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IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA
CASE NO. 00-5682-CI-11
DELL LIEBREICH, as Personal Representative of the ESTATE OF LISA McPHERSON,
Plaintiff,vs.
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION, JANIS JOHNSON, ALAIN KARTUZINSKI and DAVID HOUGHTON, D.D.S.,
Defendants._______________________________________/
PROCEEDINGS: Defendants’ Omnibus Motion for Terminating Sanctions and Other Relief.
CONTENTS: Testimony of Jesse Prince.1
VOLUME 6
DATE: July 10, 2002. Morning Session.
PLACE: Courtroom B, Judicial Building
St. Petersburg, Florida.BEFORE: Honorable Susan F. Schaeffer, Circuit Judge.
REPORTED BY: Lynne J. Ide, RMR.
Deputy Official Court Reporter, Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida.Kanabay Court Reporters; Serving West Central Florida
Pinellas (727)821-3320 Hillsborough (813)224-9500
Tampa Airport Marriott Deposition Suite (813)224-9500722
APPEARANCES:
MR. KENNAN G. DANDAR
DANDAR & DANDAR
5340 West Kennedy Blvd., Suite 201
Tampa, FL 33602
Attorney for Plaintiff.MR. KENDRICK MOXON
MOXON & KOBRIN
1100 Cleveland Street, Suite 900
Clearwater, FL 33755
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.MR. LEE FUGATE
MR. MORRIS WEINBERG, JR.
ZUCKERMAN, SPAEDER
101 E. Kennedy Blvd, Suite 1200
Tampa, FL 33602-5147
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.MR. ERIC M. LIEBERMAN
RABINOWITZ, BOUDIN, STANDARD
740 Broadway at Astor Place
New York, NY 10003-9518
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.MR. HOWARD ROSS
Battaglia, Ross, Dicus & Wein, P.A.
980 Tyrone Boulevard
St. Petersburg, Florida 33710
Counsel for Robert Minton.THE COURT: Good morning. Mr. Prince. All right. Mr. Dandar, you are standing. You must want something.
MR. DANDAR: Well, we have a proposed order here. I have some responses here. I have declarations of Stacy Brooks and others I want to file. But let’s just go with Mr. Prince.
THE COURT: Okay.
(A discussion was held off the record.)
THE COURT: What day is today? The 10th? I was looking, what is — how many days of hearings is this?
THE BAILIFF: 30.
THE COURT: No, no. Mr. Bailiff says 30. Does anybody —
MR. WEINBERG: Add zero to that. That is where we are.
THE COURT: Is that where we are, 30?
MR. WEINBERG: I think so.
THE COURT: Good morning, Mr. Ross. Are you designated Mr. Minton’s attorney here today?
MR. ROSS: That is correct.
THE COURT: I think that probably you have been advised Mr. Minton needs a lawyer in this proceeding and, therefore, we welcome you. But you have no ability to object in this particular proceeding.
MR. ROSS: I understand, your Honor.
THE COURT: You understand you may hear some very weird testimony as far as some strange evidentiary rulings. But this is a strange hearing and sort of the rules of evidence — we’re going to deal with that after the hearing.
MR. ROSS: I understand.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: Just give me a minute, your Honor.
THE COURT: I will. I will ask Mr. Dandar, while you are doing that, did you have a chance to E-Mail Mr. Henson?
MR. DANDAR: Yes, I did. And he E-mailed me back and said, “Can you find me a lawyer, is it worth it?” I said no, both questions.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. FUGATE: Your Honor, I notified Mr. Hill’s secretary that Mr. Rosen would not be called. And I should have an order here on the pro hac vice, if it is not by the morning break, by noontime.
THE COURT: All right. Fine.
MR. LIEBERMAN: I would just like to inquire, does that mean Mr. Henson is abandoning his motion?
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THE COURT: No, I think what that means, he will not be represented. And I suspect you should — as I said, let me have time to read it. I may be able to rule on your motion without any argument.
MR. LIEBERMAN: Very good.
THE COURT: But, frankly, I want to still leave it scheduled for hearing, because he may get somebody to appear. And we’ll deal with it at the scheduled time. I would not assume that is an abandonment.
MR. LIEBERMAN: All right.
MR. DANDAR: Right.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: All right? I’m ready.
THE COURT: You may proceed.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Mr. Prince, you — I think you said on your direct testimony — but let me go over it again — you have testified previously as a witness under oath in either trial testimony or deposition testimony. Is that right?
A In this — in this case, yes, I have.
Q In other cases, as well. Correct?
A Yes, I have.
Q And — and is it your testimony that at all times
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in those other cases when you were under oath, that you testified truthfully?
A Yes, it is.
Q Okay. Now, yesterday — or the day before, whenever it was — you testified that you had participated in the destruction of PC folders, particularly Mr. Wollersheim’s PC folder which he said was pulped, I believe, while you were at RTC?
A Correct.
Q Now, you remember testifying as a witness in 1989 in the lawsuit Religious Technology versus Joseph Yanny?
A I do not.
Q You don’t remember that?
A No, I do not.
THE COURT: I don’t even remember hearing about that case. That is a new one for me.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I thought you testified, by the way, on your direct, that you had been a witness in that case, in fact, that while you were in Scientology, you were actually a witness in that case.
A No. While I was in Scientology I said I was a witness in the Wollersheim 4 case, specifically concerning the Advanced ability Center, David Mayo.
MR. WEINBERG: Could I approach the witness,
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your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Let me show you a transcript of your deposition taken in Los Angeles, California on September 11, 1989 and ask you if you can identify that transcript and identify that as your testimony on that day under oath, and at the end you’ll see an errata sheet which I believe also has your signature on it.
A What is this on? On September ’89? Okay.
Then —
Q At the end is an errata sheet. Do you see that?
A Uh-huh.
Q And you see that you — do you recognize your signature on there dated —
A 12 December, ’89. Yes, I do.
Q Obviously — I’ll leave this here because I have a few questions on it. Obviously you testified as a witness in 1989 and were given the opportunity to review that testimony and make corrections. Correct?
A I don’t — Mmm — recall that, Mr. Weinberg, but since I did sign the errata sheet, I’ll say okay.
MR. DANDAR: I would like to have a copy of that, Judge. If they’re going to start using it, pulling things out of context, I would like to be
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able to review it.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, it’s amazing I’m being accused of pulling something out of context.
MR. DANDAR: We all do, we pull something out and say, “Did you say this?”
THE COURT: If you are going to use a deposition and he doesn’t have a copy of it, he ought to have a copy of it.
MR. WEINBERG: Do we have an extra copy of it?
Do we have copies of these?
THE COURT: I tell you what, go ahead and use it and then get him a copy before Mr. Dandar —
Mr. Dandar, please listen if you care, maybe you don’t care. If you care, I’ll have them provide you a copy of the deposition before your redirect.
MR. DANDAR: Thank you.
THE COURT: If anything was pulled out of context, you can correct it.
MR. DANDAR: Okay. Thank you.
MR. WEINBERG: Now, in addition —
THE COURT: You-all provide him a copy.
MR. WEINBERG: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, in addition to your testimony in this proceeding that you had participated in the destruction of
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PC folders, you also, in your August 20, 1999 affidavit, that is the — the affidavit where you made the accusation about David Miscavige, in that affidavit, in Paragraph 22 you swore that you had participated in the destruction of Wollersheim’s PC folder. Correct?
A Correct.
Q Now, if you will turn, Mr. Prince — when I get the right folder here — to Page 153 of your Yanny deposition. You find Page 153?
A Mmm, just about. I have it here.
Q I want you to read Line 5, 6 and 7.
“Question: Were you ever involved in the destruction of PC folders?
“Answer. No.”
Okay. That was your sworn testimony then, correct?
A Yes, it was.
Q And when you go to that errata sheet, does it say anything about you making any mistakes with regard to that sworn answer where you swore under oath in 1989 that you had not been involved in the destruction of PC folders?
A Mr. — you know, I don’t recall this errata sheet, to answer the question that quickly. I don’t even recall the errata sheet.
THE COURT: The real question is that was your
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testimony on that date, is that right?
THE WITNESS: Yes, this was the testimony I had given on that date.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And you previously testified that all your prior sworn testimony was true. Correct?
A Correct.
Q So you lied here in court when you said that you had participated in PC folders being destroyed?
A Well, you know, I have to at least look at a couple pages earlier here to kind of get an idea what was going on here to orient myself to 1989.
Q Look at a couple pages earlier.
THE COURT: Might I just ask, where he was reading, was he testifying for plaintiff, or defendant?
MR. WEINBERG: He was testifying for the Church. For RTC.
A Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q That was certainly — you wouldn’t have had a recollection problem back in 1989, would you, as to what had occurred a year or so or two or three before that, as opposed to 2002, talking about things that supposedly happened?
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A Mmm, Mr. Weinberg, I — I don’t think I would have had a recollection problem, but maybe I would have had a problem with coercion.
Q Let’s see now —
A Or — or manipulation.
Q Excuse me. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.
A Or manipulation. This was a very bad time for me. This was shortly — well, let’s see, this was a couple years after I had been away from any position of authority. I was still being asked to — Mmm — participate in the courts, for whatever reason, God only knows. And I was not in a very good state of mind.
Q Well, I thought you said you were relieved yesterday to leave your post at RTC and that you were in a better state of mind as a result of being relieved and not having to do all those things that you swore yesterday and the day before that you had participated in.
A Certainly in that regard, Mr. Weinberg, I was relieved. But I didn’t have a lot of direction for my life.
I think I was pretty suicidal at that point. And I had written about that, as well.
Q All right. So you started saying these things about destroying PC folders after people started paying you,like Mr. Minton and Mr. Leipold and through Mr. Dandar, that
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is when you started saying these things, not when you weren’t being paid.
A No, Mr. Weinberg, quite the contrary. I — this came out because I decided that it was no longer an operating principle of mine that the greatest good is for Scientology. I kind of — you know, just kind of got away from that.
Q So it’s a principle now the greatest good for Jesse Prince, whoever will put the money in your pocket, that is what you’ll say?
A No, Mr. Weinberg, the greatest good is the truth and justice and equity.
Q All right. So what you’re saying, just so I get this right, you lied back in 1989?
A Yes — yes. According to these documents, I lied on behalf of Scientology.
Q All right. And you lied in — I’ll just refresh your recollection about being asked about this before — do you remember giving a deposition in this case when — when I deposed you?
A I think you and I have been at it a time or two.
Q And do you remember that I asked you the questions on Page — I’ll refer now to Page 465 of your deposition of — of November 17, November 18, 1999.
“Question: Now, when you testified — how many
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times have you testified in your entire career, life?
“Answer: In a courtroom or deposition setting?
“Question: Both.
“Answer: Possibly five.
“Question: All right, and each time you testified, whether in deposition or in court, you were under oath, right?
“Answer: Correct.
“You raised your hand and swore to tell the truth.
“Answer: Correct.
“Question: Nothing but the truth, right?
“Answer: Correct.
“And you testified truthfully on those five occasions.
“Answer: Correct.
“Question: You didn’t perjure yourself.
“Answer: Correct.
“Question: So if you were asked the questions in a deposition that I asked and those were your answers then when you gave those answers, it is your testimony that they were truthful answers, correct?
“Answer: Well, you know, yeah, okay. I’ll say yeah, okay, yeah.”
Then later in the deposition — do you remember being asked those questions and giving those answers?
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A No, I do not, Mr. Weinberg.
Q Do you remember being asked on Page 469 of your deposition two years ago, “You testified in the Yanny case we’ve already talked about, was that deposition and trial or just deposition?
“Answer: I believe it was just deposition. And again, I was never afforded the opportunity — well, no, I’m sorry, I’ll answer the direct question, I won’t tell stories. Yes.”
Do you remember being asked that question and giving that answer?
A No, Mr. Weinberg. But if it’s there, then I believe it.
Q So apparently three years ago when we took your deposition you remembered the Yanny case testimony but today you don’t?
A I — Mr. Weinberg, I think that is a bit of mischaracterization to say I would have remembered the Yanny testimony. You know, this document here is a couple hundred pages long. I — I don’t think any of us are capable of remembering a couple hundred pages of something that happened ten years ago.
Q Is there a particular reason why, in all these accusations you made against Scientology, you didn’t say,
“And they told me to perjure myself in 1989 in the Yanny
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deposition”? Why didn’t you do that?
A Well, the fact of the matter is, Mr. Weinberg, again, like I — I was damaged goods during that time. I had gone through a lot of stress, a lot of — Mmm — decisions to change my life. Mmm, didn’t have certain — you know, a certainty on where I was going with my life. I felt pretty hopeless.
But let’s talk about the perjury here since this is the subject here. What I have testified to before concerning preclear folder destruction is the fact that because these preclear folders of Mr. Wollersheim were being asked to be produced and ultimately the whole folders were turned over, the order to destroy the folders came from Mr. Miscavige with Mr. Rathbun present, myself, Vicki Aznaran. It became my responsibility to report when that fact was done.
I myself was not the person that destroyed the preclear folders or had — or pulped them. Rick Aznaran is the person, along with another current Office of Special Affairs, Charlie Earl, rented a truck, took these folders; Vicki Aznaran — Lawrence Wollersheim, possibly Bill Franks, Gerry Armstrong and others took them to the recycling plant, and when Mr. Aznaran came back, he showed me a liquid bottle with paper on — with the pulp paper on the bottom.
So technically did I know about it? Yes.
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Technically did I do it? No.
Q Oh, I see.
A But I sanctioned it and I went along with it.
Q So perjury — the question was: “Were you ever involved in the destruction of PC folders?
“Answer: No.”
That is not perjury because you have somehow justified in your mind that you really weren’t involved because you didn’t actually pull the switch? Is that what you’re saying?
A No, I’m saying that I’m not the person that actually did it myself, but I knew about it. And reported about it.
Q Is that —
A I didn’t stop it. So, you know, the fact of the matter is I won’t beat around the bush with you, Mr. Weinberg. Right here I was not being truthful.
Q Now, did somebody tell you to perjure yourself?
Is this something that somebody told you to do? Or you just did this on your own?
A No, I was told to do it. Mr. Earle Cooley, who was lead counsel for the Church of Scientology at the time, wanted me to do it. Mr. Rathbun, who was — was again and always responsible for church legal, wanted me to do it.
Mmm, I was being a good Scientologist and protecting
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Scientology.
Q That is amazing. So when this started out you didn’t have any recollection of the Yanny deposition, you don’t remember having even signed the errata sheet, and now you have this clear recollection that — that Mr. Cooley, a lawyer who is on the board of trustees of Boston College — or Boston University, and Mr. Rathbun told you to lie? Is that what you’re saying now?
A Mr. — Mr. Weinberg, I mean, because we are talking about this, because you have presented me with documentation, we’ve discussed it, I think I do have a mind and I can have some recollection about this. And I’m just telling you what happened here.
Mmm, there are other things that I have written specifically about my relationship with Earle Cooley, and because you have all of those E-Mails, I’m sure you have those in evidence, too. That is not the only thing that I thought was unethical that happened with Mr. Cooley, irrespective of where he sits.
Q So the way it works is, if we can catch you at it and if we can show you a video or show you some testimony where you perjured yourself, then it’s an indiscretion, essentially, you sort of caught me. Is that the way it works?
MR. DANDAR: Objection, argumentative.
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THE COURT: Sustained.
A Mmm —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q It was sustained, Mr. Prince.
THE COURT: You don’t have to answer the question.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, you said your life was hopeless?
A Correct.
Q When was this deposition, 1989?
A Correct.
Q But having been hopeless, you stayed another three years?
A I stayed another five years after my life was pretty much hopeless. You know, I fell into the hopelessness — you know, right in 1987 when that whole thing happened I was ready to leave Scientology at that point. All I wanted to do was walk away. I had to escape to leave because I was in the RPF, walking through the desert, on and on, and I’m sure you don’t want to hear that story.
Q That story? Is that what you said? Do I want to hear the story?
A Let’s please maintain civility here, Mr. Weinberg.
Q All right, I asked you —
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A I’m trying to explain this to you. I had escaped. I had helped Vicki Aznaran escape. We were being kept in the RPF in a — behind a — Soboba Indian Reservation in the most horrid conditions. All I wanted to do was walk away. I had to threaten to go to the press, threaten to go to the police, the same thing I suspect Lisa had to do when she tried to leave, as well.
And ultimately because the woman that I was married to, who had no idea what I had been involved in, what my position really was in the Church of Scientology, what my participation was, it came down to Mr. Mithoff, Mr. Miscavige specifically talking to my wife and telling her what a horrible person I was and that I’m blowing and I’m psychotic and I’m crazy because I want to leave and this kind of thing.
So then I was faced with even a bigger problem. And my bigger problem was now am I just going to walk out of Scientology and leave this person that I love, that I’m married to, because she hasn’t woke even up, because she doesn’t understand, because I haven’t been with her and let her know what’s going on. And that is kind of a problem in Scientology in and of itself because the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. You are not allowed to talk about your case, you’re not allowed to talk about secret this, secret that. So we had had a breach of
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communication for many years.
But in my mind at that time I was thinking, you know, I’m not going to desert another person in my life, I’m not going to desert this woman for Scientology. I will sit here with her until she sees what I see. And I was actually, therefore, there for another five years.
And these are points I have written about as well.
I felt almost like an animal, I had no mind, no brain, no will, nothing. And this is what happened to me and I went and did this and it was wrong. And yeah, I did that and you have pointed it out and here we are.
Q Now, in 1989 when you perjured yourself —
A Uh-huh?
Q — according to your testimony now, or didn’t, depending upon whether you perjured yourself in this hearing, you weren’t on the RPF, were you, in 1989? You were working in the Golden Era studio, correct?
A I think in 1989 I was on what is considered — what is called the DPF, the Deck Project Force. The reason I say that is because in 1987 when I was removed from my position and I went to the RPF — Mmm — I think I was there for — until December of ’87.
In December of ’87 I got off the RPF, I started trying to practice auditing again. I did that for some time and really didn’t want to do it anymore.
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Toward the end of ’88, I believe, a security guard at Golden Era Productions got kind of rough with my wife.
THE COURT: You know, this really doesn’t matter where he was. You weren’t in RPF.
A No, I was in DPF. I wasn’t in Golden Era Productions, I mean, working in the studios, as you suggested. I was actually on the DPF. And this is the same period I did that watch with Mrs. Brooks, Terese or — or Teresita —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q That was in ’88?
A That was in ’88?
Q Yes. You say things were hopeless for you?
Things were hopeless for you in 1997 and 1998, as well, wasn’t it?
A I wouldn’t say that.
Q You filed for bankruptcy and went bankrupt in November of — filed in what, May of ’97, and it was finalized in November of ’97, correct?
A I believe there are documents to that effect that have the correct dates.
Q But — but you went bankrupt in 1997, correct?
A Mmm —
Q Yes, or no?
A Yes, I did. I believe that is correct.
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Q So you were broke in 1997?
A I filed for bankruptcy in 1997, but I — I wasn’t able to pay my bills adequately in 1997.
Q And except for Mr. Minton coming like an angel from heaven in June of 1998, you didn’t know what you were going to do?
A Utterly and completely false.
Q After Mr. Minton appeared on the scene you then hooked up with Stacy Brooks, you hooked up with Dan Leipold, you hooked up with Ken Dandar, and since that time this is what you have been doing, getting paid to testify, write affidavits and work against Scientology, correct?
A No, that is absolutely incorrect and it is false.
Q Now, let’s go back to the deposition for a moment.
Now, you testified under oath a lot about the GO and OSA and all that. Do you remember that, here in this proceeding? You said you had all this knowledge about the kinds of activities that had gone on. Do you remember that?
A No, I think you are mischaracterizing my earlier testimony. I don’t think that the words Guardian’s Office exited my lips during these proceedings. I have spoke about OSA and I have — I have presented Mr. Hubbard’s eternal words on — on what intelligence is expected to do, what legal is expected to do and some of what public relations is supposed to do. I think that better characterizes —
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Q Well, let me refresh your recollection, if you remember on June 18 saying, “Question, was there any carryover from the Guardian’s Office to OSA?
“Answer: Yes, there was, there was a carryover of some of the staff and some of the policies. Then you went on to say, “Question, was OSA still Department 20 like the Guardian’s Office was?
You said, “Yes, OSA wanted to make sure they didn’t make the same mistakes as the past Guardian Office was. One of the mistakes was putting in writing and detailing some of the operations.”
A Yes, I did.
Q Do you remember that?
A Yes.
Q Now, turn to Page 149, please, of the Yanny deposition.
A Okay.
Q I want you to read Line 5 through Line 16 — Line 5 through Line 13 — 16, I’m sorry.
A To 16?
Q Yes, just read it out loud.
MR. DANDAR: Objection, that is not the way you do it.
THE COURT: That is true.
A I have read it.
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BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I’ll read it. Did you give — were you asked these questions and give these answers?
MR. DANDAR: Objection, that is not the way you —
THE COURT: Yes, it is the way you do it.
Overruled.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q “You ever heard of the GO?
“Answer: Yes.
“Question: What was the GO?
“It was Guardian’s Office.
“Question: And Mary Sue Hubbard was in charge of that for a period of time?
“Answer: I have no knowledge of the Guardian’s Office. I was never associated or affiliated with it in any way.
“Answer (sic): You do know that a number of Guardian’s Office people went to jail?
“Answer: I don’t –”
Then there was objection.
A Okay.
Q Were you asked those questions and give those answers?
A Yes, that is correct.
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Q And that was true or was that perjury, as well, that you had no knowledge of the Guardian’s Office?
A Well, that was true then and it is true now.
Prior to my association with going to Gilman Hot Springs, I had — you know — you know, I had done protests at the behest of the Guardian’s Office where all Scientologists got together, and I think did a demonstration of the courthouse down there at a point in time on — Hebert would — what they do is they have a thing in Scientology called a call to arms —
Q Really, all I asked you, was that true or not and you said it was true that —
A Okay.
Q Using your words, you had no percipient knowledge —
A Well, I don’t want to play —
Q Can I ask my question first?
A I told you that there was — you know, was some association with the Guardian Office, and I tried to clarify that. So you know, I don’t want to get into word games here where you say, well, you said you never did it but suddenly now you have me picketing at the behest of Scientology. I mean, little activities like that, I mean, I popped out of a coffin across the park doing a skit based on something that —
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Q I understand, but you waxed eloquent about the GO and how it’s the same — OSA was the same, and under oath here you said you didn’t know, didn’t have information about the GO. You didn’t know anything about it.
A No, I think you are confused on that issue, Mr. Weinberg.
Q Now, do you remember testifying in this proceeding that — that you were — had responsibility for legal, intelligence and PR activities of OSA? Do you remember that?
A Yes.
Q Particularly intelligence activities of OSA, that was your testimony?
THE COURT: Could you define or tell him — I don’t remember, was it here in this hearing?
MR. WEINBERG: That is what I said. I was just reading from his testimony.
THE COURT: Here?
MR. WEINBERG: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG: Q I’ll read — this is the dirty — when I say dirty, this is the —
THE COURT: Dirty copy, I know.
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BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q The dirty copy, but on my Page 71 of the dirty copy, which is obviously not the actual transcript, what it says is, “As I mentioned –” this is your answer — “we used to do the technology side of Scientology. Then there was a separate area, areas that I also had responsibility for.
And those were legal, intelligence and PR activities of OSA which is a separate network in Scientology.”
That was your testimony, right?
A Yes. Yes.
Q Now, I want you to turn, if you will, Mr. Prince,to Page 77, first, of your Yanny depo. While you are looking for it, you were deputy inspector general of RTC, correct?
A Correct.
Q And it was deputy inspector general external was your actual — DIG external, right?
A Right.
Q Did you — if you go to the bottom of the page, Line 22, were you asked this question and did you give this answer.
“Question: Back when you were the DIG external, did you have any responsibility for intelligence?
“Answer: Not particularly.
“Question: Is there a group or subgroup within
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Scientology organization referred to as Intel?
“Answer: No, not that I know of.
“Question: Has Intel ever been part of your job description?
“Answer: No.
“Have you ever had any responsibility for Intel?
“Answer: No.”
Were you asked those questions and did you give those answers?
A Yes, I did.
Q And was that truthful testimony?
A Yes, it was. And you know, in — inasmuch as it — that it was deceptive testimony because we’ve sat here and we’ve gone over all of these Scientology issues, now that says intelligence action, this, that and other thing, but when the GO was gotten rid of, the section that was called intelligence was no longer called intelligence; it was called the information bureau. And I think if you look at a current organization chart for the Office of Special Affairs, you will find that it says information bureau. It doesn’t say intelligence bureau. But if you look at the materials that the persons are trained on in the information bureau, it is intelligence.
Q It is sort of like your testimony yesterday where I asked you about the picket sign, you know, in front of
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Mr. Minton’s house and you said you didn’t own a sign?
A You know, I don’t know about that, Mr. —
Q Was that truthful but deceptive testimony, or is that sort of like an example of what you’re talking about?
A I don’t know about that analogy, Mr. Weinberg. I think you are confused on that issue and you are mixing apples and oranges. But I pretty much answered your question with this.
Q All right. So this is truthful but — and so what is — by the way, just so — it’s not perjury when you tell the truth but you are deceptive? In your mind, that is okay?
A Well, you know, I’m —
Q Just answer the question.
A I’m not going to draw a legal conclusions. You are the trained lawyer here. I’m the trained Scientologist.
Q You are the trained witness.
A I can tell you about that. I can’t tell you about the lawyering so much. I can’t explain the law to you. You can explain that to me.
Q Explain to me how you are being truthful when you are being deceptive?
A By the mere fact being deceptive, you are not being totally honest. But then again, as I understand the law, you are not obligated to answer but an exact question,
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and the exact question here was about intelligence and — and again, I’ll tell you, when the GO was changed, the word “intelligence” was gotten rid of and the word “information” was put in there; information bureau, information department.
So if they would have said information department, I could have answered these questions a little differently.
But I didn’t say, oh, you know, well, they changed intelligence to information because no person wants a witness walking in just blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah. Answer the question you are asked and that is it, okay.
THE COURT: Sort of like you are doing now?
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q So why did you use the word “intelligence” when you testified for Mr. Dandar? I just read you the testimony. “In those areas that I was responsible for, legal, intelligence and PR activities of OSA,” why did you use the word “intelligence”?
A Because I was able to take the eternal words of L. Ron Hubbard that had that on there and show it. I used it because that is what the issue says.
Q And by the way, that is acceptable to you to give truthful but deceptive testimony? That is acceptable to you as you sit here as a so-called expert in Scientology?
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A It is acceptable to me to answer — answer the question that is asked.
Q So I have got to ask the absolutely right question or you can deceive me and there is no problem here? You can deceive me and the Court? And everybody else that is — that is in this room?
A Mmm, well, you know, you can call it deception or you can call it inadequate lawyering. I mean, I don’t know. What do you want to say about it?
Q Well, have you had any of those answers while you have been on the stand, those truthful but deceptive answers? Can you think of a couple where we just missed the question a little bit?
A You know, Mr. Weinberg, I think I’m making a valiant effort here to keep perspective and keep things in perspective. And I think I have gone overboard in explaining my rationale.
THE COURT: The question is, Mr. Prince, is there any time in this hearing you have not told the absolute whole truth, that is what the oath is, the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth?
THE WITNESS: No, there is not.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, you testified, I think — correct me if I’m
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wrong — a number of times that — that Mr. Miscavige was deeply involved in the activities of you and Ms. Aznaran at the RTC and that — and that you and her reported to Mr. Miscavige when you were there. Is that right?
A Mmm, partially right. I — I don’t — don’t remember saying Miscavige was deeply involved with me and Mrs. Aznaran in RTC. I don’t remember —
THE COURT: He did say he reported —
THE WITNESS: Yes, but the other part, I —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Let’s make it clear because that is actually the question I wanted to ask you. You said — you testified under oath you reported to David Miscavige while you were DIG external at RTC?
A I — ultimately, I did report to him, yes.
THE COURT: Frankly, I think he said he reported to Vicki Aznaran.
MR. WEINBERG: I’m just asking him now — we’ll, I’ll read you what he said.
THE COURT: You have to read him what he says because I can’t even remember, myself.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q This is actually the real transcript, Page 342, lines 19 through 25. And this is in response to a question from Mr. Dandar. And you say: “Answer: So you know from
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the –”
THE COURT: Read the question.
MR. WEINBERG: That is what I’m trying to find.
There was a lot of interruptions.
MR. DANDAR: Well, that is surprising!
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Mr. Prince just starts talking. There was — there was dialogue about the Clearwater Police Department.
THE COURT: Well, let me hear what it is you are wanting to read to him, then we’ll see if he can remember this testimony.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Okay.
“Answer: So you know from the limited time that I was there in Religious Technology Center myself, I know that — you know, there wasn’t much about the Flag Service Organization I didn’t know about and also had responsibilities for to make sure the whole thing ran smoothly, and the person that I reported to was certainly the — ultimately was Mr. Miscavige.”
That is what you said?
A Correct. That doesn’t mean to the exclusion of Mrs. Aznaran who was my direct —
Q No, I didn’t — wasn’t suggesting that.
A Okay.
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Q Now, if you’ll go to — by the way, did you also report to Marty Rathbun back then?
A Yes. Yes.
Q If you go to Page 52 of the Yanny deposition, please —
A Was that 52, Mr. Weinberg?
Q Yes, 52.
A Okay.
Q Look at Line 15 through 19.
“Question –” were you asked these questions and gave these answers under oath.
“Question: Back in this ’84, ’86 time period did you ever have an occasion to report to Marty Rathbun?
“Answer: No.
“Question: Did you ever report to David Miscavige?
“Answer: No.”
A Right.
Q Were you asked those questions, did you give those answers?
A Yes, I did.
Q Were those truthful answers?
A No, they were not.
Q So you perjured yourself?
A Correct.
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THE COURT: I honestly don’t want you to use the word “perjury.” Perjury is a term of law.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
THE COURT: Lie would be fine.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, I have had judges tell me not to use lie because it is inflammatory.
