IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR PINELLAS COUNTY, FLORIDA
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._______________________________________/
CASE NO. 00-5682-CI-11
PROCEEDINGS: Defendants’ Omnibus Motion for Terminating Sanctions and Other Relief.
CONTENTS: Testimony of Jesse Prince.1
VOLUME 1
DATE: June 18, 2002, afternoon session.
PLACE: Courtroom B, Judicial Building
St. Petersburg, Florida.BEFORE: Honorable Susan F. Schaeffer, Circuit Judge.
REPORTED BY: Donna M. Kanabay, RMR, CRR,
Deputy Official Court Reporter, Sixth Judicial Circuit of Florida.2
APPEARANCES:
MR. KENNAN G. DANDAR
DANDAR & DANDAR
35340 West Kennedy Blvd., Suite 201
Tampa, FL 33602
Attorneys 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
1100 Cleveland Street, Suite 900
Clearwater, FL 33755
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.MR. LEE FUGATE and MR. MORRIS WEINBERG, JR.
ZUCKERMAN, SPAEDER
101 E. Kennedy Blvd, Suite 1200
Tampa, FL 33602-5147
Attorneys for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.MR. ERIC M. LIEBERMAN
RABINOWITZ, BOUDIN, STANDARD
40 Broadway at Astor Place
New York, NY 10003-9518
Attorney for Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization.MR. THOMAS H. MCGOWAN
MCGOWAN & SUAREZ, LLP
150 2nd Avenue North, Suite 870
St. Petersburg, FL 33701-3381
Attorney for LMT.3
INDEX TO PROCEEDINGS AND EXHIBITS
PAGE LINE
JESSE PRINCE 5 13
DIRECT Mr. Dandar 6 5
[…]
MR. DANDAR: All right. Plaintiff calls Mr. Prince.
JESSE PRINCE, the witness herein, being first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
MR. WEINBERG: For the record, your Honor, I want to preserve the same objection that we’ve made to Mr. Franks — is that his name — Mr. Franks and Mr. Young, which is, among other things, the 404, 406, the First Amendment, and overall, at least as it relates to the — paragraph 34 of the complaint, to competence, in light of the fact that he left the church years before and doesn’t have any personal knowledge of what if anything occurred in 1995.
THE COURT: All right.
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MR. WEINBERG: Same objection. I presume that it’s preserved? And I will limit my objections to things like hearsay and other —
THE COURT: It is preserved.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Please state your name, and spell your last name.
THE COURT: What witness is that? Do you all have the numbers by any chance? How many witnesses have you called, do you remember?MR. DANDAR: Caught me off guard.
THE COURT: All right. I’m just trying to put a number with it.
Go ahead.
A Jesse Prince, J-e-s-s-e, P-r-i-n-c-e.
MR. DANDAR: Okay. I think we’re number six.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. DANDAR: I’ll double-check. Mr. Lirot will be checking.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Mr. Prince, how long have you lived in Pinellas County?
A Oh, for a little over two and a half years.
Q Are you currently employed?
A No, I am not.
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Q When is the last time you were employed?
A Last September.
Q And who were you employed by?
A The Lisa McPherson Trust.
Q What is the extent of your formal education?
A Went to Catholic school pretty much all of my elementary years. I was born and raised a Catholic. Went to Chicago Vocational High School; went to Job Corps; went to community college, college prep in Chicago. I had a scholarship for University of Louisiana which I never took. And that’s pretty much it.
Q Why didn’t you take the scholarship to Louisiana?
A ‘Cause I was afraid to go there.
Q All right.
MR. WEINBERG: Your Honor, could we possibly — I don’t know if the microphone’s on or not, but I’m having a hard time hearing Mr. Prince.
THE COURT: Check and see if the microphone’s on.
MR. WEINBERG: If you could get — not that close, but a little bit closer than he was.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Just try to talk into it.
A Okay.
Q So what did you do after finishing your formal
8
education?
A I had various jobs. I worked at the Norfolk and Western Railroad as a clerk. I’ve worked in binderies, a place in Chicago, Fidelity Bindery. And — well, wasn’t too much time after that before I became a Scientologist.Q What year did you join the Church of Scientology?
A It was 1976.
Q Where at?
A San Francisco.
Q And when did you become a Sea Org member?
A I became a Sea Org member that same year. I believe I transferred to Los Angeles from San Francisco, maybe in November, September or — maybe September; sometime between September or October, November, I went to the Sea Org.
Q Okay. And can you tell us — give us a capsule of your experience in the Church of Scientology after becoming a Sea Org member? What did you do?
A Well, I joined the Sea Org in ’76. And then at that time, when you joined the Sea Org, there was a program that was called the EPF that everyone who was becoming a Sea Org member did. EPF stood for estate’s project force. This was located in a little house in — in Los Angeles. I guess it was an old Charlie Chaplin estate. It was a place where you had to do training to become a Sea Org member.
9
The training for the most part culminated to making you a missionaire. A missionaire in the Sea Org is a person that has studied certain levels up to at least what’s called staff status 2, which basically means you’re familiar with the basics of the organization, how it operates, how it’s staffed, how it’s organized, the statistics of the area and the rules and regulations. It trains — the mission school training involved something that I guess I never even thought before. It was very military, where you — you wear a uniform and you — you’re trained on orders to go to a Scientology organization and improve the statistics by either changing personnel or increasing production one way or the other.
Q And how long did you maintain that status?
A During the entire time, from — from that point, which would have been in 1977, to the time that I left in 1992.
Q And what organization — when you became a Sea Org member and became staff, what organization was paying you?
A Organization called the Advanced Organization Los Angeles.
Q And did you ever change from that to another?
A Yes, I did. I never made it through the EPF before I was put on the RPF. I was on the RPF for — RPF being the rehabilitation project force. I was on the RPF for 18 months. And I got out of the RPF and went to an organization called the PAC Co-Auditor Organization, P-A-C, Pacific Area Command, Co-Auditor Organization. This was a Scientology organization that basically supervised and trained staff members to audit themselves on Scientology’s bridge.
Q How long did you stay there?
A I probably stayed there for probably a little under a year. And I transferred from Los Angeles to here in Clearwater, Florida in 1979, and I worked in — at the Ft. Harrison —
Q What did you do —
A — and various other buildings.
I came there — I came to Florida here to be a supervisor; to actually train and supervise the training of auditors, which are members that partake in the — the technical aspect of delivery of Scientology services.
Q You were an auditor?
A Yes, I was.
Q And when did you —
THE COURT: I’m sorry. You came to Clearwater when, sir?
THE WITNESS: 1979.
THE COURT: To train supervisors.
THE WITNESS: To — to become a supervisor. I
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came here actually as a supervisor, to train auditors.At the time, NED for OTs had recently come out. This was a big advance.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q NED, N-E-D?
A Yes.
Q What does that mean?
A New era dynamics for operating thetans.
Q This had just come out?
A Yes. This was new technology that had came out. And it was urgent at that time in Scientology to be able to train auditors in this new rundown. This rundown is delivered only by certain organizations, Flag being one of them. There’s others in other countries. And this was a very specialized type of auditing. So I was to train the bulk of the auditors on this process so that they could then go back to their organizations and deliver this new rundown.
Q How did you did learn how to do it — how did you learn about it before you were able to train other auditors?
A Well, there were other auditor levels that one had to train on before being able to train on this NED for OT levels. I guess there was a requirement that a person had to at least do Scientology academy levels, which are levels 0 to 4, specific auditing techniques. And once you were in — trained and interned on that, you became eligible to also learn to do this new NED for OTs business. You also had to be of the same case level in order to do that. So for a person to be trained as a NED for OTs auditor, they would have had to go through Scientology’s bridge all the way up to and through OT 3 expanded.
Q How far up the bridge had you gotten before you came to Clearwater?
A I had done — or I was mid what was called old OT 6.
Q Okay.
A And at the time, the levels only went to OT 7. So I was on the old OT 6. Now, those OT levels changed with he advent of NED for OTs to become something totally different. OT 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 are something totally different than what the services that were earlier offered under those same names.
Q How long did you stay in Clearwater, from 1979, to supervise and train auditors?
A I was here from the summer of ’79 till the fall of 1982.
Q And did your scope of the work that you were doing at the Ft. Harrison and other Scientology buildings here in Clearwater from ’79 to ’82 change?
