The Armstrong Op

Scientology's fair game on Gerry Armstrong

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The Boston Herald: Merchants of Sensationalism (ca. late March, 1998)

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In March 1998, the Boston Herald published a series titled Scientology Unmasked: Inside Scientology. 1

Scientology’s response included this 24-age  “Dead Agent” pack titled The Boston Herald: Merchants of Sensationalism.  2

That “DA pack,” which includes a letter  from  Scientology’s current “LRH biographer” Dan Sherman, was also published in Scientology’s Freedom. 3

Within the DA pack, Scientology attacked some of the Boston Herald’s alleged sources, including Gerry Armstrong. Alleged, because the Boston Herald did not contact Gerry for their series.

Notes

 

 

  1. Scientology Unmasked: Inside Scientology:  http://www.apologeticsindex.org/s04a01.html#unmasked. ↩
  2. Boston Herald: Merchants of Sensationalism in pdf format. ↩
  3. Freedom’s Merchant of Sensationalism here: http://web.archive.org/web/19990904015436/http://news.scientology.org/mag/boston/ ↩

Dan Sherman letter to Editor, The Boston Herald (ca. March 1998)

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A word from L. Ron Hubbard’s official biographer1

Dear Editor,

Regardless of what other political machinations may have led to your Joseph Mallia report on L. Ron Hubbard2 you have traipsed down the same shoddy path as the tabloid papers and “pop” biographies Mallia holds up as his precedent. That is, your Joseph Mallia has dredged up the same now discredited sources to regurgitate the same tired lies and all for the same editorial ploy: Let’s not just merely prejudice our readers against every man, woman and child who proudly call themselves Scientologists; let’s also tarnish the reputation of the Founder. (After all, anything goes since he’s no longer living and can’t respond.)

Very well. But as L. Ron Hubbard’s official biographer – as an author with access to the whole of Mr. Hubbard’s archival records, very much including those records pertaining to the war – I do wish your Mallia might have exhibited the integrity to have at least requested I sidecheck his allegations. Your Joseph Mallia is either intentionally misleading his readers with patently inaccurate statements or was himself very sadly misled.

Here’s the classic case in point: L. Ron Hubbard was never relieved of duty from a Pacific-based USS Algol when he “apparently concealed a gasoline bomb on board the USS Algol in order to avoid combat.” Not only is the statement false – for Mr. Hubbard discovered a concealed gasoline bomb aboard the Algol – but his services aboard the Algol terminated with a promotion to the United States School of Military Government at Princeton University.

Moreover, the document upon which Mallia based the statement – a 1982 court affidavit from an estranged son – is quite broadly known to be bogus. Indeed, the affidavit had only been concocted when Mr. Hubbard’s estranged son attempted to dupe a California court into granting him probate of the L. Ron Hubbard estate. To the same end, came all other allegations Joseph Mallia now fobs off as fact… To which I now ask: Why, Mr. Mallia, did you not inform your readers that the real source of those accusations is a 1983 interview with Ronald DeWolfe in a porno magazine and later retracted by DeWolfe as entirely fabricated?

Yes, your Joseph Mallia has quoted from a source who eventually admitted he made the whole thing up.

Now, how does that feel?

Here’s another, perhaps even more to the point: your Joseph Mallia leads off his article with a recitation of Superior Court Judge Paul Breckenridge’s ruling from the 1984 case involving “a top Scientology defector’s court suit against the Church.”

Well, gentlemen, I spoke with Judge Paul Breckenridge. I further spoke – at length – with that top Scientology defector, and let me simply say you have done your readers and your reputation a very grave disservice. The facts are these: that defector is none other than Gerald Armstrong 3 – former Scientology clerk, former paid agent of a renegade government intelligence service and, frankly, a certifiable nut. After failing to seize Church assets in a truly bizarre scheme involving the forging of incriminating evidence and the secret planting of that evidence on Church premises, he next appears in the public eye as the would-be masochist for Saddam Hussein. That is, he actually proposed Hussein accept him as a willing hostage for the release of prisoners, significantly adding: “I will be available for torture.” Needless to say, even those within Hussein’s camp had sense enough not to reply.

But in either case, this is the man whose testimony inspired the Breckenridge decision. This is a man who when asked “How does one prove such testimony?” casually replied, “You don’t have to prove a god damn thing! You don’t have to prove s__t! You just allege it!” Finally this is also a man who was recently found in multiple contempts of court for violating court orders and agreements he had entered into. He now lives as a fugitive from a jail sentence.