THE COURT: If that were in front of a jury, that may be true, but for me in this particular proceeding perjury is a term of law.
MR. WEINBERG: Fine.
THE COURT: If you say is that a lie, that would be fine.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Was that a lie?
A Yes, it was.
Q And did somebody instruct you to lie?
A Yes. Again, Mr. Earle Cooley, Mr. Rathbun.
Again, I’m being a good Scientologist and I’m protecting Scientology.
Q And you’re not being a good anti-Scientologist as you sit on the stand in this proceeding and write affidavits and stuff like that, correct?
A I’m sorry, I didn’t understand the question.
Q Well, is there a code of ethics for people like you that are part of the anti-Scientology movement?
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MR. DANDAR: I’ll object to the phrase “Anti-Scientology movement.” I don’t know if that has been established anywhere.
THE COURT: I think you need to save that for another time.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Is there a code of ethics, did you and members of the A team and those people that were carrying the signs for the Lisa McPherson Trust that we saw that video yesterday, was there some code of ethics as to what you guys were going to do when you were under oath?
A Mr. Weinberg, no one carried a sign for the Lisa McPherson Trust. You know, you make it impossible for me to answer these questions when you draw these conclusions and inferences that simply are just not true.
Q Well —
THE COURT: So the question is, was there a code of ethics that you and Mr. Minton and —
MR. WEINBERG: Ms. Brooks.
THE COURT: — Ms. Brooks developed when you were to testify?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: In this proceeding?
THE WITNESS: No. The answer to the question,
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your Honor, is no.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, you have testified again today about the RPF and I believe that on direct — and I’ll read you your testimony if you don’t remember it, but I believe that you have referred to the RPF as being a concentration camp or something like that, correct?
THE COURT: Prison camp.
A Prison camp.
MR. WEINBERG: Actually, in this transcript it says concentration camp on Page 456.
THE COURT: I heard prison camp for sure.
Prison, concentration camp, I guess they’re all the same.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, actually —
THE COURT: They’re not.
MR. WEINBERG: In my mind a concentration camp brings images of Nazi Germany, and a prison camp, you know, we have them in Florida. But —
MR. DANDAR: Well, Japanese had concentration camps in the United States. We had —
MR. WEINBERG: I’m not even going there.
MR. DANDAR: There must be a difference.
THE COURT: Maybe not to this particular witness. He may not — not make a distinction.
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THE WITNESS: Well, actually, your Honor, I think there is a distinction in that I think the Rehabilitation Project Force is more akin to a concentration camp in that part of the program is to have not — not only to have a mind-altering experience, but to have a total revamping of the way you were before.
THE COURT: Okay. So you refer to it as a concentration camp?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q By the way, did you lose a lot of weight when you were in the RPF?
A Which time?
Q I mean, did you get meals?
A Which time?
Q You said you were in twice, I believe.
A Right. So you mean both times?
THE COURT: Either time.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Either time.
A The first time I lost weight dramatically. I think I got down to 144 pounds because we weren’t allowed to eat regular food, we had to eat fruit and — and protein supplement called Progest. Then we had to run around with
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plastic suits on our body to, quote/unquote, get the impurities out. This is all we were allowed to eat is fruit and Progest.
Q That was in the ’70s?
A That was ’77.
Q So then in ’87 when, you know, everything came down on you and you got —
A I lost weight there, too, yes.
Q Were you running around drinking protein drinks and wearing sweat suits?
A No, not the second time.
Q Now, you testified that you were — let me quote — “forcibly,” quote/unquote, that is what you said here, “removed from the RTC.” That is what you said on the stand.
A Yes.
Q Do you remember that? Now, when you said forcibly, what — what were you referring to?
A Well, I was referring to a couple of things.
Prior to assuming any position as a board member in the Scientology conglomerate, the one thing that you’re asked to do in order to have this position is to sign an undated resignation.
After signing an undated resignation, then you are allowed to be a corporate officer, on the board of directors
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or — or some such like that, you know, having to do with corporate matters.
So I was a — on the board of directors of the Religious Technology Center. I was the treasurer. But when I was graced with that position I also at that time had to sign an undated resignation. Again, I was woken up at I guess 5 o’clock in the morning with 12 people in — security guards wearing uniforms like they’re on a mission, and I was told that I was removed, I was shown my undated resignation so that, you know — and this is a legal process. And apparently this is a problem that they had, but I won’t diverge, but this and this, and I was told, “You stand up, you call me sir.”
Miscavige wanted me to do that, and I didn’t want to do it.
So they grabbed me and they started jumping me.
Q All right. That is the gun thing?
A Right.
Q The gun thing?
A Right. We talked about that yesterday.
THE COURT: Are you also talking about the fact your resignation was filled in, is that what you considered part of forcible removal? Or not?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: So when you mentioned that, that is also part of your forcibly removed because it was
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filled in and, therefore, you were removed?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, you understood when Scientology reorganized in the early ’80s and created RTC and CSI and a variety of other corporations, you understood that there was a corporate structure then that was very clear and defined in corporate documents, correct?
A Before —
Q You understood that?
A Before or after — I guess — there was a corporate structure before they created RTC, CSI, all these other corporations?
Q No, I said you understood in the early ’80s, the Church of Scientology reorganized with a new corporate structure —
A Right.
Q — including the RTC, CSI, which was the mother church, and all the churches under them. You understood that, right?
A Yes. Yes.
Q And there was a very detailed corporate structure with — with articles of incorporation and various agreements that set forth clearly the corporate way in which various — Scientology would be run, correct?
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A Correct.
Q And that was the wish and desire of L. Ron Hubbard, who was still alive that that happened, that there be this reorganization of the church?
A You know, I can’t say that that is true. I can’t —
THE COURT: Who would care? The idea there was a corporate reorganization, surely this is going somewhere.
MR. WEINBERG: It is going somewhere.
THE COURT: Get there.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q The RTC was composed of a board of directors.
Correct?
A That was part of it, sure.
Q And there were trustees?
A Correct.
Q In fact, there were trustees in every Scientology corporation, correct?
A Well, I came to learn that in 1987. But you are correct.
Q Well, you learned when you joined RTC that there were trustees, there were three trustees?
A No. No. No.
Q Well, what you learned is that the trustees had
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one function, correct, and that is to — that is to — to name or remove directors. You understood that, didn’t you?
A No, sir.
Q And you were removed in 1987, along with Ms. Aznaran, by the trustees of RTC, one of which was Mr. Miscavige, correct?
A Incorrect. I was removed by one person, only one person’s will, on one person’s authority, and that was Mr. Miscavige.
Q Was he one of the trustees of RTC?
A Yes. And this got explained to me as he was doing this. You know, he — you know, and I guess I was a bit naive, you know, I didn’t know. I wasn’t a corporate person. I’m not trained, you know.
And he explained it to me very well. He said, “Look, I am a trustee. Norman is a trustee.” I think Marty may have been a trustee or Steve Marlowe may have been a trustee. I’m not sure. And he explained to me how it worked.
And he said, “Here is your undated resignation and you have officially resigned and this is how it works and we have the authority to do that.” And at that point I was cognizant of how it worked.
Q Are you saying that for the five years that you were in RTC and for the three or so that you were a board
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member and, you said, the number two person at RTC, you didn’t know that there were trustees that had the ability to — to remove you?
A Correct.
Q But you are an expert on the corporate structure of Scientology?
A I have never said I am an expert on the corporate structure of Scientology, Mr. Weinberg. I said that I am an expert in the — in the policies, bulletins and issues that are Scientology. That is Scientology.
Q If you go to Page 16 of your deposition —
THE COURT: Which deposition?
MR. WEINBERG: I’m sorry, the Yanny deposition.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q The —
A I’m not quite there.
Q Okay.
A Okay. I’m there.
Q Okay, Line 4, question — were you asked these questions and did you give these answers — and you will see there is one date that is wrong, but it is wrong in the transcript, and I think you — it didn’t affect the question.
“Question — Line 4 were you asked this question, “October of ’83 to March of ’87 you were deputy inspector
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general for external affairs.
“Answer: That’s right.
“Question: Was Vicki Aznaran your senior during that entire course of time?
“Answer: Yes.
“Question: Were you out at Gilman Hot Springs?
“Answer: Gilman Hot Springs and Los Angeles.
“Question: What was your next position then in March of ’83.”
That would be obviously March of ’87, I think you understand that by your answer. And did you give this answer.
“Answer: Then I went to the RPF for three months, probably three and a half. Then I was an auditor. I was an auditor at Golden Era, the same place at Gilman Hot Springs, for a while.
“Question: For about three and a half months starting in March of ’83 –” but it is ’87 — “you were in the RPF again?
“Answer: Yes.”
Then I’ll skip to Page 17. Top of the page. Line 3 were you asked this question and gave this answer: “What were the circumstances of your transferring from RTC to Golden Era Productions?
“Answer: Well, when I was in RTC I wanted to go to the RPF because I needed more training. I needed — I
766
just needed more skill than I presently had. And that afforded me an opportunity to do that because I could go five hours a day, so I did that and also got auditing, co-audited and life audited, because I audited practically my whole career in Scientology. So I decided to audit for a while.”
Do you see that?
A Yes, I do.
Q Were you asked those questions, did you give those answers?
A Yes, I did.
Q So that was false testimony?
A This was coached testimony by Mr. Earle Cooley, Mr. Rathbun, for the purpose of deposition with Mr. Yanny.
Q So is that a definite category —
THE COURT: That was also false, correct?
THE WITNESS: Yes, yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: You were coached by who?
THE WITNESS: Mr. Earle Cooley and Mr. Marty Rathbun.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, that deposition — you were asked questions by whom in that deposition?
A You know, I don’t know. I — I don’t know.
THE COURT: Take a look at the front. It
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should say who was representing Mr. Yanny. Did you give him the front page?
MR. WEINBERG: I gave him the whole deposition. If I could approach, I think I could show him.
THE COURT: Okay.
A Cummings & White. Is that who it was?
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Barry Van Sickle. Do you remember Barry Van Sickle?
A Not really.
Q But do you remember this was a deposition, now that we refreshed your recollection, the questions were being asked by Mr. Yanny’s lawyer, not by Mr. Cooley, the ones we went over.
A Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: Just one second, your Honor. I need to move some stuff and get some other stuff.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, going to a different subject now, Mr. Prince.
A Are we finished with this?
Q Yes, let me take that back.
THE COURT: Why don’t you go ahead and give that, then, to Mr. Dandar.
MR. WEINBERG: I will.
THE COURT: That will save you all from having to copy it.
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MR. WEINBERG: Is this our only copy? No, we have other copies.
MR. DANDAR: You do have another copy?
MR. WEINBERG: Apparently, somewhere back at the ranch.
THE COURT: But you can go ahead and make yourselves a copy and he can have that one?
MR. WEINBERG: Right. Right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, let’s go back to the LMT now. And I think you said a minute ago that I had some misconception of the LMT and picketing. Did I hear you say that?
A Mmm, that is quite possible, yes.
THE COURT: What he said, Counselor, was that you were suggesting that they were picketing on behalf of LMT, and that wasn’t exactly correct.
THE WITNESS: That is right. That’s right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q But the — part of the purpose — part of what the LMT did in 1999 and 2000 was to picket various buildings of the Church of Scientology?
A You know, Mr. Weinberg, I hear you saying that.
But with every video that you have shown here and you have related to the LMT, there are LMT staff that have never picketed, never wanted to, never would, and would not
769
participate —
THE COURT: Mr. Prince, this is really simple.
Really the question is here, and I don’t think it is that difficult, one of the things that LMT did, those folks who were at LMT, was to picket when they thought it appropriate.
THE WITNESS: Yes, occasionally they would.
THE COURT: Exercising their rights, whatever you want to call it.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: They would at times organize a picket and go picket the Church.
THE WITNESS: Correct.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, in January of 2000 you were the consultant, expert, working with Ken Dandar in this case, right?
A Correct.
Q And you were also working in the Wollersheim case, as well, at that time?
A Mmm, more than likely, yes.
Q And you were also vice-president at the LMT?
A Well, we already did LMT. You said I was at the LMT. And I was working with Mr. Dandar. There are two things.
Q I’m focusing on the time, January of —
770
A Okay.
Q — 2000, you were the expert for Mr. Dandar —
A Yes, I was the expert for Mr. Dandar, but I don’t think that I immediately assumed work at the Lisa McPherson Trust. I don’t think that is how it happened.
Q Now, I asked you yesterday about you being the big boss at the LMT?
A Yes.
Q And you said no.
A Correct.
MR. WEINBERG: Could we play that video, please.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q By the way, do you remember a situation where Mr. Minton handed out parrots to various members at the LMT as Christmas gifts so that — indicating — rather, whether you are a big parrot or little parrot, squawking at Scientology, do you remember that happening?
A I think you are referring to a newspaper — a press that Mr. Minton had — had done and that came up —
THE COURT: Did he give you all parrots?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: Little ones.
MR. WEINBERG: All right, could we play this?
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This is from the film library, January 5, 2000.
______________________________________
(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“I have a little presentation, a little sort of Christmas present for the people who are associated with the Lisa McPherson Trust who have made all this possible. Some of you may be aware that back in December a guy named Dave — no, Rick Barry wrote an article in the Tampa Tribune about — I think the headline was ‘Bob Minton, will he rouse the gorilla?’
“Yes. Yes.
“But the real headline is ‘Lisa McPherson Trust, will they rouse the gorilla.’ And in that article, he referred to — in terms of the gorilla, first of all, he was talking about how this gorilla came to Clearwater 25 years ago, 800-pound gorilla, set himself down in the middle of Clearwater, began buying influence, began buying property, and for the last 25 years they have basically made themselves a force in this community by buying people off one at a time.
“And the — the question that Mr. Barry raised in this article was whether, you know, this small band of parrots would be able to, you know, make a
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difference here in terms of changing the way that this — that this organization is perceived in this community and in terms of the way this organization behaves in this community.
“Well, I remember a good friend of mine, Mark DeLarma, who you all know, said, ‘You thought that was a good article? He, like, called you guys parrots.’ I said, ‘I thought it was a great article.’
“So did I.
“Because it really expressed in a very vivid way how the Lisa McPherson Trust was going to change the way this community interacts and perceives Scientology. And how Scientology will have to — if they want to be healthful here, start acting like an organization that is a church if they want to be called a church.
“So I figured that the first thing that the Lisa McPherson Trust had to do is we had to set up a little — Mmm — mascot for this organization. And everybody who is part of it. So for the first — the first group of — of Christmas presents are for those people who will be based here as part of the organization day in and day out.
“And so the first of those goes — goes to —
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this is my little parrot that we want to have, the staff members of the Lisa McPherson Trust, and the most famous staff member of all is — is Stacy Brooks.
“There you go.
“The president and chief operating — executive officer.
“The next one — the next one, the same parrot, you know, the same parrot, goes to Jesse Prince, the boss of the whole thing. Who we all love.
“Thank you, Bobby.
“And the — and the third — the third of the fifth parrots goes to Mark Bunker, the multimedia king of the world.
“Sweet.
“Who is doing everything he can to keep a straight face while this is going on.
“There is one for me. I want to keep that.
“And then when David gets here, this is for David Cecere. And I have another parrot which is not currently in waiting here, but that is for Kim Baker when she arrives.
“So we’ve got plenty of parrots.
“We’re not done.
“We’re not done. You know — you know, I mean,
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so I would like to make a recommendation that we adopt this parrot as the mascot of the Lisa McPherson Trust so that everybody knows that we are going to make a lot of noise, we’re going to be squawking about what Scientology does in terms of harming people and their abusive and deceptive practices, and we’re going to, as little parrots, we’re going to make a lot of noise and drop a lot of stuff that parrots — come out the back end and help these guys learn the way to behave. Okay?
“So —
“Bravo.
“So now — now — now we have little parrots. We have little parrots for all of the big people who have made all this possible. And the first and most important little parrot goes to Patricia because — because what Patricia has done, to help everybody who is down here, get themselves down here and get them settled in and make them feel comfortable in this — in this whole environment, which is not an easy place for — for former Scientologists to come to. You know, they have been willing to stick their neck out and come down here and really make this organization happen. And so Patricia has really made everybody feel comfortable, she’s — she’s sort
775
of like —
“She chased PIs into the bathroom for me.
“Yes, and you — you know — so I — I want Patricia to have a parrot.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
“Ray Emmons has been teaching us all for — and a lot of people didn’t listen for a long time, how this organization really operates. And he did this in Clearwater. He made himself known nationwide in terms of his opposition to Scientology. And the type of organization that they really are underneath the surface. And so I want Ray to know that he’s a parrot, as well. You have been a parrot for a long time.
“Okay.
“Let me have a kiss here, Patricia, because I didn’t do that. Thank you so much.
“The order of the parrot.
“The order of the parrot. This is like the highest award that the Lisa McPherson Trust can bestow upon somebody.
“Now, you know, Peter Alexander has been squawking about Scientology for a long time, even when he was in it, especially toward the end of the time he was in it, when he was — when he was —
776
when he was being squawked at by Patricia — you know, rather regularly. So — and Peter has allowed Patricia particularly to devote so much time and energy into helping this organization get off the ground.
“And I just want you to know, Peter, that we’re totally thankful for your help and support in this organization, your being on the board. And I really want all of us to know that this is an incredibly tight-knit little group, and got a lot of hard work to do here in Clearwater. But with people like all of us here and you, Peter, thank you so much for doing this. And I want to present you with a little parrot.
“Yes.
“Thank you, sir. Thank you.
“And I want to — I want to —
“The order of the parrots.
“The order of the parrots.
“I want to talk to you about a theme park.
“Yeah. Yeah.
“Now, the next parrot — the next parrot is for Duncan Pierce, you know, our national coordinator. Our national coordinator.
“Oh, my God.
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“Duncan has been abused by Stacy so much in the last few months that he really deserves a big parrot. But because he’s not here on the staff in the office every day, he can’t get a big parrot, you know, it’s just not part —
“The big parrot —
“Look at Peter.
“It’s — you know, the problem is —
“Patricia? Look at Patricia.
“The problem is it is not in the tech. He can’t have a big parrot. But —
“The standard tech.
“Yeah. Yeah. But — but Duncan has done so much to get us off the ground, as well.
“I don’t know what I would do without him.
“It is amazing. The thing is there are so many people that have really pushed so hard to get this thing going. And, you know, there is no recognition for us. You know, we get abused a lot on the Internet. Our demise has already been scripted by, you know, anti-cult and Diane Richardson. Fine, let them squawk all they want. But the real squawking will be done here in Clearwater by a bunch of parrots. And Duncan is one of those parrots. (Inaudible.)
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“Then for the — and the person who lives the furtherest from Clearwater, Grady Ward, who is standing right here, we have another parrot, because Mr. Ward — Mr. Ward is — is our security expert here. And already — and already during the course of this day he has learned a lot about security. (Inaudible.)
“Yeah, don’t tell me about it. But I can tell you some things about Grady personally because — (Inaudible.)
“Because one of the things that really got me involved in this thing was Grady Ward. And Grady’s stand against Scientology, you know, back in 1995 or — early ’96 when he started going after them directly after they sued him, he went after them as his own attorney, you know. You know what they say about guys who are their own attorney.
“It is perfectly true.
“And it is perfectly true. Grady will be the first to tell you he had no expertise, no competence whatsoever. But he — he studied the law. He studied what Scientology was doing. He — he learned so much about it. And has become a really good legal man in terms of fighting Scientology. And I — you know, I — I can’t — I can’t imagine
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somebody having the patience to understand and go through and traveling back and forth from Arcadia, California, eight hours to San Francisco in his car and memorizing the Rules of Civil Procedure. You know, while he’s going back and forth. And I mean memorizing so he knows every paragraph, every subparagraph, whatever. And — (Inaudible.)
“You know, if you talk about a parrot, then this guy is a parrot. And I want to give — I want to give this guy who is a shining example for many people on the Internet in terms of standing up to somebody who is trying to curtail free speech on the Internet, I want Grady to have this parrot as a symbol of our love for him and his contribution to this whole battle.
“Thank you very much. “Thank you, Grady. Thank you.
“And — and now. (Inaudible.)
“And now this other parrot, I forgot to tell you. I told you this was mine. And this parrot is mine because all of you gave me this parrot and I really appreciate it. So —
“Something about Rob and why he gets a parrot,
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because if it weren’t for him, none of us would be here.
“Absolutely.
“None of us.
“For sure.
“There is nothing else to say.
“Bob is the big parrot.
“Definitely.
“Oh, but this is not all. Oh, some of the best stuff is — some of the best is saved for last. Well, what I would like everybody —
“He’s big with presents, you can see that.
“What I would like everybody to do, if you put the parrots around in a little circle here, if you put the parrots around in a little circle there. (Inaudible.)
“Right, don’t anybody forget — don’t anybody forget — don’t anybody forget. But, you know what the parrots are supposed to do, don’t you? We’re going to get the gorilla. And I didn’t want you to think I forgot about that gorilla. So this gorilla is going to sit right there.
“Whew.
“Don’t dump on the gorilla. Come on. But — but that is what this is all about here.
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little parrots and some of us big parrots here, we’re going to be here and we’re going to make sure this gorilla behaves.
“We’re going to educate this gorilla and —
“We’re going to put the — we’re going to put the gorilla in the cage or the jungle, wherever it belongs.
“We’re going to turn this gorilla into a parrot.
“Yeah, this gorilla is going to be cooperating with us.
“In any case, everybody can take their parrot back now. And I’ll keep the gorilla, so when we have it on the desk out there, it will be —
“Yes, a constant reminder.
“Yes, as a constant reminder of what we need to do.”
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Bring back memories, Mr. Prince?
A Very fond memories. I’m so sorry that that place doesn’t exist anymore.
MR. DANDAR: I’ll object because we just went through that long video and with the — the question was — to Mr. Prince, “Mr. Prince, were you called or did you call yourself a big boss at the LMT,” and
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that is not what that video showed. Mr. Minton called Mr. Prince a boss of the whole thing. So — so whatever Mr. Weinberg’s question was was not supported by the video.
THE COURT: Well, it certainly is a video that he could play at some other time so he played it now.
MR. WEINBERG: Right.
THE COURT: But it is true, he was not called a big boss —
MR. WEINBERG: He was called the boss of the whole thing.
THE COURT: But I think Mr. Minton made it clear he was the big boss.
MR. WEINBERG: Right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, Mr. Prince, I asked you a lot of questions about what the Lisa McPherson Trust was about. That meeting there was initially the start-up meeting of the Lisa McPherson Trust, wasn’t it? It is essentially right at the beginning?
A I think so. You know, I think you are right about that.
Q Right. And Mr. Minton made it very clear what it was about, squawking about Scientology. That is what the
783
Lisa McPherson Trust was about, wasn’t it?
A No, sir. It was about making Scientology behave.
I think that was also part of this video. Just to behave. Be decent.
Q Putting the gorilla in the cage? Was that what it was about?
A Or in the jungle, wherever it belonged.
Q What does that mean, “or in the jungle, wherever it belonged”?
A Well, it means everything has its place, Mr. Weinberg. And there is hardly anything sinister about what we just watched here.
Q “We’re going to make a lot of noise,” that means you are going to disrupt the activities of the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, right?
A No, Mr. Weinberg. That means that we’re going to expose the deceptive and abusive practices of Scientology and help those who have been victimized by it. That is what we were talking about there.
Q And at that time when you got the second parrot for being the boss of the whole thing, you were supposedly the full-time expert for Ken Dandar, correct?
A I was working for Mr. Dandar as his expert. I wouldn’t go as far as to say full-time. I mean, even you brought up the fact I was working on the Wollersheim case,
784
as well, simultaneously.
Q We’ll get to the — we’ll get — I’ll ask you one question. From June of ’99 until May of 2000 you were getting $5,000 a month from Dandar & Dandar?
A I think the record reflects that, Mr. Weinberg.
Q And this was in that period of time, wasn’t it, this parrot thing?
A I believe it was.
Q Now, you saw this meeting and you were at a number of meetings with Mr. Minton, correct, over the years? You have been with him a lot?
A Yes, I have been with him a lot.
Q And in this particular meeting and others that you were in, Mr. Minton was pretty outspoken, outgoing, he would take over, right? He would speak his piece? He was in control?
A No. Mr. Minton is not that way. That is the biggest myth. You know, Mr. Minton has exact things that he likes to do and he does them. I mean, I learned a lot from him myself. You know, I have never had millions upon millions of dollars myself. I have never been able to help people the way he has been able to help people. He has a different agenda, a different track. Unfortunately, in some instances he has a very short attention span.
And he never, in any instance, ever wants to be
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the person that is the leader. I mean, he doesn’t — he doesn’t do that. You know, if you want to do it, great. If what you want to do makes sense, great, he’ll support you.
But he’s not going to tell you how to do it.
Q So this was just an aberration?
A No, this was — it was clear what this was.
Mr. Minton was showing his appreciation to persons like Patricia Greenway, myself, Peter Alexander, Duncan Pierce, for helping organize and make the people feel welcome at the Lisa McPherson Trust and helping us be a social — be a social reform group, if nothing else, in order to ultimately help Scientology.
Q By the way, did he look harassed? Did he look like a man that was under some wave of harassment unknown to mankind?
A Actually, he looked like a man giving a speech to a group of people.
Q It looked like he was — that was in the Lisa McPherson Trust building, correct?
A Correct.
Q It looked like all of you, Ms. Greenway, you, Mr. —
THE COURT: What difference does that make they were having fun at the LMT? When gifts were given out?
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MR. WEINBERG: All right. I’ll go on.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Let me ask you a question about Ray Emmons, the guy that put the parrot on his head.
A I know Ray Emmons well.
Q Now, Mr. Emmons had been a Clearwater police officer and had done an investigation of the Church of Scientology in the ’80s, is that right?
A Yes, I believe that is correct.
Q And Mr. Emmons has been and continues to be the investigator for Ken Dandar in this case, you know that?
A I know that Mr. Dandar has used him to do service of process or locate witnesses and things like that.
Q Now, what was Mr. Emmons’ position at the Lisa McPherson Trust?
A I don’t think he had a position. He may have been on the board of directors, which was huge and basically was a friends list. But as far as an official position or coming into that office on a daily basis to work or accomplish a specific task, that was never anything that he did.
MR. WEINBERG: I have a couple E-Mails — or postings I was going to put in, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. I want to take a break here in five minutes, so if it will take more than
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that, break now. If not, go ahead and do those and we’ll take a break.
MR. WEINBERG: I think we can do those in five minutes. I mean, it is just identifying them.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: These are actually E-Mails, I’m told. I have trouble telling the difference.
THE COURT: Yes, I don’t know the difference, either. If they’re up there on the screen and people can read it, to me, it’s an E-Mail.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay, your Honor, this is 223. I didn’t write the number on it.
THE COURT: Okay, I’ll do it.
MR. WEINBERG: And this is 224.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I’m going to hand you the originals. We’ll put them back when we’re done.
A Okay.
Q All right. If you’ll look at first, Mr. Prince, 223.
A 223? Which one is 223?
Q That is the —
A Okay, I have it here.
Q That is the Jeff Jacobsen —
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THE COURT: It is the long one.
THE WITNESS: Yes, okay.
MR. WEINBERG: I’m really only referring to —
I — we just received these from the Lisa McPherson Trust. I have attached the whole thing, your Honor, but the only page that — that — this is part of the E-Mails that were produced.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: But really what I’m focusing on is the first page.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Mr. Prince, you can look at it all, but I don’t know if the rest — sometimes it comes off the computer and —
THE COURT: Who is this from?
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q If you look at this, Mr. Prince, this is from Jeff Jacobsen to you and Mr. Bunker and Stacy Brooks. Who is Karen Case?
A She used to be a person hired specifically to work as public relations.
Q And this is dated August 2, 2000. Is that right?
A Well, you know, okay.
Q Do you see that?
A Yes. I do.
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Q And this is — do you remember having meetings about things that needed to be done at the Lisa McPherson Trust?
MR. DANDAR: Well, Judge, I have to object.
This is not Mr. Prince’s E-Mail so I don’t know how he can question him about some hearsay document authored by somebody that is not here.
THE COURT: Well, I think he can state whether or not this is accurate or not.
MR. WEINBERG: It is to him.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You received this, right, Mr. Prince?
A I have no memory of this.
MR. DANDAR: Which one are you on?
MR. WEINBERG: He’s copied on the E-Mail, it is addressed to him.
THE WITNESS: I don’t even know what this is.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q It is an E-Mail to you.
A Okay.
Q Among other people. All right?
A Okay.
Q What it says, “This is a list of things we talked about, elaborated on by me.”
Now, Mr. Jacobsen was also part of the Lisa
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McPherson Trust, correct?
A Yes, he was.
Q In fact, in some of those videos yesterday you saw Mr. Jacobsen in it with a camera himself?
A No, I did not see that yesterday, but —
Q Oh. He did take — he took videos from time to time, didn’t I?
A Yes.
Q Do you know why those videos haven’t been turned over, by the way, his, Mr. Jacobsen’s?
A No, I do not. Were they asked for?
THE COURT: Don’t ask him what he knows or doesn’t know about something like that.
MR. WEINBERG: I’ll ask it a different way.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Do you know where the videos that he took are?
A No, I do not.
Q Were they kept at the Lisa McPherson Trust?
A I don’t know what he did with his personal videos.
Q But, anyway, this — this — this E-Mail talks about a list of things we talked about, 1, speeches, radio talk shows. 2, picket. 3, press releases. 4, press conferences. 5, help with investigations by EEOC, DEB. 6, the library open for public use. 7, concert November 11. 8, newsletter. 9, attend city council meetings,
791
participate. 10, put up a sign for the office outside. 11, ads in local newspaper. 12, support group. 13, radiofree Clearwater.”
Now, that is 13 things that the Lisa McPherson Trust, I assume, prioritized to do. Not one says anything about counseling, does it?
