medical practice, illegal medical practice, invasion of privacy, conspiracy and corporate violations. The French government is prosecuting Scientology for commercial fraud and the illegal practice of medicine. The German government considers Scientology to be a totalitarian, fascist political movement that is a danger to the democratic state. It also believes that Scientology is a criminal organization that engages in psycho-terror, money laundering and other forms of commercial fraud and extortion. Historically, over the past sixty years, there have been dozens of other damning prosecutions, convictions and investigations of Scientology around the planet.

Indeed, right now in California, Scientology is being sued for forcing staff members to participate in human trafficking, forced abortions, labor law and minimum wage violations. Scientology and its attorneys have responded with witness intimidation and threats to financially destroy and bankrupt the attorney representing the three former Scientologists seeking justice. One of the three former Scientologist litigants was recruited for full time work at the age of 14. For the next 18 years or so he worked 100 hours or more per week for a weekly wage of forty six dollars. In this way Scientology is able to make an enormous profit on its products and merchandise. For example, the E-meter costs less than fifty dollars to manufacture but is sold for prices that soar to over twenty-seven thousand dollars.

The United States Congress has the power to investigate the secular crimes, civil and human rights abuses alleged of the Church of Scientology. The Congress has the power to investigate the allegations and evidence of corruption of the legal system and of the executive branch of the United States government by the Scientology enterprise, the latter’s unconstitutional use of the Departments of State and Treasury to advance the expansion of Scientology abroad, and to perpetuate the unlawful Scientology corruption of the United States Internal Revenue Service within the United States. The U.S. Congress also has the power to investigate all of the business and other money making activities of Scientology as part of its legislative power. After all, the Church of Scientology is now a tax-exempt organization in the United States based upon the premise that it is organized for the public benefit.

Scientology has falsely claimed to be the world’s fastest growing religion. In reality, it has shrunk to less than 30,000 active staff and members world-wide. Falsely inflated membership claims are part of the complex Scientology fraud. The Scientology fraud starts with the deceitful claim that it is simply a misunderstood peaceful, ethical religion. However, Scientology’s well documented criminal conduct demonstrates that its religious cloaking is merely a public relations facade and fraud, along with its many other “false front” commercial tentacles and recruiting routes such as W.I.S.E., Narconon and Applied Scholastics. Scientology’s totalitarian structure operates on a need to know basis only which permits plausible deniability. Most of Scientology’s public members and most of its staffers are also among the victims. Scientology’s leader, his senior management team, and several of Scientology’s lawyers and private investigators (past and present) bear the ultimate criminal and civil responsibility. In fact, two of the most culpable former senior Scientology executives have managed to leave the cult and are now being extorted and psycho-terrorized into silence about all of the illegal conduct in which they had participated. Their immunized testimony would correct a significant number of serious miscarriages of justice and frauds committed on the courts and the government over the past twenty years that they held very senior positions of power beside Scientology leader David Miscavige.

The copyrighted policies and records of Scientology demonstrate that it really seeks global totalitarian political domination and that has never changed. In 1960, Scientology issued the “Special Zone Plan – The Scientologists Role in Life.” Scientologists who are not on Church staff are ordered to achieve influence in the society at large, by taking positions next to the high and mighty. “Don’t bother to get elected. Get a job on the secretarial staff or the body guard.” For example, Scientologist John Danielson was Chief of Staff to President George W. Bush’s former Secretary of Education Rod Paige. They are still working together as the Chartwell Education Group and they are continuing to support Scientology as “Applied Scholastics” in ten states to receive tax-payer monies as part of the Supplemental Educational Services under the “No Child Left Behind” program. Bruce Wiseman, the President of Scientology’s anti-psychiatry false front, the Citizens Commission for Human Rights (C.C.H.R.), is also the Treasurer of the National Foundation of Woman Legislators. Former lead Scientology lawyer Gerald Chaleff is now the Los Angeles Police Department attorney and command team member. The Los Angeles County Sheriff publicly supports and promotes Scientology. It is said he even tried to introduce Scientology training into the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. Scientologists are placed into law firm word processing departments, and into congressional mail rooms, to intercept, eliminate and report on litigation documents and citizen complaints. In the California County of Riverside the Chairman of the County Board of Supervisors is now a Scientology stooge. These people are indoctrinated into ignoring their oaths and obligations of office and to always advance Scientology’s agenda. To Scientology, as written policies demand, the ends really do justify the means.

