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Heber C. Jentzsch

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Heber C. Jentzsch

Heber C. Jentzsch

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Transcript: The Truth Rundown: From renovation to IRS Rathbun rises through the ranks (June 21, 2009)

June 21, 2009 by

Informal transcript of Tampa Bay Times Interview with Mark Rathbun
Chapter “From renovation to IRS Rathbun rises through the ranks.”1

[…]

2:04

Rathbun: And then after that, in 1981, I went on to what was called the Special Project, which was a small group headed by David Miscavige. He was actually called “The Operator,” so he… You know, everybody from the unit answered to him and there was four other people in it. And our job was to find out ah, really investigate and get to the bottom of ah, why there was so many lawsuits naming L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, and um, come up with a solution as to how to get rid of those lawsuits cuz he was getting on in years and um, he… the idea was he wanted to come back to um, what is now called the International Headquarters or the Int Base in… just outside of San Jacinto, California, um, where films…dissemination and um, educational are made.

And he wanted to get those, those films done, and get them done. So our job was to try to, the… get rid of all these lawsuits that were outstanding against him so that he could come back there, ah, harassment-free and live out his days working on what he wanted to work on.

Reporter: Okay. Okay, and how long were you in this position?

Rathbun: Well, I guess I was on it for the rest of my career in, in a way. I mean there was different permutations of it. It was first called the Special Project, and then it was called the Special Unit, and then it was called… then we, we established the Office of Special Affairs to, to, um, replace the Guardian’s Office. And then I was at Author Services which was L. Ron Hubbard’s ah, personal literary agency, that handled all his personal business. And I was the legal executive there.

But again I was, I was still working on clearing away anything that might embroil L. Ron Hubbard in legal matters or external-facing matters. All the way up… that’s all the way up through ’86 now, so this is a, you know, five year, five year period through there.

3:56

Reporter: Okay. And when you first started this post, this is when you first encountered David Miscavige?

Rathbun: 1981. June of 1981…Well I actually knew him earlier, casually, but not…First time I ever worked with him.

Reporter: I see. Okay. All right, ah, and so thereafter you– Tell us about… there’s some highlights of your career, ah, that we’ve talked about, ah, ah, where you did some major things for Scientology. Can you talk about that? Ah, I guess the early 1990’s, ah, when there were problems with the IRS?

Rathbun: Well, yes. The IRS, was um, really an extension of this “All Clear” concept of getting rid of all the legal matters or external-facing matters that are hindering Scientology. It was tied in with the lit-, with ah, about a couple of dozen lawsuits that were brought around the country naming L. Ron Hubbard. Um, some ground… grand juries that were outstanding from the old Guardian’s Office activity that were… there was one in Tampa, one in D.C., and I believe one in New York that were still trying to get indictments against ah, Mr. Hubbard. You know, even after the Guardian’s Office people had been indicted and convicted in Washington.

So all these things sort of tied together with one another. And um, it was always perceived that the IRS was the most important thing to handle because if you have tax exemption you have ah, religious… religious recognition, you’re treated differently in courts, you know, there’s, there’s a, you know, some, some level of almost immunity, First Amendment immunity, to a lot of the type of allegations that were being made.

5:36

So, the IRS was the big thing to handle. I mean, when, when I was involved in that in the late ’80s, we had calculated that they, the IRS, considered that the churches had upward of a billion dollars in liability.

And the total reserves of the church were a f… were a fraction of that. Maybe in the 200 million range. So, literally, they could have wiped Scientology out five times through.

So um, between having got rid of a lot of the civil suits in the mid ’80’s and ’93, when we ultimately got exemption, I mean the number one mission was to obtain ah, tax exemption from the IRS and…

Reporter: Hm-mm.

Rathbun: ..you know, that was the bulk of what my attention was on and what I worked on.

Reporter: And you were right at the center of that IRS effort, right? Ah, you, ah, worked with Mr. Miscavige. Can you tell us about that, with the IRS people?

Rathbun: Yeah, okay. Well, um, in the late ‘9… late ’80s, ah, and going into the early ’90s, ah, you know, I was tasked with the, with, with, um, implementing um, strategies to try to overwhelm the IRS like they were attempting to overwhelm us. [chuckles] And it was sort of like a “fight fire with fire” situation.

Um, we brought FY… Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, um, in numerous different jurisdictions. We had legal, ah, litigation strategies to um, counteract their strategies to deny certain churches exemption and that sort of thing. But it, it was, it was a huge battlefield. It was nation-wide. It was literally twenty-seven hundred suits at one point.

And I was very much involved in coordinating and coming up with strategies and then executing a lot of that between the late ’80s and the early ’90s.

7:23

And then in ah, late ’91, ah Dave Miscavige and myself were in Washington. And Miscavige kept bringing it up with the attorneys, you know, “Why don’t we just sit down with the Commissioner and get this thing straightened out?” because there’s so much, you know, there’s so, there’s so much insanity that goes on when you have this kind of institutional fight going on for so long. And you know you’re fighting over issues that are anachronistic in a lot of cases. They’re just, they’re, they’re not, they’re not even–. You know we’re, we’re fighting over– For example we were fighting over the years ’70 through ’72. That’s as far as the litigation had reached, and here we are twenty years later in ’90, ’91.

So he kept pressing that you know, “Why don’t we just go straight to the top and talk to the Commissioner.”

And we had a lot of expensive attorneys from D.C. and Washington who were, you know, attempting at different levels to start negotiations. And that went in fits and starts and one day we were in Washington, and finally ah, Dave said to one of the attorneys there, he said, you know, “We’re going to go…just go straight down there and go see Fred.” And he… and of course the attorney was laughing. And he turned to me and he said, “Right?” And I said, “Yeah!” And then you know…they all thought it was a joke. And we ah, right afterwards, we just got up from lunch, got in a cab and went straight down there and opened the door. You know, opened the door to, to, to get negotiations going. We didn’t get in a meeting, ah, as has been reported. We didn’t just walk in to the Commissioner’s office. We walked in and said, “We’d like to bury the hatchet.” Couple of assistants, assistants of the Commissioner came down and saw us, took all our information, said he would get…said they’d get back to us. And they did, I think it was even later that day, to set up a meeting with the Commissioner for the following week.

Reporter: This was Fred Goldberg?

9:10

Rathbun: Yeah, Fred Goldberg.

Reporter: Uh-hmm, okay. And that began a process, ah, after that?

Rathbun: That began a process. I mean, all Fred Goldberg did was open up the door to creating a f, a forum where we could make a case for exemption. Um, and what he did that was, that was ah, was so positive and unique was is he tried to bring somebody in who was fresh, who, who knew exempt organizations but didn’t have a long history with Scientology.

Reporter: Mm-mm.

9:40

Rathbun: Ah, cuz there was some real haters, some real Scientology haters within, that you know, had an attitude of, no matter what you said, they were going to, you know, they were going to deny the exemption.

And um, so all he did was put, give us the ability to, to, to meet with a team that didn’t really have a, a long track record on this, yet knew exempt organizations, knew what the requirements were. And said, “Okay, prove you’re exempt.”

10:08

And then that process went on for at least two years. I mean we were literally commuting to Washington D.C. almost every week. It was Monday, or Sunday out to D.C., see the IRS, present the answers to their, their set of questions, get another set of questions, go back to L.A., get the information together, get the, you know, some would entail audits of certain units, or this sort of thing, you know, you have to account for different things, [Scratching left ear] in, in operations, in finances, and that sort of thing. Boom! Next Sunday, back on a plane, back to D.C., another meeting with– That went on for two years.

10:43

Reporter: And this process is, is it, is it you and Mr. Miscavige primarily?

Rathbun: Primarily. Um, at one point attorneys came in, started coming with us. We were really starting to get into more technical audit issues. Ah, Mike Rinder ah, attended several of the meetings. Heber Jentzsch attended several of the meetings. And then we would sometimes bring in experts on different fields. Like Rick Moxon came in to one on FOIA.

Um, Bill Walsh was another FOIA attorney who came in and attended one or two meetings. But primarily, ah, the two constants through the, from the beginning to the end were ah, Dave and myself.

11:19

Notes

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The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Church of Scientology probes Herald reporter : Investigation follows pattern of harassment (March 19, 1998)

March 19, 1998 by

By Jim MacLaughlin and Andrew Gully
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/19/19981

The Church of Scientology, stung by a five-part series in the Boston Herald that raised questions about its practices, has hired a private investigator to delve into the Herald reporter’s private life.

The Rev. Heber Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, confirmed that the church’s Los Angeles law firm hired the private investigative firm to look into the personal life of reporter Joseph Mallia, who wrote the series.

“This investigation will have to look at what’s riving this” coverage, said Jentzsch.

Herald Editor Andrew F. Costello Jr. said, “What’s driving this coverage is simply the public interest. Nothing more, nothing less.”

The investigator, Steve Long of Vision Investigative Services in Rohnert Park, Calif., contacted Mallia’s ex-wife in Berkeley, Calif., March 3.

Long told the woman he was looking for derogatory information, according to the former wife, whose name is being withheld for reasons of privacy.

“I’m looking for the ‘scorned wife’ story,” she said Long told her. She said she declined to provide information about her divorce, which took place more than 15 years ago.

The Church of Scientology is the only religious organization in the U.S. that uses private investigators to look into the private lives of reporters, several academic experts said.

“The question is not ‘Do they investigate,’ the question should be ‘Do they harass?’ ” said the Rev. Robert W. Thornburg, dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University and a recognized expert on destructive religious practices. “And Scientology is far and away the most notable in that.

“No one I know goes so far as to hire outsiders to harass or try to get intimidating data on critics,” said Thornburg. “Scientology is the only crowd that does that.”

The Rev. Richard L. Dowhower, a Lutheran minister and an adviser on cult activity at the University of Maryland, College Park, said, “I’ve been in the cult-watching business since the early ’70s and I don’t know of any other group, other than Scientology, that targets journalists.”

And Hal Reynolds, student affairs officer at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the campus Cult Education Center, also said Scientology investigates journalists.