A Yes, it did. It changed several times. I went
13
from supervising auditors, to train them to get up to the level of NED 4 OTs, to being —
THE COURT: I don’t know what you’re saying. NED fro-teez (phonetic.)
THE WITNESS: New era dynamic for operating thetans. This is —
MR. DANDAR: NED is N-E-D.
THE COURT: For OTs.
MR. DANDAR: F-o-r. Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. Go ahead.
A Anyway, I forgot what I was —
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Was NED for OTs —
A Yes.
Q — written by Mr. Hubbard?
A At the time that I studied them, I thought that it was that. I — subsequently I guess it was determined in the courtroom that the materials were actually written by David Mayo.
Q Okay. But anyway, you were — who were you working for when you were sent to Clearwater from ’79 to ’82?
A Well, when I first arrived in 1979, I worked for an organization that wasn’t at the Ft. Harrison but at the Clearwater Bank Building. It was called the International
14
Training Org, ITO for short. At the time the commanding officer for the international training organization was Bill Franks.
Q Okay. So you worked under him?
A Under his command as the commanding officer. I had — there were other people between myself and —
Q Okay.
A — Mr. Franks for sure.
Q Did you run into — in Clearwater, did you train Alain Kartuzinski?
A Yes. Alain Kartuzinski was a student that had come from Paris to train on NED for OTs. I do believe the original idea for him was to go to one of the European organizations such as Advanced Organization for Europe or — 15 yeah. I think he was supposed to go to AOSH EU —
Q Okay.
A — it’s called, which is located in Copenhagen, Denmark. Or he would go to the one located in Saint Hill, East Grinstead, Sussex.
Q Try to keep closer to the microphone.
A I’m sorry.
Q And what else did you do in Clearwater from ’79 to ’82, in addition to training auditors on this new rundown?
A Well, I became what’s known as the intern supervisor, which is the supervisor that takes the students
15
that have finished their courses and then puts them through a period of time where they have to demonstrate their skills by auditing other people. And they continue to do this until they can do it perfectly and flawlessly. The intern supervisor is there to guide and direct and correct students on the materials that they may not have understood as deeply and as — as would later be required for them to apply. So I was the supervisor for a long time. And then there is another position — and all of these things are — kind of segue into one another — of what’s called a cramming officer. Now, a cramming officer will take a person who maybe is making errors in auditing and then correct them on their procedures or go over the exact bulletin or policy or whatever it may be that was not followed exactly, and to make the person understand and agree with that policy, and then apply it as written.
So I did that for a long time. And then I became the chief cramming officer at the Flag Service Organization. I did this correction type of activities for auditors from level 0 to level 12, which would be the highest level in what are called the Ls in Scientology. And I would do correction on all the auditors as well as the case supervisors.
Q Now, were you — did you have — in order to be a supervisor or cramming officer for auditors and supervisors,
16
if I’m saying this right, did you have more training than they had?
A Not necessarily. I certainly did not have more training than the majority of the case supervisors that I would do correction on. And I did not train on the Ls, which would be 10, 11 and 12, which are the highest levels of — of Scientology. But I was like a class 9 auditor.
Q At that time.
A Yes.
Q Did you ever get higher than that?
A Yes. I became a — I was interned as an auditor, certified as a class 9 auditor; certified as a corrections — a cramming officer, correction officer; certified as a case supervisor for a class 9 as well.
Q Okay. And how high on the bridge did you go?
A When I left, I had completed what’s known in Scientology as OT 7.
Q Okay. All right. So have we covered your years from ’79 to ’82 in Clearwater —
A Yes.
Q — as what you did?
A Yes.
Q Okay. What did you do after ’82?
A I was transferred — well, in 1982, in the fall of 1982, I was transferred to work at the Scientology
17
International headquarters. Of course I didn’t know it was that at the time. But I was transferred to work at Golden Era Productions, which is the movie production studio that Scientology has in the desert at Gilman Hot Springs, California. I was transferred to work in the RTC as a corrections specialist.
Q And how long did you do that?
A I probably did that from ’82 — for about a year and a half. I did that job for about a year and a half. Maybe to 1985 and — or maybe even ’84. Because after that, I was promoted to a higher position; became the deputy inspector general for the Religious Technology Center.
Q And who appointed you to that position?
A Vicki Aznaran appointed me to that position. It was approved by those that — you know, the seniors above that area, which was David Miscavige.
Q Did Mr. Hubbard ever have any input in any of the selections — selecting you for any position?
A In — in as much as when I left here in Florida, there was a — a mission out to find the best supervisor, best cramming officer in Scientology, and to bring that person to international management, and correct international management on its application of Scientology policies. A search was done in the organizations internationally, and at the end of that — the weeding-out
18
process, I guess my name came up as the person to fill that job. So he was informed that I had that job, and he welcomed me to that job when I arrived in California.
Q How did he — Mr. Hubbard welcome you to that job?
A He sent me a dispatch, a letter —
Q Okay.
A — welcoming me.
Q And what is the duties of the deputy inspector general of RTC?
A Well, this may take a while. But as the deputy inspector general — there’s only one position higher than that in the Scientology ecclesiastical org board, which would have been inspector general. RTC licensed other Scientology corporations to use the trademarks, a licensing agreement. And RTC was responsible, I believe — maybe still is responsible — for ensuring the purity of application and delivery of Scientology technology, auditing technology as well as administrative policies.
And so because we licensed different corporations such as the Church of Scientology International — if you had organizing chart you would have RTC, which would be here; then you would have the mother church, which is the Church of Scientology International, which is here. The
19
mother church in turn then license other organizations, such as the Flag Service Organization, AOSH EU, AOSH UK, and the Los Angeles organization missions. Whatever entities were using the trademarks and copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard, they were given a licensing agreement.
So in that regard, ultimately — there’s a very strict policy in Scientology called Keeping Scientology Working, where it’s imperative that everything is done exactly according to the policies and technical bulletins written. I was ultimately responsible to ensure that not only the Church of Scientology International was making good on its licensing agreements, but it was also enforcing it down through other organizations to make sure that they were adhering to their licensing agreement to apply Scientology technology 100 percent standard. You know, this is a — a term that they use. So I had that responsibility —
[Other court business transpires.]
[…]THE COURT: — okay?
Okay. Go ahead and continue.
A I hadn’t quite finished answering the last question.
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BY MR. DANDAR:Q Do you remember what it was?
A Yes. The last question was what were my responsibilities as deputy inspector general —
Q Yes?
A — at RTC.
And I mentioned 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 the legal intelligence and PR activities of OSA, which is a separate network in Scientology. And I had the responsibility of also registering, getting trademarks registered in the different countries of the world where Scientology was — had activity.
Q Okay. So what did you have to do with legal and intelligence departments of OSA?
A In the — in the beginning, not very much, because it was nothing that I really knew anything about. This was something that I learned as part of this — this job activity. So I would — I was privy to the activities of those areas as I learned the strategies for those areas.
Q Would you receive reports from OSA? A Yes. I would receive a report. Every executive — well, not every — I shouldn’t say every
2
executive, but the top executives in Scientology were kept abreast of the different operations in intelligence, legal and PR, by — at the end of the night — just before the end of the night, I would receive an envelope that said “Eyes only.” And inside the envelope there would be typewritten pages, maybe seven or eight typewritten pages, that gave a summary of the different operations that legal, PR and intelligence were involved in. And after reading that information, it was shred — something that had to be shredded instantly.Q It wasn’t stored somewhere?
A No.
Q When you say legal operations, what are you talking about?
A Legal cases.
THE COURT: Did you get this every day, you say?
THE WITNESS: Yes. Every day we get —
THE COURT: How — in those days — I don’t know. There was no e-mail. How did you get it?
THE WITNESS: Well, your Honor, this isn’t information that — in an envelope, typed on, obviously, a —
THE COURT: I mean, if you’re in Los Angeles, and Flag down here in Clearwater wants to send you
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something at the end of the day, how did they get it from Clearwater to you?
THE WITNESS: Well, your Honor, no one from Clearwater would have sent me anything, because there’s a chain of command. There are channels. In other words, executives in Scientology aren’t accessible to staff members of lower organizations or things like this. You have to go through a chain of command in order to have correspondence with an executive, or be asking for a specific privilege from that executive, after having gone through the channels.
THE COURT: Okay. But somebody — if — you got seven or eight pages from somebody —
THE WITNESS: Oh, yeah. This was brought — brought around from a person in the intelligence area, and they would simply come in, drop the envelope on the desk and leave.