As you know, here in Europe no democratic state can survive such pervasive criminal behavior, but the United States now has an institutional tolerance of Scientology crimes and abuses, frauds and sedition. More than that, the United States government actively promotes and protects Scientology around the world as part of its preferential and unconstitutional tax settlement agreement. Along with other recent events, this has seriously compromised the international reputation of the United States. Indeed, the United States Government’s active support for Scientology’s worldwide expansion leads many to now refer to the United States of Hypocrisy rather than to the United States of America. On the one hand, the United States government opposes global terrorism while on the other hand it pressures foreign governments to permit tax-exempt Scientology “psycho-terrorism” within their borders.

In the early 1960s, Scientology established a Department of Government Affairs. Hubbard wrote that “… [t]he goal of the Department of Government Affairs is to bring the government and hostile philosophies into complete compliance with the goals of Scientology.” Later, Scientology also established a Department of Official Affairs, to create “… [h]eavy influence through our own and similarly minded groups on the public and official mind.” Next, came the Scientology “Public Investigations” section. In 1966, these Scientology departments were merged into the Guardian’s Office, the church’s very own intelligence agency. It handled public relations, litigation, and intelligence gathering. The Intelligence Bureau not only conducted “black ops” but also engaged in intimidation and worse; what has been properly classified here in Europe as “psycho-terror” and even “terrorism,” being perpetrated by a California based corporation calling itself a church.

In 1982, as part of Scientology’s deceptive and fraudulent corporate re-organization, Scientology’s Guardian’s Office was renamed the Office of Special Affairs or O.S.A. Contrary to sworn representations to the United States government, many Guardian’s Office staff continued to work for O.S.A., just as they had for the Guardian’s Office. One example is O.S.A.’s lead in-house lawyer, Kendrick Moxon, who was named in the 266 page Stipulation of Evidence in the case of U.S. v. Hubbard, for providing fabricated evidence to the F.B.I. Today, lead Scientology attorney Moxon continues to engage in the obstruction of justice, blackmail, bribery and other unlawful professional conduct, as I can personally attest.

The Office of Special Affairs is headquartered in Hollywood and in Gilman Hot Springs, California. David Miscavige, the totalitarian leader of this para-military cult, issues orders that go out around the world and the money comes back into the United States from around the world, or it flows into secret, numbered bank accounts in certain tax havens. Apparently, much of this money-laundering is conducted through secret numbered bank accounts administered by the Merrill Lynch company. Obviously, all the money does not come from church members paying for courses and auditing. The real money comes from other sources and activities including financial fraud. Bank card and bank loan fraud, followed by bankruptcy, is common among Scientologists.

In 1990, Scientologist Steven Fishman was convicted of a multi-million dollar securities class action fraud scheme. Fishman alleged that he had been brainwashed by Scientology, ordered to engage in the fraud and, when discovered, to kill his psychologist and then commit suicide. Scientology sued Fishman for defamation, but dismissed the case on the eve of trial.

In 2003, Scientology ordained minister, Reed Slatkin, plead guilty to a fifteen count federal indictment that included charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice. At the time it was the largest ever Ponzi scheme in U.S. history; a six hundred million dollar fraud. Much of the money came from celebrities and was funneled, by Slatkin and others, into the Church of Scientology and its related entities such as Narconon International, the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center International and the Church of Scientology Western United States, according to court records and media reports. Appropriately, Ponzi scheme, pyramid scheme and Amway like are words often used to describe the Church of Scientology which pays many members commissions for recruiting new members. In this way, some Scientologists, called Field Service Members, receive hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. What other church uses a “Hard Sell Pack” which demands that recruiting targets, called “raw meat,” be signed up immediately. “Hard sell means insistence that people buy,” states this Scientology publication.

On October 9, 2001, less than 30 days after the Al Qaeda attacks on the United States, the O.S.A. legal unit known as Moxon & Kobrin renewed the copyright of Scientology’s policy document called “Targets Defense.” In this church policy and practice document, certain “vital targets” are identified. “T[arget]1, Depopularizing the enemy [all those who oppose a global Scientology takeover] to a point of total obliteration; T[arget] 2, Taking over the control or allegiance of the heads or proprietors of all news media; T[arget] 3, Taking over the control or allegiance of key political figures; T[arget] 4, Taking over the control or allegiance of those who monitor international finance.”