“I’ve been collecting files on these groups for 10 years, and I have not heard of that for any other group,” Reynolds said.

The March 1-5 Herald series described how the Church of Scientology recruited an MIT student, persuaded him to drop out of school and sign a billion-year contract to serve the church, and asked him to spend student loan money on Scientology courses.

The series also described how two Scientology-linked groups, Narconon and the World Literacy Crusade, have used anti-drug and learn-to-read programs to gain access to public schools without disclosing their Scientology ties.

Earle Cooley, a Church of Scientology lawyer from Boston, recently publicly defended the church’s policy of investigating journalists.

“I don’t know where it says anywhere in the world that it’s inappropriate for the investigators to be investigated,” Cooley said during a WGBH-TV talk show two weeks ago.

In a written statement, Cooley said he played no part in hiring private investigators to look into Mallia’s personal life.

Here is how Scientology is reported to have dealt with other journalists:

  • Nov. 1997: In England, a Scientology detective obtained a BBC television producer’s private telephone records to conduct a noisy investigation” by spreading false criminal allegations about the producer, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.
  • 1990-1991, New York: Scientology used at least 10 lawyers and six private detectives to “threaten, harass and discredit” Time magazine writer Richard Behar, who wrote an article titled “Scientology: the Cult of Greed.”
  • 1988: A St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reporter who wrote articles about Scientology said his credit report was obtained without his consent, his wife got obscene phone calls, and a private investigator followed him.
  • 1983: Scientology defectors admit they stole documents from The Boston Globe’s law firm, Bingham Dana & Gould, in late 1974 to gain information about a planned Globe article on Scientology.
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The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Sacred teachings not secret anymore (March 4, 1998)

March 4, 1998 by

By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/4/981

Scientology teaches that humans first came to the earth from outer space 75 million years ago, sent into exile here by an evil warlord named Xenu, according to church documents.

The church also teaches its members to communicate with plants and zoo animals – and with inanimate objects such as ashtrays, former members say.

But these esoteric secrets have only recently been revealed publicly, because the Church of Scientology for decades used copyright lawsuits and other measures to keep them under wraps.

“When people hear the secret teachings of Scientology, they think, ‘How could anyone believe such nonsense?”‘ said cult expert Steve Hassan.

“The fact is that the vast number of Scientologists don’t know those teachings. Scientologists are told that they will become ill and die if they hear them before they’re ready,” Hassan said.

MIT student Carlos Covarrubias told the Herald that while he studied Scientology at its Beacon Street church, he was instructed to tell ashtrays to “Stand up,” and “Sit down” – ending each command with a polite “Thank you.”

The same ashtray techniques were documented by a BBC reporter’s hidden camera at a Church of Scientology chapter in Britain.

Covarrubias – who left the church and now considers it a cult – spent about $2,000 to reach a particular level of church teachings. But longterm members must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to entirely cross what Scientology calls the “Bridge to Total Freedom.”

More advanced students are taught to do the following:

“Find some plants, trees, etc., and communicate to them individually until you know they received your communication.”

“Go to a zoo or a place with many types of life and communicate with each of them until you know the communication is received and, if possible, returned.”

Once-hidden beliefs like these are being made public through the Internet, in books and articles about the church, and in courtroom documents.

Among the most attention-getting of the revelations is church founder L. Ron Hubbard’s description of “the Xenu incident.”

Human misery can be traced back 75 million years, when the evil Galactic Federation ruler, Xenu, transported billions of human souls to Teegeeack (now known as Earth), according to Hubbard, who started out as a science fiction writer.

Xenu then dropped the souls – called “Thetans” – in volcanoes on Hawaii and in the Mediterranean, and blew them up with hydrogen bombs, Hubbard said in his writings and lectures.

Xenu then implanted these disembodied souls with false hypnotic “implants” – images of “God, the devil, angels, space opera, theaters, helicopters, a constant spinning, a spinning dancer, trains and various scenes very like modern England,” Hubbard said in his characteristic freewheeling style.

These invisible souls still exist today, Scientology teaches: called “Body Thetans,” they cling to every human body, infecting people with their warped thoughts.

And only hundreds of hours of costly Scientology “auditing” – a process critics have likened to exorcism – can convince the harmful Body Thetan clusters to detach.

The auditor’s tool is an “E-Meter,” or Electrometer – a type of lie detector that sends a mild electric current through the body while a trainee holds a metallic cylinder in each hand. The E-Meter can detect Body Thetans and past emotional disturbances (known as “engrams”) whether they happened yesterday or in a past life millions of years ago, Scientologists believe.

For most Scientology recruits, however, the first step toward spiritual advancement is a course in “Study Technology” – a learn-to-read technique – or the “Purification Rundown” – a detoxification method using vitamins and saunas.

Although they deny any connection to the Church of Scientology, there are groups operating in Massachusetts that teach these two “religious” practices to the public: Narconon in Everett, the Delphi Academy in Milton, and the World Literacy Crusade with a post office box in Brighton.

After initiation, church members first strive to reach a spiritual stage called “Clear.” Then they try to reach a series of “Operating Thetan” levels – up to level VIII and beyond.

John Travolta, a longtime Scientologist, reportedly has reached at least level VII, and church celebrities Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Kirstie Alley, and Lisa Marie Presley have also reached high levels, according to critics and ex-members.

Advanced students of Scientology are also taught to heal people with the touch of a hand. Travolta told The Observer newspaper of London in January that his touch healed the rock musician, Sting.

“He was under the weather and he had a sore throat and flu symptoms. I did two or three different types of assists, and he felt better,” Travolta said.

Scientology officials object when critics highlight some of Hubbard’s more unusual teachings.

It’s like mocking the Christian view of Jesus’ virgin birth, or indicting Jews on the basis of a few obscure Old Testament passages, church President Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch said.

Instead, the Church of Scientology emphasizes the practical benefits of its “applied religious philosophy.”

Scientology programs make people smarter and more alive, Jentzsch said. Scientologists believe they have the only path to human salvation.

“With the dawn of a new year, it is vital that all Scientologists take an active role in the movement that is bringing salvation to Planet Earth. That means moving more and more people up the Bridge,” Commander Sherry Murphy of the Church of Scientology’s Fields Executive International division said in a Dec. 29, 1997, memo to all new Scientology recruits.

And to preserve that path forever, they have built nuclear-bomb-proof vaults in New Mexico and California to store Hubbard’s original manuscripts and tapes.

Critics and scholars point out, however, that many of L. Ron Hubbard’s ideas are not original. He took many ideas from Freud and Buddhism – Hubbard also taught that he was a reincarnation of Buddha – then renamed them, adding his own science fiction-inspired vision, scholars say.

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The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Scientology reaches into schools through Narconon (March 3, 1998)

March 3, 1998 by

By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/3/981

An organization with ties to the Church of Scientology is recruiting New England schoolchildren for what critics say is an unproven – and possibly dangerous – anti-drug program.

And the group – Narconon Inc. of Everett – is being paid with taxpayer dollars without disclosing its Scientology connections.

Narconon was paid at least $ 942,853 over an eight-year period for delivering anti-drug lectures at public and parochial schools throughout the region, according to federal income tax documents.

The money came from fees paid by schools and from nearly 100 sponsoring businesses, including BankBoston, Nynex and Polaroid.

The main Narconon lecturer, Scientologist Bobby Wiggins, has taught children as recently as the current school year at Southeast Elementary School in Leominster, under the sponsorship of BankBoston.

He has also lectured at most of Everett’s schools, at Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury, at Marshall Middle School in Lynn, at Maynard High School and dozens of other schools, a Narconon employee told the Herald.

“We do a lot of Catholic schools. We’ve been doing Archbishop Williams for years,” said Narconon employee Jeanne Mack, referring to a Catholic high school in Braintree.

Narconon has also given anti-drug lectures at Arlington, Gloucester and Marshfield high schools and at Swampscott and Lancaster middle schools, according to a Narconon list.

At a lecture at Chelmsford High School attended by the Herald, Wiggins praised the benefits of a detoxification program that involves sauna and vitamin treatments.

But what the Scientologist did not disclose to the Chelmsford teachers, administrators or students is that the $ 1,200 detoxification regimen is actually a religious program the Church of Scientology calls the Purification Rundown.

In fact, he never mentioned the word “Scientology,” or L. Ron Hubbard’s name during the lectures.

“I took an IQ test before and after, and the score shot up 22 points,” Wiggins said during the Chelmsford drug awareness lecture, referring to the benefits of the Purification Rundown.

“My energy level quadrupled. I could think about 10 times faster,” Wiggins boasted. But according to health experts, the Scientology detox program is untested and possibly health-threatening.

The Rundown

The method requires vigorous exercise, five hours of saunas, megadoses of up to 5,000 mg of niacin, and doses of cooking oil. This regimen is repeated daily for two or three weeks. Every Scientologist, including young children, must go through this detox procedure as an “introductory service” – a first step in the church’s high-priced teachings, according to church documents and ex-members.

“The idea of sweating out poisons is kind of an old wives’ tale,” said William Jarvis, a professor of public health at Loma Linda University in Southern California. “It’s all pretty hokey.”

Salt and water are the only substances that the Purification Rundown removes from the body, according to a 1990 U.S. Food and Drug Administration report, Jarvis said.

“Narconon’s program is not safe,” the Oklahoma Board of Mental Health said in a 1992 rejection of Chilocco New Life Center, a Scientology residential hospital on an Indian reservation in Newkirk, Okla.

“No scientifically well-controlled studies were found that documented the safety of the Narconon program,” the board said.

Yet Scientology’s founder claimed the sauna regimen can do much more than rid the body of drugs – it can cure radiation sickness.

“Radiation is apparently enormously water-soluble as well as water removable,” Hubbard wrote in an edition of “Clear Body, Clear Mind,” obtained at the Boston Public Library.

Agent Orange and cancer-causing PCBs can also be neutralized through the detox method, Scientologists claim.