A You know, I think you are mischaracterizing this E-Mail to somehow reflect or — or be a staple for the activities of the Lisa McPherson Trust, and what this is is just simply an E-Mail of Jeff writing. I have no recollection of it whatsoever and I don’t even remember what it relates to at this point in time.
I mean, I literally have had thousands of E-Mails, Mr. Weinberg. I’m not trying to be uncooperative, I’m trying to cooperate in the spirit, but what you are asking me has no perspective. You are tying this into the Lisa McPherson Trust and it just doesn’t make sense to me.
Q Well, does it make sense to you one of the priorities of the Lisa McPherson Trust was pickets? Does that make sense to you?
A No, not at all.
THE COURT: This is really — in fairness, this is a statement from somebody about some meeting and, frankly, you don’t have to persuade me that the Lisa McPherson Trust picketed. I don’t know why you just
792
keep badgering that home. I know what he’s going to say, you know what he’s going to say. It is me that is in charge of this hearing, and I’m persuaded, but the point was not picketing, it was counseling, wasn’t on the list.
You know, that is unfair to suggest because somebody writes a letter with things they talked about on a given day of things that needed to be done, you can hardly assume putting a sign outside is a primary — is something that needs to be done.
It doesn’t say this is our purpose. I mean, fair is fair, Counselor. And that is not fair to suggest that those are the purposes of the LMT.
MR. WEINBERG: I move it into evidence, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. It will be received. It will be received, although it is only being received for the fact that — that we have a bunch of E-mails.
MR. WEINBERG: I understand.
THE COURT: — that I have let in.
MR. WEINBERG: Then 224 quickly is an E-Mail that —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Is this a posting or E-Mail, 224, Mr. Prince?
793
A I have no idea.
Q Well, this is something that you —
A There is no “to”.
THE COURT: It says it is from you.
THE WITNESS: Yes, is this a note to myself? I don’t know what it is.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Do you recognize this as something that you did?
THE COURT: Who is Mark? I know there is a Mark.
THE WITNESS: You know, there are lots of Marks.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I think it is pretty clear, the message at the bottom is a Mark Bunker passage. Then —
A The message at the bottom? Oh, I see what you are saying.
Q Do you see?
A Okay.
Q And my question to you is, your advice was, “With regard to the Lisa McPherson Trust, contact Ken Dandar.”
That is what it says, correct?
A Absolutely not.
Q That is not what it says?
MR. DANDAR: I’ll object. It doesn’t say that,
794
either.
A No.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Are you saying, “In the meantime, I recommend you contact U.S. attorney Kennan G. Dandar,” and give his E-Mail address?
THE COURT: What is the date on that?
MR. WEINBERG: It is November 10, 1999.
THE COURT: Before the trust was formed?
MR. WEINBERG: Right — well, the trust actually had already been formed, remember, it was incorporated and it was in the process of being set up.
A You know, this is a partial thing here from Mark. I can’t tell if somebody wrote in and had a legal question and I’m referring them to Ken Dandar, who is a lawyer that could maybe answer a legal question for them, or whether or not they need assistance or the service the trust has to offer. I can’t tell from this. I can’t draw the inference that somehow this means Ken Dandar is running the Lisa McPherson Trust or anything like that.
MR. WEINBERG: I move it into evidence, your Honor.
MR. DANDAR: I object. It is too partial to make sense.
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THE COURT: I’m going to let it in for whatever value it has, which is little, as to a lot of the other E-Mails, because of the same problem.
MR. WEINBERG: So is this a good time to take a break?
THE COURT: It is a good time to take a break.
We’ll be in recess for 15 minutes. I show it is 25 till. That will be about ten till.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
(WHEREUPON, a recess was taken from 10:35 to 10:55 a.m.)
_______________________________________
THE COURT: Okay. I signed the order and I mailed out the copies. But those of you who are here, I’ll give you yours. Mr. Dandar. Here is Mr. Lirot’s, too. I didn’t realize he wasn’t here.
Mr. Moxon, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Fugate. Always trying to save you all some stamp money.
MR. WEINBERG: Everything counts.
THE COURT: Every little bit counts. That is right.
You may continue.
MR. DANDAR: I returned the envelopes to opposing counsel.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
MR. DANDAR: So they can save their stamps.
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BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, Mr. Prince, you first learned about Bob Minton after watching a television show Dateline in which he appeared and Ms. Brooks appeared in June of ’98?
A That is incorrect.
Q Did you watch a television show before you met Mr. Minton where you learned about him?
A No, I did not.
Q How did you learn about Mr. Minton?
A Through Mrs. Brooks.
Q So she just reached out for you, you didn’t reach out for her?
A Well, Mr. Weinberg, I think I spoke on this before but I’ll speak on it again.
I was on vacation in Connecticut. I had been in the cyber coffee cafe. I had gone on the Internet. Do you remember that testimony, Mr. Weinberg?
THE COURT: It was rather elaborate.
A I left my phone number and she called me.
(Telephone interruption.)
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did you ever see the Dateline —
THE COURT: Don’t be sorry to him. Be sorry to me. It is my word that says no phone.
THE WITNESS: I’m sorry, I apologize for the
797
distraction.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did you ever see the television show The Crusader, I think on NBC Dateline, where Mr. Minton was featured about his crusade against Scientology?
A Mmm, more than likely, many months to possibly a year after he had done that program, I’d seen it. But I didn’t see it when it ran on national television.
Q Well, you learned, shortly after your call from Ms. Brooks, that Mr. Minton was a very wealthy person who was handing out a lot of money to people that would work against Scientology, correct?
A That is categorically false.
Q Ms. Brooks didn’t tell you that Mr. Minton had given her and Vaughn a lot of money, including the purchase of a $250,000 home?
A At one point in time Mrs. Brooks did relay the information that Mr. Minton had given her and her husband some money and she explained the circumstances about that.
Q Did a relative tell you about the Dateline show featuring —
THE COURT: A relative of whom?
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q A relative of yours tell you about — in or about this time period before you met Mr. Minton — did a relative
798
tell you about having seen this show where Mr. Minton was featured or some friend or some family member?
A A cousin of mine, when I lived in — I guess I must have been still living in Minneapolis and we were in a phone conversation. And she was telling me about a program where she had seen — she had seen concerning Scientology and there was a man that was helping people or somehow got involved in it. She didn’t remember his name. She just remembered — and, you know, as it is with my family, if they see something about Scientology on TV, they tell me about it when I speak to them.
Q Was that before you communicated with Ms. Brooks?
A I believe it was.
Q So when you learned about Ms. Brooks, you already knew about Mr. Minton?
A As I said, she didn’t know Mr. Minton’s name. All she related was, “I saw a story on TV about Scientology and the different things that they do. And there was a man that was helping people that had been in Scientology before.”
Q And did you research, prior to hearing from Ms. Brooks, did you research to learn who this guy was and what he was doing for people who had been in Scientology?
A No. I had not.
Q Now, when did you learn, after communicating with Ms. Brooks, how wealthy Mr. Minton was?
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A When I spoke to him.
Q And how long after you talked to Ms. Brooks did you talk to Mr. Minton?
A Mmm, maybe a month. Maybe two months.
Q So I was under the impression that on this trip — I guess I’m wrong — this trip to Connecticut, that you went from Connecticut right up to Mr. Minton’s house after talking to Ms. Brooks?
A No, that is incorrect, Mr. Weinberg.
Q So you went home after that?
A Correct.
Q And you stayed in touch —
A Oh, no, no, I’m sorry, you know, because it is so important to make sure the record is correct. From Connecticut, I flew to Ohio and met with Mrs. Brooks and Mr. Haney.
Q And was it at that time that you were given a new car?
A No. No. It was not. And I was never given a new car by anyone.
Q Somebody purchased it? Mr. Minton purchased a new car for you or caused a new car to be purchased for you?
A No. That is incorrect.
Q Well, how did you get the $23,000 Rodeo vehicle?
A I never got a $23,000 Rodeo. I had use of a
800
$23,000 Rodeo but that $23,000 Rodeo belonged to FACTNet, and when I terminated my employment with them, that car stayed with FACTNet. You understand?
Q Now, that was purchased where, the car?
A In —
THE COURT: Where like what dealer? What city?
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q What city? What city?
A You know, I don’t remember the name of the city.
Q But it was in Ohio, that area, either Minneapolis or Ohio, correct?
A Correct.
Q And did —
A Well, wait a minute. Let me not do this thing because you accused me of this earlier. It was in Minneapolis specifically. I know the specific answer. I’m not going to play charades here with you. It was in a place near Minneapolis, a city that was near Minneapolis, and I don’t specifically recall the name of the city.
Q And it was purchased new, is that correct?
A Yes.
Q And you and who went to pick it up at the dealer?
A Mmm, a friend of mine — Mmm — took me — drove me to the dealership to pick it up.
Q And did you have a check with you? How was it
801
paid for?
A No. I didn’t have a check.
Q Ms. Brooks took care of paying for the car? Is that what happened?
A No. Ms. Brooks did not — well, you know, I don’t think so. But quite factually, I don’t know who — how that part of it happened.
Q There just happened to be a new car waiting for you at the dealership?
A No. They needed a vehicle for FACTNet. You know, let me — if you have patience with me, I’ll tell you the — what happened there.
They needed a car in Boulder —
Q Boulder, Colorado?
A Boulder, Colorado, which is where FACTNet was located. I was going to FACTNet to assist in that organization. The car was purchased. I moved everything that I had in Minneapolis and moved to Boulder, Colorado. I made that move to at least be safe or — or to be around some people that could offer some protection to me, because after I’d contacted Mr. — Mr. Minton, the private investigators started, the threatening letters to sue me from Scientology started. And I was alone in Minneapolis, and it was like, “Okay, come here, we’ll help you, we’ll protect you, we have lawyers,” whatever.
802
Q You were alone and bankrupt in Minneapolis, right?
A I had filed bankruptcy in 1997. I think the year we’re talking about now is 1998.
Q June of 1998. Bankruptcy in November of 1997, right? Your next real job after bankruptcy was to be paid by FACTNet and Mr. Minton, correct?
A That is completely false.
Q Now —
A You want to know what my next job was or you just want to leave it like that.
Q Tell me what your next job was.
A I was self-employed. I had an art business called The Art Guy. I had a kiosk in the mall in downtown Minneapolis. I was making my own money and I was actually doing pretty good for myself.
Q But something encouraged you, prompted you, to pick up and leave Minneapolis and move to Boulder, Colorado, at which time you became associated with FACTNet and started being a paid witness in various Scientology cases, correct?
A I think you have added a little bit of baggage on that. But what actually occurred is I left Minneapolis with my business intact. I had employees in Wisconsin and employees in Minneapolis, and I left and went to Boulder, Colorado.
Q Driving this car?
803
A Correct.
Q And you drove this car for how long? How many months did you drive this new car that somebody paid for that you picked up new?
A Off and on, maybe about three months.
Q Now, after — but before you moved to Boulder, you went to New Hampshire to visit Mr. Minton?
A Yes.
Q And you and who went to New Hampshire to visit Mr. Minton?
A It was just myself.
Q And he flew you to New Hampshire?
A I — I believe the way the scenario worked is Mrs. Brooks arranged flight — airfare, the flight, for me to fly there, yes.
Q Much like she had arranged the car to be purchased?
A I think we’re mixing apples and oranges here because I think I stated earlier in the testimony I’m not quite sure who did that on behalf of FACTNet. That car was purchased in FACTNet’s name. It was never in Jesse Prince’s name, Bob Minton’s name, Stacy Brooks’s name. It was a corporate car. That is the way it was purchased and that is the way it was left.
Q And the person that was financing FACTNet at the
804
time was Bob Minton?
A Mmm, no.
Q Did Mr. — one last question about the car. Did Mr. Haney provide the funds for the car, Brian Haney?
A Not that I’m aware of. But then again, I don’t know the details of it. I know that — I think Mr. Haney did have some association with FACTNet at the time.
Q And what were you seeing Mr. Haney in Ohio about with Ms. Young?
A I mean, I had never known Mr. Haney. I didn’t know who he was. He just happened to be there. I was there to visit with Stacy.
The visit with Stacy — her and I have been associated — associated and friends through Scientology since 1976. She was one of the very first persons that I met when I joined the Sea Org. And we were just happy to see each other. Her ex-husband, Vaughn Young, and I were very good friends. You know, he was an executive and we were friends, and it was — and from leaving Scientology — because when you leave and you are ostracized, people disconnect from you; you are a suppressive person, degraded being, whatever, you don’t have any friends anymore. But to actually encounter someone from Scientology that you knew before that will talk to you because you are not a Scientology is a rare thing.
805
Q Now, the Youngs left in 1989, correct?
A Yes, I assume that, yes.
Q You left in 1992?
A Yes.
Q But you didn’t communicate with the Youngs until Mr. Minton came on the scene in 1998, after you left Scientology, correct?
A I think that is a mischaracterization of my earlier testimony, Mr. Weinberg. Because I think the way I testified, and again I’ll go through the whole thing —
Q No, just answer that question.
A But I wrote an E-mail from a cybercafe that said, “If you know Vaughn Young or Stacy Brooks, please give them my phone number.” Mr. Minton was not part of the equation.
Q My question was you didn’t have any communication with Vaughn or Stacy Young after you left Scientology in 1992 until this cybercafe thing in 1998?
A Correct.
Q As far as you know, they didn’t reach out for you prior to that time, either, is that correct, as far as you know?
A As far as I know.
Q Now, Stacy Young must have told you, when you were in Ohio with her and Brian Haney, she must have told you about the activities that she and Vaughn, her husband, had
806
been involved in for the past four years concerning cases involving Scientology. She told you about that, didn’t she?
A In our first meeting?
Q When you —
A Oh, when I went to Ohio? Are you talking about the Ohio trip?
Q Yes.
A There may have been a brief mention of that, what she was doing. But for sure the substance and the bulk of our conversation was the fact that we were together, we were alive, we actually made it out somewhat sane people and we were just happy to see each other.
Q Did she tell you she and her husband had been making a living off testifying and being experts in cases against Scientology for the past three or four years?
A No, she did not.
Q Did she tell you you had a good opportunity to — to get in on the gravy train, so to speak? Did she tell you that?
A I take offense to that characterization. But that statement is categorically false.
Q Did she tell you that you had the opportunity to make money by being — by working with lawyers in cases involving Scientology? Did she tell you that?
A No, she did not.
807
Q So you didn’t have any discussion about you getting involved in any of these cases?
A At that point in time in Ohio, no, we did not.
Q There came a point in time where you did talk to Stacy about that?
A Yes.
Q And when was that?
A Mmm, I’m not quite sure. It was maybe some months later or — I’m not quite sure. But I think while we were talking she was telling me about FACTNet. She was telling me about this organization which, in some respects, was similar to the Lisa McPherson Trust which had as its intention of providing information and doing what it can to assist people or persons who felt they had been victimized by Scientology. And —
THE COURT: Was FACTNet just Scientology or was it cults in general?
THE WITNESS: Cults in general, you know, the whole subject. Very broad.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q It was primarily Scientology, though, wasn’t it?
A No. If you go on their website, you know, Scientology has its place, but there are many other cults that they have provided information, ex-members speaking
808
about it, you know.
Q Well, the staff members of FACTNet tended to be people that were more interested in Scientology or had had some involvement with Scientology as opposed to other groups. Correct?
A No. That is actually false. There was one person that was a staff — that was a staff member in FACTNet, I think her name was Justine. She was a Christian woman that had never been in Scientology before.
Q You are telling me so you learned about how you could make some money involving Scientology from Ms. Brooks.
So when did that happen?
A You know, I —
THE COURT: Make some money involving Scientology? That doesn’t make sense.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Who was the first person that told you –suggested to you that you might be — you might be a witness and could be paid as a, quote, expert on Scientology? Who told you that?
A No one told me that, Mr. Weinberg.
Q Who asked you to be involved in the first case that you got involved in?
A Mr. Leipold.
Q He just reached out for you?
809
A He was an associate of Mrs. Brooks. Mrs. Brooks was explaining to me about FACTNet. And the whole subject came about because we were talking about being in touch with people that we had lost contact with, old friends that were in Scientology. So she was introducing me, “Well, you know, another person, you know, people from Los Angeles, hey, do you know this one? He’s out.” And Andre Tabayoyon, I think I spoke with him. We were just talking about the people that we knew in Scientology that were no longer there that were out, you know, getting on with their lives, doing what they do.
Q What were you doing in Ohio with Mr. Haney and Ms. Brooks? I mean, why Ohio? You live in Minneapolis. She lived in Seattle. Why were you in Ohio?
A That is where she was when she called me. And I was in Connecticut and she was in Ohio.
Q Is there something special in Ohio?
A I think that is where Mr. Haney lives. She was in Columbus, Ohio. That is where Mr. Haney lives.
Q You went to New Hampshire. How did you get in touch with Mr. Minton? Did you call him? He call you?
A I think I answered this before. This happened through Mrs. Brooks. I met Mrs. Brooks, and then I had — you know, sometime after that I spoke to Mr. Minton on the phone and maybe a month or two later actually went to visit
810
with him.
Q He flew you to New Hampshire —
THE COURT: He said he didn’t know who paid for the ticket. We can assume it was Mr. Minton, directly or indirectly.
MR. WEINBERG: Right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Somebody arranged for you to fly to New Hampshire, right?
A Stacy Brooks.
Q All right. But she wasn’t at this weekend — was it a weekend?
A Actually a couple weeks.
Q You were at Mr. Minton’s house for a couple weeks?
A Yes.
Q Who else was there other than you and Mr. Minton?
A His family would come occasionally. His wife. His children.
Q And anybody — I mean, other than his family, anybody else?
A No.
Q What did you-all — did you talk about Scientology in those two weeks?
A Yes, we did. We talked about Scientology. We talked about why — why he became involved. What this was
811
all about. He was very interested to know my involvement, my history, compared to other people that he had talked to.
And again, this is all in reference to, hey, you know, these ex-people, these people that used to be in and now they are not in and now they’re getting together and talking to each other and it is okay to do that.
Q And did he give you some money, some expense money at that point, either before the trip or during the visit or after the trip?
A No. No. I don’t think so.
Q Did he pay for your expenses to move from Minneapolis to Denver?
A Yes.
Q And —
MR. DANDAR: I object because we have got to establish a time frame here. It sounds like it all happened on the same day.
THE COURT: That is true. Whatever the time frame is, I don’t think it all happened on the same day.
MR. DANDAR: All right.
A It didn’t.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q It didn’t. I’m not suggesting that. Do you remember how much he gave you to move from Minneapolis to
812
Denver?
A Mmm, $10,000.
Q In a check? Cash? I mean, how did you get the money?
THE COURT: What difference does it make?
MR. WEINBERG: Probably not.
THE COURT: It doesn’t make any difference.
MR. DANDAR: Right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Where did you get the money? I mean, did this happen in New Hampshire? Or did it happen after the trip to New Hampshire that he gave you the $10,000?
A You know, I’m not sure because, you know, I made a couple of trips to New Hampshire. So I’m not really sure how that came about. But I’ll do the best I can to explain it to you, Mr. Weinberg.
I went there once, I stayed there for a couple of weeks, came back to Minneapolis. The threats started. I was starting to get letters from Elliot Abelson, Scientology attorney in Chicago, letting me know I would be sued. I had private investigators starting a noisy investigation in my neighborhood. And I think I alerted Mr. Minton and Mrs. Brooks, I said, “Look, I can’t believe this whole thing is starting all over again.” You know — you are right, I did do the bankruptcy thing. I cut ties with Scientology
813
completely. I was done with it. I didn’t want another thing to do with it. You know, it is kind of like every time you put your hand in the fire, you know you are going to get burned. I was done.
Q You were done but then you decided to get involved in cases against Scientology?
A Then I went to meet these people and my freedom of association was trying to be inhibited from Scientology — by Scientology. They didn’t want me to associate with these people. There were no — no criminal activity occurred, nothing happened. I’m simply talking to people that used to be in Scientology.
Q All I asked you, did you get the money from Mr. Minton during your trips to New Hampshire or after. That is all I asked, and if you don’t remember just —
A In one of the trips.
Q — just tell me you don’t know.
A In one of the trips, Mr. Weinberg, I did get the money from him to move.
Q Now, did Mr. Minton tell you that he would, in essence, take care of you thereafter to support you with regard to your work involving Scientology?
A No, he did not.
Q But in reality, that is what happened for the next four years, didn’t it?
814
A No, it is not.
Q Well, you began to get money from Mr. Minton after this first $10,000, correct? I mean, from that point on for the next four years you received money, directly or indirectly, from Bob Minton on a monthly basis, didn’t you?
A Mr. Weinberg, I received money from FACTNet when I started working for FACTNet, when I moved from Minneapolis to Boulder, Colorado. I started to receive some — and very little from FACTNet. The fact of the matter is that I was able to live and do what I was doing because I had been — I had my own business, I had staff working for me in two states. I was receiving regular moneys from profits that I had made. And this was where the bulk of my money was coming from.
Q So you had all these profits that you had accumulated after the November bankruptcy between November and June of ’98?
A Correct.
Q Okay. Now, you got the $10,000 from Mr. Minton.
And how much money do you remember that you received from FACTNet?
A Maybe a couple of thousand. You know, one month.
A thousand another. You know, it was kind of back and forth.
Q And then you came — then, shortly after this, you
815
came to Florida in the fall of 1998 to begin work with regard to the PC folders in this case. Correct? You flew to Florida?
A Correct.
Q And you spent how many days with Ms. Brooks reviewing the PC folders of Lisa McPherson in the fall of ’98?
A You know, I’m not sure, but it was like many days, maybe even more than a week. And it was something I came back to, as well, and participated in getting the folders copied. So this whole thing with the folders started in December but it went through a period of time, a month’s period of time of going through those folders.
Q So at that point when you first came you were now officially on board as an expert for Mr. Dandar in the Lisa McPherson matter, correct?
A I — I wouldn’t say that. The reason why Mr. Dandar wanted me to go through those folders is because of my expertise in Scientology, my prior technical experience, the many courses and certificates and internships I had finished.
THE COURT: Were you his consultant, as well?
THE WITNESS: Not at that time. I just came down to do the preclear folders. Mr. Dandar and I did not have a relationship because we didn’t know
816
each other. And through time — and he could see my competence in interpreting Scientology policies and bulletins — that I then became a consultant and worked more closely with him on the case.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Well, at the time — when you were reviewing these folders it was in Mr. Dandar’s office?
A Yes.
Q And you had — you met with Mr. Dandar at that period of time?
A Yes.
Q I mean, you introduced yourself to him and all that?
THE COURT: Well, Counsel, come on.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did you bill him for your time?
A No.
Q You just did this for free?
A Yes. And I had done it for free many times. I mean, I have worked for Morrison & Foerster, and Feaster from — out of San Francisco in a legal case. I worked for Mr. Leipold in a legal case. I worked for Mr. Dandar. I mean, by that time I had been working with these different attorney firms or at least they had been calling me to see if I could assist them in these other legal cases.
817
Q Well, who was paying you to be in Tampa, St. Pete, wherever it was, that you were to work with Mr. Dandar and Ms. Brooks with regard to this case in the fall of 1998 and early 1999 when you were going through these PC folders?
A Again I’ll say that my expenses to fly down to Florida, I believe, was paid by Mr. Dandar. The money that I used to exist for that period of time, I think we’re talking about maybe six months, for the most part — for the greater majority of it were residuals from the business I operated in Minneapolis.
Q Well, didn’t Mr. Minton give you checks in early 1999, $5,000, $6,000 a month?
A No.
Q He didn’t do that?
A He may have did it a time or two but it wasn’t consistent. And FACTNet was a very small organization. It sometimes just didn’t have money. And my — you know, and this was kind of like a period of time like where how do you fit in? So, you know, I would occasionally tell Mr. Minton, “Hey, you know, these people don’t have money. I can’t live on air here. Can you help out?”
Q Well, why Mr. Minton? Why not Mr. Dandar who you were doing the work for?
A Because I was working on FACTNet now, you know.
We’re mixing apples and oranges here. FACTNet was a
818
corporation that Mr. Minton was on the board of directors of.
Q Well, I thought — correct me if I’m wrong, I thought I heard you say that starting in the fall of 1998, into 1999, you spent a number of days, weeks, whatever, working on this case, the Lisa McPherson case?
A Well, hold on, hold on, hold on. I never even met Mr. Dandar until 1999. So let’s leave 19 —
Q How can you say that? You just said you were in his office in the fall of 1998 looking at the PC folders?
A Wait — okay. Well, okay, I’m confused with the dates. So —
THE COURT: So what is the right date?
THE WITNESS: I don’t know. I mean, was it 1998?
THE COURT: That is fine. I told you and I’ll tell you again and it is really a wonderful answer, you know, 1997, ’98, ’99, there could be a lot of these dates you simply don’t know, and there is nothing wrong with saying, “I’m not sure what the date was. I don’t know for sure.”
THE WITNESS: Thank you, your Honor.
A Mr. Weinberg, I don’t know. I don’t recall for sure.
819
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, when did you become the expert/consultant in the Lisa McPherson case?
A I believe that I got a letter from Mr. Dandar quite possibly in March of 1999 that memorialized the fact that he wanted to hire me to be his consultant. We had had a working relationship at that point because I helped him a lot and I — and —
THE COURT: You know, I haven’t heard a date yet. When is the question?
A March of ’99. I think that is when we formed an agreement and decided on terms.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q All right. Prior to March of ’99, in the months prior to March of ’99, you had done a lot of work assisting Mr. Dandar with, for example, PC folders, correct?
A Correct.
Q So whether that started in November or December of ’98, it was sometime several months before March of ’99 when you signed on as the expert. Right?
A Yes.
Q And —
A To the best of my recollection.
Q And prior to signing on as the expert, can you tell us how much time you had spent down here helping out
820
Mr. Dandar before you signed on as the expert?
A I’m sorry, I can’t tell you how much time it was.
Q Okay. Now, once you signed on with Mr. Dandar, then was it established that you were on a monthly salary?
A Mmm, I think the letter that memorializes that agreement, I was on a monthly retainer of $5,000 a month and my billable hours which I believe was either $100 or $150 an hour.
Q If you exceeded the $5,000? Or is it in addition to the $5,000?
A The $5,000 retainer, and the hours against that, plus any other hours if I put in more hours or whatever.
Q But you didn’t keep your hours, we established — remember we established that in front of Judge Moody that you didn’t keep your hours. Right?
A Well, no, in the beginning I didn’t. And again, Mr. Weinberg, there was nothing to keep prior to that because I had just literally done the work for free.
Q Well, we have asked for your hours as part of the various discovery, and it came up in the Judge Moody hearing when you testified in front of Judge Moody and your testimony was, I believe, that either you didn’t keep them or you didn’t have them.
A Right. I didn’t have accurate records. I didn’t have any notes to turn over or — no.
821
Q So what you got paid by Mr. Dandar was $5,000 a month because you didn’t keep the time in order to get anything in addition to that. Correct?
A Well, you see, we’re mixing apples and oranges here again now. Because I think, you know, you talk about that time period from 1998 to —
THE COURT: I’m — he’s talking about the time period from March of ’99 when you were placed on a $5,000-a-month retainer, was it $100 or $150 an hour again that — which was it?
THE WITNESS: I’m not sure, I think it may have been $150, actually.
THE COURT: Let’s assume it was $150 an hour.
Basically how that works, if you go over, whatever $150 into $5,000 is, then you get more, but if you get less, you still keep the five.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Was that the deal?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: So you didn’t keep records, apparently?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: You were paid $5,000 a month?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: For whatever — for however many
822
hours you worked?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q We’ll show you the checks, but that continued up until — your recollection is that continued to a particular point in time, I believe the records will show, May of 2000 when you left Mr. Dandar’s payroll and went on LMT’s payroll. Correct?
A My reference point for that, Mr. Weinberg, is that we had finished the depositions of all of the Scientology persons that needed to be deposed. And Mr. Dandar was going to go on to —
THE COURT: Well, is that correct? Is that the date? I mean, all he wants to know —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q All I want to know —
A I don’t know if that is the right date. I’m saying my reference is this —
Q At some point, and we’ll show you the checks, I’m representing to you I think the last Dandar check is May of ’99 — or May of 2000. At some point in time you quit getting Dandar & Dandar checks and you started getting LMT checks?
A Correct.
Q And LMT continued to pay you at $5,000 a month?
823
A Correct.
Q The same $5,000 — the same amount. And you negotiated that rate with Mr. Minton?
A And Mrs. Brooks.
Q Now, and then the LMT at some point — you testified about either yesterday or the day before — closed down, correct?
A Correct.
Q And whenever that was, your recollection it was sometime in August or September of 2001. Right?
THE COURT: When was the date? When was the date?
MR. WEINBERG: That I don’t know exactly. I mean, it depends on — I mean, I’m really asking Mr. Prince.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I believe that you, Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks said it was sometime in the August/September of 2001 time period, is that correct?
A Mr. Weinberg, my recollection is I think it ceased to exist as a corporation — I think there was something that Stacy wrote. But again as I testified to yesterday, there was that period of time when Judge Beach still had to come into the trust in order to go through all of the offices, the library, looking for discovery, so in effect it
824
was kind of forced to stay open longer after that.
Q Well, we’ll show you the checks. But the records from LMT —
THE COURT: If you have got the checks, wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to show him, then I wouldn’t have to listen to this?
MR. WEINBERG: Right. I will.
THE COURT: What you said yesterday was even after it closed down there was a period of time when you were working and you got paid for that, too, is that right?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Whatever the checks show, the checks show.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And then at some point you quit getting LMT checks, right?
A Correct.
Q And — but Mr. Minton continued to pay you. Right?
A No. That is incorrect. Mrs. Brooks did.
Q You knew that Mrs. Brooks was getting the money from Mr. Minton. Right?
A Well, you know — come on.
Q Come on yeah?
825
A Do I need to assume that for you to make a point?
The answer to the question is I was being paid by Mrs. Brooks. Her name is on the check. It is to me. That is it.