Need I say more on the matter?

Lastly, let me address what your Joseph Mallia presents as his journalistic coup: the statements regarding L. Ron Hubbard’s service aboard the United States Naval vessel, the YP 422. For the record Mr. Hubbard never claimed to have seen action aboard that vessel. Nor does one find that statement in the “Church of Scientology’s official Internet Site.” Your Mr. Mallia has jumped to an inaccurate conclusion. More to our point, however, are his statements regarding “the first former crewman with direct knowledge of the ship’s activities to publicly dispute Hubbard’s claim.”

I do not know what led your Mallia to this former crewman, but I do know this: according to ship’s records, which I possess in full, Eugene Lemare did not serve beneath Mr. Hubbard. Indeed – and this from my subsequent conversation with Lemare – the man had never even heard of Lt. L. Ron Hubbard prior to Mallia’s telephone call, and certainly possessed not a shred of information pertaining to the YP 422 under Mr. Hubbard’s command. That is – and once more very bluntly – your Mallia has either lied or relied upon information that he could very easily have found to be false by a direct inquiry to me. He has presented this Eugene Lemare as a source of damning information when, in fact, poor Lemare knew nothing of the matter. In that regard, your Mallia may have sinned in precisely the same way Janet Cooke had sinned when accepting a Pulitzer Prize for an entirely fabricated story.

I might further add, Mallia as much as lied in conveniently failing to mention what a Francis Delmarmol, who took over command of the YP 422 in late 1942, concluded regarding Lt. Hubbard:

“It is with considerable pleasure that I find this ship in such excellent condition and discover that her stores and hull and machinery is in a state of high operating efficiency, superior to that of the other vessels of this division. It is with considerable gratitude that I receive from you a well trained crew.”

Finally, and specifically as regards Delmarmol’s remarks regarding Lt. Hubbard’s fitness for command, let me add this: while Lt. Hubbard went on to earn 21 medals and palms for distinguished service through the war, Delmarmol went on to run that YP 422 aground on a coral reef.

I could say more, for your Joseph Mallia report on L. Ron Hubbard is about as flagrantly inaccurate as any I have ever seen. But now it’s my turn: I have spent the better part of the last eight years examining every point of L. Ron Hubbard’s life, every extant document, and the source of every allegation Mr. Mallia tosses off. And with all those eight years in mind, and all else I have witnessed through the preparation of an L. Ron Hubbard biography, I have only this to say: How does Joseph Mallia get off presenting an historical article on L. Ron Hubbard, and yet fail to even ask L. Ron Hubbard’s official biographer for a statement?

While to the Herald, which ran with the Mallia piece, I ask this: What makes your paper run?

o0o

Notes

  1. Document source: archive.org. Published in Scientology’s Boston Herald: Merchant of Sensationalism. ↩
  2. See Boston Herald series Scientology Unmasked > Judge Found Hubbard lied about achievements. ↩
  3. From Scientology’s published response to Scientology Unmasked, a page on Gerald Armstrong ↩

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

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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.

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Church wields celebrity clout (March 5, 1998)

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By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/5/981

It is the year 3000 and the earth is enslaved by invading aliens, evil 9-foot-tall “Psychlos” with glowing amber eyes.

Now mankind’s only hope is the heroic Johnny Goodboy Tyler – in an MGM film to be produced by actor John Travolta, based on a Church of Scientology novel titled “Battlefield Earth.”

Thanks to Travolta’s Hollywood clout, audiences worldwide may soon see this film, and get a dose of the philosophy of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

“Mankind … is imprisoned not so much by aliens who dominate the planet, but by superstition, until the hero Johnny Goodboy Tyler…(becomes) the first to break free,” Hubbard wrote.

Critics say this film, along with other Scientology media efforts, is a veiled attempt to gain converts and influence.

With books, sophisticated TV and print advertising campaigns, a 30,000-page Internet site, and its celebrity members’ clout on TV sitcoms and major films, Scientology uses a range of modern media to gain influence, church critics say.

How much clout does the church have?

Apparently a great deal.

President Clinton may have sided with Scientology against the German government in hopes of having Travolta soften his portrayal of a Clinton lookalike during filming of the movie “Primary Colors,” a recent report in George magazine said.

Since the church was founded in 1954, Hubbard encouraged his followers to enlist celebrities.

The policy, observers say, has paid off.