“WHAMO! Something miraculous happened! Damned if I didn’t begin to feel better,” wrote one Scientologist in Hubbard’s book, who said he watched a nuclear explosion as a soldier. “There is new hope for radiation victims! I’m the living proof of it!”

Even the Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology

International in Los Angeles, said in an interview with the Heraldthat the Purification Rundown saved his life by ridding his body of radiation sickness that he contracted from exposure to nuclear testing in Utah when he was a child.

About 100,000 people have done the Purification program, Scientologists claim.

And Kirstie Alley of “Cheers” fame – star of the sitcom “Veronica’s Closet” – is Narconon’s international spokeswoman. A longtime Scientologist, she says the anti-drug program’s Purification Rundown saved her life by helping her kick a cocaine habit.

The connection

Top Scientology officials at the church’s nerve center, the Religious Technology Center, deny any connection toNarconon.

“The definitive answer is RTC doesn’t have anything to do with them,” RTC President Warren L. McShane said in a letter to the Herald.

“I’ve checked my files, we have never had a licensing agreement with them or any secular group,” McShane said.

But the RTC clearly states on all Scientology literature that the Purification Rundown is a registered trademark used only with its permission.

Also, L. Ron Hubbard’s name is trademarked by the RTC, and all his books are copyrighted by another key Scientology organization called the L. Ron Hubbard Library. Hubbard’s name and his writings may only be used with permission, according to numerous Scientology publications.

Robert Vaughn Young, a former top Scientology official, said it is common knowledge among top Scientologists that the RTC strictly controls Narconon through licensing agreements.

Also, church documents say the RTC is “protector of the religion” ensuring “purity of application” of Hubbard’s teachings, with an “Inspector General Network” to enforce RTC rules.

A Herald reporter, during a visit to Narconon’s Everett office, saw stacks of L. Ron Hubbard’s book, “Clear Body, Clear Mind,” and many other materials carrying Hubbard’s name.

Also, the Everett office’s top staff – including Wiggins and Narconon Treasurer Susan Birkenshaw, who live at the same Jamaica Plain address – is made up entirely of Scientologists, Mack said.

Further, the church as a whole makes no secret that the Purification Rundown is a first step onto its “Bridge to Total Freedom.” The Purification method is clearly marked on the “Bridge” in a 1994 edition of the church’s introductory textbook “The Scientology Handbook” in the Boston Public Library’s collection.

The textbook chart makes it clear that church members must undergo the Purification Rundown to advance spiritually within Scientology – and the only places to get the Purification Rundown is at the church’s Beacon Street headquarters, Narconon in Everett and at a Scientology-run company called Healthmed of California.

The costs

Wiggins teaches drug awareness at about 100 schools a year in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island, and he lectures for teachers’ associations, Mack said.

While Narconon has been active in other school districts – including the Idaho public schools, according to a 1990 article in the journal “The Southern California Psychiatrist” – the New England operation may be its most successful in the U.S., according to Scientology critics.

Both Wiggins and Birkenshaw were paid $ 16,000 salaries in 1994, according to federal tax records.

The Purification Rundown and the detox treatment costs about $ 1,200 at the Church of Scientology in Boston, which uses a sauna in the basement of its Beacon Street building near the Charles River.

And a glossy brochure in Narconon’s Everett office offers an intensive, in-patient purification program for $ 18,500 – including “withdrawal services” – at the Oklahoma hospital.

In Scientology, salesmen like Wiggins are called “Field Service Members,” (FSMs) and are paid a percentage of any courses bought from the church by people they recruit, said Dennis Erlich, a Scientology Church defector.

FSMs are paid a commission of 10-35 percent of what their recruits spend on church training, according to a Dec. 29, 1997, memo written by Commander Sherry Murphy of the Church of Scientology’s Fields Executive International division.

“If he recruits, he gets a 10-15 percent straight sales commission,” said Erlich, who was a top Scientology trainer for 15 years. “He gets the commission on everything that the person purchases from then on, of Scientology auditing and training,” he said.

And Wiggins has a very active history with Narconon – as of 1997 he had lectured before a total of 375,000 people, according to the Church of Scientology.

Schools pay $ 200-$ 300 for short lectures by Wiggins, Mack said.

And for full-day peer leadership programs, that include many hours of Scientology methods, schools pay $ 750-$ 1,200, with many of these payments coming from school budgets, Mack said. Peer leaders are taught Scientology methods of communication, study, personality development and “ethics technology.”

Wiggins is promoted as Narconon’s top national speaker in a videotape recently released by Narconon International’s headquarters in Los Angeles. A Narconon Internet site offers the Wiggins video for sale, and Narconon employees use the Internet to recruit new members.

Federal income tax records show Narconon Inc. of Massachusetts earned $715,771 for school lectures from 1989-1994. More recent income tax information could not be obtained. About one-third of that income came directly from public and Catholic schools, and the rest from charitable donors, according to the tax records.

Those donors making recent donations include NYNEX, the Polaroid Foundation and Danvers Savings Bank, Jeanne Mack said. The Thomas Anthony Pappas Charitable Foundation of Belmont gave $ 10,000 to Narconon in 1991, and $ 15,000 in 1992, tax records show.

The Pappas Foundation declined to comment, and Polaroid said it could not find a record of corporate grants did not return calls. The Danvers Savings Bank has donated $ 100 to $ 250 to Narconon every year since the late 1980s, but had not been aware that the group was linked to the Church of Scientology, a bank official said.

And Narconon did not disclose any Scientology links in its grant applications from Bell Atlantic, formerly Nynex, which gave Narconon a total of $ 15,000 in 1991, 1996 and 1997, said Bell Atlantic spokesman Jack Hoey.

“There is no reference to the Church of Scientology” in Narconon’s grant applications to Bell Atlantic, Hoey said. However, the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, is mentioned several times, he said.

“The fact that there is a religious affiliation doesn’t mean the application wouldn’t be approved,” said Hoey, adding that future grant applications from Narconon will be screened closely.

The schools

Although Wiggins has lectured about Scientology’s purification ideas in the Boston Public Schools and across New England, several school officials, including Boston schools Superintendent Thomas Payzant, told the Herald they were unaware that Narconon was connected to the Church of Scientology.

“My standard is that there should be no misrepresentation,” Payzant said.

“I think it’s inappropriate for any religious group, under the guise of some other purpose, to use the public schools as a setting to promote some particular religion,” the superintendent said.

Payzant said he will look into whether Narconon speakers violated school policy by not disclosing links to the Church of Scientology.

Church critics were appalled to learn that Scientologists were being welcomed into New England schools.

“If they’re going into the schools, they’re really messing with the children’s minds,” said Erlich.

Young, the church defector, said he does not object to drug-awareness speakers like Wiggins going into the schools – as long as they tell parents and headmasters that Narconon is connected to the Church of Scientology.

Steve Hassan, a Scientology critic and author of the book “Combatting Cult Mind Control,” said, “I’m very worried that Scientology is infiltrating schools and I think they need to be exposed,”

And Jarvis, the public health professor, was astonished that Scientologists are invited into the classroom.

“Any school administration that would allow a group as ideological as that to come into their schools is irresponsible and naive,” he said.

“They make a big deal about prayer in school, and then they let this religious group in?” said Jarvis.

But Wiggins is a hit with the students.

At Chelmsford High he told his own story – of using, abusing and selling drugs – punctuating his monologue with jokes and making amusing noises with the microphone.

He said he first smoked marijuana at age 11. He did LSD and cocaine. He became a drug dealer. His life was a mess, he said, but he turned it around in 1977 when he turned to Narconon.

“It was great,” Chelmsford student Becky Friedman said after a Narconon lecture.

“I liked it so much I stayed again,” said another student, Valerie Perry.

Scientology critics say 50-75 percent of those who undergo full Narconon training become Scientologists.

But Rev. Jentzsch said only about 6 percent become members. In any case, he said, the church does not recruit children.

“Children can’t become a member of the Church of Scientology unless they have parental permission, and that’s very rare,” Jentzsch said. Most people who join Scientology are 25-35 years old, he said.

But at least one Everett High School student was recruited into the Narconon program, Jeanne Mack said. She declined to name the student, a girl, citing confidentiality concerns, but said the student was expected to learn office skills and Narconon teachings.

Narconon tries to hire and train students from many of the high schools it visits, Mack said.

Notes

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The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Milton school shades ties to Scientology (March 2, 1998)

March 2, 1998 by

By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/2/981

A Church of Scientology school in Milton is enrolling large numbers of children from middle-class and professional black families in what critics say is part of the church’s nationwide plan to recruit minorities.

Officials at Delphi Academy do not tell parents that the school is part of the Church of Scientology, and that they are trying to recruit blacks for Scientology’s costly programs.

Yet they do admit that all staff members are Scientologists and they use Scientology materials.

A Herald review of the school has found that Delphi Academy:

Used precisely the same “Study Tech” as the Boston Church of Scientology on Beacon Street, where the methods are considered religious scriptures.

Sent up to 10 percent of each child’s tuition money to the Association for Better Living and Education, a Scientology organization in Los Angeles, according to its federal tax returns.

Got “referral” income of 10 percent to 15 percent of any Scientology course or book bought by a Delphi Academy parent, according to the school’s federal tax returns and ex-members of the church.

Has used an “E-Meter” – a device like a lie detector that measures emotional reactions – on Delphi children, according to a former student, Sabriya Dublin of Jamaica Plain. The E-Meter – the same device used by the church in counseling- sends a mild electric current through the child’s body, with fluctuations in a gauge showing emotional reactions, as a child answers questions while holding a shiny metal tube in each hand. A former Delphi student from Oregon, however, said the E-Meter was not used at his school.

Created a Delphi Parents Association so parents could pay for playground repairs and two new computers through fund-raising events – while Delphi made royalty payments to Scientology’s ABLE organization.

Promoted Scientology outside the school. Delphi’s headmistress, Ellen Garrison, helped establish a Scientology tutoring program for ninth-grade teachers at the Randolph Public Schools, said former Scientology church spokeswoman Kit Finn.

And a “Homework Club” sent older Delphi students to teach Scientology methods at the Tucker Elementary School, a Milton public school, a Delphi official said.