THE COURT: Okay. Whoever it is that would bring that envelope to you, from wherever it is, how was it that they got the information, for example, from Flag on the day’s activities? This is really a very simple question. This is: Was it faxed? Was it gotten there by horseback? I mean, how did they get it from Flag in
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Clearwater up the line to whoever it is that dropped it off on your desk? Just physically.
THE WITNESS: Well, there could have been several ways that the information could have been passed along. It could have been passed along from telephonic communications; it could have been passed along via the computer. At that time, when — the time that I’m speaking about there was no, quote/unquote, real Internet, but Scientology had its own computer messaging systems where we could send messages to each other from Europe or from Florida to Los Angeles. So that was a way that information would come in as well.
THE COURT: Okay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And was OSA part of RTC?
A No. Not — not during the time that I was there, OSA was not part of the RTC. During my time period in OSA, OSA was in a very formative stage of being formed, being — departments figured out, purposes, duties, that kind of thing.
Q Was there any carryover from The Guardian’s office to OSA?
A Yes, there was. The staff — there were a
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carryover of some of the staff and some of the — and the policies.
Q Now, let’s just go back — you said one of the things you would get daily is a report on legal operations. Is that just in the United States?
A Yes. Well, predominantly. But I don’t think we had any cases abroad of any real significance outside of the United States during my time period.
Q And when you were a deputy inspector general, who was your senior?
A The inspector general, which is Vicki Aznaran.
Q And who was her senior?
A David Miscavige.
Q And who was his senior?
A L. Ron Hubbard. Pat Broeker.
Q And when Mr. Hubbard died, who was Mr. Miscavige’s senior?
A He had none.
Q And when you were deputy inspector general, you were a member of the Sea Org, correct?
A Correct.
Q Who was the head of the Sea Org?
A The captain of the Sea Org was David Miscavige.
Q Did he have any equal to his rank?
A I’m sure he probably did.
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Q He had other captains?
A Yes.
Q And would they have equal power as David Miscavige?
A No.
Q Why not?
A Well, again, I’ll refer to the organizational chart, the command charts, which is an exhibit in this case.
You have a — a kind of pyramid system of organizations as far as seniority, powers — broad powers and responsibility. And at the top of the chain is RTC, Religious Technology Center. Below that is CSI, Church of Scientology International, which is the mother church. And then from there you have like a — what’s called a FOLO, Flag Office Liaison Office, which is supposed to be a management center in the different sectors and countries where Scientology has activity.
An example of — of that would be here in Clearwater. You have the Ft. Harrison as one — the Ft. Harrison Building, or the Flag, which is one organization. And separate from Flag you have another organization called the FLB, the Flag Land Base organization, which, during my period of time, concerned itself with the buildings, the maintenance of the buildings, and then also did the missions, where they would pull Sea Org members to send to
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other areas, train them on specific orders to go out and accomplish different things in the organizations.
Q While you were in Scientology, could a Sea Org mission go in and take over a completely independent org like the Boston org?
A Well, that — that was the entire purpose of a mission, to go in an area —
Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s different types of mission. You could have a mission that would simply go in there and observe —
THE COURT: His question was, could the Sea Org go in and take over?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And what gave it the power to do that?
A The Sea Org is the organization that is responsible ultimately for the success of Scientology. The persons that are in the Sea Org have dedicated themselves to Scientology for one billion years, and their dedication is to ensure that Scientology carries on and prevails in the society we live in.
Q And you signed a billion-year contract as well, correct?
A Yes.
Q Now, the intelligence operations —
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Well, let’s go back to legal operations. Would you receive a report daily of what was going on in each and every case that the Church of Scientology was involved in?
A Pretty much, yes. If there was activity, if there was courtroom activity that day, or a motion that was being put together or — or whatever, I’d receive the report about that.
Q So if there was a lawsuit that the Boston org —
I’m sorry. I’m picking on Boston — the Boston org was a party to and had a lawyer representing them in court, would you receive a daily report on the activity of that lawsuit?
A Yes. If there was daily activity on that lawsuit, I would certainly receive information about it.
MR. WEINBERG: Your Honor, could we just date from when it started to when it ended, that he was getting this kind of info?
THE COURT: I think he was saying during the whole time that he was deputy inspector general.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay. And I think he hadn’t said when that ended.
THE COURT: Okay. What was the period of time that you were deputy inspector general?
THE WITNESS: I would say from early 1985 until January, 19, 1987. ’84. I’d say ’84. Early ’84.
THE COURT: ’85 — early ’84 to January of ’87.
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THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Now, when you were deputy inspector general of RTC, was Mr. Miscavige the chairman of the board?
A No. Mr. Miscavige was the chairman of the board of Author Services.
Q Okay. Do you know who the chairman of the board of RTC was at the time you were deputy inspector general?
A I later came to find out the chairman of the board of RTC — it changed a couple of times, to my knowledge, but I think the person who was — the last person who I knew was actually chairman of the board was David Miscavige.
Q Okay.
THE COURT: Well, I thought — let me stop you just for a minute here. I thought you indicated that the chain of command was the deputy inspector general, who was you, reported to the inspector general, who was Vicki Aznaran, who reported to David Miscavige. In what capacity?
THE WITNESS: David Miscavige was the chairman of the board of Author Services. Author Services was a literary —
THE COURT: Believe me, I know about Author Services.
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THE WITNESS: Okay. So —
THE COURT: So that — all I’m trying to find out is the capacity in which David Miscavige was, that Vicki Aznaran reported to, was as chairman of the board of ASI?
THE WITNESS: No. He was really captain of the Sea Org.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q How could Vicki Aznaran and RTC, a religious organization, have a senior who’s a chairman of the board of a for-profit organization?
A Well, that’s exactly the point. Being-senior part and — and giving orders and things from Miscavige to Aznaran wasn’t anything that the general Scientology public would know about. This was kind of kept secret, in the same way that Scientology staff members or Scientology public members don’t realize that Gilman Hot Springs is the location of international management of Scientology; in that same regard they would not know that Miscavige ultimately would be the seniors of a person such as myself, Vicki Aznaran and that kind of thing.
Or we couldn’t have that — it couldn’t be clear that — that that was the case because that presented problems with the tax — we’re trying to get tax exempt status — to have a for-profit corporation running a
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nonprofit corporation.
But Miscavige was the leader. Was and is the leader. I mean, at the even when L. Ron Hubbard was alive, he would do his communications through Miscavige, that would come to us.
Q Okay. And so was — was Miscavige, Vicki Aznaran senior — and I think you already answered — COB of ASI as captain of the Sea Org?
A As captain of the Sea Org.
Q Now, the intelligence reports that you would get daily, what kind of intelligence reports would you get?
A Ones that I remember specifically at this time had to do with different activities in the Wollersheim case, whether it be Wollersheim 3, 4 or whatever; you know, what was happening with the lawyers, what was overheard, what was planned, what kind of information was coming up during what’s called a ODC and CDC. ODC being overt data collection. They would collect information about the attorney, his — you know, his record. They would do an ODC. And then a CDC. And a CDC mainly entailed getting information that is not readily available or is public knowledge, such as personal phone records; a credit report, bank reports, an individual’s bank reports, this kind of thing.
Q How did OSA get an opposing counsel’s bank
82
reports?
A Hiring a private investigator.
Q And how did the private investigator get an attorney’s private bank records?
A This is something that they were hired to do. It was — it was very much shunned that we know specifically how that happened in case it ever went to court or the person was ever caught. So it was just, “Hey, we need this. We need a credit report on this person. We need his phone records. We need to know who he’s talking about, who he’s talking with,” and to do an analysis to find this person’s weakness. What is the Achilles’ Heel? What is going to get this person to stop giving grief to Scientology even if — in a professional capacity as an attorney. And then, you know, pursue those things that will intimidate, harass or discourage.
Q And why — what gave you, as a member of the Church of Scientology, the authority to do that, under the — under the rules and regulations or the policies of the Church of Scientology?
A I’ve seen many exhibits turned into this courtroom concerning policies on intelligence and attitude. And I guess the overriding factor is this: Scientology comes first. Scientology comes before the individual, comes before the individual’s family, comes before our current
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justice system or whatever laws. Scientology — I mean, it’s even a high crime to speak at — in Scientology’s laws, it’s a high crime to come before a court and give testimony without first Scientology being — knowing completely what your testimony would be, even if it had nothing to do with Scientology.