Since Travolta became a Scientologist in 1975, he has been joined by other acting heavyweights, including Tom Cruise, Cruise’s wife Nicole Kidman, Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston, and TV sitcom stars Kirstie Alley (“Cheers” and “Veronica’s Closet”) and Jenna Elfman (“Dharma & Greg”). All are outspoken church members.

“It was everything I had been looking for, answers to questions I had been asking forever. They finally got answered for me,” Elfman said in an interview published in a January Sunday newspaper supplement that reached millions of readers.

And last week, Elfman, Preston and other Scientology celebrities were scheduled to appear in Boston and other cities to promote Hubbard’s book “The Fundamentals of Thought.”

Jazzman Chick Corea – a Chelsea native who reportedly hopes to open a nightclub in Massachusetts – leads the church’s publicity battle against the German government, which is investigating Scientology for alleged fraud and anti-democratic acts.

And locally, musician Isaac Hayes hosted a reception at Roxbury Community College in Boston three years ago that helped local Scientologists bring their World Literacy Crusade learn-to-read program into the Randolph Public Schools and various inner city Boston youth agencies.

Other Scientology celebrities include actresses Nancy Cartwright (the voice of Bart on “The Simpsons”), Juliette Lewis (“Natural Born Killers”), Anne Archer (“Fatal Attraction),” and Elvis Presley’s widow and daughter Priscilla and Lisa Marie.

The musician and congressman, Sonny Bono, who died in January, was a longtime Scientologist.

Others who took Scientology courses, or who were members – some briefly – according to published reports, include football legend John Brodie, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, author William Burroughs; singers Van Morrison, Al Jarreau and Leonard Cohen; actors Emilio Estevez, Rock Hudson, Demi Moore, Candice Bergen, Brad Pitt, Christopher Reeve, Jerry Seinfeld and Patrick Swayze; and O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark.

Also, the Observer newspaper of London recently linked actress Sharon Stone to Scientology.

Ex-Scientologists the church would like to forget include members of the suicidal Heaven’s Gate cult, who were church members in the 1970s; and mass killer Charles Manson, who took church classes during a prison term that ended in 1967, before he and his cult followers massacred Sharon Tate and others.

Meanwhile, the church is conducting an 18-month advertising and publicity blitz, with 38 different TV ads aired to reach 70 percent of North American households. This campaign is intended to counteract negative publicity from Germany and from the death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson, a Dallas native who died during a church retreat in Florida, according to an August report in the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

Scientology-linked groups including Narconon also advertise on local cable channels in the Boston area, said anti-cult activist Steve Hassan of Cambridge.

Critics say, however, that the church’s celebrities never have to face the hardships faced by ordinary Scientologists, who often can’t afford to pay the required tens of thousands of dollars for courses and instead must trade their full-time labor.

Notes

The Boston Herald: Scientology Unmasked: Scientology group reaches kids through PBS videos (March 5, 1998)

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By JOSEPH MALLIA
Boston Herald
Date of Publication:3/5/981

More than 30 million American schoolchildren have watched PBS-TV math videos made by a Los Angeles-based foundation with intimate ties to the controversial Church of Scientology, the Herald has learned.

With lively camerawork and guest stars such as supermodel Cindy Crawford, comic Bill Cosby and athlete Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Peabody Award-winning videos have been paid for with at least $12 million in taxpayer funding since 1990, U.S. government documents show.

But the video company – known as FASE – has a hidden agenda promoting the “Purification Rundown,” the Church of Scientology’s $1,200 per-member detoxification ritual, said former top-ranked church member Robert Vaughn Young.

“FASE was originally created to put Scientology covertly into schools and government, to give the Purification Rundown an air of respectability,” said Young, of Seattle.

“Scientology created FASE so they could use it to get in the door,” the church defector said.

All the top executives at FASE are Scientologists and some are former members of the Church of Scientology’s notorious Guardian’s Office, some of whose leaders – including L. Ron Hubbard’s wife, Mary Sue – were imprisoned for spying on the U.S. government in the 1970s, Young said.

Founded in 1953, the Church of Scientology is criticized by anti-cult activists as a money-grabbing and fraudulent organization that uses deception to get new members for its high-priced programs.

FASE was created by the Church of Scientology in 1981, during the Cold War, to gather scientific proof that Hubbard’s controversial detox method could protect humans from radiation sickness in the event of a U.S.-U.S.S.R. nuclear war, Young said.