Attracted so many students in recent years that the school, in a converted gatehouse off a quiet stretch of Blue Hill Avenue, had to build two new classrooms. School spokeswoman Joanne List said most of the new students were black.

Critics of Scientology say the real motive of Delphi is to increase church membership, and make money by selling high-priced Scientology courses to parents, according to Priscilla Coates, an anti-cult activist in Los Angeles.

One parent, Harvard Dental School instructor Dr. E. Leo Whitworth, had just such an experience with Delphi Academy.

Whitworth said his son, L.V., was taught basic Church of Scientology methods like Study Technology during the four years he was enrolled at Delphi Academy.

The dentist said he did not learn that Delphi was linked to Scientology until after his son was enrolled, and then they recruited him for a variety of programs at the Church of Scientology on Beacon Street in Boston.

“I took two courses at the church,” Whitworth said. “It cost in the hundreds. They wanted me as a member. And they did try to get my wife. She started a course but she didn’t finish,” the dentist said.

During a vacation in California, Whitworth visited the offices of Sterling Management, a for-profit business linked to the Church of Scientology. There, Scientologists tried to sell him a dental office management program, Whitworth said.

“They were trying to get me to use their business techniques,” he said, but he didn’t like the program and it was too expensive. “It was too much like car salesman techniques. It cost a lot – around $ 10,000.”

Whitworth, who is also a Northeastern University trustee, said he knew of “several” non-Scientologist parents who enrolled their children in Delphi Academy and later became members of the church.

In retrospect, he said, Delphi Academy appears to be deceptive.

“I would rather they did say, up front, that they are part of Scientology. There are certain ways they could be more open,” he said. He also warned parents who enroll their children at Delphi to “be aware there are other aspects to it – the Scientology.”

Whitworth’s son, now 15, asked to be taken out of Delphi, the father said. “He didn’t want to stay there anymore. He was just uncomfortable.”

Several other black parents, however, said they were pleased with how well their children were learning at the school. And Delphi officials say students got high marks on the annual California Acheivement Tests.

New students to the $ 6,200-a-year school are recruited for Delphi and its summer camp by word of mouth, and through bulk mailings that do not mention Scientology. The school first opened in Belmont in 1980 under the name Apple School.

The 1,000-student network of Delphi academies in Oregon, Florida, California – and Milton – has recruited unsuspecting families for many years, Coates said.

But the interest in black citizens is new, because Scientology has few non-white members, she said. “They are looking for new niches for people and money,” Coates said.

A Herald reporter visited the 104-student Milton school twice, and found that the majority of its younger students are black. It enrolls children ages 3-13.

Parents who have enrolled their children at the school include professionals like Brockton obstetrician Dr. Dawna Jones and government workers like Barbara Hamilton, youth activities aide to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Dr. Jones did not return calls seeking comment, but Hamilton said her son is doing well at Delphi.

“I would say he’s just generally improved,” including better reading skills, Hamilton said.

Other black, non-Scientologist parents include a top manager at Lexington-based Stride Rite Corp., an investment analyst, a nurse, a Massachusetts state trooper, Boston police officers, computer executives at Digital Equipment Corp. and Lotus Development, and an MBTA welder, according to Delphi officials.

Several other black parents are medical doctors, one owns a Roxbury air-conditioning company, one is a Christian minister, while another is a Catholic religious education director, Delphi officials said.

“The Scientology thing, that was one thing I had to clear up. At first I didn’t know it was a religious school, and I wasn’t looking for a religious school,” said Lee Jensen, a Massachusetts Water Resources Authority official, who enrolled her daughter, Nicole, at Delphi. “I told them, ‘I need to know exactly what you’re teaching my child, because you have her for nine hours a day.’ ”

Not every parent is middle-class, and Delphi gives no financial aid or scholarships, so some parents just scrape by, said List. “We have a lot of single mothers who eat peanut butter sandwiches, and don’t drive fancy cars,” she said.

The school does not require its students to convert to Scientology, said former student Sabriya Dublin, who said she attended the school for eight years.

The founder of the Delphi Academy schools, Alan Larson, said in an interview from Oregon that they succeed because they require every child to learn everything – without exception – before moving on to the next task.

And the Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, said Delphi students’ Scholastic Aptitude Tests are “400 points above the national average.”

But Dennis Erlich, a former Scientology trainer in California, said his two daughters had to spend two years in remedial math and English courses after he transferred them to public school from a Scientology-run school, where he said instruction was poor.

Another church defector, Robert Vaughn Young, said Scientology’s leaders do not care about traditional education. They only care about getting people to buy Scientology courses, he said.

Notes

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The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Church keys programs to recruit blacks (March 2, 1998)

March 2, 1998 by

By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/2/981

The Church of Scientology has targeted black families in Massachusetts with a learn-to-read program that critics say is just a rehash of old methods that leans heavily on the church’s religious teachings.

The learn-to-read program – the World Literacy Crusade – is part of a nationwide effort by the church to entice blacks into Scientology and then convince them to take other, expensive programs, according to critics and former members of the church.

A Herald review has found that Scientologists have:

  • Targeted a literacy campaign at inner-city Boston programs for minority children, including Red Sox slugger Mo Vaughn’s Youth Development Program, the Roxbury YMCA and the Roxbury Youth Works.
  • Attracted dozens of middle class and professional black families to Delphi Academy in Milton. This Scientology-run school uses E-Meters – devices akin to lie detectors – on children, according to a former Delphi student.
  • Taught Scientology methods to ninth-grade teachers at Randolph High School – which has many black students – after persuading headmaster James E. Watson that their techniques work.
  • Taught Scientology’s study techniques to Boston Public Schools students at Brighton High School through teacher Gerald Mazzarella, who is also a church member.
  • Created 26 World Literacy Crusade programs – in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Denver, Miami, Memphis, Tenn., and a host of other U.S. cities in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
  • Gained the endorsements of prominent local blacks such as Georgette Watson, co-founder of Drop-A-Dime and former anti-drug aide to Gov. William F. Weld.

The teachings

Scientologists say the literacy campaign is nonreligious, and thereforedoesn’t violate laws separating church and state.

But critics say the church plays fast and loose with definitions, calling identical programs “religious” in one context and “secular” in another.

Church documents and books show that Scientology clearly identifies Study Technology as a religious practice. It is taught at the church’s local headquarters on Beacon Street in Boston in the $600 Student Hat program, as a first step into church membership.

This learn-to-read “technology” – or Study Tech as the church calls it – teaches children to distrust their own intelligence and rely passively on what the church teaches, said high-ranking church defector Robert Vaughn Young.

“Study Tech is an extremely dangerous technique,” Young said. “Critical thinking? There is no critical thinking. Criticism is the part that is not allowed,” said Young, who once directed Scientology’s worldwide public relations effort.

The Rev. Heber C. Jentzsch, president of the Church of Scientology International, denied that black children or families are being recruited through the literacy program.

“We’ve found that African-American families are as interested as everyone else in what works . . .. They might not necessarily join the church but the quality of their lives has been improved by it,” he said.

Scientologists say the literacy techniques offer the only way to end gang violence, teen pregnancy and other inner-city problems. “I think parents are being driven to find answers. They want their kids to be educated, for heaven’s sake. God bless the World Literacy Crusade,” Jentzsch said.

He said Scientology’s study techniques are so effective they raised his own IQ by 34 points, and helped his children read far above their grade levels.

The Herald asked Harvard University literacy expert Victoria Purcell-Gates to assess the World Literacy Crusade’s learn-to-read book, the “Basic Study Manual,” written by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. “This is all `old stuff,’ and has been taught in the schools for at least 30 years (probably more) now,” the Harvard professor wrote in an assessment for the Herald.

“Basically, there is nothing new in this text that is not known by reading/study specialists at a very basic level,” she added. “The only thing really `different’ is that Mr. Hubbard has renamed basic concepts to fit into his overall scheme of things.”

Steve Hassan of Cambridge, a cult deprogrammer, warned that the way Scientologists use the book, in one-on-one tutorials, is a first step toward hypnotic mind control. And the literacy materials are the same as church scriptures – except the schoolbooks leave out the word “Scientology,” Hassan said.

For example, the “Basic Study Manual” teaches children about the Scientology practice of “disconnecting” – used to separate new recruits from non-Scientologists, including parents. ” `Experts,’ `advisers,’ `friends,’ `families’ . . . indulge in all manner of interpretations and even outright lies to seem wise or expert,” the manual says.

The manual also promotes Scientology’s anti-psychology agenda, linking psychology to German fascism and saying psychotherapists reduce humans to the level of animals.

Scientology spokesman Bernard Percy, however, defended the World Literacy Crusade, saying it has no harmful agenda, and that its study principles can turn a child’s life around. For example, Percy said, the program requires children to look up in a dictionary each and every unfamiliar word – and that becomes a lifelong habit with tremendous benefits.

Scientologists also claim the literacy campaign is not controlled by the Church of Scientology – so they are not breaking the laws prohibiting religion in the schools.

But that is a false claim, because the campaign is funded and directed by the Church of Scientology, Hassan said.

The connections

Although local Scientologists deny that the World Literacy Crusade is directed by the Church of Scientology, anyone who uses L. Ron Hubbard’s name, or his trademarked Study Technology techniques, is strictly controlled by licensing contracts with Scientology groups in Los Angeles, in particular the Religious Technology Center, according to Young and church materials obtained by the Herald.

The World Literacy Crusade’s independence from Scientology is a “fiction,” Young said.

A World Literacy Crusade videotape, viewed by the Herald, clearly states that it has a licensing agreement with RTC – Scientology’s most powerful organization – allowing it to use L. Ron Hubbard’s name.

Also, Scientologists get a 10 percent to 35 percent commission on any church course bought by someone they recruit through the literacy programs, according to Church of Scientology documents dated last month.

Once Scientology attracts a new recruit, its staff applies skillful, high-pressure sales tactics, Hassan said. Members must pay more than $300,000 in “fixed donations” – or barter their full-time labor – to achieve complete salvation.