So they have different rules and a different standard to operate on. I mean, you know, is it legal? Is it right? Those are different matters. But that’s —
Q Well —
A — the —
Q — when you were in this position, reading these intelligence reports, do you know that if you got a credit report of anyone that had not given you written permission to get their credit report, that that was a federal crime?
A You know, at the time I did not. I personally did not. Because again, this is an area where I was kind of cutting my teeth on, so I was being walked through it and shown how things worked.
Q Who was walking you through it?
A Several people. It started out with David Miscavige kind of bringing me in the loop on this kind of thing and showing me. And the person who would normally be involved in these kind of operations would be Marty Rathbun, so I spent time with him, learning about these things.
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And — and Vicki Aznaran, who had previously had a lot of association in the Guardian’s office, which later became OSA. She was very familiar with the pattern and things that they do. And her husband, Rick Aznaran, who was my junior. He was a person that I used for the physical security of — to ensure the physical security of the Golden Era base of Gilman Hot Springs, which eventually spread to other organizations. But that’s another person who had experience.
Q Did you ever work with Mr. Moxon?
A No.
Q Were you gone before Mr. Moxon came on board?
A I met Mr. — no, I was not. I met Mr. Moxon when — again, I was there in OSA’s formative stages when I actually had the responsibility to put a person in command of it, fill personnel in the legal department, the PR department, the intelligence department, establish it as a organization which then would repeat itself in the other minor organizations within Scientology.
Q So you established the main OSA departments?
A Correct. The main OSA org board. We were there to work on what its organizing board should be, what personnel it should have, what policies it needs to operated on, who it needed to establish lines of communication with.
Q Was OSA still Department 20 like the Guardian’s
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office was?
A Yes.
Q Did it have the same org board as the Guardian’s office?
A You know, I couldn’t — in some respects they did, but I don’t think totally they did, because — and this is kind of how I learned it as we went along. The — the OSA wanted to make sure that they didn’t make the same mistakes as the past Guardian’s Office did. One of the main mistakes that the Guardian’s office made was putting in writing and detailing some of the operations that they did to some of the people that opposed them. An example that is, oh, Paulette Cooper, with, you know, having a person inside with her to affect her in certain ways, you know, and then the next thing you know —
MR. WEINBERG: Objection as to competence. Because he’s talking about something that he wasn’t part of, that supposedly happened in the early ’70s and it can only be based on hearsay.
THE COURT: Well, what does it have to do with this hearing?
MR. DANDAR: It has to do with our defense of extortion against Mr. Minton and the fair game of Mr. Minton causing him to come to this court and lie.
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THE COURT: Okay. And what — who is this woman?
MR. DANDAR: Paulette Cooper.
THE COURT: And how did you find out about Paulette Cooper, since Mr. Weinberg objected?
THE WITNESS: I was briefed about it, and I remember her specifically.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, hold on. That’s my objection. This is just pure unmitigated hearsay.
MR. DANDAR: Not when it comes from a corporate client.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, wait a minute. He was only in this position for — whatever he said — ’85 to early ’87. And if I understand this, he’s now going to recount some supposed incident that happened in the early ’70s before he was even part of —
THE COURT: Within — within the organization to which he was the higher echelon person.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, RTC didn’t even exist back in the early ’70s when this supposedly occurred.
MR. DANDAR: But Department 20 did.
MR. WEINBERG: Could I —
MR. DANDAR: I’m sorry.
THE COURT: You can, but your objection’s going
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to be overruled.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay. Well, I’m just making a record.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q How did you find out about Paulette Cooper?
A In 1977, when the FBI raided Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles, they broke into a department called B1, and they removed a lot of files.
Q Scientology department?
A A Scientology department. It was their intelligence branch.One of the problems on the files which led certain people to go to jail — I guess 11 people went to jail over this — was the fact that every operation, including the operation like the LSD in her toothpaste — put LSD in her toothpaste to make it seem like she’s insane, or to lift her fingerprints off a glass and put it on a bomb threat, which she was eventually being prosecuted over — I mean, these things were written in detail of exactly how to do it. And it said on the top who it went to, who approved the program, who executed the program. In other words, details which later came back to bite them severely.
So in putting this new OSA, this new branch there, that had similar functions, but were supposed to operate a
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little differently. These reports came. Again, it said, “Eyes only.” There was no routing as to who it was going to. There was no author. There were just paragraphs which were just summations of different operations that — that Scientology were enacted to discourage people who were in lawsuits against it or critical of it.
Q And then those — what you saw was then destroyed in some way?
A We were — we had to shred it immediately. Part of the new policy — and Vicki Aznaran is one of the people that told me this — everybody had to had a shred. There were only certain designated people these reports were going to. And we had to verify we shredded the reports. But the reports themselves only contained brief statements of the activities, not who were doing the activities or any details like that.
Q Would those activities include picketing, critics?
A No. These — these were different.
I — I’ll give you an example of an activity.There was an organization called CAN, called Awareness Network, that Scientology had apparently been fighting for years. I had no knowledge of it myself, but I would receive a report that there was a deep cover in CAN, listening in on the legal process CAN was involved in, lawsuits and spats with Scientology.
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This person would get privileged information —
MR. WEINBERG: Your Honor, I object —
A — report it to —
MR. WEINBERG: I —
THE COURT: Excuse me.
MR. WEINBERG: I believe that CAN didn’t exist in 1985 through 1987. What’s Mr. Prince talking about?
MR. DANDAR: Well, that’s good cross examination question.
MR. WEINBERG: Well — but then I object to whatever it is: Hearsay, competence. And he’s up here talking about some organization that, if I’m correct — and I think I am correct — didn’t even exist when he was there. How can he be talking about an intelligence operation with regard to it as if —
THE WITNESS: If you’ll let me finish —
THE COURT: Well, just a minute. NO, you don’t get to talk —
THE WITNESS: Oh.
THE COURT: — until I make a ruling. And we surely do not need help from you. At least, I don’t, in making my ruling.
Now, when did this occur, Mr. Prince?
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THE WITNESS: The specific example that I’m telling you —
THE COURT: Yes.
THE WITNESS: — are things that I’ve read with my own eyes concerning a group — it was either CAN or something like CAN — that Scientology wanted to get rid of.So a person was placed in there, deep cover —
THE COURT: You are so far ahead of me. Don’t incur my ire, because it’s the afternoon and it’s getting close to 4:00, and that’s bad for you and everybody else.
When did this operation take place, whatever it is you’re talking about? When did it occur?
THE WITNESS: It was either 1984, 1985, 1986.
It would have been somewhere —
I’m giving an example of something that I read within those three years.
THE COURT: Okay. And that’s when it occurred?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: And you were in the organization?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: And you read it as part of the documents of the organization.
THE WITNESS: No. As part of the envelope that
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would come by, like I explained earlier.
THE COURT: Oh, and you read it on — in what was reported to you.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. WEINBERG: I understand. And I’ll cross examine him if it has to do with CAN.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q So they put an undercover person into this organization?
A Correct.
Q And what was this person doing?
A The person was there as a volunteer to assist the executives of the organization, you know, carry out whatever they were doing. And this organization was an organization similar in some ways to the Leo J. Ryan Foundation, in that anyone from anyplace could call, “I think my kid is in a cult. My daughter’s in a cult. Can you give me information about it?” It was an organization similar to that.
And this person was put in there to divine and be able to turn over to Scientology’s legal team information that would give them an advantage in court.
Q Okay. Now, besides the reporting of intelligence and legal operations, did you have anything to do with the hiring of law firms?
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A Yes. I hired — I can’t tell you how many different law firms abroad, simply for the purpose of filing trademarks. But in the United States, a law — well, an attorney that I hired by the name of Joseph Yanni for RTC —
THE COURT: I know this must be relevant, and I’m sure you can tell me, but what — what is who the law firms were or who was hired —
MR. DANDAR: No. I don’t care who the law firms were.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. DANDAR: I just want to know if that was part of his duties.
THE COURT: All right.
MR. WEINBERG: All right. And to the extent that he’s going to ask Mr. Prince about his discussions with these law firms, that would be privileged.
THE COURT: As to those — those —
MR. WEINBERG: In particular —
THE COURT: — matters — that’s right. During the time that he was in the organization.