In another Church document, Hubbard ordered the formation of a Scientology Department of Government Affairs and wrote that, “The goal of the Department is to bring the government and hostile philosophies or societies into a state of complete compliance with the goals of Scientology.” Scientology documents also state that dissemination and recruiting should be done in secret without the recipient realizing what is being done. “The only way to control someone,” said Hubbard, “is to lie to them.” Hubbard also wrote, “All men shall be my slaves … all men shall grovel at my feet and not know why.”

With Hubbard’s “Manual on Brainwashing,” and his auditing processes and training drills, Scientology enslaves minds, and with Scientology’s promises to cure all ills and ailments, it unlawfully practices medicine; stealing people’s health, and sacrificing their lives for more and more auditing dollars, until it is too late for conventional medicine to work. The list of victims, who are dead (often through mysterious and shockingly similar suicides) is long and covers decades. The list of people who have disappeared is also long and likewise covers decades.

Meanwhile, the Church of Scientology continues to insist that only Scientology and its auditing processes, and copyrighted procedures such as NOTS 34, can cure physical and mental conditions and diseases. The Church of Scientology is killing people by the unlawful practice of medicine as well as destroying lives and livelihoods with its Fair Game retaliation against those who impede its goals.

If this United States government protected and promoted racketeering and terror group was not called a “church” it would require medical and other licenses and the fully informed consent of the medical patient or commercial customer. In fact, instead of full and informed disclosure, the Scientology enterprise requires its parishioners to sign away all of their civil rights, to never testify against or sue a Scientologist or Scientology and to submit any legal dispute with the Church or other Scientologist to a Scientology court called a Committee of Evidence.

In 1995, a young Scientologist named Lisa McPherson expressed her desire to leave Scientology and return home to her mother before Christmas of that year. She never made it, because she knew too much about Scientology’s false fronts and commercial frauds. Scientology’s leader personally monitored her imprisonment in a room for 17 days, denying her non-Scientology medical care, until she was dehydrated, covered with 110 cockroach bites and dead. Allow me to reiterate, DEAD; as part of a Scientology policy and procedure for handling a person having a psychotic break, or becoming unstable, while engaged in Scientology mental processing. A Florida coroner was extorted into changing the official cause of death and even the investigating police were harassed by Scientology operatives. What did this Church do after they had killed Lisa McPherson and paid over $50 million tax-exempt dollars to defeat the court claims of her family through international public corruption, litigation terrorism, international psycho-terrorism, blackmail and fraud? This so-called Church ordered its lawyers to draft, and its parishioners to sign, a new general release and waiver of all liability agreeing that the Church of Scientology is free of any liability for death, “injury or damage suffered in any way or connected with Scientology Religious Services or Spiritual Assistance.”

Why should the name “Church of Scientology” be enough to enable the Scientology enterprise to change and waive the laws, rules and consequences that apply to all other organizations and religions including The Roman Catholic Church? The Roman Catholic Church was liable for the sexual abuse perpetrated by its clergy. In fact, the Church of Scientology itself has repeatedly covered up staff sexual abuse and rape with the use of psycho-terror and gag agreements. Even more shockingly, Hubbard wrote that a Scientologist “can get away with murder.” Amazingly, the one racketeering enterprise in the United States that is now above the law is the Church of Scientology. Perhaps that is because of the 1993 Secret Tax Agreement between the IRS and Scientology which, in effect, makes Scientology the established state religion of America by giving it unique tax benefits, global promotion and protection from Interpol. These are unique privileges and government assistance that the I.R.S. and Scientology agreed by contract would be denied to all other religions.

Last February, in Sklar v. Internal Revenue Service, where Jewish parents were seeking the same religious education deductions exclusively allowed to Scientologists, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge said that “…the view of the I.R.S. that it can unconstitutionally violate the Constitution by treating [Scientology] more favorably than other religions in terms of what is allowed as deductions … does intrude into the Establishment Clause.” How did this constitutional outrage happen when Scientology’s history of crime, abuse and fraud is so well documented within the U.S. government? The I.R.S. lamely claims that in 1991, it did a sudden 180 degree turn, granted Scientology tax-free status and urged all foreign governments to do the same, because the Church of Scientology informed the I.R.S. that it no longer engages in the sort of conduct I am describing here today. Repeatedly, similar decisions are expressly made upon false Scientology claims that, since the death of L. Ron Hubbard in 1986, it no longer engages in criminal and other anti-social conduct.