When the Mo Vaughn group or another agency buys Scientology’s literacy books – which cost about $35 each – most of the money goes to several Scientology organizations in Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, the church’s in-house publisher; Author Services Inc., Scientology’s literary agency; and RTC, which owns the rights to the trademarked name L. Ron Hubbard. Also, church members sometimes get government funding.

Scientologists got a federal grant for the literacy program in Memphis, former church spokeswoman Kit Finn said.

Federal money was also spent in Boston on Scientology materials, said Gerald Mazzarella, a Scientologist who teaches at Brighton High School. Mazzarella told the Herald he used part of a $5,000 federal grant to buy Scientology textbooks and checklists during the 1980s, which he then used at Brighton High.

Hub beginnings

Boston’s kickoff of Scientology’s literacy program was an April 22, 1995, reception at Roxbury Community College.

The guest of honor was Isaac Hayes, the first black musician ever to win an Academy Award.

The “Shaft” composer impressed a few prominent local blacks – including James E. Watson, the Randolph Junior/Senior High School headmaster. “It obviously helps kids improve their learning. It seemed to be a positive,” Watson said.

Watson toured Delphi Academy in Milton about three years ago, then asked the school’s headmistress, Ellen Garrison, to begin teaching Study Technology to his ninth-grade teachers at the Randolph school in December.

“It’s at its infancy stage, and what it would cost isn’t clear yet,” the headmaster said at the time. Watson, who has been praised for easing racial tensions in Randolph, recently said there is no longer any connection between the two schools.

The head of a youth program founded by one of Boston’s most-admired black athletes was also interested.

“I think they’re right on when they say illiteracy is a problem that leads to other problems,” said Roosevelt Smith, executive director of the Mo Vaughn Youth Development Program.

“We contracted with the World Literacy Crusade to bring seven kids up to speed,” Smith said. Five of the children, who were 13-16 years old, improved their reading ability using the “Basic Study Manual,” he said.

Most of the stuff is free. They only asked us to pay for books and materials,” Smith said.

Mo Vaughn himself knew about the Scientologists’ program, but “he hasn’t met with them directly,” Smith said.

But the Scientology religion “is not a part of what we’re doing,” Smith said. “I don’t think the kids even know what Scientology is.”

Roxbury Youth Works, however, allowed World Literacy Crusade workers to tutor teenagers there three years ago, but had second thoughts after learning more about the group’s links to Scientology, said Roxbury Youth Works administrator Dave Wideman.

“We as an organization were a little apprehensive. It seems like they were trying to recruit people,” Wideman said. “The target group was the particular population we serve, predominantly young black men and women.”

But if the Randolph High School literacy program succeeds, Scientologists hope to teach the same “tech” in Boston classrooms, said Finn, the Scientologist.

“That’s definitely the plan,” Finn said. “It’s like Mr. Watson. Somebody has to be bright enough to want it.”

Virtually every top Scientology official is white, according to ex-members and photographs of church leaders. But the new literacy campaign shows Scientology wants to attract blacks and Hispanics, said Priscilla Coates, formerly of the Cult Awareness Network in Los Angeles – an anti-cult group that was bankrupted by Scientology lawsuits and then taken over by the church.

Any non-Scientologist youth who is taught Study Technology is ripe for recruitment, Coates said. “The child has a possibility of becoming a Scientologist,” she said.

Elsewhere in the United States, the World Literacy Crusade has installed its programs at a New York City police athletic league, a Los Angeles probation department, and the Tampa (Fla.) Housing Authority. Other programs are in Washington, D.C., Denver, and throughout California.

In Memphis, Tenn., public officials were angered to learn that the World Literacy Crusade had run a pilot program – with federal grant money – for 75 students in a public school building, without getting a needed permit and without disclosing its ties to Scientology. The church was not allowed to use the school facilities again.

In the inner-city Los Angeles neighborhood of Compton, more than 700 black children, including gang members, participated in the World Literacy Crusade and the program saved their lives by giving them an alternative to street life, Jentzsch said.

“If you know what the statistics are in Compton, (it is) just miraculous,” Jentzsch said. “I’ve seen kids from the Crips and the Bloods sitting there working with other kids to get them educated.”

Study Tech

Larry Campbell brought his daughter to the Scientologists at the Roxbury YMCA because she was having reading problems in a public school outside Boston, which he would not name.

“I brought my daughter here because these guys help,” Campbell said. The father acknowledged that he also enrolled himself in the literacy program, to improve his reading skills.

“This is what the public schools should be doing,” the father said. “It should be attended to not next year but now.”

So for two hours on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and each Saturday morning, Campbell, a deacon at St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church in Roxbury, brought his elementary school aged daughter to a neon-lit YMCA room furnished with an old sofa, two foldout tables and a stack of plastic chairs.

There, she and other black children were coached in Scientology’s study methods by church members Simaen Skolfield and Cliff Dufresne.

During one session observed by a Herald reporter, neither tutor had a spontaneous conversation with a child, but read from a script.

Dufresne, who dropped out of Boston College Law School to work on the literacy program, helped Doug Walker, a pupil at the William Monroe Trotter Elementary School in Dorchester.

Doug Walker’s mother said the school wanted to solve her son’s problems by giving him medication such as Ritalin, Dufresne said. But, he added, the mother wanted to try drug-free Scientology lessons first.

Meanwhile Skolfield, a bearded British emigre, helped Tanzania Campbell – whose ambition is to be a schoolteacher in Atlantic City, N.J. – with a Study Technology lesson.

Campbell and others at the Roxbury YMCA literacy program were expected to pay nothing at first. “Not yet,” Dufresne said.

But Dufresne hopes his students will, in turn, teach their friends the Scientology techniques. “That’s the whole idea. They learn this and then they circle back and teach somebody else. Because there’s not enough of us,” he said.

Scientology literacy sessions are no longer allowed at the Roxbury YMCA, after officials there learned that the program is associated with the church.

But, an official at Dennison House in Dorchester said Dufresne met with house representatives last year and Dennison House invited World Literacy Crusade workers to come in as tutors. The tutoring has not yet started.

Notes

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The Boston Herald: Inside the Church of Scientology: Powerful church targets fortunes, souls of recruits (March 1, 1998)

March 1, 1998 by

By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/1/98 1

MIT student Carlos Covarrubias had signed a contract to serve the Church of Scientology for the next billion years – in effect, pledging his eternal soul.

Now two Scientologists were helping him stuff underwear and socks into a suitcase at his Back Bay fraternity house while others sat outside on Beacon Street in a car with its engine running.

They were preparing to take the 19-year-old to Logan Airport, and from there to the church’s Los Angeles headquarters.

“His parents were coming up from Florida to save him, so the Scientologists were rushing to get him out of here,” said Marcus Ottaviano, president of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity, recalling the May 1995 events.

Covarrubias’s interest in the church was first piqued by “Dianetics,” the Scientology book advertised on late-night TV and at national events like the Boston Marathon.

It wasn’t long before Covarrubias began skipping his MIT classes to spend the day studying at the church, Scientology’s four-story stone building on Beacon Street, a block from the Charles River and next door to his fraternity.

The church recruiters befriended him, promising that one day he would become “clear” – with a perfect memory and a higher IQ. Covarrubias paid for the Purification Rundown, a $ 1,200 detoxification program that required him to drink vegetable oil, take vitamin megadoses, and sweat in a sauna for several hours a day.

He also took a course that required him to talk to inanimate objects like dolls and ashtrays. “You had an ashtray, and you’d say, ‘Stand up.’ You’d lift it up and say, ‘Thank you.’ And then you’d say, ‘Sit down,’ and ‘Thank you.’ You’d try to have the intention for it to move on its own,” Covarrubias said.

Altogether, he paid about $ 2,000 to the Church of Scientology. But they wanted more.

“They asked me about student loans, bank loans, and they asked me, ‘What’s the limit on your credit cards? What’s your overdraft protection?’ “Covarrubias said. “They said, ‘There’s always a way to get money.’ ”

It is just such tactics that cause critics to call the church – founded in 1953 – a cult and a money-grabbing machine that separates thousands of ordinary church members like Covarrubias from their free will and their money.

It is also just such tactics that have the church in the midst of an international and highly public feud with the German government – which steadfastly refuses to grant Scientology the tax-exempt status of a religion – a status the church holds in this country.

While high-profile celebrity members, including John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Kirstie Alley, Chick Corea, Lisa Marie Presley and others, earn goodwill for the church, ex-members and critics say there is a dark underside to Scientology.

Some of that underside was allegedly laid bare in the 1995 death in Clearwater, Fla., of church member Lisa McPherson, 36, according to Florida state police, who recommended in December that Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe bring criminal charges against the church. The county medical examiner said she died of a blood clot due to dehydration, after being denied water for at least her last five to 10 days.

The church says McPherson died accidentally of a pulmonary embolism and denies that its members caused the death.

McPherson’s family filed a wrongful-death suit against the Church of Scientology last year, saying she wanted to leave the church but was held against her will during a 17-day church “retreat.”

Former insiders told the Herald that the Church of Scientology is a wealthy and powerful organization strictly controlled by its reclusive leaders at the Religious Technology Center in California.

In 1993 – the last year the church had to declare its income for federal tax purposes – it had $ 398 million in assets and took in $ 300 million a year. It claims to have 8 million members, though opponents put that number at only 200,000 or so – with about 40,000 in the United States.

In Massachusetts, there are several groups – an Everett drug-rehab office, a Brighton literacy program, private schools in Milton and Somerville and an anti-psychiatry group in Boston – that deny they are controlled by the Church of Scientology.

The groups share a primary goal with all other Scientology organizations, critics say: To recruit for the church and sell its programs.

But the president of the Church of Scientology International, the Rev. Heber Jentzsch, objected in a telephone interview from Los Angeles to allegations of abuse or deception.

Church members are sincerely motivated to bring happiness to mankind, Jentzsch said. They work in prisons and among the poor to eradicate gang violence, teen pregnancy and drug abuse, he said.