MR. WEINBERG: And I assume Mr. Dandar has not talked to Mr. Prince about if Mr. Prince talked to lawyers for the Church of Scientology about —
THE COURT: I don’t want to hear it right now.
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I mean, this is a question-and-answer period. You have an objection, make it.
MR. WEINBERG: That was my objection.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q In addition to just hiring the law firms, would you also direct the litigation?
A Correct.
Q All right. And we’re not going to go into details about how you directed the litigation.
A Or even participated in the direction of it. You know, maybe not me, “Oh, this is my idea. Therefore we’re doing this,” but as a group. It was a group of people. It was, you know — and if there was ever a single decision to be made, it was certainly made by the highest person. But we operated as a group.
Q Who was in the group?
A It was Mr. David Miscavige, myself, Vicki Aznaran, Mark Yeager, Marty Rathbun, Lyman Spurlock, Mark —
THE COURT: It really — I don’t get it yet.
Why I do care how they hire a law firm?
MR. DANDAR: No. This is how they direct the litigation, Judge.
THE COURT: Oh, all right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And was the litigation —
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THE COURT: Well, I hope they do. They hire the law firm, they’re supposed to be in charge of the litigation, right?
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Do you leave it up to the lawyers to decide how to run the litigation?
MR. WEINBERG: Excuse me, your Honor. Now we are getting into work product as to how it is that the church dealt with their lawyers back in the ’80s.
THE COURT: Sustained.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Did the litigation involve RTC, that this group would meet and discuss, or did it involve any organization of Scientology?
A In one instance it did involve RTC. In other instances it involved CSE, such as the Wollersheim case. So you know, it would — depending on the case —
Q Okay. What I’m asking you is it didn’t — it didn’t concern crossing over corporate lines and involving litigation involving different corporations.
A The — the persons that I named that concerned themselves with litigation concerned themselves with all Scientology litigation, despite what corporation or whatever. These were the people that dealt with litigation
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for Scientology.
Q And there — was there a head of that group?
A Yes.
Q Who?
A David Miscavige.
THE COURT: Are you trying to tell me that David Miscavige is running this lawsuit? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?
MR. DANDAR: Running everything.
THE COURT: Well, I mean in particular are you trying to tell me he’s running this lawsuit?
MR. DANDAR: Yes.
THE COURT: Well, why would I care? I mean, why do I care who’s running the lawsuit?
MR. DANDAR: All right. All right.
THE COURT: I mean, this is — this is a motion to determine whether your case should be dismissed.
MR. DANDAR: It’s leading up to this question.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q You mentioned the Wollersheim case. Can you tell us what activities you personally know about in the Wollersheim case that have anything to do with the destruction of evidence?
A Yes, there is. And I — I’ve done an affidavit about that, and I’m sure it’s filed in this case.
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But there came a point in time where the judge —
as part of a discovery motion, it was ordered that Lawrence Wollersheim’s PC folders get turned over. I remember during one of these requests — and it looked like it was pretty serious that the judge was going to make them turn over these PC folders — that we had to organize — myself, Vicki Aznaran and other people had to go through the files and redact them by taking out incriminating information, what was considered to be incriminating information against Scientology or anything that could be misunderstood and could then become incriminating. We went through and we redacted files. And then when defense complained and — about the files being redacted and the judge ordered the files just simply turned over straight out, those files were destroyed. They were pulped.
Q What do you mean by pulped?
A They were taken to a paper factory. They were loaded into a — they were shredded, loaded into a solution and turned into a fiber.
THE COURT: Who ordered them destroyed?
THE WITNESS: At the time that I destroyed those documents, the order came to me from Vicki Aznaran, who received it from David Miscavige.
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BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Were there — was this a — destruction of evidence — was it pursuant to policy established in the Church of Scientology?
A Well, the old overriding policy in Scientology is to protect Scientology; to make it — you know, protect it in any way and to cultivate it and — of course, something that would harm it —
THE COURT: Where is that written? I mean, everything here in policy is in a document written down somewhere. Where is it?
THE WITNESS: There’s a policy letter called Keeping Scientology Working.
THE COURT: Okay. And that’s in evidence and I have that, so that’s — you’re suggesting that is part of the Keeping Scientology Working —
THE WITNESS: Yes, ma’am.
THE COURT: — policy.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Any other policy besides that one?
A Of protecting Scientology, there’s Safeguarding Technology. I believe that’s a HCO policy letter and a bulletin. There’s policies concerning — Well, I — that’s what readily comes to mind. That’s what I mentioned.
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MR. DANDAR: Okay.
THE COURT: The relevance of this testimony is because you’re going to ask me to believe that Mr. Miscavige directed that the PC folders of Lisa McPherson be destroyed.
MR. DANDAR: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. Or at least in part be pulped.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Are you familiar with —
THE COURT: Pulped. Destroyed in some fashion.
MR. DANDAR: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: Just so the record is clear, we turned over the PC folders.
THE COURT: Well, I understand. But he is testifying, and so did they in the Wollersheim case, that they turned over what they wanted to turn over after all the damaging stuff was taken out and pulped. I’m not saying that’s true; I’m saying that’s the testimony. Maybe it is true. I’m not saying it’s not either.
MR. WEINBERG: Well, in this particular case, Mr. Dandar has used the PC folders he believes affirmatively to indicate it supports his case. I
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mean, we turned over volumes of PC folders of Lisa McPherson.
THE COURT: I can guarantee you did. If this testimony has any relevance at all, the only relevance it could possibly have is that this witness as an expert is going to tell us that Lisa McPherson’s PC folders are not intact. Is that right?
MR. DANDAR: Yes. That was my next question.
THE COURT: All right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q I had you review Lisa McPherson’s PC folders, correct?
A Correct.
Q And you did that with Stacy Brooks, right?
A Correct. In part, yes.
Q And did you — did you find her 1995 —
Well, actually, you looked at — you did a general review of ’95, ’94 and ’93, correct?
A I believe that’s correct. I mean, I don’t remember. But I certainly did an affidavit that laid out exactly what years I covered and what —
THE COURT: Why don’t you let the man have his affidavit while he’s testifying?
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BY MR. DANDAR: Q Let me show you the 12-page affidavit dated in this case — April 4th, 2000 —
A Okay.
MR. DANDAR: Next exhibit number.
THE COURT: I think this may be in evidence, but maybe not.
MR. WEINBERG: I don’t think so.
THE COURT: Oh, okay.
MR. DANDAR: 108.
MR. WEINBERG: Affidavit — it’s your new 108.
Is that what it is?
MR. DANDAR: Yeah. I — what did I do —
Oh, Judge, let me give you the clerk’s copy. Well, I better give you your copy and I’ll give the witness the clerk’s copy. Then I’ll be left without a copy. Here. Take this one.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
THE COURT: Oh, no. This isn’t — I’ve never seen this before.
MR. WEINBERG: If I’m not mistaken, this is under seal.
THE COURT: Well, really, there isn’t much under seal —
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Well, this is part of the PC folders.
MR. WEINBERG: I think because of the PC folders.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q First of all, Mr. Prince, you said you were a class 9 auditor in Scientology?
A Correct.
Q You audit people who are members of the Church of Scientology?
A Yes, I have.
Q Both staff and public?
A Correct.
Q Of course, you’re not going to tell us what you did in the auditing. I’m not asking that. But who are some of the more famous people you audited?
MR. WEINBERG: Objection to that. He shouldn’t — I object to him talking about auditing famous — quote, famous people. I mean, the St. Pete Times is here. Has nothing to do with the proceeding. If Mr. Prince has audited some famous person, what’s that got to do with this proceeding?
THE COURT: Well, you know, the truth of this matter is, I remember seeing something in this lawsuit that was filed that said he audited David Miscavige.
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MR. WEINBERG: I understand.
THE COURT: I think that would have some bearing, that Mr. Miscavige would trust — or Mr. Miscavige would trust this man to audit the head of the church.
MR. WEINBERG: I don’t think that’s where Mr. Dandar was going.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: I think what Mr. Dandar was trying to do was get some famous person’s name, who has been audited, much like a priest gave somebody confession, and just put it out there so that we can read about it tomorrow. And I don’t think that’s appropriate and I don’t think it’s relevant.