Q All right. And that was at $5,000 a month, as well?
A Correct.
Q And who did you negotiate that deal with?
A Mrs. Brooks.
Q And did you talk to Mr. Minton about it?
A No. I specifically talked to Mrs. Brooks about it because she wanted everyone to take a cut in pay. And, again, this constant figure of $5,000 is something that we had discussed many years earlier.
Q “We” being?
A Mrs. Brooks, Mr. Minton. This is what I need to be able to live.
Q So —
A This is comparable to what I was making before I came and started doing this. I —
Q I’m sorry, before you ever signed on with Mr. Dandar, you had already discussed with Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks that you needed $5,000 a month to live, correct?
A Correct.
Q And is that what you’re getting paid at FACTNet,
826
as well?
A No.
Q Now, when you started getting these checks — they were checks, right, from Ms. Brooks, you were still living in Clearwater. Right? Or — or Florida?
A I’m still living here. Yes.
Q And you’re living in a house that Mr. Minton gave you a $50,000 down payment on. Correct?
A That was part of the down payment that I had to make. My total down payment for that house was $70,000.
Q How much of that $70,000 did Mr. Minton give you?
A $50,000.
Q And when was that? When did he give you the $50,000?
A You know, I guess it was sometime in February.
And, you know —
THE COURT: If you have the check, show it to him.
MR. WEINBERG: I don’t have the check, I don’t think.
A Well, you know, we’ve said —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Well, could you just tell me when you bought your house?
THE COURT: If he doesn’t know, he doesn’t
827
know. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.
A I know when I bought the house. I think the 21st or 22nd of February of 2000.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And at that point in February of 2000, you were getting Dandar & Dandar monthly checks as his consultant.
Right?
A Correct.
Q All right. And how did it come about Mr. Minton gave you $50,000 of the $70,000 that you needed for the downpayment?
A You want to hear this?
Q You asked him for it?
THE COURT: Go on ahead. You asked. He can tell it. Go on and rattle off however long this story is going to take.
A Prior to moving down to Clearwater, we had discussed — had many discussions about, well, where to put the Lisa McPherson Trust. We were kicking around this idea of the LMT, where is it going to go? Should it be in D.C., should it be in Boston, in the Los Angeles area. Bob said Clearwater.
We discussed this, David Cecere, myself, I think Mrs. Brooks, Mr. Minton and there — there quite possibly could have been someone else there — I don’t remember — of
828
where to put this thing.
And Mr. Minton really wanted to put it in Clearwater. He felt that it was important that it happen in Clearwater. Which meant that everyone that was going to work there would be displaced from where they were currently living to move here.
Mr. Minton offered to pay the moving expenses for all concerned and to help all concerned establish residence in Clearwater.
Q So he paid your moving expenses which —
A Correct.
Q — included a $50,000 downpayment?
A No, sir. That is what was discussed in — in New Hampshire, you know, before we moved here. Ultimately, Mr. Minton gave me the $50,000 loan to purchase that house, but I paid for my own moving expenses and I paid — I mean, the whole deal cost about $80,000 for me to relocate.
Because I had a place in Memphis. And by this time I’m kind of living with — in Chicago. By this time I’m kind of living with my fiancee in Memphis, Tennessee, as well. So when I moved down to Clearwater I had to move from two cities; I had to move from Chicago, I had to move from Memphis, Tennessee, to Clearwater.
Q Mr. Minton paid some other things for you. He paid your attorney fees in the criminal case down here,
829
didn’t he?
A I believe the Lisa McPherson Trust paid those.
Q Well, did you — did you discuss with Mr. Minton that you needed funds to pay an attorney when you got charged down here?
A No.
Q So who did you discuss that with so that the Lisa McPherson Trust paid for your attorney fees?
A I wanted to hire a fellow named Rob Love to defend me in that action. Mrs. Brooks insisted that Mr. DeVlaming would handle my case and it would be taken care of by the Lisa McPherson Trust as a job hazard.
Q As a job hazard?
A Yes.
Q Okay. And that was around $60,000 or $70,000?
A The bill that I saw — I think it was about $45,000 that I saw.
Q Do you think it was more than that or you don’t know?
A I think it could have been more.
Q Now, how long — so how would you get these checks from Ms. Brooks after the Lisa McPherson Trust closed down?
A She would mail them to me from Atlanta.
Q The last check you got was on or about April 4 of 2002?
830
A Correct.
Q And did you have a discussion — all these discussions that you had with Ms. Brooks and Mr. Minton that you have testified about this year, in any of those discussions did you discuss with them your need for them to continue paying you?
A Mmm, no, I haven’t had a discussion about that. I mean, we — I think I brought up earlier, in September there was a renegotiation of — Stacy wanted people to take pay cuts or whatever. And —
Q But you didn’t take one?
A Correct.
Q I was talking about April. In that — do you remember you said you had all these conversations, that you referred to them in your affidavit, with Mr. Brooks — with Ms. Brooks and Mr. Minton —
A Oh, okay.
Q In those conversations did you raise the fact that you needed more money, you needed money, you wanted money?
A No.
Q Okay.
A I did not.
Q Now, you said that you began as the paid expert/consultant in the Lisa McPherson case in March of — of 1999. Correct?
831
A Yes.
MR. WEINBERG: Now, let me have the reporter — the clerk —
A To the best of my recollection.
MR. WEINBERG: — mark as a 3-page exhibit, if we can do that, your Honor —
THE COURT: Sure.
MR. WEINBERG: — some checks. This will be 225.
THE COURT: All right. Do I have the right order, the way you handed it to me?
MR. WEINBERG: I think so.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: It is possible, however, that I screwed that up, but —
THE COURT: It is all right.
MR. WEINBERG: But the order should be February, March and May. That is what I’m hoping.
THE COURT: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q This is 225, Mr. Prince.
A Okay.
Q And you recognize the first page of 225 to be a February 2nd of 1999 check from Bob Minton for $6,500 to you?
832
A Yes, I do.
Q Do you recognize the second page to be a March — appears to be March 18, 1999 check to you for $5,000, do you see that?
A Yes, I do.
Q From Mr. Minton again?
A Yes.
Q And the third check to be a May 4, 1999 check for $5,000 from Mr. Minton?
A Correct. Q Now, this was — these checks had to do with the agreement that you had already worked out with Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks about you getting at least $5,000 a month?
A Correct.
Q But you were getting this on top of what you were getting from Mr. Dandar?
A No.
Q Okay. You think you started getting from Mr. Dandar a little bit later?
A Yes.
Q Now, what was this $5,000 a month for? I mean, one was $6,500. Do you know why it was $6,500?
A Do you know, I don’t know. I was looking at that. That is an anomaly. That must have been money left over from another month. Because as I said, there was a
833
stretch — period of time after I met — certainly from 1998 until I guess this first check here that I was just simply not paid at all.
Q But this — you are not getting paid for FACTNet work, you are getting paid for Lisa McPherson work prior to signing on with —
A No.
Q — Ken Dandar?
A No.
Q Well, what is this work? What is this —
A I’m in FACTNet when this is happening.
Q Why was FACTNet paying you?
A Well, I think I mentioned earlier that sometimes FACTNet just didn’t have money and I would call Mr. Minton. I can’t just be down here.
Q Now, when —
THE COURT: Weren’t you making $3,500 a month at FACTNet? Or am I thinking of something else?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, you may be right about that because we did have — have some agreement, I think I reached some agreement with them to do that. And, you know, at that time I still had my other business. I still had other employees. I would often make trips, you know. So that could have been the case.
834
But the fact of the matter is the organization didn’t have the money.
THE COURT: I’m trying to think of why — I have no idea why it was $6,500 either unless perhaps —
MR. WEINBERG: I think it might have been some expenses or something.
THE COURT: Or perhaps he was getting $3,500 from FACTNet. He was supposed to start getting $5,000 from whatever, and I didn’t get — the difference from $3,500 to $5,000 would be $6,500.
That would be rational but —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q In any event, Mr. Minton knew you had been doing this work in Clearwater for Mr. Dandar with regard to the PC folders? He knew that?
A I assume he did.
Q I mean, you were in — once you had spent that however long you said it was, I forgot now, a couple weeks at his house, you communicated with him regularly after that, didn’t you?
A Up until this very occurrence, yes.
THE COURT: What is “this very occurrence”?
This —
THE WITNESS: That is occurring here.
835
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: Now I’m going to mark as our next exhibit, your Honor —
THE CLERK: 226.
MR. WEINBERG: — 226, this is 226 —
THE COURT: Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, Mr. Prince, 226 is a response that was filed by Mr. Dandar on April 6, 2001. And attached — and the response shows that it has checks attached, but if you’ll look at the summary on Page 2, it identifies a 6/30/99 check, an 8/20/99 check, a 9/15/99 —
A Excuse me, I’m not following you at all.
MR. WEINBERG: If I could approach a second?
THE COURT: You don’t need to read them all into evidence. Just put it into evidence.
MR. WEINBERG: I just wanted him to look at it.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You see those?
A Uh-huh.
Q Attached is those checks. So either look at the attachment or summary there.
Is it your recollection that is the sum and substance of what Dandar & Dandar paid you while you were on the — you know, being working as a consultant/expert?
836
A I believe this is correct with the possible exception of recent activity.
Q Right. No, I’m talking about prior to 2002.
A Okay.
Q And that the first check was on or about June 30, 1999. Do you see that?
A Yes, I do.
Q And the last check was on or about May 24, 2000.
A Yes.
Q And it’s your recollection that after you received the last check, that is when you started getting paid at the same rate by Lisa McPherson Trust?
A Correct.
Q You see for the most part these checks are $5,000 a month?
A Correct. I think I can explain what this other one is for, $1,772.
Q What?
A I mean all of $5,000 with the exception of the $1,772 —
Q Is that some expense check?
A Yes.
Q Okay. Now, the Lisa McPherson Trust actually withheld from your check. Right?
A Yes.
837
Q In other words, you — your salary was $5,000 a month but your take-home was whatever —
A About 35.
Q So I’m going to show you a series of those checks, as well.
A Okay.
Q You were on a 1099 for Mr. Dandar, in other words, he didn’t withhold from your checks, right?
A Correct.
THE COURT: You were considered an independent contractor when you worked for him, is that right?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
THE CLERK: 227.
MR. WEINBERG: This is 227, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q This is 227.
A Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: I’ll mark as 228 this document.
And all this is is the payroll records of Mr. Prince which show that the salary was $5,000, it shows what the withholding was.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: That is 228.
838
THE COURT: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: These were produced by the Lisa McPherson Trust.
THE COURT: These weren’t additional moneys.
MR. WEINBERG: No, it just shows what the salary was, 228, and they withheld —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q If you look at the checks, Mr. Prince, they are $3,552, starting in June of — of 2000, do you see that?
A Mmm, yes, I do.
Q And it is June, July, August, September, October, November, December —
THE COURT: Counselor — Counselor, just can you go from the beginning to the end?
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q It begins in June — end of June of 2000 and ends — one is out of place — ends —
THE COURT: June ’01.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q June/01, except if you look at the other exhibit, Mr. Prince — if I could just approach, your Honor — the payroll records indicate that you would have received — you would have received a — one last payment on August 1, 2001 of $5,000 salary with all of the withholding. Do you see that?
839
A I’m trying to follow.
Q It is the last page. Right there (indicating).
August 1 —
A Oh, yeah. Okay.
Q All right? So that was probably the close-out payment or something?
A That was the last check. Yeah.
THE COURT: Counselor, from LMT again?
MR. WEINBERG: These are the LMT records, this is what they produced.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q So it appears you were paid a salary as an employee from June of 2000 until August of 2001 at $5,000 a month. Correct?
A Correct.
Q And after August 1 of 2001, you continued to get your $5,000 a month but it was from Ms. Brooks?
A Correct.
Q Now, did Ms. Brooks withhold from — I mean —
THE COURT: What could she withhold from? I mean, she was not paying him out of a business; she was giving him money.
MR. WEINBERG: It’s a good question.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did — what were you considered at that point when
840
you were getting this $5,000 a month from Ms. Brooks?
A What was I considered? Stranded in Clearwater.
All of the other staff had moved.
THE COURT: Was this a friend giving — giving you living money until you could get some other job?
THE WITNESS: Absolutely.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Was there some understanding how long that was going on?
A No.
Q Was — had there been discussions it was going to end?
A No.
Q Now, you have a monthly mortgage, obviously, because you haven’t sold this house yet, right?
A Correct.
Q Who paid you in May of 2002?
A It’s not here?
Q May of 2002. The last check from Ms. Brooks you said was April 4, 2002.
A Correct.
Q You said for years you needed $5,000 a month to live.
A Correct.
Q So my question is who paid —
841
your money to live in May of 2002?
A I think from the State of Florida.
Q What do you mean?
A I filed for unemployment.
Q Well, how did you do that?
THE COURT: Because he was unemployed.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q But you’d been unemployed since August of 2001.
A Yeah.
Q Or did you tell them that you had been employed since August of 2001 and just lost your job when you had this argument or disagreement with Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks?
A Mr. Weinberg, it is actually quite a simple process. You go online, you tell them you are employed — unemployed, you put it in there, and they send you a check. You check in. You have to look for employment. I mean, that is what I know about.
Q And who did you say your last employer was?
A Lisa McPherson Trust.
Q And what did you say the circumstances were that you had lost your job?
A Mmm, I — I think — I think maybe the place was bankrupt, went out of business, closed shop. Something like that, you know.
842
Q Is there some application you have to fill out?
A Online, yes.
Q And is there — so it is all online, it is with the State of Florida?
A Yes, it is with the State of Florida online, yes.
Q And so since May of 2002, you have been on unemployment?
A Since late May of — yeah. Late May of 2002.
Yes.
Q So you are still on unemployment?
A No.
Q Well, when did that end?
A Well, when I worked out a new agreement with Mr. Dandar and came to appear as an expert and give testimony here, he gave me a check which I think he said he would send here, and at that point when you receive money — when you are employed and you are actually receiving money, whether it is self-employed or otherwise, that terminates unemployment.
So that check effectively terminated my unemployment.
Q And so you notified the authorities of that?
A Yes. And I haven’t received another check since.
Q How many checks did you get — where do you get it, from the State of Florida, is that where you get the
843
checks?
A Yes.
Q And how many checks did you get for unemployment?
A Mmm, well, they do it — I think I was getting like $293 a week or something like that. Then they would double them up so the checks were like $494, I would get two of those —
THE COURT: Were you getting weekly checks?
THE WITNESS: No, I had it every other week.
So I got $494 — I believe I received —
THE COURT: Do you know?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: Then why don’t you say that?
THE WITNESS: Sorry. I don’t know.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q When did you get the first money from — when did you sign up with Mr. Dandar to be an expert again? What date?
A I don’t know.
Q Well, that can’t be long ago, so what is your best —
A Well, I don’t know the date. I don’t know.
Q What were the circumstances of you becoming an expert again?
A Mmm, you know, again, this whole thing was over.
844
People were going home. It was over. Your client took Mrs. Brooks and Mr. Minton as trophies and we are sitting here today and this brought me into this position here again today. So, you know, those are kinds of the circumstances.
THE COURT: Are you back as a consultant or expert or combination of the two?
THE WITNESS: I have been a combination of the two with him.
THE COURT: And what time did that start, about? Was it like —
THE WITNESS: Maybe a week ago, two weeks ago or however.
THE COURT: So between May of 2002 up until that time you were collecting unemployment?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And is there some agreement you executed with Mr. Dandar a week or two weeks ago?
A Yeah, that I participate in the case, I would help —
Q No, is there some written agreement?
A Oh, no.
Q And the day that it started is when you got the check. Is that when you became the expert, when you got the check?
845
A You know, I’m not — I’m not sure because —
THE COURT: As opposed to they talked, then they got a check —
MR. WEINBERG: I’m trying to date it. It is not that long ago. I’m trying to date it.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I mean, when it happened, did you — I mean, did this essentially happen simultaneously that somehow it was established that you were going to be the expert again and you negotiated what you needed?
A There was no — I’ll try to explain it as best as I can, Mr. Weinberg.
THE COURT: I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it, I’m not interested. I’m just not interested.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Could I ask the amount then? What is the agreement? Are you getting paid on monthly basis? Salary?
A We have no agreement like that. I just — you know, I will put in X amount of time, I’ll get through this hearing —
THE COURT: Are you going to bill him per hour, or what?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor, I am.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And how much have you received from Mr. Dandar?
846
A $4,000.
Q Is that just a retainer?
A Yes.
THE COURT: Are you keeping records now?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor, I am.
THE COURT: What is your hourly fee?
THE WITNESS: 150.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: I think this would be — I have a few other questions.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did anybody else, between the time that Ms. Brooks quit giving you money and the time that Mr. Dandar did give you money, did anybody else give you whatever you want to call it, expense money, living money, expert money, money?
A No.
THE COURT: Between the time Ms. Brooks —
MR. WEINBERG: — quit giving him the money in April of 2002 of this year and whenever it was Mr. Dandar gave this check.
THE COURT: Other than his unemployment?
MR. WEINBERG: Other than his unemployment.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did anybody else give you money?
A The answer is no.
847
MR. WEINBERG: I think that — you know, I’m sort of at the end of this section. If you want me to start another section I will, or we can —
THE COURT: Yes, I would like to go until about 12:15, if you don’t mind.
MR. WEINBERG: No.
THE COURT: Because we kind of got a late break.
MR. WEINBERG: No, I really don’t mind.
THE COURT: Gee, I thought you were about to say you were done.
MR. DANDAR: I thought so, too.
THE COURT: I was real excited.
MR. WEINBERG: Or I could put it a different way. Maybe I could have some time to collect my thoughts. No, I’m not done.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, you have been asked before about —
THE COURT: Could I ask one question? I’m sorry.
MR. WEINBERG: Sure.
THE COURT: What is the number of the response from Mr. Dandar? Can somebody give me a number on that?
848
MR. DANDAR: 226.
THE COURT: Thank you. I forgot to mark it.
MR. WEINBERG: Which means that the — that the LMT —
THE COURT: I have everything else marked. I just didn’t have that marked.
MR. WEINBERG: All right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You have been asked before and testified about going to Key West. Do you remember that?
A I don’t remember testifying about that.
Q Well, did you go to Key West?
A Yes. But I don’t remember testifying about it.
MR. DANDAR: It is outside of the scope of direct.
THE COURT: Well, I don’t know what he’s going to ask about it, but it is probably doubtful it is outside of the scope of direct but —
MR. WEINBERG: It is. It is.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And you were in Key West for what purpose?
A Vacation.
Q For a fishing trip is what you previously testified to.
849
A Yes, okay. And, you know, I don’t want to do this — if I have testimony, could you please just show it to me and ask me about it?
THE COURT: That is a fair question. I mean —
MR. WEINBERG: Well, let me ask a few questions and then I will show it to you because we do have — actually we’ll show you the video.
THE COURT: If he wants to see it, you show it to him now.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, this is it. He can look at it.
THE COURT: Then put it up then.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, I need to ask him one question before.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: One series.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q In Key West, it didn’t have anything to do about Scientology or this case or cases against Scientology, is that right?
A Mmm, you know, we were there for a fishing trip.
I was there with Mr. Haverty, Mr. Haney, Mr. Ford Greene, Mr Dan Leipold, Mr. Dandar; Mr. Garko came out there. We all have a common interest, and it would be crazy for me to say that the subject of our work didn’t come up and was
850
discussed or whatever at some — you know, during the fishing trip.
So the — that is the best way I can answer that question.
THE COURT: So the answer is yes, you all discussed the case?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Well, let me play your testimony and then I’ll ask you about it.
THE COURT: What testimony? This is on direct?
MR. WEINBERG: No, it’s in his deposition under oath in this case on November 17 —
THE COURT: See, you misled — I think Mr. Prince and I both thought you were talking about on direct examination which is what Mr. Dandar said was outside the scope.
MR. WEINBERG: No, in this case about Key West.
THE COURT: But it was in his deposition?
MR. WEINBERG: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. When you say testimony in this case, I’m going to assume you’re talking about direct.
MR. WEINBERG: I’m sorry.
851
THE COURT: So if it is something else, you need to identify it for him and for me.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
MR. DANDAR: What page number is this going to be?
MR. WEINBERG: Right here. This is a transcript of where this comes from.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: May I have a transcript, too?
MR. WEINBERG: Oh, sure.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
______________________________________
(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did you go to Key West?
A Yes.
Q Who sent you to Key West?
A No one sent. I went.
Q Who paid for the trip?
A I paid for the majority of it while I was there, but it wasn’t — really not much to pay for. I paid to be on a boat to go out fishing. I paid —
Q Who — well, who gave you the money?
A I used my own money.
Q Well, where did that money come from?
852
A Money that I earned from working.
Q For FACTNet and Mr. Dandar and Mr. Leipold?
A I think we’ve covered this earlier. You know, I have a — you know — different businesses, as well as expert, and, you know, the money that I used for that particular trip came from money derived from income from work that I’ve done.
Q Including FACTNet, Mr. Dandar and Mr. Leipold, right?
A I’m not sure why you’re bringing up FACTNet. I thought we —
Q Is that right?
A No, that is wrong.
Q Well, when was the trip to Key West?
A Well, six weeks ago now.
Q And who was on the trip? What people were on the trip?
A Oh, you know, I really don’t want to discuss that because I was on a complete pleasure trip. It had nothing do with McPherson, or Wollersheim. Nothing. It had to do with fishing and having a good time. Okay?
Q Now —
A And I explained to you earlier that I am very reticent to bring up the names of people that I’m involved with that is activity outside of Scientology because of the
853
behavior of your client. How many times do we have to keep going over this?
Q Were you on the trip with Mr. Dandar? Or are you embarrassed about bringing his name up? Were you on the trip with Mr. Dandar?
A No, Mr. Dandar was not —
Q Answer yes or no?
A — on the trip. No.
Q Was Mr. Leipold on the trip?
A Mr. Leipold — Leipold was there, Mr. Weiner (sic). He was there.
Q Was Mr. Minton on the trip?
A No.
Q Ms. Young on the trip?
A No.
Q Vaughn Young on the trip?
A No.
Q Mr. Jacobsen on the trip?
A Who is Mr. Jacobsen?
Q You don’t know Mr. Jacobsen?
A No.
Q That is fine. Mr. Ward on the trip?
A No. No.
Q Did you talk about Lisa McPherson on the trip?
A Very little.
854
Q So Mr. Leipold went from California to Key West to just fish —
A Yes.
Q — with Jesse Prince?
A Yes. We went deep-sea fishing. We went 40 miles off the coast, caught fish like this. Had a ball.
Q And there was no planning session with regard to litigation. Is that correct?
A No.
Q Was Mr. Haney on the trip?
A Yes. And his son. And he learned to fish.
Excuse me. Now that we don’t have a question pending I would like to take a break. My leg is going to sleep.
Q We just broke ten minutes ago?
A Well, okay, I’m sorry, my leg is going to sleep.
I’ll take a two-minute break. Is that okay, Mr. Weiner (sic)?
Q Okay, take a break.
____________________________________
Q Now, I asked you if Mr. Dandar was in Key West with you. And you said no. You said no repeatedly. Is that correct?
A I don’t — if I did say no, I’m very sorry. He was not part of the trip. He came and appeared one day,
855
said, “Hi,” we had dinner and he left.
Q When you were outside did they — did they — Ms. Young remind you that you had made yet another mistake under oath? Did they tell you that?
A How could Ms. Young said — say that when I gave you testimony that she wasn’t there?
Q Well, who told you that then? Who told you — who corrected your — your false testimony that Mr. Dandar wasn’t there?
A I never gave false testimony. You asked me if Dandar was part of the trip that I went fishing. I said no.
Q And you were absolutely insistent that Mr. Dandar wasn’t there and yet he was in Key West?
A And came and had dinner and left. One time.
Q Flew down to Key West to have dinner and left.
MR. DANDAR: Objection, asked and answered and don’t answer it again.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did he stay in a hotel down there?
A I don’t know.
Q What do you mean, you don’t know?
A That means that I don’t have personal knowledge of it.
Q And you understand what personal knowledge is,
856
right?
A Oh, come on, please.
Q No, do you understand it, personal knowledge?
A I do not know if he was staying in a hotel there.
I was in a different place. I don’t know where he was.
Q How many — how long did you spend with him in Key West on that trip this summer?
A A dinner. Maybe 15, 20 minutes. Outside of dinner —
Q Dinner is usually at night, right?
A Correct.
Q Did you see him the next morning?
A No.
Q Now, was Mike Garko down there?
A Yes, he was. Dr. Garko was there.
Q Was Thom Haverty down there?
A Yes. He was.
Q So that is like the whole consulting team for the McPherson case?
A Mr. Garko was with Mr. Dandar.
Q So he just flew in for dinner?
A Came in and left.
Q Didn’t have anything to do with the Lisa McPherson case?
A No.
857
Q Who paid for your trip?
A As I gave testimony to earlier, I paid my own expenses to — Mmm — take the boat out. I went out on a boat several times. I paid about 50, 60 bucks a time. I bought beer, wine, food, cigarettes.
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________
THE COURT: Counselor, is it — is it important that —
MR. WEINBERG: We are demonstrating —
THE COURT: Right now we have testimony coming out, I paid for my trip.
MR. WEINBERG: We are playing it in context.
THE COURT: No, it is not. I see about a jillion pages. You are on Page 259 and I see it going straight through to Page 267. That is a lot of pages. And I see that you’re — there is a lot of consistent testimony here.
MR. WEINBERG: But, your Honor, when we play this, I think you’ll see that there is a lot of inconsistent statements.
THE COURT: Yes, you already played it. I’m saying why do I have to listen to the consistent testimony from a deposition, it is improper.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, because — because —
858
there has been a lot of argument, accusations in here about taking things out of context so we left it in context is what we did.
THE COURT: All right.
If you have any more like this, you — you cut and paste. You can give it all to me, go to where you want to go, but I don’t want to hear it —
MR. WEINBERG: I understand.
THE COURT: I have better things to do than listen to this man’s testimony two times when it is exactly the same both times. Now, there is differences and I’m interested in hearing the differences.
MR. WEINBERG: And it is different from the other sworn testimony before —
THE COURT: And I’m interested in hearing that.
I’m not interested in hearing that which is not inconsistent. Do I make myself clear?
MR. WEINBERG: Yes.
THE COURT: It is improper. All right.
MR. WEINBERG: We could play it on rebuttal case, and we thought it would be appropriate to play it here with Mr. Prince on the stand and get his explanation for the inconsistencies between this and —
859
THE COURT: I have no problem with your playing inconsistencies.
MR. WEINBERG: All right.
THE COURT: That is called impeachment. I do have a problem with having to listen to Mr. Prince’s testimony on the stand and then listen to identical testimony in a deposition. Cut and paste it. You can give me the whole deposition, so if I want to read it in between, I can.
MR. WEINBERG: I apologize. Just play the rest — no, are we done?
That is fine.
THE COURT: I mean, there is more here and there may be more inconsistencies and I want you to play that —
MR. WEINBERG: I understand, and we don’t have it set up and I’ll go back and look at it at the break.
THE COURT: Let me look and I can see what you have underlined and that is probably the important part. I see I have two pages here not underlined.
MR. WEINBERG: The only stuff being played is the underlined stuff.
THE COURT: That is not true, Counsel, it is not true.
860
MR. DANDAR: And I don’t have anything underlined.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, then — then I should have followed the transcript.
THE COURT: Page 259, this is about the time I interrupted you, “Who paid for your trip down there?
“As I gave testimony to you earlier, I paid my own expenses. I went out on a boat several times –”
MR. WEINBERG: Wait a minute. I thought — point made. I really thought when I was — that I had this — only the stuff that was yellowed.
THE COURT: No.
MR. WEINBERG: That is why it was yellowed.
THE COURT: If there is something else in here you want to impeach, that is perfectly fine, you can catch it during lunch.
MR. WEINBERG: I’ll catch it during lunch. I think I pretty much made my point.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, in Mr. Dandar’s testimony in this proceeding on May 3, 2002 —
A Not this?
Q No, it is not this.
A Okay.
861
Q On Page 90 — this is in his direct testimony when it first started at the beginning — I could hand this up.
THE COURT: If you are going to try to impeach this witness from Mr. Dandar’s testimony —
MR. WEINBERG: No, I’m going to ask him a question about it.
THE COURT: You don’t need to show him Mr. Dandar’s testimony or ask him about it. You can’t do it. If their testimony differs, it differs. You can bring it up, inconsistencies in their testimony, but you can’t show him Mr. Dandar’s testimony and say, “Is that true?”
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I take it that you did not spend hours and hours talking about Scientology strategy, the Lisa McPherson case and the other Scientology cases with Mr. Dandar or anyone else at the Key West meeting. Is that correct?
A That is correct. My recollection, I didn’t spend hours speaking to anyone about this. I mean, you know, there were a point in time when the attorneys were meeting, you know. And again, I don’t profess to be an attorney, I don’t try to be an attorney. I was there on a fishing trip, you know. Mr. Leipold has certain experience in dealing with Scientology. Mr. Ford Greene has certain experience with dealing with Scientology because of the cases he has
862
done. They had discussed with Mr. Dandar about that. This had nothing to do with me.
Q Well, you said Mr. Dandar in your testimony was only there for dinner one night for a few hours with Dr. Garko and flew back and there was no discussion about — about the case. That is what you said?
A You know —
Q Under oath. Correct?
A This is getting ridiculous, Mr. Weinberg. I mean, he flew in for dinner. He flew in. He brought in Mr. Garko. He had his own personal pilot. They were flying a little personal plane. They came, you know, while it was still light outside, you know, “Hi.” Thom Haverty’s wife is there and Captain Wayne’s wife is there, the boat. This is a social setting.
Q All right, so —
A There is nothing sinister about it.
Q So Mr. Dandar was not there for two or three or four days with Dr. Garko, was he?
A Not to my recollection. No.
Q Did you fly back to Tampa with Mr. Dandar?