“Hubbard thought the end of the world was coming, through nuclear warfare. That really rattled some people,” Young recalled.

While the danger of U.S.-Soviet nuclear war subsided, the Purification Rundown is still widely practiced by Scientologists as a $1,200 preliminary religious ritual that all new members must buy – the first step on the Bridge to Total Freedom.

And the Rundown is sold only through the church – including its Boston branch at 448 Beacon St. – and two Scientology-connected organizations also headquartered in California: the non-profit Narconon and the for-profit detoxification clinic HealthMed.

The drug rehab regimen requires strenuous exercise, five hours of sweating in a sauna, megadoses of niacin, and ingesting a half-cup of vegetable oil – each day for two or three weeks.

Another ex-Scientologist, Dennis Erlich of Glendale, Calif., also said that FASE is intent on promoting the teachings of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

“They’re trying to pass themselves off as independent. But their real job is to spread Hubbard’s philosophy,” Erlich said.

Stand and deliver

For FASE, popular success began in the mid-1980s when it hitched its wagon to a star – Los Angeles math teacher Jaime Escalante, whose story was told in the 1987 feature film “Stand and Deliver” starring Edward James Olmos.

Buying air conditioners for his sweltering summer-school classrooms and backpacks for his students, FASE’s Scientologists were Escalante’s early supporters.

With the gruffly humorous Bolivian immigrant, FASE produced the Peabody award-winning “Futures… with Jaime Escalante” for junior and senior high school students.

Since 1990, the Scientologists at FASE have paid Escalante up to $160,000 a year to help produce math videos, federal documents show.

And since 1993, the video company has teamed up with exuberant math teacher Kay Toliver, of Harlem, whose series “The Eddie Files” is being distributed by PBS this year.

FASE denies any strong ties to the Church of Scientology. But a review by the Herald has found several, including:

— Incorporation papers filed in 1981 with the Attorney General of California, in Sacramento, showing that FASE was created for the explicit purpose of promoting “the works of L. Ron Hubbard.” The papers were later amended to remove Hubbard’s name.

— Several recent FASE publications that promote Scientology’s Purification Rundown. FASE’s own Internet site (www.fasenet.org) also promoted the detox method as recently as January. These “research reports” are cited by Narconon, a worldwide Scientology group whose New England chapter in Everett has given anti-drug lectures to more than 375,000 schoolchildren, the Herald reported this week.

— An Internet link to FASE on the Church of Scientology’s official 30,000-page Internet site, promoting Narconon. The Scientology link says “a 1989 study by the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education” proves the effectiveness of Narconon.

— An identical phrase that appears in Scientology scriptures and in a teacher’s guidebook for the PBS video series “Futures.” The guidebook phrase, “across a distance to a receipt-point,” is from a standard Scientology definition of the word “communication,” and it appears repeatedly in Scientology’s religious teachings, including the church’s “Axiom 28.”

While it is a short phrase, it covers a subject that church critics say is crucial to Scientology’s recruitment techniques. Mind control over new members starts with Scientology’s communication courses, said anti-cult specialist Steve Hassan of Cambridge.

The church connection

Meanwhile, many FASE employees have held full-time jobs with the Church of Scientology, or with church-connected organizations like Narconon or HealthMed, according to the church’s press releases and documents obtained from U.S. grant agencies.

Among FASE’s employment links to Scientology:

— Steven R. Heard, the founder and president of FASE, was a longtime member of the Church of Scientology’s powerful Guardian’s Office, ex-Scientologists said.

— Kathleen Heard, Steven Heard’s wife and another former member of the Guardian’s Office, was once Scientology’s chief spokeswoman and is now senior producer at FASE. In the 1970s Kathleen Heard’s name appeared on numerous Church of Scientology press releases while the church battled fraud suits filed by Boston lawyer Michael Flynn on behalf of embittered ex-members.

— Dave Hendry, FASE’s director of teacher enhancement, worked from 1974-1990 in Oregon for Delphi Academies, a chain of Scientology schools (including a location on Blue Hill Avenue in Milton), according to a resume Hendry submitted to U.S. government grant-makers. Hendry did not state in the resume that FASE or Delphi Academies are linked to Scientology.

— Shelley L. Beckmann, a molecular biologist who is FASE’s science director, has since 1985 devoted much of her research time to Narconon and HealthMed, church press releases say.