THE COURT: Well, you know what I think? That at issue in this particular case is whether Mr. Prince is qualified as an expert, his credentials and everything about it. If he was — I don’t know who picks an auditor, whether he decides who he wants to audit or whether someone hired him — and there weren’t too many when he was there — made that choice. And if they chose him to do a famous person, I would think that showed they had confidence —
MR. WEINBERG: But isn’t that the person’s — I
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mean, talking about what Mr. Dandar talks about — privacy right, as to — as to who it was that — and when it was that he was talking to a minister of the Church of Scientology —
THE COURT: I didn’t hear anybody say when and I didn’t hear anybody say what they said. What I heard him ask was, who did he audit? I know of no privilege at all —
I mean, are these people not proud to be members of the Church of Scientology?
MR. WEINBERG: I think they are, but I think they would prefer that there not be testimony from Mr. Prince, who they don’t have a high regard for, you know, at this point, given —
THE COURT: Well —
MR. WEINBERG: — given what Mr. Prince has done over the last — whenever it is — four or five or six years —
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. WEINBERG: That’s my objection.
THE COURT: Your objection is overruled.
A The fact of the matter is — is as far as Scientology celebrities are concerned, I’ve never audited one. I’ve been a case supervisor for them. I’ve supervised their folders. I’ve reviewed and ordered corrections on
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their files. But I’ve never audited any Scientology celebrity.
THE COURT: See? Wasn’t that a big bunch of hooey over nothing?
MR. WEINBERG: I guess my question is, why did he ask the question?
THE COURT: I have no idea. But I had to listen a lot longer to him and your objection than I had to listen to him saying no one.
MR. WEINBERG: That’s true.
THE COURT: Is this Number 108, by the way? I can’t read your writing.
MR. WEINBERG: Yes.
THE COURT: 105? 108. Okay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Who are one of the celebrities you case supervised, Mr. Prince?
THE COURT: I must need a break because I can tell I’m getting cranky. So we’ll be in recess for 15 minutes. We’ll be in recess.
(A recess was taken at 3:30 p.m.)
(The proceedings reconvened at 3:46 p.m.)
THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Dandar, continue.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q So as a case supervisor, can you give us a couple
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names of the famous celebrities you case supervised?
A I’ve done case supervision, training exercises, training with John Travolta, Tom Cruise, Karen Black. I don’t know. I mean, there isn’t a one of them that I haven’t, because I specifically ran a project to ensure that the auditing of the celebrities were going well.
Q When was this?
A This was again during the same time period I mentioned before, from I guess 1983 through ’87.
Q Did you audited (sic) Mr. Miscavige?
A Yes. I was his personal auditor for a while.
Q How long?
A Maybe a year, year and a half. Maybe a couple of years.
Q What couple of years was that?
A Oh, I’d say, you know, through ’84, ’85, I audited him; ’86 I audited him. So it’s a longer period of time, actually. Maybe three years.
Q Okay. Did he have other auditors?
A Yes.
Q And he selected you and the other auditors or somehow he gets assigned or rotated or anything like that?
A I was selected to be his auditor by the senior case supervisor international, Ray Mithoff.
Q And were you in RTC at the time?
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A Yes.
THE COURT: Senior case supervisor, did you say?
THE WITNESS: Yes, ma’am. Yes, your Honor.
Senior case supervisor international.
THE COURT: Yeah. Okay.
THE WITNESS: He would be the highest case supervisor within Scientology.
THE COURT: Okay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And how was your relationship with Mr. Miscavige until you left in ’87 — I’m sorry — until you left — you changed your post of deputy inspector general?
A Well, shortly after that, there was a big power struggle. And I’ve also certainly written about that and spoke about that. But there was a power struggle in 1987 where I was forcibly removed. However I remained in the Sea Org for five years after that.
Q And of course, Mr. Miscavige was the captain of the Sea Org for those five years, correct?
A Sure.
MR. DANDAR: Judge, at this time I’d like to play a video clip. It’s nine minutes long.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. DANDAR: Of Mr. Prince inside Scientology.
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MR. WEINBERG: Do you have a transcript?
MR. DANDAR: There’s no transcript.
This is a copy from a copy from a copy, so it’s not the best quality.
THE COURT: Do the best you can.
MR. DANDAR: Should we dim some lights?
MR. WEINBERG: Can we date this?
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Mr. Prince, do you know when this speech was given?
A Yes, I do.
Q When?
A It was December 31st, 1986.
Q Okay.
(The videotape, Jesse Prince at New Year’s, 1986, was played as follows:)
THE COURT: 1996?”– discuss expansion, legal victories and acknowledge top contributing members. “Thank you. Thank you very much.
“Next area we wanted to brief you on were the activities and wins from the Religious Technology Center in 1986. As I’m sure you’re all aware, the Religious Technology Center owns the trademarks of Dianetics and Scientology, and their job is really
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to see that Scientology is applied as LRH intended. Keeping Scientology Working. Along with that, they have started new activities, expansion activities at Scientology, opening up new fronts to Scientology, new countries to Scientology, and seeing that not only is the tech applied correctly, but in some instances seeing that it starts being applied for the first time.
“The speaker we have this evening has been in the Religious Technology Center for four years. In fact, he’s a deputy inspector general. Please welcome Commander Jesse Prince.
“Thank you.
“Thank you.
“Well, good evening. And it’s a pleasure to be with you tonight as we welcome in AD37.
“I want to brief you on some of the highlights of 1986 as we made some breakthroughs in the areas of terminating and handling squirreling and the expansion of Scientology and keeping Scientology working, which I think you’ll all find of interest.
“Squirrel groups are by themselves a rather simple thing to handle. As per HCO spec letter of 27 September, 1965, Internal dissension is what tears these splinter groups apart, formed by people
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who’s overt acts against Scientology prevent case gain. They rapidly rip one another to pieces. So even if one took no action at all because of their own ability to keep ethics in on themselves, these squirrels always disappear.
“But the real key to it is to handle any squirrels and squirreling so that they are terminatedly handled. To do that takes a no-nonsense and a nonapologetic attitude about who and what we are, and an unstoppable dedication to the preservation of the technology.
“This year, the Religious Technology Center undertook several courses of action designed to shut the door forever on squirreling of any kind, whether it is on the upper-level materials of Scientology, the lower levels, against the copyrights, or even the right to license and control of the trademarks of Dianetics and Scientology.
“First, as you may remember, in 1985 we won an order from a federal court in Los Angeles that prevented certain squirrels and psychs from using, copying or even having the noisy materials.
“Well, in 1986 we actually took this a step further. This year, the noisy materials were officially copyrighted, and we took this
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breakthrough to the federal court in this lawsuit. We got a green light — of course, against the squirrels’ protest — to add yet another account to the lawsuit for the squirrels’ violations of our copyrights. Now legally this means the squirrels cannot have any unauthorized originals or copies of our upper-level materials at all without being prosecuted under copyright law. And I assure you that any squirrels committing that crime, abusing our materials, will be prosecuted.
“You see, we take a very hard line with those few ill-intentioned small thetans that would attempt to pervert our tech, as for them, to see others become, or better more able, threatens their tiny little beingness. It’s just that simple.
“The reason we take a very hard line in enforcing our trademarks, copyrights and the purity of the tech and its application was very succinctly stated by LRH in Keeping Scientology Working. And I quote, ‘The whole agonized future of this planet, every man, woman and child on it, and your own destiny for the next trillions of years depend on what you do here and now with and in Scientology.’
“This is a deadly serious activity. And if we miss getting off the tread now, we may never again
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have another chance.
“The next area to handle was the area of the lower-level materials, which are also protected by copyright. In both the United Kingdom and Europe we found instances of squirrels who thought that they could get away with copying and using various — various of our lower-level materials. In both cases, these squirrels were sued, and in both cases, the squirrel immediately asked for a settlement on our terms completely.
“Now, the final settlement papers contain some strong language that can be used from this point forward to show that the courts around the world will not put up with attempts to steal, use LRH tech in an unauthorized manner. There is however another side to this battle that is actually very fortunate for us. And that is, in HCO PL, 21 November, 1972, issue 1, LRH states, ‘The basic characteristic of extreme madness is perpetual attack. Attacks on anything. Attacks on persons or things which contain no menace. Extreme, not petty crime, is at the root of such an impulse.’
“You see —
“I’ll say it again: ‘Extreme, not petty crime, is at the root of such an impulse.’