A No, I did not.
Q And did you talk, on the trip in Key West — which you remember it was in August of 1999?
A I’ll take your word for it.
863
Q And do you remember that on August 20th of 1999 is when you wrote that David Miscavige affidavit that was used about him ordering the death of — letting — ordering or allowing her or causing her to die? Do you remember that?
A You got me all screwed up on the dates now. Could you just tell me again?
Q The testimony in this case is that the Key West trip was around August 8, 9, 10, 11 of 1999. Or 12th of 1999.
A Whose testimony is that now?
Q Mr. Dandar’s testimony, Dr. Garko’s testimony, Mr. Haney’s testimony. That is the testimony.
A Okay.
Q All right? You executed an affidavit — the affidavit in this case, part of what this hearing is about, on August 20 of 1998?
THE COURT: We are talking about that is the date he signed it?
MR. WEINBERG: Yes, that is the date he signed it.
THE COURT: You are not going to suggest to this witness that whole affidavit was written on the date it was —
MR. WEINBERG: I wasn’t going to ask that.
864
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Just ten or fifteen days later you executed this affidavit, right?
A Correct.
Q Now, did you participate in any conversations in Key West with anyone, whether it is Ford Greene, lawyer on Scientology cases, or Dandar Leipold, or Ken Dandar, or Dr. Garko or Thom Haverty, part of the — part of the Lisa McPherson team, did you have conversations with anybody down there about any of the assertions in this what became the August 20th affidavit?
A Not that I recall.
Q Did you have any discussions down there with anyone about adding David Miscavige as a strategy to the Lisa McPherson case?
A Not that I recall.
Q As far as you know, was anybody down there talking about the strategy of adding David Miscavige to the Lisa McPherson case?
A Not that I know of.
Q And was it —
A Or not that I recall or have memory of.
Q But you did leave Key West and go directly to Tampa, correct, after that trip that you call a fishing trip?
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A I believe that — that that is correct.
Q And as soon as you got to Tampa, you started work — you must have started working on this affidavit. Right?
A I think that affidavit was a work in progress by the time I got to Tampa already. If you notice — I mean, that thing is pretty detailed. I have references. I have studied. You know, it takes me time to do these affidavits.
I just don’t sit and imagine it. I have my calendar, I have my notes or whatever and I sit and I do these things.
Q But the first check you got from Mr. Dandar was June 30, 1999. Correct?
A If that is what you just showed me, I’ll take your word for it. Okay.
Q So as you look back, as you think back, do you recall whether you were working on this affidavit before you went to Key West?
A I’m pretty sure that was a work in progress.
Q So you had already had discussions with people about adding Mr. Miscavige to the case?
A I don’t know. I don’t recall it so I’m going to say I don’t know.
THE COURT: The only thing I’m going to allow you to inquire about — remember we had this little business about the work product — is the meeting
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which is at issue in this case, the meeting, whether Minton was there and whether Minton influenced that. Whether this man, as a consultant, paid or otherwise, had a conversation about adding David Miscavige is what I would have expected him to add. Nothing sinister about that.
MR. WEINBERG: Nothing said it was sinister, except Mr. Dandar already asked Dr. Garko about meetings, Mr. Haney about meetings, Ms. Brooks about meetings, so —
THE COURT: Meetings? What meetings? The only person that I know of that was asked about the Key West meetings was you-all. Maybe he brought it up —
MR. WEINBERG: He brought it up on May 3rd.
You didn’t let me cross-examine him. Mr. Dandar is the one that brought up the Key West meeting, said that is where he —
THE COURT: Well, do you think I think all those people sat down there and didn’t talk about this case?
MR. WEINBERG: No, I don’t.
THE COURT: I don’t care what they said.
MR. WEINBERG: I’m just —
THE COURT: I mean, you know —
867
MR. WEINBERG: I —
THE COURT: You are acting as if you have a jury here that — I’m a judge that has been involved in this case very deeply, and as I tried to suggest to you on several occasions, I’m not an idiot.
MR. WEINBERG: I know that.
THE COURT: I know what lawyers do.
MR. WEINBERG: I understand that.
THE COURT: And I know if you get this many lawyers together, all of whom have Scientology cases, you put them on fishing trip or movie theater or whatever, the subject comes up and they talk about it.
MR. WEINBERG: And you couldn’t have said it better, and I’m making a record which I’m done with on this thing —
THE COURT: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: — indicating that this witness, that is what this — you know, this Paragraph 34 in the complaint is all about, his sworn affidavit, has told lies. You know, I’m using that —
THE COURT: I already told you and I told your team, save it for the jury. I don’t care if he told a bunch of lies or not. The law in Florida is if he qualifies as an expert, he can testify.
868
MR. WEINBERG: No, I understand your ruling. I’m —
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: This is for credibility purposes.
THE COURT: I understand.
MR. WEINBERG: All right. But I’m pretty much done with this area.
THE COURT: All right. Then let’s have lunch.
MR. WEINBERG: Good.
THE COURT: And as I said, you just have to forget — I hope you all don’t forget that I was a lawyer for a long time.
MR. WEINBERG: Judge, believe me —
THE COURT: Please.
MR. WEINBERG: — I am well aware of that.
THE COURT: Frankly, my findings will go to the court this time with a presumption of correctness.
This is not a de novo hearing —
MR. WEINBERG: No, I understand that.
THE COURT: — by the Second District.
MR. WEINBERG: No, but it has also been a long proceeding.
THE COURT: Well, I understand, but it seems to me as if part of what you want to do is have
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Mr. Prince up here just forever. I made statements before about Mr. Prince. I’m aware of Mr. Prince’s bias. I mean, Mr. Minton, according to Mr. Prince, shows where I said this before, this is not new.
MR. WEINBERG: I understand, but I just started yesterday — I mean, yesterday late —
THE COURT: I understand. But you are spending an awful lot of time about pickets which I knew what they would say, with pickets that I knew would not be pretty, all as if you are trying to show me what I already know. You are wasting time here.
MR. WEINBERG: But —
THE COURT: We’ll be in recess until 1:30.
(WHEREUPON, a recess was taken from 12:00 to 1:35 p.m.)
______________________________________870
REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE
STATE OF FLORIDA )
COUNTY OF PINELLAS )I, LYNNE J. IDE, Registered Merit Reporter, certify that I was authorized to and did stenographically report the proceedings herein, and that the transcript is a true and complete record of my stenographic notes.
I further certify that I am not a relative, employee, attorney or counsel of any of the parties, nor am I a relative or employee of any of the parties’ attorney or counsel connected with the action, nor am I financially interested in the action.
DATED this 10th day of July, 2002.
______________________________
LYNNE J. IDE, RMR
Testimony of Jesse Prince (Volume 5) (July 9, 2002)
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IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA
CASE NO. 00-5682-CI-11DELL LIEBREICH, as Personal Representative of the ESTATE OF LISA McPHERSON,
Plaintiff,vs.
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY FLAG SERVICE ORGANIZATION, JANIS JOHNSON, ALAIN KARTUZINSKI and DAVID HOUGHTON, D.D.S.,
Defendants._______________________________________/
PROCEEDINGS: Defendants’ Omnibus Motion for Terminating Sanctions and Other Relief.
CONTENTS: Testimony of Jesse Prince.1
VOLUME 5
DATE: July 9, 2002. Afternoon Session.
PLACE: Courtroom B, Judicial Building
St. Petersburg, Florida.BEFORE: Honorable Susan F. Schaeffer, Circuit Judge.
REPORTED BY: Lynne J. Ide, RMR.
Deputy Official Court Reporter,
Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida.583
APPEARANCES:
MR. KENNAN G. DANDAR
DANDAR & DANDAR
340 West Kennedy Blvd., Suite 201
Tampa, FL 33602
Attorney for Plaintiff.MR. LUKE CHARLES LIROT
LUKE CHARLES LIROT, PA
112 N East Street, Street, Suite B
Tampa, FL 33602-4108
Attorney for PlaintiffMR. KENDRICK MOXON
MOXON & KOBRIN
100 Cleveland Street, Suite 900
Clearwater, FL 33755
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.MR. LEE FUGATE
MR. MORRIS WEINBERG, JR.
ZUCKERMAN, SPAEDER
101 E. Kennedy Blvd, Suite 1200
Tampa, FL 33602-5147
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.MR. ERIC M. LIEBERMAN
RABINOWITZ, BOUDIN, STANDARD
740 Broadway at Astor Place
New York, NY 10003-9518
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.584
MR. STEPHEN J. WEIN
Battaglia, Ross, Dicus & Wein, P.A.
980 Tyrone Boulevard
St. Petersburg, Florida 33710
Counsel for Robert Minton.585
THE COURT: You may be seated. Okay, before we begin, two questions. Have you decided when you want the trial date, Mr. Dandar?
MR. DANDAR: September.
THE COURT: All right. Have you decided whether or not you need Mr. Rosen?
MR. DANDAR: No, I don’t need Mr. Rosen.
THE COURT: All right. Then I’m going to assume that — I will go ahead and enter an order pro hac vice admitting Mr. Rosen, just in case.
He’ll be admitted, just for this purpose. And I’ll let you have —
MR. FUGATE: Should I prepare an order, Judge?
THE COURT: Do you mind?
MR. FUGATE: No.
THE COURT: Tell him to prepare an order, whatever.
MR. FUGATE: I’ll do it.
MR. DANDAR: So, Judge, since we will start picking a jury for the trial in September, what specific date would that be?
THE COURT: The second week in September. Whatever that Monday is.
MR. DANDAR: All right.
THE COURT: You may proceed.
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MR. DANDAR: Thank you.
THE COURT: That, of course, assumes the motion to dismiss is not granted.
MR. DANDAR: I understand.
THE COURT: Mr. Lirot, are you still of the mind that if Mr. Dandar is removed as counsel, you are prepared on that date?
MR. LIROT: Hope springs eternal, Judge. But yes, Judge, I’ll be prepared on that date if need be.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Mr. Prince, what I was trying to do before the lunch break was finish up on the meetings that you had with Mr. Minton and Stacy Brooks.
A Okay.
Q I believe we left off with your meeting with them when things got a little testy at the hotel for dinner.
A At the Radisson.
Q At the Radisson. In my — your note attached to your affidavit, you said you met with me before you met with them that Sunday. So that was April 14th.
A Okay.
Q All right? So let’s go from then on. What happened after April 14th?
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A Mmm —
THE COURT: I’m sorry, he met with you before he met with them?
MR. DANDAR: That same day. That is where this handwritten note —
THE COURT: Right. For some reason, I thought it was after. But it was before?
MR. DANDAR: On this particular day he met with me at the mall with Mr. Lirot. And that was April 14th.
THE COURT: In the afternoon? Then he went there in the evening?
MR. DANDAR: Then he went there.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q What happened after April 14th?
A Mmm, well, contact again — and I think I mentioned I had the one phone conversation with Mr. Minton where I invited him over to my house.
But they — they talked to me — or got messages to me via my fiancee. They would talk to her.
And if anything happened — we wouldn’t talk, we were not talking.
Q And what messages did you receive from Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks that way?
MR. WEINBERG: Objection. Hearsay, your Honor.
THE COURT: Hearsay. That would have to be
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hearsay. I mean, that would have nothing to do with Mr. Minton’s state of mind or anything in this proceeding, so you would have to, at the very least, bring in the other person.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q So you never talked with Mr. Minton or Ms. Brooks since then directly, one-on-one?
A I talked with Mrs. Brooks. Mmm, she just told me that everything was going to be fine, regardless of whether or not I agreed to go with them or participate in activities with them with Scientology. She just told me things were
going to be okay.Q When did Ms. Brooks stop paying you your monthly income?
A Either March or April.
Q And you said before that you went to Denis deVlaming’s office and spoke with him, and he couldn’t help you because of the conflict of interest. Did you go to any law enforcement?
A Well, it’s not entirely true to say that Mr. DeVlaming couldn’t help me.
What Mr. DeVlaming did do is refer me to his brother because, again, I wanted to somehow get a federal law enforcement involved in this, since my perception was that the criminal activity — conspiracy and criminal activity happened at least in New
589
York, New Hampshire and Clearwater.
Mmm, he said that he would talk with a federal agent that he did know and get back with me. He — I guess maybe a day or so later, he had a conversation with the federal agent, Mr. Douglas DeVlaming.
And he told me, after speaking with an agent, they thought that it would make a difficult case because Mr. Minton was now on the stand lying, telling lies. If he changed his mind —
MR. WEINBERG: Objection. Hearsay, your Honor.
THE COURT: Sustained.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Did you ever meet personally with law enforcement?
A Yes, I did.
Q All right. Who did you meet with?
A I met with FDLE Agent Lee Strope.
Q Did you talk about Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks?
A I pretty much gave Mr. Strope a complete rundown of the meetings, with the dates similar to how I laid it out there in the affidavit. And after —
THE COURT: Mr. Strope is with what agency?
THE WITNESS: FDLE.
THE COURT: FDLE?
A And after speaking with him, he asked me to give Bob Minton a message. And the message was that if it is determined that you have perjured yourself on the stand,
590
that he would see to it that charges would be brought.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q This is Mr. Strope telling you to talk to Mr. Minton?
A This is a message Mr. Strope asked me to give Mr. Minton specifically.
Q Did you give him that message?
A Mmm, I wrote — I hand-wrote what he said. I gave it to my fiancee and she read it to Mr. Minton over the phone.
Q Okay.
THE COURT: Mr. Prince, is it your testimony here today under oath an agent of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement asked you to deliver a message to someone?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Any other meetings with law enforcement?
A Not about this specific incident.
Q Okay. Now, what was your impression, after meeting with Ms. Brooks and Mr. Minton, on the meetings you have just mentioned, all of these meetings —
MR. WEINBERG: Objection to the form. What was his impression?
THE COURT: Yes. What does that mean?
591
MR. DANDAR: I didn’t finish my sentence.
THE COURT: Go ahead.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q What was your impression as to who was the person who was creating the scenario that I told Mr. Minton to lie?
A Mr. Rinder.
Q And what is the basis of that? What is the basis of your impression it is Mr. Rinder?
A Because that is what they said.
Q Who said?
A Bob and Stacy.
Q All right.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, could we just — I mean, is that — your Honor, so his testimony is that at some point Bob Minton and Stacy Brooks said that Mike Rinder said for Mr. Minton to lie?
THE COURT: Yes. That is his testimony.
MR. WEINBERG: Could we date that testimony, please?
THE COURT: Mr. Prince, is that your testimony?
THE WITNESS: Yes, it is.
THE COURT: If you could look at your affidavit and tell us which one of these conversations that that conversation took place.
THE WITNESS: Okay. Let me see if I see it
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here. I don’t seem to have my affidavit up here.
THE COURT: You don’t? I think I have it right here, if it will help.
MR. DANDAR: Well, I have the affidavit right here. I’m sorry. I was looking at it instead of listening to the Court.
THE WITNESS: This would have had to have happened sometime after the date that I mentioned on Page 5, Line 16, Paragraph Number 11 of the 3rd of April or 2nd of April, sometime after that time period.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q After this — after the 2nd or 3rd of April?
A Correct.
Q All right. Did Mr. Minton or Ms. Brooks tell you this on more than one occasion?
A Well, the subject of the meetings — after they returned to Clearwater with Mr. Bunker April 2nd, the many times that I met with them, the subject of the conversations concerned what they were asked — or what they were being asked to do, what they wanted me to do.
So that was a continuing theme until, you know, the point that it finally broke off, because I didn’t, I guess, qualify to meet with the Scientologists or speak with them about this myself. But it was a continuing theme of
593
conversations.
THE COURT: I believe that, in fairness, Mr. Prince may have testified to some of this yesterday, too.
MR. DANDAR: I think so maybe.
THE COURT: And may have dated some of this yesterday. I’m looking through his affidavit. I am remembering some of his testimony from yesterday.
MR. DANDAR: All right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Now, Mr. Prince, yesterday you talked about Volume 0 and 00. Do you recall that? You looked in the book Introduction To Ethics and you said —
A Yes.
Q — what you were looking for may be in Volume 0 and 00?
A Yes.
Q And there are a bunch of books over there. Are there any of the books you want to refer the Court to?
A Sure, if I could just walk over there.
MR. DANDAR: Is that all right, Judge?
THE COURT: Yes. By the way, Ms. Greenway asked if she could take my picture. You can’t take pictures when court is in session. So I gave her permission to come in and take pictures when court
594
wasn’t in session of whatever she wanted to take pictures for. But when court is in session you cannot take pictures unless you are connected with the media and you are a pool photographer. Then you can.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q No other books?
A No.
Q All right.
A This is — first off, I would like to say yesterday that I said that this was a crime for a person to give testimony about Scientology. I actually misspoke. It is a suppressive act to do that, according to this document here, suppressive acts, suppression of Scientology, Scientologists, the fair game law. And what it states specifically is —
THE COURT: Tell us, first of all, what are you reading from.
THE WITNESS: Oh, sorry.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q The book?
A I’m reading from HCO Division 1 Policy Volume, Scientology Policy Volume.
THE COURT: Okay. Those are Scientology policies in a book?
595
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: Is there a page number?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor. It is 553, what I’m going to make reference to.
MR. LIEBERMAN: Could we have the date on that book?
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Copyright on the front?
THE COURT: Would it matter with these policies —
MR. LIEBERMAN: Well, some, it may.
THE WITNESS: This is copyright 1970 through — what is it, 1950, it looks like. These are all of the copyright notices here.
THE COURT: Okay. I’m going to let you-all take a look at it.
MR. WEINBERG: Now? Or —
THE COURT: No. Let him go ahead and have his testimony, and then before cross-examination you-all can look at the book.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q So a suppressive act is someone saying they want to leave Scientology?
A Yes. And testifying as a hostile witness against Scientology in public is a suppressive act.
596
Q All right. That has to do with testifying?
A Correct.
Q What about leaving Scientology or saying you want to leave?
A Mmm, yesterday I showed the reference and we went through that. It’s a high crime to publicly depart Scientology.
Q This may be something I already marked. Let me show you what has been marked as Plaintiff’s Exhibit 133. CS Series 22.
Can you identify that Exhibit 133?
A Yes. This is an HCO bulletin of 28 November, 1970, Mmm, subtitled “CS Series 22.” The “CS Series” means case supervisor series. It’s — it’s a series that is a staple or basic for persons that are supervising auditing in Scientology. And this document refers to the subject of psychosis.
Q And this document came from the PTS/SP course book you read yesterday. Is that correct?
A Correct.
Q Okay. Now —
THE COURT: Who is permitted to take that course? Maybe you asked it before, but, I mean, if I’m a new Scientologist, new public member, can I go register for that course?
597
THE WITNESS: You certainly could. Any Scientologist in good standing —
THE COURT: Could take that course?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q This course book also contains the search and discovery bulletin?
A I believe it does.
Q Okay. Now, this particular document, Exhibit 133, CS Series 22, does this have anything to do with people wanting to leave?
A Well, if you turn to the second page, it talks about the easiest ways for a case supervisor to detect the insane, and we go down here to Number 6, it says: “They often seek transfers or wish to leave.”
Q Now, does this apply to staff as well as public members?
A Absolutely.
THE COURT: I think this is already in evidence, isn’t it?
MR. DANDAR: I’m not sure. You told me to mark this yesterday as an exhibit.
THE COURT: Well, now that I’m looking at it, I’m thinking I read it before. But if you are not
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sure, you want to introduce it again, why, that is all right.
MR. DANDAR: I’m really not sure.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. DANDAR: I know we talked about this yesterday.
THE COURT: I’m not positive if this was the document, but I have read some of this before.
MR. DANDAR: Yes. It is quite possible.
MR. WEINBERG: We have no problem, but the next-to-last sentence says: “The insane can be helped, they are not hopeless.” We don’t have a problem with this. But the introspection rundown comes after this policy.
THE COURT: But you have no objection to this being introduced?
MR. WEINBERG: No.
MR. DANDAR: We move it into evidence.
MR. WEINBERG: It was referred to in the introspection rundown which was introduced three or four years later, this policy.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Speaking of the introspection rundown, Mr. Prince, speaking of your experience, expertise, is there any part of
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the introspection rundown that is considered religious?
MR. WEINBERG: Objection to his competence to this because Mr. Prince previously testified he wasn’t trained on the introspection rundown and never — as an auditor never did any introspection rundown.
THE COURT: I thought he did.
THE WITNESS: That is correct. I did. I never was — I never stated that I was not trained on the introspection rundown.
THE COURT: I’m sorry, what?
THE WITNESS: I never stated I was not trained on the introspection rundown. That is false. I am very trained on the introspection rundown.
MR. WEINBERG: What he said was he participated in an isolation watch, not as the auditor, you know, but as one of the people staying with Teresita.
THE COURT: Is isolation watch and introspection rundown the same?
MR. WEINBERG: It is part, Step whatever it is, 0, 00.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. DANDAR: This will kind of answer the question, I think.
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BY MR. DANDAR:
Q So, Mr. Prince, is there parts or all of the introspection rundown that is religious? A religious practice?
A Mmm, in the very first bulletin about the introspection rundown, L. Ron Hubbard describes it as a new technical breakthrough that marveled something else of the 20th century, I forget specifically what it says there. But it was hailed as a researched scientific discovery for handling insanity.
MR. WEINBERG: So, your Honor, is what Mr. Dandar is doing is challenging whether or not the introspection rundown is part of the religion of Scientology? Because if he is, I think that has already been decided in this case and it is not appropriate and we should not be wasting our time on it.
THE COURT: Haven’t we decided that — or — I don’t know because I don’t know — I saw a motion once that dealt with religiocity. I didn’t hear any of that.
MR. DANDAR: That was not the —
MR. LIEBERMAN: But you have stated several times, your Honor, that there is no question in this case as to the religious nature of Scientology or
601
religious nature of the introspection rundown.
THE COURT: Okay. I know I have stated that I have no question on the — that the Church of Scientology is a religion and it is a recognized religion in the Church. And I have no question in my mind that Lisa McPherson was undergoing some sort of introspection rundown. I didn’t know whether I said that introspection rundown is part of the religion of the Church. I don’t even know if that is a call for me to make, to tell you the truth. I would suspect the Church doctrine would tell us whether it is or isn’t.
MR. LIEBERMAN: That is correct. And the Church characterizes what is religious practice.
THE COURT: I don’t know if I have seen that or not. I know we have a Mr. Rice affidavit. I haven’t looked at it in some time.
MR. LIEBERMAN: And he quite clearly places it within the Scientology practice. In fact, every part of Scientology, by definition, is part of Scientology belief and practice and is not a matter for the Court to challenge what is characterized by the Church as this religion.
THE COURT: I am going to let him answer this. I think he already has answered it, but I don’t know
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we’re going to go there. And certainly one answer isn’t going to get it there.
MR. DANDAR: Right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Mr. Prince, Mr. Hubbard called it scientific breakthrough?
A That is correct.
Q Did he ever call it religious practice?
A Never.
Q Did he call auditing a religious practice?
A No.
Q Oh.
A Not to my knowledge. I mean, this whole business of religion — I don’t know, you know, it is kind of — has kind of reared its head in Scientology every now and again. When I was here at the Flag Service Organization in 1979, there was a scare — a cold war scare of some nuclear threat and conscription in the Army and on and on. This is what we were told. So all of the staff had to do a two-week course called the minister’s course where you are instantly trained to be a minister. This was part of — a program which, in part, was to kind of improve or create a religious image for Scientology.
But if you will notice, in every document that Mr. Hubbard writes about Scientology, whether or not it is a
603
green —
THE COURT: I don’t want to hear this. The United States Government, State of Florida, on and on down, determined Scientology is a religion, the Church of Scientology is a church. I don’t care what they used to think, what they used to say. It doesn’t matter. That is it.
MR. DANDAR: What I’m — I was getting at is just the introspection rundown itself.
THE COURT: Okay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q The part of the introspection rundown talking about get some rest —
MR. WEINBERG: Your Honor, could I —
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q — make sure you eat —
MR. WEINBERG: This is precisely why Mr. Prince should not be an expert, considered an expert in Scientology, because as he sits here today, he still is sitting there saying it is not even a religion or a church. He doesn’t recognize it —
THE COURT: He wasn’t. He was talking about some things that were said back in the 1970s when they were all sitting around talking —
MR. WEINBERG: He just said that — well, I
604
don’t want to argue with you. I mean, it — that is where he was going with this and that is what this — that is what this is about.
MR. DANDAR: It is not what this is about. I just asked him what I’m asking him now, the introspection rundown, the part that talks about resting and eating — resting and eating, something else —
THE COURT: 0, 00.
MR. DANDAR: Yes, those two steps.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q In your experience within the Church of Scientology, was that ever considered a spiritual or religious part of Scientology?
MR. LIEBERMAN: Your Honor, again, this is unconstitutional inquiry. You can’t bifurcate a religious practice and say part is and part isn’t. To just even hear this testimony is an unconstitutional attack on the religion.
THE COURT: Mr. Lieberman, your objection on that is preserved.
MR. LIEBERMAN: Thank you.
A Well, you know, since — you know, people that are atheists or other ideas also rest and sleep. You know, it never came to me that this was a religious experience to
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rest and eat.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Well, and in your knowledge of Scientology, if someone is injected with Valium or chloral hydrate, are they eligible to have auditing?
A According to — Mmm — the HCO bulletin entitled Model Session —
Q How do you spell that?
A Model, M-O-D-E-L, model session, a person who has had drugs or who has used drugs continuously is not eligible for auditing until six weeks after the period of taking the drugs.
Q Now, in your experience with Teresita, you said Dr. Dink, Hubbard’s doctor, came out and injected her with some kind of drug?
A Correct.
Q And she went to sleep?
A Correct.
Q How soon after that did she have auditing?
A Within hours after awaking.
Q Was that within the written policy?
A Is that what now? I’m sorry.
Q Is that per policy to have an auditing right after you have slept off the effects of the drug?
A Well, in the introspection rundown bulletin, it
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states that each program is tailored specifically for the individual. So to that degree, if the person had to sleep first in order to get auditing, they would get the auditing, but then there is also later references in Scientology technology which state that in a period after the auditing that was delivered, while the person was on drugs, you could then go back and check those areas again to make sure that everything is fine.
Q Okay. Let me show you Exhibit 134. And do you recognize where this copy of this Page 258 comes from?
A Yes. This comes from the Hubbard Administrative Dictionary.
Q And what — how does it define the phrase “high crimes”?
A It says: “High crimes. 1. These consist of publicly departing Scientology or committing suppressive acts. Cancellation of certificates, classifications and awards and becoming fair game are amongst the penalties which can be leveled for this type of offense as well as those recommended by Committees of Evidence.”
MR. DANDAR: Okay. That is all of the questions I have.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. You may inquire.
MR. WEINBERG: Thank you.
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CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Mr. Prince, David Miscavige busted you from your position of authority — your executive position of authority in the RTC — in March of 1987, didn’t he?
A Correct.
THE COURT: I’m sorry, you just got started.
Did you want to introduce this 134?
MR. DANDAR: Yes, sir. In fact —
MR. WEINBERG: We object to that. I would like to see the dictionary, see what the date of the dictionary was.
MR. DANDAR: Do you have it here? In fact, I just realized, unless you want to do this later, there are a bunch of things I marked and didn’t move them into evidence.
THE COURT: I’ll go ahead and let you do that —
MR. DANDAR: Later?
THE COURT: — later. But don’t forget.
MR. DANDAR: Right. Yes.
MR. WEINBERG: Should I start over?
THE COURT: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Mr. Prince, David Miscavige busted you from your
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position — your executive position of authority in the RTC in March of 1987, didn’t he?
A Correct.
Q And at that time you were removed from your post, the last executive post you ever held in the Church of Scientology. Correct?
A Correct.
Q And that post, you said, was deputy inspector general external. Right?
A Right.
Q Now, you were removed because you had supported Pat Broeker and Annie Broeker and Vicki Aznaran in their effort to change Scientology tech. Correct?
A That is categorically false.
Q That was precisely what occurred, that Pat Broeker, who had designated himself the loyal officer, was in the process of changing, among other things, the Scientology grade chart, right? That is what he was doing?
A That is categorically false.
Q So Mr. Broeker wasn’t doing that?
A Correct.
Q And you never acknowledged that Mr. Broeker did that?
A Correct.
Q So Mr. Broeker wasn’t off on his own, trying to
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change the religion of Scientology, after Mr. Hubbard died?
A Well —
Q Yes? Or no?
A Excuse me. Let me answer the question.
THE COURT: Well, I’ll tell you how this works on cross-examination. Go ahead and answer the question, but if you feel you have to explain your answer, you are allowed to do that after you have answered it.
THE WITNESS: Okay. I’m sorry.
A Ask me the question again.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Wasn’t Mr. Broeker caught in — in an attempt to change Scientology tech?
A I have no percipient knowledge of that.
Q You have no percipient knowledge of that?
A In other words, I was not there — let me — I was not there. I didn’t see him changing anything. And, again, I was going to say, I have heard some hearsay about it. Since you vehemently object about it, I won’t comment about it, but I — you know, I haven’t personally been with Mr. Broeker when he’s altering Scientology technology.
Q When you were in the RTC prior to March of 1987, in that year after Mr. Hubbard died, you became aware of the
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fact that some point in time that Mr. Broeker was changing and altering Scientology tech, weren’t you?
A Incorrect.
Q You became aware of the fact that Vicki Aznaran was part of an effort to change Scientology tech, weren’t you?
A Absolutely incorrect.
Q And what happened in March of 1987 is that Mr. Broeker was removed from all authority. Correct?
A Mr. Broeker was removed from authority.
THE COURT: Wasn’t? Or was?
THE WITNESS: He was, your Honor.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Annie Broeker, his wife, was removed from all positions of authority. Correct?
A To my knowledge, that is correct.
Q Your boss, Vicki Aznaran, was removed from her position of authority. Correct?
A Correct.
Q And you were removed?
A Correct.
Q And you were at that time — at that point in time, you went from what you described as an executive position with some authority in the — in RTC. Right?