Scientology is thriving in 115 countries, Jentzsch said, despite the venom of what he said were only a few critics. It thrives, he said, because “it is the path to total freedom.”

And Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s books and lectures are popular, selling more than 140 million copies – including more than 17 million copies of “Dianetics” – in 34 languages, Jentzsch said.

Long before Hubbard died in 1986, he was accused of creating the Church of Scientology only to make money. His lectures and writings – totaling more than 100,000 pages – still generate millions of dollars in income every year. That stream of money is now controlled by Hubbard’s heir, Religious Technology Center board chairman David Miscavige, 37, who has worked for the church since he was a teenager.

Jentzsch said Scientology is attacked – as Mormonism was in its early years – because it is a new religion with a unique and vital message. “A person who is a Scientologist – he wakes up,” he said.

Recruiting

Local Scientologists recruit on college campuses in Boston and on the street.

A favorite spot is outside the front door of the Boston Architectural Center at Newbury and Hereford streets, where church recruiters regularly hand out free tickets for “personality and IQ tests” at the “Hubbard Dianetics Foundation.” The tickets – “a $ 30 value” – list the address and telephone number but not the name of the Church of Scientology at 448 Beacon St.

And for several months there was an outpost in Watertown’s Arsenal Mall where a vendor’s cart offered free stress tests on an an “Electropsychometer” or “E-Meter” – a kind of lie detector used for Scientology training.

Potential members are routed to the Beacon Street church where high-pressure “registrars” sell costly church programs.

In the church’s vocabulary, the recruiter is a “body router,” and potential converts are “wogs” or “raw meat.”

An offer of a free personality test enticed Reem Rahim, 31, who said in a Herald interview that she was recruited to Scientology in 1991.

New to Boston, unhappy with her job as an immunology researcher at Children’s Hospital, Rahim accepted when a man on the street offered the church’s personality test.

Within six weeks she had paid the Boston church $ 82,000 for Scientology courses – money from an insurance settlement she got after nearly losing her legs in a 1987 car accident. Church salespeople promised Scientology would give Rahim happiness and advanced mental powers, including the ability to remove from her legs the scars caused by the auto accident, she said.

Rahim’s family helped her leave Scientology. And she later got all her money refunded, but not before she hired lawyers who threatened to sue the church for fraud.

“I used to feel sorry for them, because there were some nice people there. Now I feel angry with the whole organization. What a bunch of creeps – stealing money from people,” Rahim recalled.

Another Boston resident, John Wall, was recruited when he found a Yellow Pages “career counseling” listing for the Scientology group Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation, according to a fraud complaint he filed against the church on Dec. 8, 1992, in Suffolk County Superior Court.

“The personality test is the gimmick routinely used by Scientology missions, orgs (organizations) and front groups . . . (to) identify the emotional sore spots of the targets for recruitment,” said the lawyers for Wall, who was recruited soon after graduating from college.

In a little more than two years, Wall claimed, he gave $ 17,000 to the church but never got career counseling.

“He was bombarded with contacts” from Scientologists pressuring him to take more courses, Wall’s lawyers said in the court documents. “He was told that Scientology was every bit a scientific discipline as physics or chemistry,” they said.

“Defendants continued to utilize mind control techniques which pervade Scientology pursuant to the boast of (L. Ron) Hubbard, the founder of Scientology,” Wall’s lawyers said in the documents, and then quoted Hubbard as saying: ” ‘We know more about psychiatry than psychiatrists. We can brainwash faster than the Russians.’ ”

After buying courses for 18 months from the Beacon Street church, Wall became a full-time Scientologist and moved to Los Angeles in October 1990.

Seven months after moving to California, Wall quit Scientology. He settled his lawsuit in 1993, and could not be reached for comment.

The critics

Skillful techniques induce even highly educated people like Wall, Covarrubias and Rahim to join groups like the Church of Scientology, said Steve Hassan of Cambridge, author of the book “Combatting Cult Mind Control.” Hassan was hired by Rahim’s family to help persuade her to leave Scientology.

Scientology is clearly a destructive cult, said Hassan, who has established a new local resource center to educate people about coercive religions.

“This group is unlike legitimate religions which tell what their beliefs and practices are in the beginning,” said Hassan, 43,a one-time member of the Unification Church.

“Scientology systematically deceives, hypnotizes, indoctrinates and exploits people for its own purposes,” he said.

First, Scientologists find a new recruit’s “ruin” – the thing that bothers him or her the most, according to Hassan, court documents and former members.

Then they promise to fix it, said former members who sued the church for fraud.

Whether the problem is psychosis or cancer, illiteracy or insanity – or legs scarred from an auto accident – Scientology is the answer. That’s the enticement offered to new recruits by church salespeople who are paid a 10 percent to 35 percent commission on every course they sell, defectors said.

The cost

Covarrubias, Rahim and Wall spent far less than the $ 300,000-plus cost of completing Scientology’s “Bridge to Total Freedom.”

Former Scientologist Gloria Neumeyer of Glendale, Calif., who owns a solar heating company, told the Herald she spent $ 200,000 for herself and another $300,000 for family members and employees to take Scientology courses.

“I donated $ 500,000 to Scientology. I was the kind (of recruit) who had money and paid for everything,” said Neumeyer, a former Lexington resident who left the church in 1991 and then decided to expose what she says are the church’s destructive practices.

Scientology counseling can create a feeling of well-being or even ecstasy, and that can become addictive, according to cult experts. It can also be expensive, costing up to $ 520 an hour, they said.

For the money, Scientologists are promised extraordinary powers – like controlling the weather and flying without their bodies, according to critics and former members.

Scientologists “claim with confidence that trillions of years ago they knew each other on other planets, that they had the power to see at submicroscopic levels and leave their bodies at will,” said Jim Siegelman and Flo Conway, authors of “Snapping,” a book on personality change in cults.

Like all Scientology churches worldwide, the Boston organization is required to send a percentage of its income to top church groups in California, which own all rights to the use of L. Ron Hubbard’s name, said Robert Vaughn Young, a former high-ranking Scientology official.

Many of Scientology’s more idealistic members sign billion-year contracts with the Sea Organization, the church’s quasi-military corps based in Clearwater, Fla.

Dressed in blue mock-Navy uniforms with gold braid and ribbons, it was two Sea Org officers who visited Boston and convinced Covarrubias that he should wear the same nautical garb while learning to save the world.

Even today, the church still considers Covarrubias a member, because his billion-year contract is irrevocable.

His friends and family disagree.

The rescue

When his Pi Lambda Phi brothers saw Covarrubias become more and more immersed in Scientology, they alerted his parents in North Palm Beach, Fla.

Using the Internet, they found ex-Scientologists who volunteered to meet Covarrubias face-to-face.

The defectors told Covarrubias that he would sink more and more deeply under the mental control of the church, completely cut off from family and non-Scientology friends.

Meanwhile, on that day in May 1995, his parents’ plane was approaching Boston. The church had learned – from Covarrubias during a counseling session – of the plot to rescue him. That’s when the Scientologists came into the Pi Lambda Phi house to help Covarrubias pack his suitcase, Ottaviano said.

But before the Scientologists could take Covarrubias to Los Angeles, his friends blocked the frat house door, Ottaviano said.

“The only reason they didn’t leave that second is that there were 40 of us and two of them,” he recalled.

After Covarrubias was safe with his parents, the Pi Lambda Phi wanted to alert other college students. So they picketed the church next door.

“All the neighbors came out to support us. We were joined by a common enemy – we all hated Scientology,” Ottaviano said.

After a year with his family in Florida, Covarrubias felt strong enough to come back to Boston, rejoin the fraternity and re-enroll at MIT. He is scheduled to graduate with a philosophy degree this spring. Raised Catholic, he has a deep interest in spiritual matters.

But he said he does not consider Scientology a spiritual group.

“It’s an organization. Any other word, like religion, doesn’t seem to fit. It’s not a religion because they don’t ask for faith,” he said. “I would actually call it a cult.”

 

Comments? Questions? Mail us: library@bostonherald.com

Filed Under: Media articles Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Letter from Heber Jentzsch to James McGovern, Assistant IRS Commissioner (November 5, 1994)

November 5, 1994 by

Church of Scientology International

Office of the President

November 5, 1994

James McGovern
Assistant Commissioner (Employee
Plans and Exempt Organizations)
Internal Revenue Service
Room 3408E
1111 Constitution AVe., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20224

Re: FACTNET, Inc.1

Dear Jim:

I have written to you previously in February 19942 and again in August 1994 concerning “Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network (“FACTNET”) describing the purposes and activities of this group and demonstrating that the application for tax exemption that they filed — and which was granted by the Service in August 1994 — was fraudulent. I will not repeat the information set forth in those letters but attach copies, (without exhibits) here for your reference. (Exhibits 1 & 2). I am writing this letter to bring to your attention additional evidence concerning FACTNET that has come up since my last letter.

In my earlier letters I described the close relationship between FACTNET and the Cult Awareness Network (“CAN”), an anti-religion hate group that serves as a referral service for deprogrammers, and evidence that FACTNET itself was carrying out similar referral services. Further evidence has been brought to light of these two organizations working together and carrying out similar functions.

FACTNET’s former president, Gerald Armstrong, testified in the last two weeks that in November 1993, shortly after FACTNET was formed, its founder, Larry Wollersheim, gave a demonstration of the FACTNET system to the Executive Director of CAN, Cynthia Kisser and other CAN principles. FACTNET and CAN use very similar language for.describing what they do and similar euphemisms for promoting their deprogrammer referral network. A recent computerized advertisement by FACTNET promoted via the Internet system, says that they can connect up anyone who contacts them to

6331 HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, SUITE 1200, LOS ANGELES, CA 90028-6329
TELEPHONE (213) 960-3500   FAX (213) 960-3508  /  960-3509

 

JAMES MCGOVERN
PAGE TWO

“an assortment of key mental health professionals, clergy, attorneys, support groups, ex-members, and organizations who work with victims and families of this group.” (Exhibit 3) Compare this to a recently promotional piece for CAN that describes who they are as “.  . . mental health professionals, lawyers, physicians, legislators, clergy, law enforcement officers and educators” and in the`next paragraph admits that “CAN recognizes the need for voluntary exit counseling/deprogramming . . ..”
Exhibit 4 FACTNET and CAN are working together and FACTNET appears to be taking part in the deprogrammer referral business.