Three decades ago Scientology agents broke into and infiltrated 135 government departments and embassies in Washington, D.C., as part of “Operation Snow White,” which is still an ongoing Scientology project. Scientology’s Operation Snow White was part of Scientology’s self-described “War against the I.R.S.” Scientology even bugged internal high- level I.R.S. meetings. It was the largest ever domestic spy case in U.S. history and the largest ever known criminal infiltration of the United States government. Eleven of Scientology’s top executives plead guilty, expressly agreed with the 266 page Stipulation of Evidence, and were convicted. Hubbard’s own wife went to federal prison. L. Ron Hubbard was classified as an unindicted co-conspirator and went into hiding for rest of his life.

By 1980, the I.R.S. was arguing that Scientology should continue to be denied tax-exempt status because of “conspiracies to obstruct the I.R.S. and the judicial process, the abuse of religious confidences, the infliction of psychological harm, blackmail and the “disconnection” of family, friends and other relationships, false imprisonment, immigration frauds, removal of large amounts of money from the United States, drastic punishments of staff and members, and fraudulent statements to the I.R.S.” These objections are as valid now as they were several decades ago.

In 1990, the Los Angeles Times published a devastating six-part series exposing Church of Scientology crime and abuse. On May 6, 1991, Time Magazine published its largest selling edition the cover story of which was, “Scientology, The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power.” The article won numerous journalism awards and is widely available on the Internet. The Church of Scientology unsuccessfully sued Time Magazine for defamation.

However, at the very same time as the Church of Scientology was unsuccessfully suing Time Magazine for defamation, the Church of Scientology leaders were successfully pressuring, allegedly even blackmailing, the United States I.R.S. Commissioner into reversing twenty-five years of federal government opposition to Church of Scientology tax-exempt status and ignoring a recent United States Supreme Court decision upholding the I.R.S. opposition.

The Church of Scientology had lost its U.S. tax-exempt status in 1967, and it had spent the next twenty-five years fighting to recover it. During this time, Scientology blithely refused to pay any taxes to the government and got away with it. In 1989, in the Hernandez case, the United States Supreme Court upheld the position of the I.R.S. that, among other things, the payments of “fixed donations” for Scientology auditing sessions on the Hubbard E-Meter were not charitable donations within the meaning of the U.S. tax code.

In late 1993, relatively soon after the United States Supreme Court decision in Hernandez, the I.R.S. Commissioner shocked the rest of the government and many citizens by suddenly reversing and granting the Church of Scientology its long-denied tax-exempt status. This is one of the great uninvestigated scandals involving the government of the United States. A settlement agreement between the I.R.S. and the Church of Scientology was classified as secret upon national security grounds, but it was later leaked to the press. In 1997, The New York Times, and later The Wall Street Journal, published investigative articles revealing a multitude of matters for a congressional investigation that no politician has had the courage to request. Four former I.R.S. Commissioners expressed their misgivings about the sudden I.R.S. reversal of over 30 years of U.S. government tax policy and Supreme Court decisions. Department of Justice prosecutors expressed their rage and disgust at the reversal without warning. There was world wide public and media condemnation of the I.R.S. decision to grant Scientology tax-exempt status in the United States.

The Church of Scientology and its affiliates had filed over 2,500 law suits against the I.R.S., dozens of individual I.R.S. agents and their families had been psycho-terrorized, and two I.R.S. agents had allegedly died under very suspicious circumstances. The New York Times reported that Scientology attorney, Kendrick L. Moxon, Esq., who was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the United States v. Hubbard prosecution, had paid over one million dollars to private investigators to “dig up the dirt” on I.R.S. officials. There are persistent allegations that Scientology agents set up either the I.R.S. Commissioner or his son in a statutory rape sting and then used that to blackmail the I.R.S. into waiving over a billion dollars of past-dues taxes, interest and penalties against the Scientology enterprise and its leader David Miscavige.