A Correct.
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Q To no authority whatsoever?
A No. That is incorrect.
Q From — for the next five years after March of 1987, did you ever hold a position where someone was junior to you? You know what I mean by that?
A Yes, I do. And, yes, I have.
Q I mean, you were, what, a machine operator after that?
A Mmm, no. I worked on post-production, pre-production and post-production for films.
Q That was one of the things you did, and you were a Cinemix, was that your job?
A No.
Q What was your job?
A My job was like an assistant engineer, assistant sound mixer. Again, I state I worked for post-production and pre-production for films and videos.
Q During that period of time you were in the RPF a couple of times. Correct?
A Incorrect.
Q How many times were you in the RPF?
A I was in the RPF two times, but not that period of time.
Q You were in the RPF in March of 1987. Correct?
A Correct.
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Q All right. Until what, the end of 1987?
A Mmm, I think it was — I wasn’t in there a very long time. I think maybe four months.
Q By the way, there is no higher crime in Scientology than changing the tech. Correct?
A That is incorrect.
Q Well, what would be a higher crime than changing Mr. Hubbard’s scriptures?
A Placing Scientology and Scientologists at risk.
Q One of the highest crimes in Scientology is to alter the tech. Correct?
A It is a high crime to do that. Yes.
Q Now, for the next — for those five years after you were busted — and that was the day you claimed, by the way, that you pulled these guns on David Miscavige and threatened to kill him?
A You didn’t mention a specific day. What day are you talking about?
Q Well, what day are you talking about when you were busted?
THE COURT: Without worrying too much about the date, the date you testified about when you were rousted from bed or got out of bed and went and got the guns, that is on the same day, right?
THE WITNESS: Yes. I’m sorry.
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THE COURT: That is the day you were busted?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: That is what he was referring to.
THE WITNESS: Okay. I’m sorry. I just didn’t understand the question.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q That is the same day you claim you pulled these guns on David Miscavige and you threatened to kill him.
Correct?
A I didn’t threaten to kill Mr. Miscavige. What — maybe you have a wrong idea about what happened there.
I came there to defend myself. Twelve people were attacking me, were trying to hold me. Because I do know karate and have a black belt in it, I was able to get them away from me until I went and got protection for myself.
Q So then these twelve people that were attacking you let you go back to your room, get these two loaded guns?
A They didn’t know where I was going.
Q That didn’t really happen, did it, Mr. Prince?
A Yes, it did.
Q You didn’t pull guns on David Miscavige.
A Yes, it did.
Q So this is the person you say you could still be friendly with?
A You know, Mmm — yes. And I need to explain
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something here because, you know, Mr. Weinberg, you and I have been around and around on this in front of Judge Moody. So, you know, you are giving me the exact same questions and I’ll sit here and be patient with you, but I think the record reflects we have done this one or two times before.
THE COURT: See, I haven’t heard it. This is my hearing, so we’ll do it again.
MR. DANDAR: Explain yourself.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q So you contend that you really did go back to your room, get two loaded weapons, and walk back and enter a room and point them directly at David Miscavige?
A No, I never walked back into a room. By that time —
Q You ran back into the room?
A Would you like me to explain it? I —
Q Explain it.
MR. DANDAR: Wait. Wait. Objection.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did you —
MR. DANDAR: He needs to explain it.
Mr. Weinberg —
MR. WEINBERG: I’ll withdraw that question.
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BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did you point two loaded guns —
MR. DANDAR: That is not fair.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q — at David Miscavige?
A No, I did not.
Q Who did you point them at?
A I had the one gun on my hip and the .45 in my hand. And they stood this way. The assault rifle never was pointed at anyone. It was just on my hip like this. And I had the .45.
And Mr. Miscavige, when he saw me, walked directly up to me with those guns in my hand and said, “Jesse, we are friends. Let’s talk.”
So I don’t think he felt that threatened. And I think that Judge Moody pointed that out to you the last time we were doing this.
Q I mean, no one would feel threatened when they had just busted somebody from position and the person got so mad to go back to the room and get two loaded guns and walk into a room. You can’t imagine anybody would be threatened by that, would they?
A I think that is a mischaracterization of what happened.
Q Well, my question is was there a particular reason
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why you never told that story until — until you started getting paid to be a witness in the FACTNet case in 19 — whatever it is, 1998?
Why you waited all those years to tell that story?
A Mmm, I don’t know how to answer that question, Mr. Weinberg. You are associating things that don’t associate. You are associating with me being paid telling stories. And there is no association there.
Q Well, is there a particular reason, in the years after this alleged incident took place, that took you until 1998 to first tell this story about pulling guns on David Miscavige?
MR. DANDAR: Object to the form. It makes no sense. Telling stories where? Under oath? In a deposition? To his friends?
THE COURT: I don’t, either, because I don’t know whether you are talking about the first time he ever testified about that, and if that is the first case he was ever involved in, that is the first time he ever testified about that.
MR. WEINBERG: I —
THE COURT: I’ll tell you one thing —
MR. WEINBERG: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —
THE COURT: — don’t get ahead of me because you want to go at this witness.
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MR. WEINBERG: You are right.
THE COURT: I won’t have it.
MR. WEINBERG: Right.
THE COURT: I won’t have you really cutting this man off. I mean, I know you want to get where you want to go. But you’ll have to go slow.
And, Mr. Prince, whatever you told Judge Moody, I haven’t heard it, I haven’t seen too much of the transcript before Judge Moody, so I don’t want to hear what I — I already told Judge Moody this, I am not Judge Moody.
THE WITNESS: I understand.
THE COURT: If he asks you a question, unless I tell him, “You can’t ask that question,” just answer, even if you have already answered it before.
Okay?
THE WITNESS: Okay. Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: Let’s go.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You were interviewed by Earle Cooley while still in the Church in 1988, weren’t you, in relation to another lawsuit?
A I would have to see something about that. I’m not sure what you are talking about.
Q You didn’t say anything about the guns to him, did
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you?
A Again, I would have to see what you’re talking about.
Q Well, you mention the 1994 interview with Mr. Cooley. You didn’t say anything about the guns to him in that interview, did you?
A I mean, you know, you are mixing apples and oranges. I mean, I don’t understand what you are asking me. I mean, I have told that story long before 1998 to my friends, my family, people that I know. I mean, you know, it isn’t like here is some money, let’s tell this story. I beg to differ with the way you are characterizing what happened here.
Q The reason you told the story to Mr. Minton in April of this year was to threaten him as to what you would do as to what kind of person you were? I mean, what did you tell him about it for?
A I told him that story, as I gave testimony yesterday, to show that Scientology, more than likely, will never keep or honor an agreement with anyone. It wasn’t to say I’m going to run and shoot you with guns. It was to give him an example to show him that Scientology will never honor an agreement.
Q Now, you would agree that the positions that you held after you were busted were extremely low positions in
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the Church of Scientology?
A I would beg to differ on that, as well.
Q Now, you were — you were so humiliated, apparently, by Mr. — what you claim Mr. Miscavige did in March of 1987 that you pulled these guns on him. That is what it was about, wasn’t it?
A Absolutely not. And even as we have been sitting here, I think I made it clear to you why I went and got those guns. It wasn’t humiliation. It was being attacked.
Q You were —
A Physically attacked.
Q You resented the fact that you had been busted?
A I resented the fact I was being physically attacked by people that used to be my friends.
Q No. My question is did you resent the fact that you had been busted from your executive position in RTC?
A And I’ll answer the question it isn’t so much that I resented the fact that —
THE COURT: Come on, Mr. Prince, of course you must have been annoyed. I don’t know why we’re playing a semantics game. Anybody would be annoyed if they were busted from the position they thought —
THE WITNESS: No, your Honor, that isn’t right.
I think that deserves clarification because I was
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pretty much tired of that activity that I had been involved in, in Scientology. I was ready for a change. I was ready to be done with that position because that — that position responsibility entailed being involved in criminal activity.
This is something that I had not experienced in Scientology prior to going to Gilman, Hot Springs and working at that level. To me, Scientology was something different than what I was doing.
So, no, it wasn’t a big deal for me, you know. I was already wanting to be away from that responsibility.
But what was a big problem for me was twelve people grabbing me, because I had an earlier incident of that happening in Scientology where six people grabbed me and locked me in a room for three months, and I ended up staying 16 years. So that had precedent over that position I was being removed from.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q So you were relieved by the fact you were busted from your position?
A Yes. I was somewhat relieved by it.
Q Now, you — you, Jesse Prince, dislike vehemently David Miscavige, don’t you?
621
A I would not say that that is true. I have no vehement dislike for him. I dislike the things that he does. But I don’t envy his position. He’s the leader of a religion. He has a lot of responsibility. That doesn’t give you license to be a criminal, though.
Q You spent the last four years, ever since you met apparently sometime in the summer of 1998, started getting paid by, ever since you met Mr. Minton, you spent the last four years trying to destroy David Miscavige, haven’t you?
A That is incorrect.
Q You have picketed where you have spoken vilely and obscenely about Mr. Miscavige, haven’t you?
A Yes, I have.
Q You have picketed various Churches of Scientology around the country and even in the world, correct?
A That is incorrect. I never picketed an organization outside of the United States.
Q Just in this country?
A Correct.
Q You have threatened David Miscavige in these pickets, haven’t you?
A I need you to clarify what you mean by threatened for me, please.
Q Threatened to do harm to him.
A I have jokingly alluded to it, yes, I have.
622
Q You thought it was funny?
A Yes, I did.
Q And did you think it was funny when you were outside the various Churches of Scientology, including what you call the mecca of Scientology, holding signs and shouting obscenities about the leader? You thought that was funny, too?
A I — I think you would have to show me or present evidence that I was holding a sign, shouting obscenities.
Q Oh, we will, Mr. Prince.
A Okay. I would like to see that.
Q Did you think that was funny?
A I would like to see the evidence, please, sir.
Q Would you consider, sir — I mean, I think you said that Mr. Minton was the — something basically the most harassed person you’d ever seen, something to that order?
A Something along that order, correct.
Q Would you consider what you and Mr. Minton and Ms. Greenway and Mr. Alexander and Mr. Oliver and the other folks at the LMT — would you consider what you were doing harassing Scientology?
A Well, what were we doing that was supposed to be harassing?
Q I mean —
THE COURT: His question to you is whatever it
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was you were doing, would that be, in your mind, harassing Scientology?
THE WITNESS: Well, I guess to clarify it, if it meant picketing, does that mean harassing Scientology? It has a broader meaning to me. It means I’m exercising my First Amendment rights as a citizen to protest.
Mmm, if you want to call that harassing Scientology, I call it exercising my freedom.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I’m asking you, because remember you talked about the harassment time line of Mr. Minton?
A Yes.
Q Do you remember talking about that?
A Yes.
Q And my question to you, if — if we put all of your pickets and all Mr. Minton’s pickets and all your postings and all Mr. Minton’s postings and all of the postings of these folks that have been in and out of the LMT and all the pickets of them on a time line, do you think that time line might be somewhat larger than this Minton harassment time line?
A I think it would be minuscule and it would pale by comparison.
Q By the way, are you part of an anti-Scientology
624
movement?
A I have never been part of an anti-Scientology movement.
Q Are you an anti-Scientologist?
A No, I am not.
Q What do you consider yourself?
A I consider myself in the instant case where I’m sitting right here today an expert witness concerning Scientology.
Prior to that, I worked in an establishment whereby I helped people who had been victimized by Scientology.
Q And would you consider Mr. Minton to be an anti-Scientologist during those four years that you were part of the A team, I think you said?
A I consider Mr. Minton to be an activist.
Q An activist?
A Yes.
Q What is that?
A You tell me what it is. Do you need to know what the word means? I mean, he was an —
Q What do you mean —
A — activist concerning —
Q What do you mean when you say he was an activist?
A He was an activist ensuring the rights, basic
625
human rights, that are accorded to us through our constitution.
I think Mr. Minton got started on his relationship with Scientology when he found out a Scientologist was trying to remove the name “Scientology” from a newsgroup — or at least this is the way he explained it to me. And how
lawyers and raids and things would come to even discuss Scientology, which is how I knew it from being in Scientology.I knew if you ever spoke about Scientology outside of Scientology, you would get clobbered. So to actually see people doing it openly on the Internet was —
THE COURT: That is well past the answer. You don’t have to — we have to try to get through this.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
THE COURT: He simply asked you to define what an activist was. And I think you have done that.
THE WITNESS: All right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, when did you begin — when did you begin your work against Scientology? What date or time?
A Mmm, I began to give testimony concerning Scientology, to the best of my recollection, in the FACTNet case.
Q Specifically, up until I — I think you said you
626
considered yourself a Scientologist until, I think you said, 1997. Correct? Isn’t that what you said in your testimony?
A I think maybe ’96, I said.
Q All right. So you considered yourself a Scientologist after you left the Church of Scientology in 1992, after you say that you were — you said all those horrible things happened to you in the five-year period, you still considered yourself a Scientologist in ’93, ’94, ’95 and ’96. Correct?
A I think I should clarify that for you, if that is okay. I think that I still had Scientology values. I think that I still respected some of the tenets of Scientology, and I freely associated with Scientologists.
Q Well, you were working for a public member of Scientology for several years, right?
A Several years is incorrect.
Q How many years?
A Maybe one.
Q This is the job that the Church had helped you get after you left the Church where you were making $60,000 or $70,000 a year. Was that your testimony?
A I think you are mis-characterizing what happened. No, that is not my testimony. The Church didn’t help me do anything. It never has.
Q Well, just tell us one of those Scientology values
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that you — that you continue to accept and feel close to after you left the Church of Scientology.
A That man — man is a spiritual entity. That — Mmm — man is capable of seemingly — seemingly more capable than is realized and those potentials can be cultivated and used and expanded on.
Q Any other ones?
A You know, some of the organical principles about the importance of organization, the importance of schedules. You know, these kind of things.
Q When you were a Scientologist, you believed, did you not, that psychiatric problems were spiritual in nature. Correct? That is what you believed? And could be dealt with spiritually through the religion of Scientology. You believed that when you were a Scientologist, didn’t you?
A Yes, I did.
Q And that is what Scientologists believe, don’t they?
A I can’t speak for all Scientologists. I know that, you know, as you are trained in Scientology, you accept more and more of what you read, and it’s a progression, it is a degradation of belief system, I guess.
But I couldn’t say that everyone believes that.
Q Well, you could say that Scientologists — no Scientologist would want to be committed to a mental
628
institution. You can say that, can’t you, from your years as a Scientologist?
A Mr. Weinberg, I can say that about Scientologists and anyone else. There is no one that I know that is aching to be committed to an institution.
Q But I’m asking you from when you were a Scientologist —
A Uh-huh?
Q — the last thing that you would have — you would have rather shot yourself than be committed to a mental institution?
A Absolutely not. I mean, that is unreasonable. It is irrational.
Q Well, can you think of anything worse, as a Scientologist, than to be committed to a mental institution?
Can you just answer that question?
A Rehabilitation Project Force, maybe.
Q One of the fundamental principles of the Church is — is the Church’s abhorrence with psychiatry and mental health treatment. Correct?
A Well, you know, Mr. Weinberg —
Q Can you just answer that question?
A I used to believe that is the answer. I used to believe that. But I found, from Mr. Hubbard’s autopsy report that I had a copy of, that he himself was taking
629
psychiatric medication —
MR. WEINBERG: Objection. Move to strike.
A — in his life. So maybe —
THE COURT: Stop. There is an objection. You have to stop.
MR. WEINBERG: It is not responsive to the question. It was a very simple question. Yes or no.
MR. DANDAR: I would say this is outside of the scope of direct and the issues.
THE COURT: It is not outside the scope of direct and not outside the scope of the issues but, quite frankly, this is not helping me any.
MR. WEINBERG: All right.
THE COURT: It is an interesting banter between you and Mr. Prince and —
MR. WEINBERG: I’ll go on.
THE COURT: — this might be of interest to a jury, but it really isn’t of interest —
MR. WEINBERG: All right.
THE COURT: — to me.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Since you have met Bob Minton, all of the money that you have received since June, other than this apparently $4,000 that you just got from Mr. Dandar, that
630
you have received since June, July, of 1998, up until April of 2002, came directly or indirectly from Mr. Minton, didn’t it?
A That is incorrect.
Q And all of the money — all of the money that you have received in that period of time you received as a result of your work about or against or involving Scientology?
A That is incorrect.
Q Correct?
A That is incorrect.
Q What is incorrect about that statement?
A I think that — Mmm — that all of the money that I have had during those periods of time derived from those activities, that is — specifically is incorrect about it.
Q What, 99 percent of it? 95 percent of it?
A You know, I have turned over my financial records to you. I think they speak for themselves.
Q All right. Let me play you — because you asked me to — let me play you a video — some videos and maybe this will refresh your recollection. I’ll ask you some questions about it.
A All right.
MR. WEINBERG: Get the first one.
MR. DANDAR: We’re going to object. If he
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plays the video that they would like to play from the Boston picket, I demand that they play the whole video so that you, Judge, can see what Mr. Prince was responding to in that very vile video that you may have already seen.
You only saw their version of it. There is like two, three, four minutes of extremely vile language coming from ministers of the Church of Scientology to bull bait Mr. Prince into responding the way he did on video. So if they are
going to do that, they need to play the whole thing.MR. WEINBERG: That is not the one I’m playing, first of all —
THE COURT: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: — to make it easy. Secondly, if he wants to do something later, he can.
THE COURT: There is a rule of completeness which we’ll get into when we get to trial. At a trial, if somebody will try to pick and choose, I’m probably going to insist on the rule of completeness in an appropriate case.
But in this hearing, if they play something and you think I need to see it all, make a little note, tell them to keep it there and play the whole thing on redirect.
632
MR. DANDAR: All right.
THE COURT: Or ask them if they’ll play it all.
If they say no, then you play it.
MR. DANDAR: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: Now, this is a video in front of the Ft. Harrison on November 30, 1998.
______________________________________
(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“You want to see the other side of the sign, too? Just want to make sure you get all of the information, all of the data.
“Tell David I’m coming with a dick so big, I’m gonna knock his goddamn spine out cuz I’m black. I got a big dick. I’m black. I got a big dick.
“Hey. Hey. Didn’t that guy have curly hair? (Inaudible.)
“No. No. Jesse. Yo momma. I been fucking your momma a long time (inaudible). That’s why you got that curly hair.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Do you recognize yourself, Mr.~Prince?
A Yes, I do.
Q You recognize Mr. Minton?
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A Yes, I do.
Q And you thought that was funny? Your statement about Mr. Miscavige?
A Yes, I did.
Q You don’t consider that a threat?
A No, I don’t.
Q You think it is appropriate for an expert, or anybody, for that matter, but particularly an expert on — supposedly on religion to be in front of the Ft. Harrison to be making obscene statements about David Miscavige like that to other — to Scientologists?
A You know, I think there was an indiscretion that happened there, certainly.
Q And you consider it harassment for you and Mr. Prince — and Mr. Minton and others to be holding signs like the one you were holding, “Lisa, blood on her hands,”and the one Mr. Minton was holding about the Third Reich, do you consider that harassment to be walking in front of the mecca of Scientology? Do you consider that to be harassment?
A I consider it to be exercising my constitutional right —
Q Okay.
A — as a citizen of America.
MR. WEINBERG: Want to play the next one,
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please? Actually, let me — go ahead.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played. No audio available.)
MR. WEINBERG: This is on the same day in front of the Criminal Court Complex.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, do you remember this being the day of the arraignment in the criminal case and do you remember being in front of the complex with Stacy Brooks, Bob Minton, Ken Dandar, Dr. Garko and yourself? Do you remember that photo?
A I remember that photo.
Q And do you recognize that as the criminal complex in Clearwater?
A The one on 49th Street?
Q Yes.
A Yes, I do.
Q And who took that photo?
A You know, I’m not sure.
Q And do you think that is funny? “Scientology, Hubbard Third Reich,” do you think that is funny?
A You know, I think those people in that picture are exercising their constitutional rights.
Q Do you think it is appropriate for the trial team of Mr. Dandar, Dr. Garko and you and Ms. Brooks, along with
635
Mr. Minton, to be standing in front of a public building holding signs like that?
MR. DANDAR: Objection.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Do you think that is appropriate?
MR. DANDAR: Objection. Mr. Minton is not part of any trial team.
THE COURT: He said “and Mr. Minton.” So I’m assuming he was excluding him.
MR. WEINBERG: That is what I did.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Do you consider that to be appropriate behavior?
A I consider that unless I’m committing a crime, I’m exercising my constitutional rights as an American citizen.
Q Do you believe that that constitutes harassment of the Church of Scientology?
A No, I don’t. I think if I was doing anything illegal, Scientology would have had me arrested on the spot.
Q Okay.
THE COURT: Harassment is not illegal. I guess what he’s trying to ask you is, in addition to exercising your First Amendment rights, did you consider that that might be considered harassment?
THE WITNESS: You know, and I — my answer again is no. My answer is I’m exercising my
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constitutional rights as an American citizen.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You wouldn’t consider that picket —
MR. WEINBERG: Can you put that photo back up?
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Somebody asked you — I think Mr. Dandar asked you whether or not he was ever on a picket.
THE COURT: Now, Counselor, in all fairness, that is a picture, that is not a picket. What we saw before —
MR. WEINBERG: I understand. I was asking to ask him. This is a picture.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q My question is what was going on with these signs in front of the Clearwater courthouse? What were you-all doing with these signs?
A I think we had been picketing earlier.
THE COURT: Was Mr. Dandar with you when you were picketing?
THE WITNESS: Absolutely not. Neither was Mr. Garko.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And whose idea was it to pose for this picture?
A I don’t know. I don’t recall. I don’t remember.
Q I mean, no one forced you-all to do this.
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Correct?
A Correct.
MR. WEINBERG: Go to the next one, please.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“You work for a criminal organization. And they’re going to be found out. You take that and put it on the camera and run it to Miscavige, your leader, your guru. He’s going down.”
(End of playing of video tape.)
______________________________________
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, that was right outside the Clearwater Bank building where all the people go in to eat. Correct?
A Yes. It was.
Q And right down the street, as you look down the street, is where the LMT offices were?
A That is correct.
Q All right. And do you consider that to be a threat to Mr. Miscavige where you say he’s going down?
A No, I do not. And I think I have to — you know, because this is just a little snippet you are showing here, I think I should give the situation that was occurring.
On that very street that you saw me in front of where the Lisa McPherson Trust is around the corner, on that
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particular day I had gone to a shop on Cleveland to buy a pack of cigarettes and go back to the office.
From the moment I walked out of my office, all of the way up to the door of the shop I went to and all of the way back, a Scientology OSA person had a camera on me like this (indicating).
I was annoyed. If that is a crime, find me guilty.
Q Now, was that your purpose when you say, “You’re going down,” was your purpose to get rid of Mr. Miscavige from being the chairman of the board or the ecclesiastical leader of Scientology?
A My purpose was to express my annoyance.
Q And “guru,” were you just being funny?
A Again, my purpose was to express my annoyance.
Q Now, was that your agenda? Strike that.
Was it Mr. Minton’s agenda — was part of his agenda to get rid of David Miscavige?
A You had Mr. Minton up here —
Q I’m just asking you.
A — Mr. Weinberg, forever, you know.
Q I’m asking you.
A He never said that to me. He never said that to me.
THE COURT: There is an answer in the
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courtroom. It is called “I don’t know.” If it is —
A He never — no, he never said that to me.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, you described you, Ms. Brooks and Mr. Minton as the A team, right?
A Correct.
Q And the A team got formed in the summer of 1998?
A I would say — Mmm — thereabouts.
Q Right. And the A team continued to be —
A Maybe — wait a minute. I misspoke about that because that A team business didn’t come up until after — after we’d worked together for a while and had done things.
And that concept came out — in the summer of ’98 is when I first met them, so I think it would be a misrepresentation to say that the A team was in the summer of ’98, at least to my best recollection as I sit here today.
Q So when was it?
A And I can’t be sure. It was sometime later.
Q When you said it became the A team after you had done things, what kind of things? Are you talking about like — do you mean like pickets and sending postings and things like that? Are those the things that you were doing?
A I think more like helping people directly.
Q Helping people?
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A Yes.
Q How was Mr. Minton helping people, by standing and holding signs like that?
A Well, you know, I guess there is a myriad of answers for that. But what I meant to say, helping people, I meant helping people that had run into problems with Scientology and were not able to resolve them so that they can get on with their lives.
Q Now, where did the A team concept come from?
A You know, I think there used to be a television program.
Q Are you talking about the one with Mr. T?
A If you let me finish. You know, the reason why I can’t answer that question, because when those television series were going on, I was in the Sea Org and we weren’t allowed to watch TV. So I have a big missing section in my life with serial programs and things like that.
So again I’ll say there was some program that had the A team on it. And I think Mr. Minton brought it up and — but —
Q And —
A — but I have never seen a program called the A team or anything like that.
Q When you said the A team yesterday, what did you mean, A team? What was it that the A team was doing?
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A The A team was myself, Bob and Stacy. And the A team were helping people that needed help to resolve issues with Scientology.
You know, just to — to show how far at the other end of the spectrums were, Mr. Minton actually thought he was helping Scientology by helping these people resolve issues with Scientology.
Q Do you remember speaking to the media about bringing Mr. Miscavige down?
A No. I do not.
MR. WEINBERG: Play that next one, please.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“It takes standing up and recognizing it for what it is, a dead, arcane idea. We’re dealing with people who are ignorant and we’re going to bring them down.”
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Do you remember that?
A I object to that very — I can’t object, but that was an obvious edit where you sliced two things together.
And I think you are mis-characterizing a speech that I gave for a vigil for Lisa McPherson where the press was there. I was not speaking for the press. I was speaking to former Scientologists.
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Q Were you talking about bringing down Scientology?
Is that what you were talking about?
MR. DANDAR: We object and ask the whole thing be played.
THE COURT: I think that is fair.
MR. WEINBERG: It was a newscast, we didn’t — we can play the whole newscast. It takes a minute.
THE COURT: I don’t want the whole newscast.
Just whatever Mr. Prince said.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, that is what Mr. Prince said. That is all he said is what we just played.
THE COURT: Well, it did look like there was a definite splice.
MR. WEINBERG: There was. One of these newscasts where the reporter said something and Stacy Brooks said something and he said the first thing on there, Mr. Prince, then somebody else said something, then he said the last thing.
We took the two things Mr. Prince said and put it together. But we can play the whole section.
THE COURT: It makes it look like he said all that together, and it may not have been.
I think if what it is you are trying to do is every time he said we’re going to bring him down, what is it you mean when you say that?
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THE WITNESS: Expose — expose what is actually going on.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: You know, expose the fact that private investigators are being used to terrorize citizens because they disagree with Scientology.
Expose the fact that someone gave $100,000, and it is Scientology’s policy, if you don’t use a service that you paid for, they will refund it to you.
THE COURT: Normally, when you want to say we’re going to expose somebody, you don’t say expose somebody, you say bring them down, that kind of means put them out of business. That is what I mean by that. What did you mean by it?
THE WITNESS: I mean ending the criminal activity. Ending the assault of citizens who have no way to protect themselves once they get on the bad side of Scientology.
THE COURT: When you say “We are going to bring you down,” this is your testimony, you did not mean put the Church of Scientology out of business, do away with the Church?
THE WITNESS: Right, in the illegal activities. I never had a — as I said, corrupt activities wasn’t even anything in my mind during the majority
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of my stay in Scientology. These are things that I learned about after I got to Gilman, Hot Springs, and started working directly for Mr. Hubbard and Mr. Miscavige. I was an ignorant, blind person to it prior to that time.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q When you said in that newscast that I just played, quote, “It takes standing up and recognizing it for what it is, a dead, arcane idea,” that was how you — that — you were expressing your opinion about Scientology, that is what
you meant by that, isn’t it?A No. You have taken this out of context because I don’t know what “It is.” You showed me a little snippet. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
THE COURT: I don’t, either.
MR. WEINBERG: I have the transcript. We’ll play the whole tape because we are obviously not going to get done today.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q But — it was a response to a question, “Today they spoke out against the Church of Scientology,” and then they play what you said about it. But we’ll play the whole thing. It takes about a minute. All right.
You remember going on several trips to Europe with Mr. Minton, correct?
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A I think I went on a couple of trips with Mr. Minton.
Q All right. He paid for the trips?
A Correct.
Q Who else went with you?
A You know, as a matter of fact, I only traveled to Europe with Mr. Minton one time.
Q And the purpose of that trip was?
A To visit with his business partner, Jeff Schmidt, to have a face-to-face with him to find out specifically what Scientology-hired private investigator David Lee was doing to try to get him to a — do a similar thing as Bob and Stacy, basically turn against Bob and provide criminal information so Scientology could use it to attack Bob Minton.
Q Now, do you remember being in Germany with Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks in or about June of 2000?
A I think I was in Leipzig, Germany.
Q And Mr. Minton paid for that trip?
A I think that trip was paid by the Lisa McPherson Trust.
Q So in June of 2000 you were on the payroll of the Lisa McPherson Trust at that point?
A Correct.
Q You had just gone on the payroll?
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A You know, I can’t remember.
Q And do you remember — you remember being in the DB lounge?
THE COURT: What is that?
A Yes.
THE COURT: What is a DB lounge?
MR. WEINBERG: It is a bar of some sort.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Correct?
A We were at a train station in Leipzig, and there was a bar called the DB Bar, which we thought was amusing because DB means something very specific in Scientology, it means degraded being.
Q And you were there with Ms. Caberta, we heard about, the German government official that works against Scientology, right?
A Correct.
MR. WEINBERG: I’ll play this clip here. This is something turned over to us by the Lisa McPherson Trust.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Okay, so — so, Stacy, you start. DM, this drink’s for you.
“DM, this is a special toast to you coming
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straight from the DB Lounge in Leipzig, Germany.
“I’m not going to call this guy DM anymore. Remember what my new name for David Miscavige is, the former ecclesiastical leader of the Church of Scientology.