Recent additional evidence of the extent of CAN’s involvement in deprogramming demonstrates what such referrals actually mean.

A declaration from the manager of a Bed and Breakfast house in Albany, Ohio (“The Albany House”) situated near the Wellspring Retreat and Rehabilitation Center, (run by CAN Board member Paul Martin), states that between 1988 and 1993, about 20 different families who stayed at The Albany House said they were having a family member deprogrammed at Wellspring. Members of about 10 of these families stated that their adult child had been kidnapped during the deprogramming upon the advice of CAN. Exhibit 5

Similarly, in a deposition of CAN’s Office Manager, Marty Butz, he admitted that he had given 500 referrals to deprogrammers since he started working at CAN in 1989, including referrals to deprogrammers like Rick Ross known for using force and violence. Exhibit 6 As demonstrated above, FACTNET is also part of this network, working with CAN in its deprogramming referral activities.

That FACTNET is playing an active role in deprogramming is further demonstrated by the fact that its president, Jon Atack, who lives .in the United Kingdom, is himself a deprogrammer, specializing in attempts to deprogram Scientologists. He has been paid tens of thousands of dollars over the years for such services. As described in my  August 1994 letter, Atack has also exported FACTNET’s operation to the United Kingdom and has attempted to spread its activities into other parts of Europe by forming a “Counter-Scientology Europe” network. Among other things he has done through this group, he has attempted to incite opposition to the Church’s application for religious recognition with the United Kingdom Charity Commission and has disseminated to the Charity Commission some of the same false information put out by FACTNET.

Atack is also a litigant against the Church in the UK and thus personally interested in causing the Church as much trouble as he can. Recently, however, the suit that Atack filed against the Church was dismissed for lack of merit. The Church was

 

JAMES MCGOVERN
PAGE THREE

awarded costs, which Atack has refused to pay. The Church is taking the necessary collection actions.

My earlier letters briefed you on the kinds of scurrilous and defamatory information that FACTNET has put out about Scientology and the plans of its founder, Larry Wollersheim, to sell this information and otherwise solicit “tax deductible” contributions to fund harassive litigation against Scientology. Recent evidence shows that this is exactly what FACTNET is doing.

One of the major sources of the false information disseminated by FACNET has been Steven Fishman, who was previously convicted for obstruction of justice for falsely trying to implicate the Church in his crimes as a way of deflecting guilt from himself. It didn’t work and he went to jail. Fishman is currently under investigation again by the Probation Department for involvement in a new round of fraudulent schemes and violating his parole by associating with felons.

Fishman recently sought legal representation from an attorney in North Hollywood for a “malicious prosecution” case against the Church of Scientology he wishes to  bring. In making this request for representation, Fishman repeated many of the same blatantly false allegations against Scientology that have been promoted by FACTNET. Included in these is the scurrilous allegation that the tragic suicide of David Miscavige’s mother-in-law was actually a murder for which Mr. Micavige may be charged. Fishman also represented that with respect to the funding of this proposed litigation, funds may be forthcoming from FACTNET, a tax-exempt organization headquartered in Golden, Colorado, to help cover the costs of the suit. This shows FACTNET’s funds being earmarked for harassive litigation against the Church, which is not a tax exempt purpose. Exhibit 7

Attorney Graham Berry, who earlier paid about $20,000 to FACTNET for false information (which Berry proceeded to file in court in the Fishman case) attempted to get Senator Chafee of Rhode Island to connect up with FACTNET so as to get Senator Chafee’s assistance in getting the tax exempt status of the Church of Scientology revoked.

Last week, FACTNET’s Systems Op, Bob Penny, posted a letter from Graham Berry in which Berry solicited data which could support his false allegation about the confidentiality of the advanced levels of Scientology religious services. Even though Berry stated that his letter was to be kept confidential, FACTNET posted it broadly on its computer system asking people to send information about Scientology confidential advanced levels to Larry Wollersheim clearly for the purpose of supporting private litigation. This is not an activity that should be supported by tax exempt contributions. Tab 8

 

JAMES MCGOVERN
PAGE FOUR

My letters in February and August 1994 showed that FACTNET does not qualify for tax exemption, that its exemption application was a sham and should have been more than ample to result in revocation of its tax exempt status. The additional evidence provided here demonstrates that FACTNET is operating in the non-exempt manner described in those earlier letters.

Please contact me if I can provide any other information.

Sincerely yours,

[signed] Heber Jentzsch
Heber Jentzsch
President
Church of Scientology
International

Notes

  1. This document in PDF format. ↩
  2. February 1994 letter in PDF format. ↩
Filed Under: Correspondence Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Letter from Heber Jentzsch to James McGovern, Assistant IRS Commissioner (February 24, 1994)

February 24, 1994 by

Church of Scientology International

Office of the President1

February 24, 1994

James McGovern
Assistant Commissioner (EP/EO)
[Employee Plans/Exempt Organization]
Internal Revenue Service
1111 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Washington D.C. 20224

Re: F.A.C.T.Net, Inc.

Dear Jim,

Information has come to my attention concerning an organization which is either in the process of seeking tax exemption under section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code, or shortly will be seeking such exemption. As the organization is located in Golden, Colorado, its application should have been, or shortly will be, filed with the Dallas IRS District.

This organization, “Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network” or “F.A.C.T.Net, Inc.” (“FACTNET”), puts up a thin veneer of charitable and educational purposes to disguise its true purpose: to serve as a vehicle for certain individuals with a fanatical hatred of the Scientology religion to carry out a malicious smear campaign against members of the Scientology religion. This organization i5 closely affiliated with the Cult Awareness Network (“CAN”) which I have written to you about previously.
The purpose of this letter is to provide you with information which must be taken into consideration when reviewing any application by FACTNET for tax exemption.

FACTNET was originally incorporated an .July 7, 1993 as “FACT,” and changed its name to “FACTNET” on December 14, 1993. Its articles of incorporation state that the corporation “is organized exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes ….” (Exhibit A) The articles also state that “the corporation shall not carry on any other activities not permitted to be carried on (a) by a corporation exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code …. ” However, FACTNET’s true activities bear no relationship to any of

James McGovern
February 24, 1994
Page 2

the purposes permitted under section 501(c) (3). FACTNET was founded by two former Scientologists, Gerry Armstrong and Larry Wollersheim, who have been zealots against the Scientology religion for many years. Their actions were described in the Church’s November 1992 submission to former Assistant Commissioner EP/EO, John Burke. (See pages 10-36 through 10-47 on Armstrong; pages 10-49 through 10-51 on Wollersheim.) Armstrong was earlier involved in a scheme to forge documents and get them planted on Church premises as part of a plot to overthrow Church management. More recently, he has been quoted in the press expressing his opposition to the use of currency as the basis for the economy, as the self-proclaimed founder of the “Organization of United Renunciants.” (Exhibit B) Wollersheim is similarly delusional. He once accused the IRS of being in league with other federal agencies which are running Scientology as an intelligence experiment, and which would temporarily “rough up” the Church to help maintain its “cover.” (Exhibit C)

Armstrong’s and Wollersheim’s conspiracy to attack the Scientology religion through FACTNET is a direct violation of a preliminary injunction entered on May 28, 1992 which enjoins “Gerald Armstrong, his agents, and persons acting in concert or conspiracy with him” from, among other things:

“Voluntarily assisting any person (not a governmental organ or entity) intending to make, intending to press, intending to arbitrate, or intending to litigate  a claim against [various organizations and individuals affiliated with the Scientology religion as specified in the preliminary injunction].

“Voluntarily assisting any person (not a governmental organ or entity) arbitrating or litigating a claim against [various organizations and individuals affiliated with the Scientology religion as specified in the preliminary injunction].”

I am attaching a copy of a brochure published by FACTNET which was mailed broadly to members of the Church. One of the avowed purposes of this mailing is “to assist ongoing civil or criminal litigation…” which places the mailing squarely within the terms of the preliminary injunction. Indeed, a version of this brochure has already been filed in and has been used as a central part of the defense in litigation in which Church of Scientology International is a party. Moreover, Larry

James McGovern
February 24, 1994
Page 3

Wollersheim has been in constant litigation with the Church since 1979. There is no doubt that Wollersheim’s significant financial interest in his own litigation against the Church is a major, if not the primary, motivating factor behind his attacks on the Church through FACTNET.

A reading of the entire FACTNET mailing reveals that it is a thinly disguised attempt to foment litigation against the Church of Scientology with a plethora of false, sensational allegations.

FACTNET describes itself in this mailing as a ” nonaligned, nonprofit, research and educational public service consisting of an electronic lending library, electronic mail service, and electronic news transfer service.” (Exhibit D) Yet the text of this brochure is rife with false and malicious claims, revealing the true purposes and activities of the organization. As I advised you in earlier correspondence regarding CAN, that organization’s original application for tax exemption was denied because the Service found that CAN was not an “educational” organization because it did not provide a full and fair exposition of the facts. Following its review of CAN’s  literature the Service stated .”a significant portion of your viewpoints are not supported by relevant facts … and disparaging statements about organizations and individuals … were based on unsupported opinions or incomplete facts. Your publications did not present a sufficiently full and fair exposition of the pertinent facts as to permit an  individual or the public to form an independent opinion or conclusion.” FACTNET’s literature presents the same picture. FACTNET is not an “educational” organization. Its literature does not present the fair exposition of the facts required by 501(c) (3).

For example, it contains the absurd contention that in order to obtain tax exemption for the Churches of Scientology, Mr. David Miscavige had to admit to criminal conduct on the part of Mr. L. Ron Hubbard. You know for yourself that nothing could be further from the truth. That’s just the beginning.