— Dr. Megan G. Shields, FASE’s medical researcher, is the top researcher for Narconon and HealthMed, and wrote the 1992 introduction to Hubbard’s detox textbook, “Clear Body, Clear Mind.”

— Jack Dirmann, FASE’s associate director, used to run the Scientology drug-rehab company HealthMed, according to published reports. HealthMed sells the “Purification” detox method to firefighters, municipal unions and other groups.

— Carl Smith, FASE’s video producer, also directs a FASE anti-pesticide campaign that is directed in part against pharmaceutical firms like Prozac maker Eli Lilly and Ritalin maker Ciba-Geigy; the Church of Scientology has long battled these companies as part of its stance against psychiatric drugs. Smith’s pesticide work also helps promote the Purification Rundown detox program by calling attention to toxins in human body fat.

Carl Smith acknowledged in a Herald interview that all FASE’s senior employees are Scientologists.

But FASE’s videos do not promote Hubbard’s religion, Smith said.

“Are you trying to say that we’re making LRH videotapes? It just doesn’t wash,” Smith said. “It’s an incorrect statement to say that these are vehicles for Scientology.”

Steven Heard, the foundation’s top official, denied that religion plays a part in FASE’s TV shows.

“I am a Scientologist, but that doesn’t affect our work,” Heard said.

Heard acknowledged, however, that FASE continues to study and promote the Church of Scientology’s detoxification program.

“It’s the only method that actually addresses fat-stored chemical residues,” Heard said in the interview.

Hendry, the teacher-training director, said that the company keys in on minorities. “We have always tried to feature minorities in our work. That’s what the NSF (National Science Foundation) wants,” he said.

Escalante, who came from La Paz, Bolivia, inspired his mostly Latin-American students with the “ganas” – the desire – to overcome anti-Hispanic prejudice and pass a tough advanced placement calculus test.

And in his “Futures” videos, FASE appealed to wider audiences by bringing in celebrity guest stars like Cosby and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Futures” made math relevant for inner-city kids, and showed them how Hispanics and African-Americans used math to earn good salaries as engineers and doctors. It attracted 15 million young viewers in 44 states, PBS said.

In Bay State schools

The public school system in Boston, for example, bought at least three sets of “Futures” videos. And a math teacher at Brighton High School who is also a Scientologist, Gerald Mazzarella, said in an interview that “Futures” was shown to every class in the school.

Boston Schools Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant, in response to questions about FASE, said he was concerned whether “the line separating church and state isn’t breached” by the TV company’s links to Scientology.

In more recent videos, FASE’s top star is Kay Toliver, an exuberant math teacher from East Harlem Tech in New York. Her programs, “Good Morning Miss Toliver” and “The Eddie Files,” have also reached an estimated 15 million children.

New segments of “The Eddie Files” are on the air this school year.

Public funding

Based on dozens of documents about FASE’s activities, obtained from the U.S. government under the Freedom of Information Act, the Herald has learned that:

— Nearly two-thirds of FASE’s $17 million production costs over a six-year period from 1990-1995 were paid for with $12 million-plus in U.S. government grants from the Departments of Justice, Commerce, Energy, Education and Labor; and the National Science Foundation. In its grant applications, FASE did not state that it was linked to the Church of Scientology.

— The remaining one-third of FASE’s budget was paid for with $5.5 million from major charities and corporations. These include Arco, IBM, the Carnegie Corp. of New York, and the Ronald McDonald Children’s Charity, government documents show.

— FASE commissioned a 1992 survey by the Dedham, pollster Research Communications Ltd., which showed that Hispanic and black children were influenced by the videos.

— FASE is now reaching bigger audiences with a Sci-Fi Channel special and other for-profit television shows, on the Internet, and at regional conferences with public school teachers nationwide. U.S. government agencies are paying for some of these efforts, including a FASE proposal to provide education news on video to superintendents, teachers and parents.

FASE’s yearly budget went from $729,342 in 1989 to $3 million four years later, the tax documents show.

In one year – 1992 – FASE paid $160,049 to Escalante; $112,000 to Kathleen Heard; $73,000 to Jack Dirmann; $130,000 to co-producer Rob Mikuriya; and $122,133 to Steven Heard. In 1993 and 1994 Steven Heard was paid $140,000, and Dirmann $87,400 in 1993 and $80,783 in 1994.

And its “free cash” bank account rose from $33,660 in 1992 to $611,626 two years later.

The church now enjoys tax-free religious status that it received from the Internal Revenue Service in 1993.

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