The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled, in the Sklar case, that the Scientologists’ new tax status was unconstitutional, but that the solution was for Congress to revoke it and not for the courts to extend it to an observant Jewish couple’s petition for equal protection. In his 1993 “IRS War Is Over” speech Scientology’s leader, Captain David Miscavige, publicly claimed that this tax agreement saved Scientology over one billion dollars in past due taxes, interest and penalties. Scientology is now in serious and probably fatal breach of the tax agreement. In my opinion, the IRS agreement was based upon a blatantly fraudulent and “specially handled” application, along with a merely superficial and neutered I.R.S. investigation. This agreement should now be rescinded and all past-due taxes, penalties and interest levied. This would contribute about three billion dollars to the ailing United States treasury.

The “Special Handling” procedures the I.R.S. used to reverse the Hernandez Supreme Court decision, were used only for the second time in the history of the I.R.S., and contained false representations that Scientology had removed everyone associated with Scientology’s Operation Snow White. Amazingly, one of Scientology’s lead lawyers in the tax matter was unindicted Operation Snow White co-conspirator Kendrick L. Moxon who has been a central figure in many of Scientology’s criminal activities. Just as amazingly, David Miscavige is also reported as saying that he and then Scientology senior executive Martin C. Rathbun would go to prison for a very long time if it were ever known how, during one half hour unannounced visit to then I.R.S. Commissioner Fred Goldberg in 1991, they reversed twenty-five years of Federal Government resistance, and persuaded the I.R.S. to ignore the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Hernandez case.

In January 2009, President Obama received a Citizen’s Briefing Book in which ordinary citizens proposed and voted on their concerns and proposals. In ninth most popular place of over 44,000 ideas was a proposal to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Church of Scientology for the reason that “the Church of Scientology is a dangerous for-profit organization that has been convicted of financial fraud and manslaughter.” Similar recent on-line petitions have attracted over tens of thousands of supporters.

The U.S. government claims it is fearless and tireless in fighting against extremist Islamist terrorism, but it is intimidated, impotent and complicit in matters of Scientology’s domestic terrorism, crime and abuse. The law in the United States only requires that the government and the courts respect freedom of religious belief. The law and the court decisions are clear that wrongful church conduct, whether religiously motivated or not, may be regulated and punished like any other crimes and abuses. Despite that, nearly all complaints about Scientology crimes and abuses are ignored by the Federal and State governments and their law enforcement authorities. From the time of the 1993 I.R.S.-Scientology secret tax settlement agreement through now, many hundreds of different complaints have been made to the F.B.I., the Department of Justice, the I.R.S. and the Congress. All are ignored or rejected with specious excuses. Outraged government officials take in complaints, input them into the system and then are stunned speechless when higher ups “spike” any investigation or prosecution. Scientology has infiltrated many government, congressional, media and law offices; even my own former law offices. It has blackmailed and extorted my former law partners and it has intimidated my professional associates, clients and friends.

Scientology also did all of these things in the dozens of cases it filed against the Cult Awareness Network (“CAN”), a non-profit tax-exempt charitable organization. Scientology did drive CAN into bankruptcy and then it persuaded the bankruptcy judge to give Scientology the name, postal address and telephone number of the Cult Awareness Network to use itself, which it still does. Worse still, the bankruptcy trustee and judge were persuaded to transfer all of the files and records of the Cult Awareness Network to the Church of Scientology. Those who had sought confidential assistance against Scientology were then subjected to Scientology Fair Game and psycho-terror retaliation and “handling.”

In the United States, justice and fair play on a level playing field, are not possible in litigation involving the Church of Scientology. The government, law enforcement, the courts and the media have all been terrorized into abdicating their oaths of office and their obligations. A copyrighted Scientology document provides that “… [t]he purpose of the law suit is to harass and discourage rather than to win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway…would generally be sufficient to cause his professional demise. If possible, of course, ruin utterly.”

Scientology takes this even further by engaging in institutional, organized perjury. “The only way to control someone is to lie to them,” wrote Hubbard. In another Hubbard written document, the “Manual of Justice,” he stated, “People attack Scientology…always even the score…overt investigation of someone or something attacking us by an outside detective agency should be done more often and hang the expense…Hire them and damn the costs when you need to…the critic will sure shudder into silence…[Scientology] punishment is gruesome…there are people hiding in terror on Earth because they attacked us. There are men dead because they attacked us.” There are many dozens of written copyrighted Scientology policies along these same lines and even worse.