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“And we have a handling for that. Because this obviously works to our advantage. Many squirrels wound up inside a jail in 1986 and many others are being prosecuted. Their crimes range from robbery to drunken driving and resisting arrest to contempt of court to manufacturing drugs. As we move into the new year, it is important to understand why we will always walk away winners and why our enemies will ultimately end up the losers.
“In 1965, LRH explained this. He said, ‘The basic purpose of orgs is to implement Scientology. Scientology is prior to purposes. Explaining them and handling them, it is of course senior to all purposes and indeed the universe. It simply is life. And being life itself, it has a far greater power than any activity, depending upon purpose alone. That is why people are so happy with it and why groups founded on mere purposes are quite afraid of Scientology. For it is unconsciously realized that life itself, alone, can make and unmake purposes and rise superior to all formulas and actions.'”
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Mr. Prince, in that video you said something about having settlements with people, and they — they — they beg
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or they want to settle. Do you recall that?
A Yes, I do.
Q What did you mean by that?
A Well, I can really only relate that to specific examples.
There was a — a person named Robert Scott who put on a Navy uniform — who put on a Navy uniform similar to the Navy uniforms that were used by Scientology at the time, walked into its top organization in AOSEU — AOSHEU. I hate to keep saying that. But he walked in there, and he demanded a copy of NED 4 OTs so he could use that to review folders, and he took this material and he walked out the door. One thing that I did in my department was to arrange for someone in Denmark, who seemingly wanted to pay a high price for these materials — arranged for him to negotiate a price with that person, and then to fly over to Denmark with a copy of the materials to exchange for money, when in fact what had been set up was, the instant he got off the airplane, to be arrested. And years later, I went back to his house and threatened him even more on that particular issue after he was — got out of jail — I think he was in there for a month — and basically just let him know that we intended on taking everything that he had, and his only salvation was to
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cooperate with us.
Q Did he cooperate with you?
A Eventually he did, yes.
Q And did you — in what manner did he cooperate with you?
A He — I think even in my own hand I may have gotten him to sign something, because I think he had a countersuit. And I’m just doing this from memory, of course. My former colleagues will be able to provide more information. But he had a counterclaim, I believe. I got him to agree to drop the counterclaim. I agreed with him to drop our lawsuit against him if he listed for us everyone that the materials went to, gave us all copies. And he had a castle called Kendegrade Castle in Scotland.
(A discussion was held off the record.)
A But we were in Scotland at the time, and he had this magnificent castle, and I told him he would certainly lose the castle as part of these negotiations, because there was some financial consideration as well in the settlement.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And did he lose the castle?
A Yes.
Q Did the Church of Scientology take it?
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A I think the castle was sold and they may have gotten money from it.
Q Have you ever been involved in any operation where the Church of Scientology went after attorneys?
A Yes. I’ve been in a couple of instances of that.
My first memory of it happening, again, was in the Wollersheim case. This is during the period of time where I’m kind of being broken in. I’m kind of cutting my teeth on these areas. While I was talking with Marty — I was in a room with Marty and Dave and Vicki, and we were just kind of laughing and talking. And Marty mentioned that Charles O’Reilly — they had followed him to some club after a hearing or something. And I guess they were having drinks and a meal. And a private investigator by the name Gene Ingram apparently had hired a thug or somebody to physically beat up the attorney there, Charles O’Reilly.
Gary Bright, who was an attorney, I think, on — on one of the Wollersheim cases — we had a deep cover in the Advance Ability Center, which was located in Santa Barbara. He would come there to have meetings with his client. And our deep cover was also a trusted person by the client, so that person would have privileged information. That person was the senior SCS international’s brother, Bob Mithoff, who was a deep cover. There were actually three deep covers that we had in there, Bob being the most effective and the most trusted. And privileged information would be taken, financial information would be taken, legal strategies would be known and, you know, used against them.
Q You’re talking about Mr. Wollersheim, is that right?
A In this last instance, yes, that’s right, the Wollersheim.
Q Okay. Any other attorneys or any other cases that you personally have knowledge of while you were inside the Church of Scientology?
A You know, I don’t remember anything specific, but I do know that part of it would be to always create complaints that could be submitted to the bar against opposing counsel.
Q Do you have personal knowledge about that?
A You know, I’m going to say, as I sit here today, that I don’t remember specifically who the attorney was or —
Q All right.
A I can’t say that.
THE COURT: In your video you kept referring to the term — which is — happens to be new to this hearing — which is squirrel group and squirreling.
What is that?
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THE WITNESS: Your Honor, squirreling is a term created by L. Ron Hubbard to mean that anyone that is using Scientology in an unauthorized matter (sic) and is also not using it strictly as it is written.
THE COURT: It could be somebody within or without.
THE WITNESS: Correct.
THE COURT: So someone using the tech, is that it; someone using the tech improperly?
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay. Thank you.
MR. DANDAR: All right. Rather than mark all this as separate exhibits, your Honor, I’d like to mark the next document as a composite so it would speed things up.
What number would that be? 109?
THE CLERK: Yes.
MR. DANDAR: Okay. Handing the witness the clerk’s copy, Plaintiff’s 109.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Can you identify the first page of 109, Mr. Prince?
A Yes, I can. This is HCO executive letter written in 1966. Apparently parts of it were written by a person named Kathy and the other author is L. Ron Hubbard.
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Q And what is a noisy investigation?
AThis is an intelligence operation that is done to discourage; to harass and discourage. An example — they give a pretty clear example I think right here.
But another example of that could be to go around to a person’s neighbors, past business associates, ex-girlfriends, anyone that would have a bone to pick, and make allegations about the person, and ask them, “Well, did you know that he stole the blue ball on the 17th of whatever, and he — he’s doing this, and he’s really a bad person; and do you know anything he’s done?” And an investigator will systematically go through persons associated with the target to create this air of alarm and hysteria, basically.
Q When you were the deputy inspector general, receiving reports from OSA intelligence, do you know — did you see reports on noisy investigations of people opposed by Scientology?
A Yes.
Q And — now, this is an HCO executive letter, 1966. Was that still being practiced when you were deputy inspector general?
A Everything that is written by L. Ron Hubbard and is actually in a published form. Like this is a timeless
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piece to be followed for eternity. So it’s kind of like the Bible, you know? The Bible was written a couple of thousand years ago but people still stick to that.
In that regard and only in that regard is there a similarity in that these things are held sacred and forever.
Q Did you observe any noisy investigation of Bob Minton?
A Yes.
Q What — give us some examples.
A Well, the most vivid one that comes to mind is an operation that was done on his best friend, Jeff Schmidt, who he had apparently started a company with. Scientology found out about Jeff Schmidt through its investigation of Bob Minton.
MR. WEINBERG: Objection. Hearsay, your Honor.
THE COURT: How do you know about this?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I was there and I spoke with Jeff Schmidt and Robert Minton. We were in the financial district in London. And he made it very clear to me what Scientology had done. And he was in the process of packing up his office to move out of the country.
THE COURT: I’m going to allow it. It — it is hearsay. You’re right. It’s hearsay. But for the purpose of this hearing, I’m going to allow —
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there’s a lot of hearsay in this hearing.
MR. WEINBERG: I know. I just — you know, you —
THE COURT: Right. And it is hearsay, and it’ll be taken as hearsay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And Jeff Schmidt was Bob Minton’s business partner?
A Correct.
Q And what happened to him?
A He eventually disassociated himself from Bob Minton from fear of losing his business practice. He basically couldn’t stand a threat –What he told me specifically is that a Scientology investigator came to him and asked him to either provide or show them how to create information to get Bob Minton; in other words, to get him in legally, to get him involved in law enforcement, on the bad end of law enforcement. And Jeff Schmidt said that he was refusing to do it, and had had many negotiations with this private investigator. Finally his office was broken into and materials were taken out of the office, and at that point, that’s when Bob and I flew over there to discuss, “Well, okay. What was taken? What does this mean? What can be done?”
Q Do you know where that information ended up?
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A I do not.
Q Did Jeff Schmidt — was he Mr. Minton’s partner in the Nigerian deal?
A Yes, he was, along with a person, I think, named Miselan (phonetic).
Q And do you know if they made a little bit of money on that deal, or a lot?
MR. WEINBERG: Objection, your Honor. I mean, again, Mr. Prince is now being asked what Mr. Minton made on the Nigerian deal, based on a conversation, apparently, with Mr. Minton’s former partner. I mean —
THE COURT: And Mr. Minton.