“I know this is going on camera.
“I know, but what did I say — (inaudible).
“Yes — yes, this is — this is a toast to David Miscavige, also known as Pope David I, from the DB lounge in Leipzig, Germany. Up, up, up and away.
“Now, Ursula.
“Hi, Mr. Miscavige. We did a great work here in Germany. And we will finish Scientology soon.
“This is to you, Miscavige. We are so thankful that you give us reason to live. Salute.
“Pope David I. Cheers.
“Cheers.
“Just some DBs hanging out here.
“David I.
(Inaudible.)
“This is to David Miscavige in the DB Lounge in Leipzig, Germany at the train station.
“Pope David I.
“Cheers, Miscavige.
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“Rear Admiral.
(Inaudible.)
“Listen, listen, just —
“No, just stop here now. Now listen.
“We all know in Grady’s deposition, when Grady was deposing David Miscavige, that he went ballistic over the thought of Graham —
“Now —
“– of Graham Berry spending time –”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Does that bring back memories, Mr. Prince?
A Yes.
Q And you think that is funny?
A Well, what I think you have is a home video of our trip in Europe that was never made public — Mmm — to anyone. And we were just having fun. Yes, I do think it was funny. We were just having fun at the train station.
Q Does that man, Mr. Minton, look like the most harassed person on the face of the earth?
A He does, to me.
Q And when Ms. Caberta, the German official who has — who flew over here and who is working against Scientology, when she said, “We’re going to finish
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Scientology,” she was talking about getting rid of it, wasn’t she?
A No. I think she was specifically talking about Scientology isn’t viewed as a religion in Germany.
Scientology is viewed as a political group. The reason Scientology is viewed as a political group —
THE COURT: I don’t need to know that.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
THE COURT: I don’t need to know, care, what is going on in Germany.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q When you talk about the reason for living, when you-all were talking about, you know, David Miscavige gives us a reason to — a reason for living — reason to live for, talking about so that you can malign him, is that what
you-all are talking about?A No. Not at all.
Q And do you remember — it was cut off at the end.
Do you remember that — that at that point, Mr. — Mr. Minton said something very obscene about Mr. Miscavige?
A I do not remember that. But, again, I’ll state that this was a video that we made on our trip that was a private video, never made public, never put on the Internet, and it is being exploited here today.
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Q Well, it sort of gives you a different impression about what you-all were about, doesn’t it?
A Who is you-all?
Q Excuse me?
A Who are you talking about, you-all? What you-all were about. What are you talking about?
Q You, Ms. Brooks, Mr. Minton?
A The —
Q The A team?
A I didn’t get that impression.
Q Now, who took that video, this home video that ended up in the LMT on this trip that was financed by the LMT?
A I think Mr. Bunker.
Q So he was there, too, obviously? Was anybody else on this trip? You have the A team, you have Mr. Bunker. Is there anybody else on it?
A Not that I specifically recall.
Q And you-all thought the DB was kind of funny because that is a Scientology term?
A Correct.
Q Now, after looking at your obscenities in front of the Ft. Harrison about Mr. Miscavige, watching this toast, you still think that he would be your friend? Wasn’t that your testimony this morning?
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A You know, I’m talking to a camera there. The answer to your question is yes, I think that if he and I sat down and actually had a discussion, we would certainly find friendship, would be able to communicate.
I mean, isn’t Scientology all about helping people learn —
THE COURT: That didn’t really answer the question. You have that opinion and that is fine. Then that is the answer to the question.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You talk about counseling. The principal purpose of the LMT, when it moved into Clearwater, was for the A team and the people that were working for the A team to picket and harass Scientology, wasn’t it?
A That is incorrect beyond belief.
Q Okay. Now —
A I would like to explain that, if I could. I would like to explain why the LMT came here, since you brought it up, and if you would allow me to just fully answer the question.
Q So you were involved in the —
THE COURT: I’m going to let him answer the question. What was the purpose of the LMT that — what do you believe the purpose of the LMT was?
THE WITNESS: The purpose of the LMT —
THE COURT: Fifty words or less.
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THE WITNESS: Okay, fifty words or less, and I won’t talk too fast for the court reporter.
THE COURT: That is 25.
THE WITNESS: When Lisa McPherson left that hotel, she had no place to go. She had a minor accident, stripped off her clothes, told people that she needed help. She ended up back in the Ft. Harrison. Seventeen days later, she was dead.
The reason that Lisa McPherson came to Clearwater and the reason it was there, in case there was another instance where someone needed a safe place to go where they could come and get help.
That is why we were there. And that is the only reason we were there.
And those were the dying wishes of Fannie McPherson, Lisa McPherson’s mother, when she was on her deathbed.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q So all of this picketing which happened on a regular basis, correct —
A Incorrect.
Q Well, can you, like, give us an estimate of the number of times you participated in a picket against the Church of Scientology?
A Yes, I can. Let me think. Because I certainly
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remember the first one well enough. I think I have probably been involved in maybe six or seven pickets.
Q So in the —
THE COURT: Over what periods of time, Mr. Prince?
THE WITNESS: From 1998 to the present.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q So in a four-year picket —
THE COURT: Four-year period. Not picket.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Right, I have picket on the brain. In the four-year period, you say you only picketed six times?
A I roughly estimated six or seven times that I picketed, yes.
Q And do you have a sense of how many times Ms. Brooks and Mr. Minton picketed in that four-year period?
A I do not.
Q A lot more than six?
A I believe so.
THE COURT: He said he didn’t know.
MR. WEINBERG: I believe he just said “I believe so.”
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, in Clearwater there were other people in the
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LMT that participated in pickets, including Peter Alexander, correct?
A Yes.
Q Patricia Greenway?
A Yes.
Q Frank Oliver?
A I — I can’t say that I have ever seen Frank Oliver carrying a sign, picketing.
Q So you are not aware he picketed?
A Correct.
Q Of course Minton — of course, the A team, right?
A You know, I think Stacy herself maybe picketed maybe five or six times, as well. But then she didn’t do it anymore because it was not anything she agreed with, nor did she feel it was effective in handling the problem that we
were dealing with.Q Well, let me ask you this. Do you remember that on September 2, 1998 you and Mr. Minton participated in a picket in Boston at the Boston Airport?
A At the Boston Airport? We — I think you have that in complete reverse. Scientologists picketed us at the airport.
Q Do you have signs, “Scientology, The Third Reich”?
A Do I have signs?
Q Did you-all, you and/or Mr. Minton?
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A Mmm, it’s a possibility. I don’t know.
Q In September of ’98 did you and Mr. Minton picket in front of the Church of Scientology in Boston?
A That is possible.
Q Well, that is when he was actually arrested for assault and battery. Right?
A Correct.
Q In October of 1998 did you picket with Mr. Minton in front of the Church of Scientology in Boston?
A It’s possible.
Q You remember several pickets in Boston in October of ’98 with one of Mr. — one with Mr. Minton and one with Ms. Brooks?
A I don’t remember that specifically, no.
THE COURT: Tell me why we have to spend so much times on these pickets.
MR. WEINBERG: Because, your Honor, it — it — it demonstrates — first of all, it puts the lie to what we’ve heard all of the way through —
THE COURT: But I know that this man has been involved in pickets.
MR. WEINBERG: It is way beyond that, your Honor. I mean, really —
THE COURT: Pardon?
MR. WEINBERG: It is way beyond that. You have
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before you a harassment time line. And Mr. Dandar has spent literally 28 days suggesting that somehow Mr. Minton was harassed to the point where — where, for reasons that don’t make any sense to me, for that purpose he would come in and incriminate himself.
And the fact is — we’re not playing all of the pickets. But when you see these clips, most of which we got from the Lisa McPherson Trust in these videos that were just turned over, you will see what was really — what was happening here in Clearwater.
THE COURT: I have no doubt that at the LMT Trust they had very little use, if any, for the Church of Scientology. And they picketed them fairly regularly. Quite frankly, if they had fallen on their face, they wouldn’t have cared; that they were out, in essence, to undo what they perceived to be the bad things that they perceived the Church of Scientology did. I don’t have any doubt about that.
I think the record is clear. So I don’t know why we keep going over those things.
There are things that are really critical to this hearing. And I don’t think those are it.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, I mean —
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THE COURT: It might be important to the counterclaim, but not to this hearing.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, I mean, if you rely on, for example, what Peter Alexander said, he said he didn’t have anything — or essentially nothing to do with it. You’ll see essentially the opposite.
You have heard that somehow Mr. Minton was harassed. And you’re going to see what was really going on, that the Church was harassed beyond comprehension.
THE COURT: I have no doubt Mr. Minton harassed the Church, as well as the Church harassed Mr. Minton. It is just that simple.
MR. WEINBERG: But nothing is more — well, can I proceed with my cross-examination?
THE COURT: Yes. You may.
MR. WEINBERG: Thank you.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You went on the Internet, as well, didn’t you?
A I have been on the Internet. Yes, I have.
Q You made postings on the Internet?
A Yes, I have.
Q In that Leipzig toast you — instead of using the name “David Miscavige,” you actually said “Miss Cabbage,” didn’t you? That was a little joke, wasn’t it?
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A Did I say that?
Q I’m asking you.
A I thought I said “Miscavige.”
MR. DANDAR: I think we need to hear the video, rather than someone’s transcript.
MR. WEINBERG: I’m going to show you a posting.
THE COURT: In a posting we have heard him called Rear Admiral. We know what that means. And we know they called him Miss Cabbage. And they don’t speak kindly of David Miscavige.
MR. WEINBERG: I understand that. And I’m going to show him, have him identify, his Internet postings.
A I will admit — I have said that before, Miss Cabbage. I just don’t know that — if that is what you are seeing there.
MR. WEINBERG: Could I stand up here with Mr. Prince?
THE COURT: You may.
MR. WEINBERG: I have no other copies.
THE WITNESS: I have no idea what this is.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q This is your postings, isn’t it?
A Excuse me?
Q This is your postings?
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A I don’t think so. I think it is a fictitious document created —
Q So you didn’t send a posting that said:
“Too bad, Little Miss Cabbage has a corncob up your ass, 724365. I know the feeling. That is why I have him reeling, spending money like a bitch kicked from a pimp. Roll on, ho, big daddy can see you. Jesse.”
A Yes, correct. But that is a fictitious document that was created for the purpose of — to malign me.
Q To malign you?
A Yes.
Q But you have used Miss Cabbage?
A Yes, I’ll admit it. Freely admit it.
MR. DANDAR: Objection. This does not have the normal E-Mail headers on it that you would find if it was an original document, instead of something that someone altered.
A I don’t even know who Robert is.
THE COURT: I don’t know. If he can’t authenticate that, I don’t know whether — I don’t know whether it is in or not. At the top it says
“Spread the word, bitch.”
Then it goes on to some other comments. And that is not the way an E-Mail normally —
MR. WEINBERG: It is not an E-Mail. It’s a
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posting.
THE COURT: Well, the same thing. I don’t know. It would seem like this Jesse Prince, Jesse77@GTE.net would be Mr. Prince’s — that would be — is that what you go by?
THE WITNESS: I had that in 1998, I think, when I had a particular type of computer, I used to have that address. But as I sit here today, I don’t know what name — the name Robert.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Well, when you use the word “Miss Cabbage,” what do you mean?
MR. DANDAR: Objection. That is not his E-Mail.
THE COURT: No, he admitted that he has called David Miscavige Miss Cabbage.
A It’s an obvious derogatory use of Miscavige.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And derogatory in — I mean, in what context did you use it when you used it?
A I don’t remember. I just know that — you know —
I have said that before. I admit to it.
Q Now, let me show you — see if you recognize this posting. Or is this another fictitious one?
MR. WEINBERG: What will this be?
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THE CLERK: 219.
MR. DANDAR: What exhibit number is that?
MR. WEINBERG: 219.
THE COURT: The one before that was 2-what?
MR. WEINBERG: 218.
THE COURT: That did not come in because —
MR. WEINBERG: He said he couldn’t authenticate it.
THE COURT: So that is not in evidence. That is Number 218. This one you just gave us is 219?
MR. WEINBERG: Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Did you make that posting?
A Yes, I did.
Q And do you consider that to be a — a posting that would indicate a derogatory view toward Mr. Miscavige and the religion of Scientology?
A Mmm, I think that this posting is a result of the Scientology operations being run on me.
While I’m trying to testify in a court in front of a judge in Denver, Scientology hired a prostitute, had a deep undercover agent, Laura Terepin, working on me, helping me with the deposition, saying there are people other than
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who they are. You know, this is an annoyance response to what had been happening to me. You see I clearly speak about private investigators following me.
In Denver, very strange things happened.
Q What do you mean, they hired a prostitute?
A A prostitute.
You know, this guy from Denver — there was a private investigative agency in Denver that was watching me. He brought a woman who said it was his sister, who was a whore. She got a room directly across the street from my — not across the street, across the hall from my room in the hotel that I was staying in.
And when I came out — and she was a beautiful woman, you know. “Oh, can you help me get my key,” on and on and start this conversation.
This guy says, “This is my sister. We’re just in town.”
Suitable guise. Mr. Sharp will explain it to you. And they started this whole routine of, “Come on. Party with us tonight. We’ve got drugs, we have this. We’ve got whatever.”
I’m supposed to testify. I literally had to get rid of them.
The other person, Laura Terepin was — her real name wasn’t Laura Terepin.
Jolie Steckart, specifically paid by Scientology
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to infiltrate Mr. Dan Leipold’s office as I sat there writing my declaration for his case.
It was these kind of things that annoyed me, and I would write these things.
Q So when this hooker came to your room, you told her to leave?
A Yes.
Q Or did you —
A We were at the bar. And then she wanted to come to the room. I’m like, “No, I have to testify.”
Q But I think you testified previously that she actually — you let her come to your room and you did something with her. Right?
A No. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I — I think that you are fabricating that.
Q Now, when you say in the first sentence: “It seems some people (Miscavige) just don’t have the guts to quit when it’s over,” what did you mean by that?
A What I meant specifically by that is that I came into the case — the FACTNet case — Scientology had brought an action against FACTNet for copyright — certain copyright violations.
And — Mmm — I — I remember vividly the whole issue of copyrights in Scientology. I have given a — a detailed affidavit about it.
But the fact of the matter is the copyrights — or
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at least some of them — were completely bogus. And the filings of the copyrights were filed under false premises.
I did an affidavit against that concerning that — concerning that naming specifically the people that were involved. Another officer, staff member, Pat Brice, was involved, because after Mr. Miscavige dismantled the Guardian’s Office, there was always a section in Scientology, according to its own policy, to register trademarks and copyrights all of the time.
Q That is what you meant —
A Excuse me I’m still talking. And they let that lapse a period of time. So you had a large section of materials that they claim copyright protection for which, in fact, they did not have. And I was able to identify what that was.
Q So that is what you meant when you said, “When it’s over, they just don’t have the guts to know when it’s over”?
A Correct. They submit false documents to the Court. I point out to the Court that the documents are false and show them how, is specifically what I mean there.
Q The third paragraph, the last sentence, where you say: “Can’t you just –” talking about Miscavige now, “Can’t you just take it like a man? Soon you’ll be in a place where you’ll be taking it like a man regularly,” that
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is sort of like the Miss Cabbage thing, you’re talking about him being in jail and sexually assaulted?
A I’m talking about him being incarcerated for being involved in criminal activity.
THE COURT: Was this a posting to David Miscavige, or somebody else?
THE WITNESS: No. It was that newsgroup, alt.religion.scientology.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Let me show you another one. You did hundreds of these things?
A I don’t think so.
Q You just felt compelled, as an expert, to go on this alt.religion.scientology and say obscene things about David Miscavige?
A At the time of these writings, I was not operating — I don’t think I was — I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t think I was an expert in this — I think I came in here in December of ’99 when —
THE COURT: I mean, there are people that learn things from this case. Mr. Prince, if you are going to ever testify in another case, you ought to learn not to post things on an Internet, especially not to be involved in vulgar demonstrations. They’ll always come back to haunt you in a court proceeding.
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Just like I hope Mr. Dandar learned, whether you call it picket or vigil, if you are a lawyer, you ought not to be there.
There are certain things you need to have learned. I hope you learned that.
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, that is a true statement. I have learned that from Judge Moody. He taught me quite a bit about how I needed to act in relationship to this.
And you are right, I have had some indiscretions. All right, if we need to talk about that, we will.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I showed you what I marked as Defendant’s Exhibit 220. Do you see that, Mr. Prince?
A Yes, I do.
Q Do you remember writing that open letter to David Miscavige?
A Uh-huh.
THE COURT: That is a yes?
THE WITNESS: Yes. I’m sorry. Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And — and this is when you are definitely involved as an expert, you already worked on Wollersheim, you already reviewed the PC folders for Mr. Dandar.
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Correct?
A Quite possibly I’ll agree with you there.
Q And so you say in the first paragraph: “How desperate you must feel. If you sit quietly and listen carefully, you will hear it.”
MR. DANDAR: Objection. I need to have the question asked of the witness to identify this document and make sure it is his.
MR. WEINBERG: He just did.
A This is my document. Yes.
MR. DANDAR: It doesn’t have headers on it. That is all.
THE COURT: Well, he has identified it, so —
MR. DANDAR: All right.
A Yes.
THE COURT: You are introducing this?
MR. WEINBERG: Yes, I am.
THE COURT: It will be received.
MR. WEINBERG: And I —
THE COURT: Honestly, I’ll tell you the same thing, I don’t need you to read it to me. If there is some part you want to point to —
MR. WEINBERG: Really, the first paragraph and last paragraph.
THE COURT: Okay.
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A Yes, I wrote — I wrote the first paragraph, all of the paragraphs in the middle, all of the way to the end.
And I think if you read this whole thing, you’ll see that I’m upset, I’m very peeved over the fact on Page 2, second paragraph, that —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q I didn’t ask about Page 2. I asked about the first paragraph. That is all I asked you.
A Oh, okay.
Q And the last paragraph. You wrote that, where you quote the Bible?
A Correct.
Q And the reason for quoting this passage from Revelations about “Avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth” was what?
A Well, you know, if you know this passage, these are the saints that died for righteousness but evil and corruption carries on. And when the fifth seal is opened, biblically speaking, the saints’ blood will be avenged.
This is specifically what I’m talking about. And how this relates to Miscavige and Scientology is the corruption — the agonizing activity that I had to go through to deal with my children, my father, old girlfriends, Scientology did their noisy investigation on me.
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I wish I would have had this document when Mr. Dandar was asking me do you remember noisy investigations. They ran around to my entire family. I had to go to Chicago, I had to go to Minneapolis, to Memphis, Tennessee, to deal with friends and associates and family as a result of Scientology doing their, quote/unquote, noisy investigation, spreading lies and false information about me.
THE COURT: Are you done with Number 220? We need to take our break.
MR. WEINBERG: We offer 220. And I do also offer 219, the one before that.
THE COURT: That will be received, too. And we’ll go ahead and take our afternoon break. It is 25 after. A 20-minute break.
MR. WEINBERG: Thank you.
(WHEREUPON, a recess was taken from 3:25 to 3:50.)
______________________________________THE COURT: You may continue.
MR. WEINBERG: Thank you. At the break I had one more of these things I was going to mark. I’ll go on. That is 221.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, Mr. Prince, do you recognize Defense Exhibit 221 as a posting which you made on or about August 6 of
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1998?
A If you’ll give me just one minute —
Q Sure.
A — to review this document, please, I’ll indicate it for you.Okay, yes. I do remember this document.
MR. WEINBERG: All right. I’ll offer this, your Honor. I have a couple questions to ask on it.
THE COURT: All right. It will be received.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, this is one of the first postings you made after you had joined the ranks of working against Scientology, correct?
A I would hardly characterize it as that. But this is one of the first postings that I made on the Internet concerning Scientology. Yes.
Q All right. Now, in that first paragraph you say, second sentence: “You know, I just can’t refer to Scientology as a church in any way. It would be an insult to all religions.” Do you see that?
A Yes.
Q And that is how you feel today, isn’t it?
A You know, it is not. And I can explain to you why.
Q You don’t need to.
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A Okay. Then I have answered the question.
Q So you think it’s a church?
A Correct.
Q So you just sent this out of some hatred?
MR. DANDAR: Objection. He didn’t want him to explain it. Now he’s asking him. So let the man explain his answer.
THE COURT: Well, I think that was a different question. And I think that Mr. Prince is capable of answering that question, then I think he can explain it.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You sent this out of some hatred for Scientology?
A Mmm, no, sir.
Q Now, if you go to the fourth paragraph where it says, I quote:
“The bottom line is that the hierarchy of Scientology is composed of people who are very, very, very mentally ill, sick people of the worst sort. Why? Because they are sick and don’t know it. In all honesty, I hope to reach them so they can wake up and start getting well like I have and others have.”
You wrote that, right?
A Correct.
Q Wasn’t that what you have, in essence, been doing for the last four years, trying to get rid of the hierarchy
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of Scientology, including David Miscavige?
A You know, that is not exactly what I say here, to get rid of those people. I said I hope that I could reach them so that they can wake up and start getting well themselves.
Q Now, you — the truth is, isn’t it, Mr. Prince, that you and Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks, the A team, had a ball with regard to all this picketing you-all participate in over the last four years?
A I’m sorry, I hardly can agree to that, Mr. Weinberg. I wouldn’t call it a ball.
Q You had a lot of fun doing it, wouldn’t you say?
A I wouldn’t say that either, Mr. Weinberg.
Q You remember the first time that you went to New Hampshire and — and — and encountered picketing in New Hampshire?
A Yes, when Scientologists came in and picketed Mr. Minton’s home.
Q Right. And that was on Mr. Minton’s — that was on Ms. Brooks’ harassment time line. Right?
A It very well could have been. Sure.
Q And do you remember that you were there with Mr. Minton and that you-all were laughing and giggling and making fun of the Scientologists, the few that came by in the cars? You called it a drive-by —
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A The picketers, yes, it was amusing because the Scientologists came by and stood in the road with their signs, and it is quite a narrow road up in New Hampshire, there aren’t sidewalks where Mr. Minton lives. So a state trooper came and asked them not to stand in the road because it was dangerous. It was actually kind of a blind curve by Mr. Minton’s house that makes it dangerous, being there are no sidewalks.
And what was particularly amusing about what the Scientologists resorted to at that point is that they — Mmm — went around and pulled their cars way back, then took their picket signs out the window, because they were too big to stick through the window, and they held them outside of the car and drove back and forth. I thought that was pretty pathetic.
Q And you and Mr. Minton had anti-Scientology signs, correct?
A Mr. Minton had signs.
Q You did, too?
A No. I never owned a picket sign myself.
Q You never held a picket sign?
A I never owned —
Q I didn’t ask you whether you owned it.
A I’m sorry.
Q You had a sign. There were signs there that you
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and Mr. Minton had, correct? Anti-Scientology signs?
A That may or may not be correct. I don’t specifically recall.
Q All right. Do you remember doing a posting with regard to that incident that appears on the harassment time line?
A I do. But — but, Mr. Weinberg, I have to say this because, you know, you selectively are taking paragraphs out of these things and you are painting a picture here.
But really what this is about is — this last thing you handed me is about trying to help these people. I’m telling the story about something that happened to Marty Rathbun, something that might have had a psychological
impact on him that he would need help resolving.Q But that wasn’t my question. All my question was, you did another posting about this incident which appears on Mr. Minton’s harassment time line in front of his house in 1998. Correct?
A You know, I need that time line right here. I mean, I’m saying it’s possible. But if you want to pull it out, you want to show me what you’re talking about, I think I can answer the question better.
Thank you.
MR. WEINBERG: Marked as 222.
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BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You can identify this as your posting, can you not, Mr. Prince?
A Yes.
Q And in the second paragraph you say, “Bob and Jesse quickly helped with the pilot and started bullbaiting the protesters.”
When you say bullbaiting, that would suggest that you were, what, holding signs or doing something back?
A No. Bullbaiting is a term that is used in Scientology specifically to designate some of their training routines. The training routines are called TRs; TRs for short.
Part of the training routine is to be able to sit across from a person without flinching and without moving when the person makes gestures or tries to do something shocking; in other words, this is a routine to train you to keep your countenance during an adverse commission, I guess.
Q In here you said, “We had great fun”?
A Correct.
Q Now, do you know why this appeared on the harassment time line if it was so much fun?
A Well, you haven’t shown me that — and I have asked you, too, to show me on the time line. So I can’t answer these questions — you know, you are referring to
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something that I don’t have in front of me. I can’t see it.Q I thought from the testimony yesterday that you had reviewed the time line pretty closely?
THE COURT: Well, believe me, he has. It’s a very long thing. I think it’s a fair request. If you want him to specifically note whether it is on the time line or not, show him the time line.
MR. WEINBERG: I will.
THE COURT: My recollection is that document was extremely long.
MR. DANDAR: It is. And, Judge, I object to 222 because there has definitely been editing done. Right after “barbecue” and before the word “soup,” something is taken out.
MR. WEINBERG: No, it is not. You knew exactly what it is.
THE WITNESS: Where is that at?
MR. DANDAR: Where it said, “You invited Minton for barbecue,” after “barbecue” there is a blank, then there is “soup.”
THE COURT: 222, you are talking about?
MR. DANDAR: Yes. Right here.
THE WITNESS: Second paragraph? Oh, yes, you are right. You are right. It has been edited.
Something has been deleted from there.
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BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q What was there? Because we didn’t edit anything.
A Yes, maybe you didn’t, but your client did. And I know specifically why.
What it said, “We were having BT and cluster soup.” BT is part of the secret cosmology of the upper levels of Scientology. So this has been, in fact, edited.
MR. DANDAR: I object to it. It is an altered document.
MR. WEINBERG: Are you testifying, first of all?
MR. DANDAR: I’m objecting to it based on Mr. Prince’s testimony. It’s an altered document by the defendant.
MR. WEINBERG: He identified it before, your Honor.
THE COURT: Well, Mr. Dandar just indicated that it had been altered. And so if it now — I’ll ask you, Mr. Prince, is that the original document, or has it been altered?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor, this has been altered. This is not the original.
THE COURT: If you have one that has not been altered, then it will be admissible.
MR. WEINBERG: First of all, we didn’t alter
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anything.
THE COURT: I didn’t say you did. But if — I mean, I’m happy to write in the original what was there if Mr. Prince remembers it and everybody agrees.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Do you remember what was there?
A I remember exactly what was there. It says we were having barbecue BTs and cluster soup. “BTs” and “clusters” are words Scientologists aren’t allowed to use outside of Scientology.
Q So it’s a derogatory thing?
A No, there is nothing derogatory about BTs and clusters. This is a reality – something they believe in.
Q Well, I —
A But they are sensitive to it, so they altered the document.
MR. DANDAR: And I would object. If there is any more altered documents, that they not attempt to use them, or tell you in advance.
THE COURT: You just heard counsel say he did not know or believe it had been altered. So be careful, though, when you look at your documents.
That does look like something is missing from there. But I do know on my own E-Mails sometimes they
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all get askew and don’t seem to line up right. I was on the Florida Supreme Court website looking up stuff on the death penalty cases. And all of a sudden they go and they just stop. So you can’t tell by looking.
MR. DANDAR: But this one —
THE COURT: That one does appear to be where there is something clearly missing. So —
MR. WEINBERG: It obviously was not what I was focusing on, BT and cluster soup. But with the record indicating what Mr. Prince was saying was there, I offer the exhibit.
THE COURT: Take the original back and write it in.
MR. WEINBERG: Sure.
THE COURT: And ask Mr. Prince if that is what he recalls it said and, if so, then we can admit it with that —
MR. WEINBERG: I’ll let him write it because I don’t know — I assume how to spell it but I’m not sure how to spell it.
THE COURT: BT , is that like two initials.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Here. Do it like this.
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THE COURT: Everybody make notations on your copies. Cluster is C-L-U-S-T-E-R.
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay. And the original has “BT” and that he wrote in.
THE COURT: Okay. That will be admitted.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, you remember that at this —
A Excuse me.
Q I wanted to show you the harassment time line. Let me show you what has been previously marked as the harassment time line, the “Time Line of Scientology Harassment of Robert Minton and Colleagues.”
I show you the entry for September 7, 1998. It says: “Scientologists picketed Mr. Minton’s home in New Hampshire again but it was done in a car with picket signs held out of the car window.”
A Correct.
Q So that was the incident, right?
A Yes.
Q Now, I want to play this. This is that — you remember you-all videoed this?
A I don’t remember videoing the incident, but let’s see what you have got.
Here is your pen, by the way —
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______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Don’t block her sign now, Jesse. I’ve gotta get a picture of that good sign.
“Okay. Let me put mine up.
“Okay, yeah.
“Hey, Maureen, just out here having a little chat.
So did you see that last — “(Inaudible.) I don’t know. All I can say is when I was in your position, there was a lot of —
“That you’re a staunch Scientologist. And it’s dangerous for you to believe otherwise because you’d be wrong.”
______________________________________
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Those are Mr. Minton’s signs?
A Correct.
______________________________________“Drive-by pickets. That’s cool.”
______________________________________MR. DANDAR: Could we clarify the people in the car are Scientologists?
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q They are, aren’t they, Mr. Prince?
A They are. OSA personnel.
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______________________________________“Damn dumb asses. I got ’em. See, what they need, what they need is like a — what they need — what they need is a chain — I mean a long line of cars.
“They just don’t seem to be able to get more than two —
“Yeah.
“– for these little New Hampshire things.
“Hey, it’s an hour from Boston, man.
“Ain’t it pathetic. One person holding one sign out the window. And then when they go by this way, the driver can’t do it so the fucking sign’s over there. Oh, my God. How pathetic.
“They must think this is having some kind of terrible psychological impact.
“Yes, it’s just entertaining as all hell.
“Here they come.
“Okay.
(Inaudible.)
“Hey, you fucking idiot.
“They don’t have enough nerve to try to run over me.