The mailing purports to solicit information concerning a list of 112 individuals who were allegedly murdered, ordered to commit suicide, had nervous breakdowns or threatened suicide as a result of their affiliation with the Church of Scientology — an unbelievable pack of lies which could not be further from the truth. Scientologists have never been associated with murder and are well known for a very anti-suicidal stance.

The fact of mailing this document, in and of itself, is

James McGovern
February 24, 1994
Page 4

outrageous, clearly designed to upset and cause suffering to members of the Scientology religion on a broad scale. It is as if an arm of the Ku Klux Klan culled the obituary notices for Jewish names and then sent a mailing to synagogue members asking if they had any information regarding the mysterious deaths of those people, claiming their deaths resulted from their affiliation with the Jewish faith. This mailing is as charitable and educational as spray-painting swastikas on synagogue walls.

Maligning a religion by listing the alleged deaths of a number of its members over a 40-year period is grotesque. Moreover, of the 112 items on the list, 60 do not  describe deaths at all. Six of the people listed are listed twice and 20 of the listings do not even identify the person allegedly involved by name, using instead such statements as “an individual (name unknown)” or “a man in LA.” At least seven of the items on their face indicate death by natural causes.

A closer examination of the allegations in this brochure shows that they consist of the worst form of attack by falsehood and innuendo. FACTNET’s allegations are designed to hold the Church, its leaders and its parishioners in the worst possible light and have forced the Church to consume a tremendous amount of time and energy in an effort to discover the truth behind them in order to defend ourselves. This information is precisely the kind of “disparaging statements about organizations and individuals … based on unsupported opinions or incomplete facts” that led the Service to initially deny exemption to CAN. The following are a few examples:

a. Exemplifying the unsupportable and malicious nature of FACTNET’s assault on the Church and on senior Scientologists is the implication of wrongdoing by Mr. Miscavige in the death of his mother-in-law, Mary Florence Barnett. This is a pernicious effort to exploit a family tragedy and shows that FACTNET’s principals have absolutely no sense of decency. As reflected in the medical examiner’s records and sworn testimony (which FACTNET has), Ms. Barnett was despondent after failing to fully recover from a brain operation when she took her own life. There was no argument between them as claimed. In fact, Mr. Miscavige had not been in communication with his mother-in-law for some years prior to her tragic death, his only involvement in the matter was consoling his grief-stricken wife.

James McGovern
February 24, 1994
Page 5

b. Under the heading of “other deaths while an individual was associated with Scientology” is the name John Peterson. Mr. Peterson was an attorney for the Church who died of a heart attack while at his home. Apparently the only reason Mr. Peterson is on this list is because he represented the Church. Yet, FACTNET has placed his name in the context of a “chilling story,” “coverups” and “calamities.”

c. One falsehood which has long since been discredited is the fabricated claim by one Steven Fishman that he was ordered to commit suicide by the Church. He made such a claim following his arrest on charges of mail fraud to which he ultimately pleaded guilty and served a federal prison term. While FACTNET reports this suicide claim as factual, Fishman was convicted on a charge of obstruction of justice for perpetrating this very lie, a crime for which he was also sentenced to prison, along with the underlying mail fraud charges.

d. And on a personal level, the FACTNET allegation that is particularly offensive to me is the false charge that my wife, Yvonne Jentzsch, was denied medical treatment and was allegedly induced to commit suicide due to problems she was supposedly having with me and with Mr: Hubbard. There is not one word of truth to these claims. My wife was suddenly stricken with what appeared to be a stroke. After performing several tests at hospitals on both coasts, it was finally discovered that she was suffering from a form of cancer, which at the time of her death in Morton Plant Hospital in Florida, was medically untreatable. I stayed by her side to the very end and she died in my arms. She was loved by a great many Scientologists, including and especially by Mr. Hubbard. FACTNET’s implications concerning the circumstances of her death are a perfidious and vile assault on her good name, mine and Mr. Hubbard’s.

The above are only a few examples. The rest of the brochure is similarly rife with lies. The Church only became aware of the existence of FACTNET and its malicious campaign of slander and innuendo when several Church members reported receiving this brochure in the mail and it became necessary to respond to these scurrilous accusations. This involved having to search out the individuals named in the brochure, some of whom were never even Scientologists and some of whom were impossible to identify from

James McGovern
February 24, 1994
Page 6

the limited information provided by FACTNET. The results of this search so far prove that the brochure is a compendium of false allegations, generalities and innuendo. The tactic of calling it a.”questionnaire” which is part of an “investigation” is a transparent attempt to conceal its true purpose — to defame and malign the Scientology religion and its members and spread turmoil and upset among Church membership.

Needless to say, individuals who were named in this list whom we have contacted were appalled to learn that this false and malicious information was being circulated widely without their knowledge or consent. The purpose of distributing such a vicious and libellous mailing could not possibly be “educational” or “charitable.” It is nothing more than hate propaganda.

The motives of FACTNET also show through the veneer in the kind of information being solicited from subscribers. For example: “How might we locate or contact the parents or non-Scientology families of the senior Scn executives?” What other purpose could it have for soliciting this information other than to terrorize and harass the families of Church leaders?

FACTNET attempts to cloak its hate-mongering by using pseudo-scientific terminology such as “coercive persuasion.” Such “theories,” supported by Margaret Singer and others, have been utterly rejected by the courts (U.S. v. Fishman, 743 F.Supp. 713, 717 (N.D.Cal 1990)), and have been disclaimed by the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association.

The primary purpose of FACTNET is to attack the Scientology religion and the Church’s members. Any doubt of this fact is put to rest with a letter dated January 20, 1994 from Lawrence Wollersheim on behalf of the organization to the County Property Tax Department in Clearwater, Florida. Based on the IRS’s recognition of tax-exempt status to Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization, settlement was recently reached with the county property tax officials regarding that Church’s qualification for property tax exemption. Having gotten wind of this favorable settlement, Wollersheim wrote to the county officials imploring them not to go through with the settlement and stating that FACTNET “shortly … will have all 12,000 pages of the IRS ruling scanned into our searchable computer data base” for the purpose of using former members of the Church “and possibly several former high ranking IRS officials” to re-examine “this data base for fraud in Scientology’s application.”

James McGovern
February 24, 1994
Page 7

The county officials were obviously not too impressed with Wollersheim’s offer, as the settlement is now complete with the Church recognized as exempt with respect to most of its properties.

And the latest turn of events, an attempted extortion of the Church by Los Angeles attorney Graham Berry, claiming to represent Wollersheim and his cronies, proves the real intent of this scam. Berry demanded tens of millions of dollars from the Church to prevent further dissemination of this material in civil litigation and to government agencies, including the IRS, while admitting it was intended solely to create “PR problems” and to harass the Church into paying money.

As a front group for CAN, another of FACTNET’s nefarious purposes is to serve as a referral service for deprogrammers. “Deprogramming” is a process in which bigoted or mercenary individuals use force and coercion to dissuade a person from his religious beliefs. It very often involves kidnapping and holding the person against his will and acts of violence as part of the process. FACTNET’s articles of incorporation state, “Our sixth purpose is to support the networking and subject related efforts of individuals or organizations for whom having, sharing, and using this information on coercive psychological influence technology is critical to stopping, recovering from, helping others recover from, or preventing abuse in this area.” This psycho-babble is meant to conceal another aspect of FACTNET’s activities. “Helping others to recover” from alleged psychological influence is merely a euphemism for assisting deprogrammers to violate the rights of members of religions by criminally seizing them and attempting to change their beliefs through coercion. This is done for large fees, and I have no doubts that FACTNET intends to use its computerized bulletin board as a computerized referral network for deprogrammers in exchange for the referral fees.

Neither the pursuit of an extortion scheme nor religious bigotry are educational or charitable activities.

As set forth in my recent letter to you concerning CAN, there is strong evidence that FACTNET is simply a “high tech” appendage to CAN and its deprogramming-for-hire referral service. That letter set forth numerous examples of CAN-influenced deprogrammers having been arrested for kidnapping, assault and other crimes in connection with these activities. Galen Kelly, CAN’s security chief for many years, for example, was convicted and sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in March of 1993 for

James McGovern
February 24, 1994
Page 8

kidnapping in connection with a deprogramming attempt by him in May of 1992. CAN’s involvement in that deprogramming was well documented in the evidence of the case.

CAN’s relationship with FACTNET is also well- established. For example, provision four of FACTNET’s Articles of Incorporation, regarding the distribution of assets on
dissolution, states as follows:

“Assets will be divided equally between Cult Awareness Network, 2421 W. Pratt St., Suite 1173, Chicago, IL 60021 and American Family Foundation, P.O. Box 336, Weston, MA 02193.” (Exhibit A)

In addition to demonstrating FACTNET’s close association with CAN, this dissolution clause also fails to meet the organizational test under section 501(c) (3), as there is no guarantee that either CAN or American Family Foundation (another hate group also affiliated with CAN) will continue to qualify for exemption. Indeed, as demonstrated by my letters to you concerning CAN, it does not qualify for exemption.

Additionally, CAN and FACTNET share a common board member, Kent Burtner, a long-time opponent of new religions.

Lawrence Wollersheim, one of FACTNET’s founders, attended CAN’s annual convention in November 1993. While there, he promoted the computerized bulletin board service offered by FACTNET for $1000 per applicant.. Additionally, CAN Board member Paul Martin promoted FACT in the speech he gave at the convention, encouraging CAN members to support it. Wollersheim has a long history of shady money-making schemes and this time has combined making money directly with his vendetta against Scientology. These are not exempt purposes or activities.

FACTNET does not qualify for tax exemption. It is seeking to use 501(c) (3) status to have the government in effect fund its campaign of hate and bigotry through tax exempt contributions. Its application for tax exemption should be rejected.

Please let me know if I can provide additional information in connection with these matters.

James McGovern
February 24, 1994
Page 9

Thank you very much for your consideration.
Sincerely,

Heber C. Jentzsch

HCJ:mfh
Enc.

Notes

  1. This document in .pdf format. ↩
Filed Under: Correspondence Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,