In 1994, I delivered two boxes of incriminating racketeering testimony to the United States Attorney’s office in Los Angeles and was later told that the Federal government did not have the resources to fight crime on the scale that the Church of Scientology engages in. However, unlimited tax-exempt litigation funds are only part of this picture.

In the 1980s, the American Lawyer Magazine published an article entitled “Scientology’s War against the Judges.” Sadly, today that war continues still. Alas, I am not just talking about a lawyer leaving a paper bag full of money in the judge’s office and commenting that he used to represent the Mafia. Scientology actually investigates judges and their law clerks. Scientology lawyers have been known to contact these law clerks and threaten them. They have had improper ex parte meetings with judges before a case is filed. They have left on midnight visits to other judges. Cases get reassigned to judges who are in Scientology’s pocket, or who used to be an attorney for Scientology, or who are involved romantically with a Scientologist. Court clerks have been persuaded to receive court filings after hours. Court opinions sometimes read as if a Scientology lawyer wrote them. In one case, Scientology filed a motion to disqualify every judge in Los Angeles County. In another case, they sued the judge for not allowing them to use the Scientology court reporting company of Atkinson Baker; the largest court reporting service in the nation. In yet another case, Scientology attorney Moxon was alleged to have drowned the judge’s dog. All this creates a climate of psycho-terror among the judges and that results in blatant miscarriages of justice. Such shameless self-interest by many of our judges are part of the problem as they ignore those immortal words inscribed on the United States Supreme Court building, “Equal Justice Under Law.” In the United States there is no longer any “Equal Justice Under Law” when opposing the Church of Scientology.

The last criminal organization to flourish under government and the courts was the Mafia, during J. Edgar Hoover’s reign at the F.B.I. Now, as a result of the George H. Bush Administration’s decision to ignore the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Hernandez, the Scientology enterprise has had even more millions of now tax-exempt dollars to continue engaging in unrestrained lawlessness under the Clinton and the second Bush Justice Departments. How does Scientology do this? The Church of Scientology does it through institutionalized and organized bribery, blackmail, perjury, lying and fraud. It uses criminal infiltration, burglary, false claims of religiosity, fraudulent copyrights, “false front” organizations, intimidation and terror. Terrorism can take many forms; it isn’t always violent and spectacular. In these matters, our government and courts have failed us.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Congress must now intervene and investigate Scientology’s many secular abuses and crimes such as tax fraud; various forms of financial fraud and frauds upon the nation’s court system; corruption such as blackmail, bribery and extortion; human trafficking; immigration fraud including the confiscation of passports; public election violations including preventing certain citizens from voting; labor law and minimum wage violations; human rights violations such as staff being forced to have abortions; civil rights violations such as the “disconnection” policy which destroys families; human rights violations such as imprisonment, often for many years, in its gulags euphemistically called the “Rehabilitation Project Force”; unlawful medical practice and neglect; unlawful mental health practice and neglect; as well as numerous other abuses and crimes.

In early 2008, the British author, Andrew Morton, published an unauthorized biography of the Hollywood actor and Scientology promoter Tom Cruise. At the same time, a Church of Scientology recruiting video by Tom Cruise was released onto the Internet. The Church of Scientology chased the video all around the Internet demanding that it be removed because of alleged copyright violations. However, the more Scientology tried to silence the Internet the more many Internet users learned about Scientology crime, abuse and fraud, even Scientology copyright fraud. Within a month, there were world-wide protests and pickets of the Churches of Scientology. However, those protestors knew of Scientology’s reputation for ruthless retaliation and corruption whenever it is criticized, or its unlawful and anti-social conduct exposed. The protestors called themselves “Anonymous” and they donned masks from the “V for Vendetta” movie to protect their First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Since then, Anonymous has been picketing Scientology facilities every month and sometimes every day. On one weekend last year, over ten thousand Anonymous protestors picketed the Scientology enterprise in over 110 different cities around the world. In the year that has followed, Scientology’s membership, staff and income have declined by about fifty per cent. Without corrupted and unduly influenced politicians, police officers and prosecutors, particularly in Los Angeles, Riverside, Boston, Nashville, Atlanta and London, Scientology might already have collapsed. Most of Scientology’s former top executives are unlawfully imprisoned in a Scientology prison camp in Riverside, California, or have escaped and are being terrorized, extorted and silenced by Scientology operatives as part of Scientology’s on-going obstruction of justice and frauds upon the courts.