“Me, either. I stood there, too. I just stood in the middle of the road and got ’em driving up.
“Look at this. This is a good one.
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“Here they come again. That’s when they were coming earlier. That’s all I got of them so far, but the two of them are good.
“Yeah.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________MR. WEINBERG: That is it?
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q So you were having fun, you and Mr. Minton, in this thing on the harassment time line?
A Mmm, you know, Mr. Weinberg, I think even I said on that tape it was just an annoyance that they do it; though it was pathetic and though it was funny, it’s annoying. Now, you made a huge point about how harassed Scientology feels about being picketed. But when these people come by and picket, we’re supposed to be having fun. You can’t have it both ways.
Q Well, what do you call what they were doing, by the way? Do you call that harassment? Or do you call that the First Amendment?
A They were exercising their First Amendment rights.
But what happened that was harassing is that Bob and I didn’t have a clue they were even out there until they parked their cars, ran up to the door, knocked on the door
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screaming, “Minton, Minton, Minton,” then ran back to their cars. This is the only way they let us know they were there.
We are upstairs fooling around on the computers. These guys are banging on the doors. We wonder, what the heck. We run down. And we got the drive-by pickets going on.
Q They didn’t shout obscenities?
A Absolutely. “Where is your whore, Minton?” This kind of thing. Absolutely.
Q You didn’t hear that on the tape, though, did you?
A Well, of course not. Because what I’m speaking about is when they knocked on the door, and we were way in the back of the house. They wanted to make themselves known. Now, what they’re doing, going up and down there,
okay.Q Now, after this, after September of 1998, was this your first encounter with picketing, having signs and stuff like that?
A It could have been.
Q Now, after this, for the next — for the next four years, or almost four years, Mr. Minton and you and Ms. Brooks and other people affiliated with the Lisa McPherson Trust did all kinds of pickets in front of Scientology buildings, shouting obscenities, making threats,
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interfering with — with Scientologists going into their buildings and the like, didn’t you?
A That is categorically false.
MR. WEINBERG: Could you play the first tape, please. This is May 27 — this is again — this is the Lisa McPherson Trust.
______________________________________
(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Stick this in the right place. Scientology is a scam. A white meter. Fucking criminal. David Miscavige is a white Jew. He will be a convicted criminal.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, do you consider that harassment of the Church of Scientology? That was out in front of the church in Boston, wasn’t it?
A Yes. Was I there?
Q I’m asking you, do you consider that harassment?
MR. DANDAR: Objection. He’s not there. He should not be asked to comment about —
THE COURT: I think he can comment on that.
Overruled.
A You know, what I see there, that little snippet that you showed me, I would say yes, that is a bit annoying
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and harassing.
But I also suspect, because when Bob Minton would go out and picket, he would just be quiet, he wouldn’t say a word, he would just walk up and down the street.
But then the OSA people would come out, Maureen Garde, the person I was walking with in the previous video, they would come out and start talking to Mr. Minton about things from his therapy sessions.
This is where the therapy information started, in picketing the Boston org. And they would kind of whip him into a frenzy. And the whole idea was to bait Mr. Minton to make him look like an ass.
Well, you know, I agree everyone ended up looking like an ass on some of those things, but, you know, let’s put this in perspective, because these little snips aren’t going to work. These people were specifically targeting Mr. Minton to do psychological terrorism on him.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, is it a bit annoying that Mr. Minton said that L. Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige were wife beaters?
That is a bit annoying?
A And I’m sure he’s annoyed because Mrs. Maureen Garde started speaking to things about — from his confidential counseling sessions with Scientology.
How Scientology got that information, God only knows, because no one will ever speak on it, will they? But that is what was
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happening there.
Q And Mr. Minton, according to your testimony, was quiet on his pickets?
A He would just be as quiet as hell. Then if he got antagonized, he would start in. And I think that was known.
And, you know, you talk about me hating Scientologists. When you saw me in that first —
THE COURT: We’re well past the answer to that question.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: Play the next one, please.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Reform Scientology now. Don’t let David Miscavige destroy Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard would not approve of what David Miscavige has done.
“It’s safe to look. It’s safe to talk. Don’t let David Miscavige destroy the Church of Scientology. Make it something you can be proud of. Dump David Miscavige. Dump David Miscavige. It’s safe to talk. It’s safe to look. Don’t let David Miscavige destroy Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard would never approve of what Miscavige is doing. (Inaudible.)
“Reform Scientology now.
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“Don’t let the introspection rundown kill you. You don’t have to die in introspection rundown. You don’t have to let Miscavige scare you to death.
“Don’t be afraid.
“Don’t let Miscavige scare you out.
“It’s okay to confront the fact that Miscavige cannot handle some pressure.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You recognize that as people including Mr. Minton from the Lisa McPherson Trust, right where the Scientologists in Clearwater go to eat, right? That is where that was, wasn’t it?
A Yes, it was.
Q And that sure sounded like a direct attack on David Miscavige, didn’t it?
A Mmm, it sounded like there was definitely some problems with Miscavige being voiced there.
Q You saw Miss Greenway there, didn’t you?
A Yes.
Q You saw David Cecere from the Lisa McPherson Trust?
A Yes. I didn’t see me, though.
Q You were the vice-president of PR at the Lisa
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McPherson Trust, weren’t you?
A That is such a fabrication, it is laughable. I have never been — had anything to do with public relations, period. Can’t you tell?
Q So what was your position at the Lisa McPherson Trust?
A I was there specifically to help people who had been in — somehow had some gripe with Scientology that they wanted to make right.
And again I’ll say it. The work that we were doing at the Lisa McPherson Trust helped Scientology because you had a lot of garbage in the street, people that were hurt, people giving you a bad name.
When we finished with those people, they signed releases saying they wouldn’t speak disparagingly about you again, they got their money and they went on their way. Okay, that part needs to be told.
Q My only question was what was your title or position in the Lisa McPherson Trust?
A Vice-president.
Q Vice-president of what?
A The Lisa McPherson Trust.
Q And what was your responsibility there?
A I’ll say it again.
THE COURT: He just already said that.
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MR. WEINBERG: That is just what he said?
THE COURT: Yes.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, were you referred to as the big boss at the Lisa McPherson Trust?
A No.
MR. WEINBERG: Play the next one, please.
_____________________________________
(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Make Scientology something to be proud of. Reform it now before David Miscavige ruins it. Find the new leaders within your organization whom you can be proud of.
“Stacy, why don’t you try to round some of them up?
“The Lisa McPherson Trust was established at 33 North Ft. Harrison Avenue in order to let the world know about the abusive practices which David Miscavige has caused Scientology to live by.
“The Lisa McPherson Trust will always be here to remind you that you have a responsibility to be good human beings. David Miscavige is ruining your organization.
“Telecommunications is one of the powerful things you have learned in Scientology. Use it.
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Try to use it to make the world a better place and start with dumping David Miscavige.
“If you ever want any help from Scientology, you can run to 33 North Ft. Harrison Avenue to the Lisa McPherson Trust.
“If you remember, Lisa McPherson is the woman who was held by Scientology for 17 days.
“The whole episode in the Church of Scientology’s Ft. Harrison Hotel was totally out-tech. Even the state prosecutor said it was totally out-tech. The whole thing was run by David Miscavige. David Miscavige is responsible for that woman’s death.
“Remember, David Miscavige is the one who performed the out-tech on Lisa McPherson.
“Remember, David Miscavige was responsible for the out-tech, out-tech handling of Lisa McPherson. She died after 17 days in captivity here.
“It was totally out-tech and you know it. You can look and smile.
“David Miscavige pulled the plug on Lisa. He pulled the plug on Hubbard’s tech. It’s time to face reality. Reform Scientology or it will be destroyed by David Miscavige.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
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______________________________________BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, what was the reason that the Lisa McPherson Trust documented all these pickets by taking videos like this?
A Mmm, I think the purpose of the Lisa McPherson Trust always having the video when in close proximity to Scientology is the same reason that — for the same reason that happened to Mr. Minton when David Howe (phonetic) and another staff member — I think that was a staff member that attacked him. I personally took him to the hospital. He just raced him, no one is looking, boom.
So it became routine to take a video camera, in case something did happen that was truly criminal, that it could be documented. That was the purpose.
Q But it was for evidentiary purposes?
A Correct.
Q It wasn’t for posterity?
A Correct.
Q I mean, wasn’t this what the Lisa McPherson Trust was about — let me finish my question — to try to get rid of David Miscavige and to terrorize, using your word now, the Church of Scientology?
A I — I think Mr. Minton was very clear on what the Lisa McPherson Trust was for. And I’m glad you showed that
693
video, because he made it clear he wasn’t out to destroy Scientology, make Scientology go away, as you have, you know, suggested earlier. He wanted it to reform. He wanted the criminal activities to stop.
Why does he pick David Miscavige? I think we need to talk about it. Because you know why? He’s the man that has the private investigators do what they do. He’s the one that — that instigates these vicious attacks against individuals who have any disparaging thing to say about Scientology.
Why does Mr. Minton mention him? Because he knows he’s the person that can change it. Just like that letter that was turned into evidence concerning Bernie McCabe.
He’s the person that can do it. If anyone can do it, Mr. Miscavige can do it.
Q Right. And you accused Mr. Miscavige of murder in your affidavit, didn’t you?
A I accused of — Mr. Miscavige of letting her die?
Q Of intentionally letting her die?
A Letting her die.
Q Intentionally?
THE COURT: We’ll not get anywhere. The document speaks for itself.
MR. WEINBERG: You are right.
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BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You suggested, stated, in your affidavit, that a decision was made, an intentional premeditated decision, to let her die?
A Correct.
Q This is the same man that you shouted obscenities about, it’s the same man we are watching videos of Mr. Minton and others stand up, asking to be deposed or thrown out of position, right?
A It’s the same man I audited. It’s the same man I have been friends with many years. It’s the same man I have done training with. It’s the same man I helped myself establish and build Scientology for many years. So add that into the equation, too.
Q You think he would call you his friend?
A I think if David and I sat down and talked, he would —
THE COURT: I have heard this question and I have heard this answer at least twice.
MR. WEINBERG: Thank you.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, when Mr. Minton said the words “Out-tech” that is something that means something to a Scientologist, correct?
A Correct.
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Q I mean, Mr. Minton, prior to getting involved with you —
THE COURT: Counselor, it is getting pretty bad to me because I understood it.
MR. WEINBERG: But — all right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q A Scientologist, or a judge that sat in a hearing for 28 days.
THE COURT: There you go.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q That is not something Mr. Minton or any of us, having not been exposed to Scientology before, would understand, correct?
A Yes.
Q And to be out — out to accuse the ecclesiastical leader of being out-tech is about as — about as serious and severe an accusation as you could possibly make against David Miscavige, isn’t it?
A Mmm, Mr. Weinberg, my answer is if the shoe fits, wear it.
Q Just answer that question.
A I did. If the shoe fits, wear it.
THE COURT: No, he wants to know if that is a serious accusation to make to other Scientologists about their ecclesiastical head. Is that a bad
696
thing to the head of Scientology to be out-tech.
THE WITNESS: Yes, it is.
THE COURT: To another Scientologist, those folks seeing that demonstration, if they believed that, would not think very highly of their leader?
THE WITNESS: Correct.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q And would you not — from looking at that video or the other videos that you have seen so far, it doesn’t look like any of the Scientologists are having a lot of fun at your demonstrations, correct?
A You know, you have only shown me specifically Mr. Minton. You haven’t shown me what the Scientologists are doing or not doing, Mr. Weinberg.
Q Well, in that video we just showed, it was —
A It was going back and forth.
THE COURT: You know what, the deal is we are showing this for —
MR. WEINBERG: That is correct.
Could you play the next one, please.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Communicate to David Miscavige that he’s fired.
“Remember Lisa McPherson.
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“When you’re eating, remember Lisa at her last meal in December of ’95, held captive by the Church of Scientology leader, David Miscavige.
(Inaudible.)
“What is not safe for you is to stand there and do nothing. Tell David Miscavige he’s wrong. Tell him that L. Ron Hubbard would never approve of what he is doing to destroy your church.
“PK, PK, don’t run away.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Does it look, in that video — I mean, and others that we’ve seen — that Mr. Minton is terrorized, harassed or anything like that?
A Mmm, it looks like Mr. Minton was picketing, to me.
Q Now —
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Okay, are we going to do the locks?
“But the — are we going to do the alarms or –” (Inaudible.)
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________698
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You were just having a big time, you and Ms. Greenway?
A You know, that is an edited video you have there. It is — there is obvious editing there, so I would be hard-pressed to draw that conclusion.
Q When it started, it started like all of the pickets started inside the offices of the LMT, correct?
A That is a mischaracterization of how pickets started because every picket did not start in the Lisa McPherson Trust. Other people picketed the Ft. Harrison that weren’t associated with the Lisa McPherson Trust or employees of the LMT — Lisa McPherson Trust.
Q That clip from the LMT film library, that one started in the LMT building, didn’t it?
A I don’t know if it started or finished there because you have shown me one tiny segment. So, you know, if I could have some perspective and see the whole thing, I would be able to comment more accurately.
Q Now, the LMT — literally at times these pickets were intended to literally shut down Clearwater around where you-all were picketing, right?
A No.
MR. WEINBERG: Play that one, please.
______________________________________699
(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Last year, we were all over the place in a clump. We shut down here, we shut down here, we shut down there. We had Flag shut down for the whole day, anyway. This year we spread out in strategic spots and shut down the whole city.
“Frank Oliver came and caused the last breach. So far about two hours now they can’t hardly move anybody any way. They can pick up people from Flag but they can’t bring them in because they have to bring them in there, and they can’t do it.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
_______________________________________
BY MR. WEINBERG:Q That is somebody from the LMT?
A Absolutely not.
Q Who is that?
A Greg Hagglund. He lives in Canada.
Q And he was down here for the picket in December?
A Looking at that date of that, he was down for the picket and vigil. People come from all over the United States and even Europe for that. They were doing that long before the Lisa McPherson Trust ever existed or it was here in Clearwater. So, you know, it would be a real bad stretch to think that, you know, he’s working at the trust because
700
he’s picketing.
Q Well, is there a particular reason why the trust had that tape in its film library?
A Maybe someone videotaped it and gave it to the trust, Mr. Weinberg.
Q Well, who was the videotaper for the trust?
A Mark Bunker.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Remember Lisa McPherson. Okay, let’s go. (Inaudible.)
“– is one of our old friends.
“Yes. Some other friends from Germany, too.
“That is a good one, too.
“Where else would you like –”
(Inaudible.)
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Those are all people from the Lisa McPherson Trust, weren’t they?
A False.
Q Oh, Miss Caberta was from Germany, your guest over here?
A Ms. Caberta was here on vacation. Mrs. Caberta.
701
And if you will recall, you yourself earlier said she’s employed by the German government. So, you know, she’s not LMT. She’s just like you said, employed by the German government.
Q This was an LMT-sponsored picket in front of the Ft. Harrison Hotel?
A LMT has never, to my knowledge, sponsored a picket.
Q Is there a particular reason why Mr. Merrett was at that picket?
A I believe Mr. Merrett was at the picket to make sure that nothing happened, there were no altercations, no scuffles, no — you know, you’ll notice this, people, for the most part, are just silently walking up and down the street.
They are not screaming at Scientology itself or yelling at Scientologists; they are exercising their constitutional right to protest.
Q Do you think it might be somewhat harassing to the — on the doorstep of the mecca of Scientologists with signs saying “Blood of Lisa McPherson on your hands” and things like that?
A You know, I can see where someone could draw that inference or conclusion. But the inference and conclusion I draw is people were exercising their constitutional right.
If it was even a civil crime, they would have been sued out
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of existence.
Q Do you remember that the Lisa McPherson Trust — people documented by Lisa McPherson Trust video picketed in front of the Ft. Harrison Hotel when a Hindu wedding was going on? A Hindu wedding?
A No, I was not there. I know nothing about it.
Q As your position as the VP of the Lisa McPherson Trust, you don’t remember that one?
A Correct.
MR. WEINBERG: Why don’t we show that.
THE WITNESS: Was I present here?
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Well, Jesus, that is one thing Scientology didn’t believe in or any other religion, isn’t that right, guys? Isn’t that right? Isn’t that right? That is all — let’s let all of the Nazis come out.
“People are trying to have a wedding, sir.
“What is that?
“Hey, this is fine.
“They’re just trying to have a wedding. They are not —
“Listen, it’s not my fault they got married here.
“Come on now.
“This is a public sidewalk, buddy, so don’t start
703
pushing.
“This is not — (inaudible).
“This is a public sidewalk. Let’s get out of the way. It is still a public sidewalk. Okay?
“When you get out of Scientology, your luck will — (Inaudible.)
“Let’s go. Let’s go.
“Let’s go.
“Come on.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Why did the LMT put that in its film library?
A I think that every — and I’m not sure if this is not Mr. Mark Bunker’s film library that you are referring to — but, you know, we’re — we’re looking at here your two star witnesses. You are showing me videos of your witnesses that you have used in this hearing to testify for you. What are we doing here?
Q I think you said that this is the most harassed person you have ever seen. Does it look like Mr. Minton is the most harassed person you have ever seen when he’s standing there with a sign with skulls on it in front of the Ft. Harrison —
704
THE COURT: Don’t —
MR. WEINBERG: I’m sorry.
THE COURT: — raise your voice up to this witness and start approaching him.
MR. WEINBERG: I’m sorry.
THE COURT: I won’t have it. And I’m not going to remind you again.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q With a sign with skulls on it, interrupting a Hindu wedding?
A Mr. Weinberg, I agree with you what happened there — what happened was extremely inappropriate. And I don’t agree with it. And you didn’t see me there.
Q I’ll show you one you are at, Mr. Prince.
By the way, before you play that, that tape was done — the one we just played was done in — in September of 2000.
You were full-time at the Lisa McPherson Trust, correct?
A That is possible, yes.
Q Not possible. That is correct?
A I said it’s possible.
Q Why do you say it’s possible? I mean —
A Because I’m not sure when I made that transition from — I’ll explain it to you, I’m not trying to be coy
705
here, but there came a point in time when my work with Mr. Dandar involved doing a bunch of depositions of Scientology staff members or Scientologists or whatever and we worked together quite a bit then.
But then there came a period of time when it was time for the medical experts. Those people are the experts. He certainly didn’t need me there. So there came a point in time when I started working at the Lisa McPherson Trust.
Q In September of 2000 when that took place, you were on the payroll of the Lisa McPherson Trust, correct?
A It is possible, yes.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Jesse is — this is — Jesse, show him what you’re going to do if they come at you.
“Drop and fall. That is all. I’m going to fall down.
“Hey —
“You know what (inaudible).
“That is a good idea.
“Full resistance, that is our motto.
“How are you going to do it?
“Just carry the sign.
“Oh, my God.
“Kind of like the Three Stooges.
706
“The St. Pete Police.
“Yes, I told them I would be there by quarter to seven.
“Oh, God.
“Let’s do this.
“Guys, remember what we all agree with. We’re all staying together.
“Yes, boss.
(Inaudible.)
“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, well — Mmm, no.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, that is one of your six pickets?
A Rhetorical.
Q Excuse me?
A That is one of the six pickets I have probably been in.
Q And in that video we saw Patricia Greenway, correct, who is in the audience, right?
A Show it to me again. I missed that.
THE COURT: Yes, she was there.
THE WITNESS: Okay. I’ll take your word.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Peter Alexander, who testified in this hearing?
707
THE COURT: I don’t know if he was there or not.
MR. WEINBERG: He was.
THE COURT: I didn’t recognize him, but —
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q The gentleman, sort of young guy in the pink or red shirt, that was Graham Berry, correct?
A Correct.
Q The lawyer from LA?
A Correct.
Q Now, your sign, “Mafia Cult”?
A Correct.
Q And that was —
A In relationship to the black operations that are run out of OSA.
Q And you were picketing, you walked from the LMT — this was an LMT operation, wasn’t it? That is where you-all left from, from the LMT?
A Yes.
Q And at that point, you were full-time at the LMT?
A I — I’ll stipulate to that, sure.
Q Except you were still working for Mr. Dandar, you were still doing stuff on the Lisa McPherson case, weren’t you?
A Well, you know, as I said, Mr. Weinberg, there
708came a time when Mr. Dandar was solely doing medical experts. There was certainly no need for me to sit there through that.
MR. WEINBERG: One second, your Honor.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, you, Mr. Dandar and a number of other people from the LMT were at the closing when Mr. Minton closed on the purchase of the building either at the — at the beginning — January 5 of 2000, is that right?
A I believe that is correct.
Q And Mr. Dandar was — and you and Mr. Minton and Ms. Brooks were very enthusiastic about the LMT and how the LMT was going to — to operate. Correct?
A Yes.
Q And Ms. Liebreich was very enthusiastic about the LMT opening, correct?
A I don’t think Mrs. Liebreich was there.
Q But do you remember that the first phone call that was made was made to Ms. Liebreich, and you talked to her, among other people?
A I think I remember something about that, yes.
Q And she was very enthusiastic about that. Right?
A She was very happy and proud that the last wishes of Fannie McPherson were actually taking effect, which was to expose any deceptive and abusive processes by
709
Scientology, you know.
Mr. Minton is — just wants reform, tired of people calling, tired of people saying, “Can you please help.”
Q Your testimony, I believe, was — and correct me if I’m wrong — that you never met with Mr. Dandar for any purpose — for any meeting type purpose at the LMT. Is that right?
A Correct.
Q Now, do you remember at this opening that — at this closing where, in essence, the LMT was opening, that you described — or someone described what your position and responsibility was going to be at the LMT?
A I don’t recall it specifically, Mr. Weinberg.
Q And you deny it was in charge of PR, right?
A Correct.
MR. WEINBERG: If you could play that, please.
This is another video from the LMT.
______________________________________(WHEREUPON, the video was played.)
“Ken, I’m sorry there’s no more chairs.
“It is okay.
“Sign first — (inaudible).
“You want to sit down? Here is the — these are the — (inaudible).
710
“Did you bring the property insurance papers?
“Of course not.
“You didn’t?
(Inaudible.)
“You mean the balance, it’s everything you did fax me yesterday.
(Inaudible).
“The insurance papers are the closing paper for the mortgage.
“Yeah. Right. Right.
(Inaudible.)
“That is okay. That is okay.
“It’s just that we don’t have the check for him — or, we have the check but — (inaudible).
“How are we going to do it? How are you going to do it?
(Inaudible.)
“No, I’ll just tell you to send a check and how much it is. (Inaudible.) It’s a binder.
(Inaudible.)
“If Scott has a fax machine I can fax it to him.
“Hang on one second. Okay?
“Yes.
“Okay.”
711
______________________________________BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Is that Tom Tobin from the St. Pete Times?
A I believe it is.
______________________________________“This is Steve Mitchell. This is Jesse Prince.
“Nice to meet you, Jesse.
“Nice to meet you.
“He’s an expert on Scientology in the Lisa McPherson case. He’s going to be also working at the trust.
“Oh. Terrific.
(Inaudible.)
“So he has an idea of what we’re dealing with. Big time, right?
“Big time, Bobby. This is too cool.
“Jesse, what are you going to do with this organization?
“Make it as successful as possible.
“I mean, what’s your job or what — do you have functions or duties or —
“I’m on the board of directors. And I’m going to just, you know, be here with the organization, get it through its initial phase of establishing itself, and run around and do public relations.
“Oh, really.
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“Yes.
“He’s also an expert on the Lisa McPherson case so he’s going to be spending a lot of time with Ken Dandar so he’ll be –”
(Inaudible.)
“He’s been working, you know, intimately with Ken on this case for a long time.
“Oh.
(Inaudible.)
“You mean, does he own the building now?
“Thank you very much. Thank you. Scott.
“Thank you.
“Thank you very much. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.
“I wish you the best. I hope you do well with this.
“Thank you.
“Scott’s been under a lot of pressure, I’m sure.
“Congratulations.
“Thank you.
“Jesse.
“Hey, Ken?
“Hey, Ken?
“So anybody want to open that champagne?
(Inaudible.)
713
“Ken, your comments?
“Well, I think this is a good day for downtown Clearwater.
“Hi, Mike. How is it going?
“Happy New Year.
“We just closed on the building.
“Okay. Call me.
“I have a binder in my office.”
(End of playing of the video tape.)
______________________________________MR. DANDAR: Could we have a stipulation that was edited by the defense?
MR. WEINBERG: I mean —
THE COURT: I don’t know if it was or not.
MR. WEINBERG: I mean, Mr. Bunker edited a lot of these tapes before he ever gave them to us. I mean —
MR. DANDAR: Well, whatever.
MR. WEINBERG: I mean —
THE COURT: All I can say, Counselor, it is available for you to get a copy of, so —
MR. DANDAR: I know.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, what was the Lisa McPherson trial consultant and the Lisa McPherson case lawyer doing at the closing of
714
the LMT building?
A It looks like they were partaking in the festivities, to me.
Q It does to me, too, Mr. Prince.
A Yeah.
Q Now, when Ms. Brooks said that you were going to be doing public relations, was your first job to get Tom Tobin from the St. Pete Times there?
A You know, I think that is a leap in logic. And I think the person that actually said doing public relations stuff was me. I don’t think it was Ms. Brooks.
Q All right, I stand corrected. When you said you were doing public relations, what did you mean?
A I think that that was just an offhand comment. And I didn’t even know what I meant. Maybe I had some intention on doing something public relations-wise.
But what factually ended up happening is once the door opened, the phones started ringing. And as I mentioned, you know, getting through the initial establishment part, to find out exactly what our role is going to be, it simply turned into servicing current and ex-Scientology members.
Q The way you got your message out was to carry signs and picket in front of the Church of Scientology?
A That was the one thing that was done.
715
Q And — but at this time when this started in January 5 of 2000, you were in charge of public relations but you were being paid by Mr. Dandar to be a so-called expert in the Lisa McPherson case. Correct?
A That is totally incorrect. There was no public relations. I was not doing public relations, orchestrating public relations, media contact.
Mr. Weinberg, if you have shown anything with the indiscretion I have used, public relations is not anything that I would even pretend to be versed in, so, you know, let’s move on.
THE COURT: I’m going to tolerate about one more of these, then I can’t stand any more for the day. I still do not know why we’re playing all of these, but —
MR. WEINBERG: I can explain.
THE COURT: I’ll let you do that in closing argument, but I can only stand one more today, so play it and —
MR. WEINBERG: I’ll play one more and it will be this one.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: December 2, picket across from the Ft. Harrison.
I want you to look for Mr. Dandar here. All
716
right?
THE WITNESS: Okay. All right.
THE COURT: What is the date again, Counselor?
MR. WEINBERG: December 2, 2000.
THE WITNESS: Was I at this picket?
(WHEREUPON, the video was played. No audio available.)
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q You recognize the person with the sign was Frank Oliver?
A Yes.
Q You recognize Teresa Summers? She testified in this case.
A Yes.
Q You recognize yourself?
A Yes.
Q You recognize Mr. Merrett?
A Yes.
Q You recognize Mr. Minton?
A Yes.
Q You recognize Mr. Dandar. Correct?
A Yes.
Q And that was in front of the Ft. Harrison during a picket, wasn’t it?
THE COURT: I didn’t see any signs except
717
one — I did not see what I would classify as a picket.
A There was no picket. And I remember this incident, if you’ll let me explain it to you.
Bob Minton had come into town and Ken needed to talk to him or see him for something. Mr. Dandar simply stopped by. Mr. Dandar was not a part of any picket or doing anything. He simply knew where Mr. Minton was going to be, he came there, spoke with him and left.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q So what were you-all doing there?
THE COURT: I saw folks across the street, Counsel, that had signs, then somebody said hi, went across the street. That is where Mr. Dandar was.
The sign was down. The only one person that had it, they were talking, then somebody put a sign up and went off like there was something else going on someplace else.
I don’t think it would be fair to classify what Mr. Dandar was in was a picket. I could not tell they were in front of any hotel, either.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Well, you recognize that was across from the Ft. Harrison?
A No, I do not.
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THE COURT: I don’t know where it was because I couldn’t tell. It looked like a street corner. It might have been. I don’t recognize that.
MR. DANDAR: I can tell you, Judge. It was catty-corner across the street from the Ft. Harrison. These people with signs who were across the street from me, across the street from the Ft. Harrison, were standing in front of the new Super Power building. But I wasn’t part of any picket.
That is right.
BY MR. WEINBERG:
Q Now, was Mr. Merrett part of the picket?
A No, he was not.
Q Were you?
A No, I was not.
Q So you had been — so all these LMT people were sort of off to the side, and there were other LMT people that were holding signs?
A You know, again, Counselor, I’m not trying to be difficult here. You are showing snippets and you are drawing conclusions. The conclusion that I see from this snippet is we are simply standing there having a conversation. No one but no one is picketing.
THE COURT: Looks like there was getting ready to be a picket. There were people with signs, but
719
when they saw Dandar, it looks like somebody waved, walked across the street, the guy that had the sign, whoever that was, the one, put his sign down. When he picked up the sign, he went walking off to where I would presume a picket was going on. But those other folks were across the street that must have been going for a picket, I’m guessing.
MR. WEINBERG: You said that was the last one you wanted to see.
THE COURT: That is absolutely the last one I want to see.
It is 5 o’clock. We’re done for the day.
We’ll see you at 9 o’clock tomorrow.
MR. WEINBERG: Thank you. Have a good night.
(WHEREUPON, Court stands in recess at 5 o’clock.)
_____________________________________720
REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE
STATE OF FLORIDA )
COUNTY OF PINELLAS )I, LYNNE J. IDE, Registered Merit Reporter, certify that I was authorized to and did stenographically report the proceedings herein, and that the transcript is a true and complete record of my stenographic notes.
I further certify that I am not a relative, employee, attorney or counsel of any of the parties, nor am I a relative or employee of any of the parties’ attorney or counsel connected with the action, nor am I financially interested in the action.
DATED this 9th day of July, 2002.
______________________________
LYNNE J. IDE, RMR