Scientology falsely accused the Anonymous protestors of being violent terrorists even though every act of violence has been perpetrated by Scientologists against the protestors. These protestors are anything but terrorists; they happily give hugs, sing, dance and eat cake! Foreign government representatives have expressed concern that the rapidly shrinking and increasingly exposed Scientology enterprise is becoming even more dangerous and threatening to those opposing and revealing its misconduct. In fact, two of Scientology’s former deputy leaders (Vicki Aznaran and Jesse Prince) now both out of the Church, have publicly stated that Scientology engages in criminal activity on a daily basis.

Anonymous was correct. Scientology has responded ferociously. Over the past year it has been spending many millions of tax-exempt dollars on large law firms and hundreds of private investigators. The young Anonymous protestors have been tailed by Scientology staff and private investigators, their car license plates recorded and their identities revealed from state automobile registration files. Clearly, the Church of Scientology is the mother lode of organized gang stalking. A number of police departments have assisted Scientology with these unconstitutional violations. Expensive law firms have written thousands of letters threatening these young people with serious legal consequences unless they “cease and desist” their allegedly unlawful activity, picketing and protesting against Scientology. Scientology operatives have even targeted uninvolved parents and scared them into demanding their high school and college age children stop protesting Scientology abuse and crime. Two young leaders of Anonymous were silenced when Church of Scientology lawyer Kendrick Moxon threatened one that his father’s career would be destroyed by Scientology operatives unless the son ceased being a part of the movement against Scientology abuse. The father is a prominent Washington lobbyist. Other protestors have been unlawfully arrested, by Scientology staffers executing false citizen’s arrests, only to be later released and the bogus charges dropped. It is ironic that the I.R.S. tax-exempt status is being used to facilitate the expenditure of many millions of tax-exempt dollars on extortion, the suppression of free speech and the violation of other constitutional rights. Where is America’s outrage and national shame?

Scientology is truly a Fifth Column, a seditious enemy within. The ultimate goal of Scientology is to “clear the planet” by taking over and controlling all activities on the planet and exterminating all those who oppose Scientology. One Scientology policy document classifies all governments as “Suppressive Persons,” to be “utterly destroyed” and “eliminated,” “quietly and without sorrow.” Scientology dehumanizes its critics as “Dangerous Criminals,” “Public Enemies” and “Dangerous Suppressive Persons,” The cult uses its policies and practices to attempt to destroy and eliminate those people. Accordingly, Scientology’s own copyrighted documents and history prove that it is a hate-based philosophy and group with the intent, motive and bias that the hate crime statutes require.

In the 1976, case of Allard v. the Church of Scientology the court accurately and courageously described some of the documents and conduct I have mentioned, as well as the activities of a group of Scientologists. The judges said, “… these documents establish beyond question that the defendants, their convicted co-defendants and their un-indicted co-conspirators [including current Scientology lead attorney, Moxon] as well as their organization considered themselves above the law…To these defendants and associates…anyone who did not agree with them was considered to be an enemy against whom the so-called ‘Fair Game’ doctrine could be invoked…In view of this, it defies the imagination that these [Church of Scientology] defendants have the unmitigated audacity to seek to defend their actions in the name of religion.” It is forty years since those comments in the Allard decision and very little has changed regarding what the judge described. In 1991, the Church of Scientology told the I.R.S. that it does not engage in such conduct any more. Clearly, it does not engage in it any less.

There is no time to waste. The Department of Justice and the Congress must act NOW. The lives and livelihoods of dozens of citizens are being attacked and destroyed as I speak. Witnesses are being threatened and justice obstructed. The creeping cancer of Scientology crime and abuse must be stopped. The Scientology enterprise and its responsible leaders must be held accountable. Dozens of former Scientology operatives, witnesses and victims, as well as hundreds of incriminating documents now await review and action by the United States government, while the rest of the world watches to see if the nation remains true to its historic ideals and principles.

Thank you.

Graham E. Berry, Attorney & Counselor at Law