MR. WEINBERG: And/or Mr. Minton.
He had the opportunity to ask Mr. Minton this stuff if he wanted to.
MR. DANDAR: And I believe Mr. Minton — well —
MR. WEINBERG: No, he didn’t. He said he didn’t think he did anything wrong in Nigeria.
THE COURT: I’m going to allow it. Overruled.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay. Just —
A Mr. Minton never disclosed to me the exact figure of how much money he made from doing the debt buyback for the government of Nigeria.
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BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And did Mr. Minton go to Howard University and explain to the Nigerian professors and students about what his Nigerian buyback program was all about?
A Yes. This was again a private investigator working on behalf of Scientology in Nigeria, started spreading this idea that something illegal had happened in the debt buyback; that somehow Bob had absconded with maybe a billion dollars or some other thing, or some other crooked regime. And they used a soccer star, John Fashanu. Feds — the — the investigator said this to Fashanu. Fashanu then used his connections. And he was paid to go around doing this noisy investigation stuff, by, number one, spreading false allegations, allegations that couldn’t be proven.
And this finally culminated — I met with a government official from Nigeria in Leipzig, Germany — I guess it was in 2001. I guess it was in 2001. And it was decided at that point that John Fashanu and his people would show up at Howard University in D.C. and we would debate this and Bob would explain to all concerned, Howard professional students and Howard professors who were familiar with the economic scene in Nigeria — I guess some people were upset about that because there is some
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criminality over there.
But we set it up to be in a hall in Washington, D.C. And strangely enough, John Fashanu never showed up. But I sat in a meeting with those Nigerian people at that university for many hours as Bob went through a stack of paper like this, showing them exactly how the deal was done, who was involved, how much debt buyback they did; what was their percentage of the company; how that was split. I mean, he took the time to go through this very painstakingly —
THE COURT: This must be — this must have been videotaped by Mr. Bunker, is that true?
THE WITNESS: Yes, ma’am.
THE COURT: Because it’s all on videotape and it’s all going to be turned over pursuant to the court order. If you want a copy of it, you can get it. You can get it.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q My question is, did the false allegations against Mr. Minton by Scientology on the Nigerian deal — how did Mr. Minton react to those allegations?
A He was very disturbed by it, greatly upset. He was upset over the fact that he had — was in the process of losing his best, best friend, who he had been in business with many years, Jeff Selman (sic), who was afraid of Scientology’s power and influence.
Q Wait a minute. Jeff Selman?
A Jeff —
Q Schmidt.
A — Schmidt.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m talking too fast. He was very upset about that. He was very upset about them contacting his other partner in South Africa whose name was Selman. And Bob Minton was disturbed over the fact that he knew that there was corruption itself in Nigeria, and if you paid enough money around, you could kind of get any kind of trouble started you wanted.
Q Are you aware of any kind of trouble that was started with Nigeria in reference to the Swiss government?
A I know that certain allegations were brought in Nigeria. And the private investigator working on Scientology’s behalf did go to Switzerland, talked to prosecutors, talked to law enforcement, and to use whatever sway or ability that they had to try to get charges brought against Bob in —
MR. WEINBERG: Can we just identify the source of your information?
THE WITNESS: Of which — which —
MR. WEINBERG: You just said that investigators and all this did this in Switzerland. And I just
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would — I ask, your Honor, for the source of it.
THE WITNESS: Oh, I’m sorry. Bob Minton.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And did Bob Minton —
THE COURT: It’s all in Stacy Brooks’ time line.
MR. DANDAR: Yes.
MR. WEINBERG: I know.
THE COURT: I mean, it’s all in evidence already.
MR. DANDAR: But this man’s under oath.
THE COURT: Yeah. I know. And that’s why I’m allowing it. I mean, it’s all in evidence.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And did Mr. Minton — how did he react to a private investigator making contact with the Swiss prosecutor?
A He was shocked. He — his — his — you know, I think Mr. Minton approached at least some of his dealings with Scientology in a bit of a naive way. He couldn’t conceptualize the fact that this could possibly happen to him. He couldn’t conceptualize that somehow he would be fighting for his credibility, his standing in the different countries and communities that he had done successful business with, to now have to go back and — and kind of
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resolve things all over again.
Q What period of time was it when you or Mr. Minton first realized that there was a private investigator contacting the Swiss prosecutors?
A You know, from my recollection, I remember maybe late 2000, 2001, early 2001, there was an incident where the prosecutors in Switzerland had been contacted. Bob hired an attorney or whoever to represent himself. The situation was sorted out. But then it came up again.
Q When?
A I think this is after the Howard University — either shortly before or right after, to the best of my recollection.
Q Is that 2001?
A Yes.
Q And was there anything else besides the Nigerian and the Swiss prosecutors — was there anything else that came to your attention concerning Bob Minton being — having a noisy investigation done of him by Scientology?
A Yes. There’s another instances of it. Bob had a interest or stock or something in a car dealership. I believe it was in Boston. And Scientology investigators went around and spoke to the principals at the car dealership. And at the end of that, they no longer wanted to do business with Mr. Minton. They didn’t feel
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like it was safe. It was putting the company in jeopardy to have investigators running around making these sorts of allegations. And so he lost that business venture.
Q That was a Lexus dealership, correct?
A Correct.
Q It wasn’t some old used car lot on the corner.
A No.
MR. WEINBERG: Just for the record, is all this based on conversations with Mr. Minton?
THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes, it is.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And how did Mr. Minton feel about losing his partnership in a Lexus dealership in New England?
A He just broke down and cried. He was like, how is it possible to live in a country like America and not be able to stop this, to turn this off in some way?
Q What about any other noisy investigations?
A I guess they went to his mother’s house and basically told his mother that he’s crazy and needed to be incarcerated, and to somehow get the family together to try to get some kind of incarceration going, or at least get that idea going something was seriously wrong with Bob.
Q Did you know that Mr. Minton’s father had placed him, I think when he was 16, for a few days in a mental institution of some kind?
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A Yes. He — he told me about that.
Q So how did Mr. Minton react to Scientology going to his mother and trying to get her and the family to put Mr. Minton incarcerated in a mental institution?
A He was very upset about that. He was — his viewpoint was, you know, “If they don’t like me, then talk to me, but don’t go to my family.” You know, I guess his mother’s in a rest home. She’s actually quite old and would probably never understand these things if you explained it to her for 10 years. And he didn’t see the — it was just pure harassment, intimidation.
Q Did he just get mad about it or did he get excited about it or did he get depressed about it?
A Well, Bob would consult attorneys. He would — I mean, I’ve met almost as many attorneys with Bob as I did with Scientology. I mean, it was always having — Helen Dorr (phonetic), when he would go up there, “This is what they’ve done now. They’ve gone to my mother. They’ve done this. They’ve done that. Is there anything else I can do? Can law enforcement somehow become involved? Will someone open up an investigation to –” and of course, nothing.
So Bob’s answer to do something was to picket.He’s like, “Okay. They keep doing this stuff, they want to do this stuff, I’m going to picket. I’m going to picket. I’m going to make a sign.” Because that was his last line
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of defense. That was the last thing that he could legally do to say, “Hey, look, I don’t like what you’re doing and I’m showing it.”
Q Did Bob Minton — how long have you known Bob Minton?
A Since the summer of 1998.
Q Okay. Since the summer of 1998 until today, has Bob Minton ever picketed and told you or anyone in your hearing, “Let’s go picket so we can help Ken Dandar win the Lisa McPherson death case”?
A No. Bob — no. When he — a lot of — often –more often than not when he would get on these things that he wanted to picket, it was in response to something that was specifically — that he perceived was being done against him by Scientology.
Q How did Bob Minton react when his daughters were followed back to or from school in boston?
MR. WEINBERG: Objection to the form of the question. Mr. Dandar is testifying.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. DANDAR: Sustained. I agree with that, Judge.
THE COURT: Well, good. I’m glad you do.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Did you ever hear about Bob Minton expressing any
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statement concerning his daughters being followed?
A Yes. He told me that his — his daughters and his wife had gone out, I think, to the theater or something or — or some school event or something, and they were followed. And when they came home, their neighborhood was papered with fliers that were distributed about him having some —
THE COURT: You know, I’m wondering why we are hearing this hearsay. A lot of this just confirms what Mr. Minton has already testified to.
MR. DANDAR: Oh, Mr. Minton said he would just get angry; he wasn’t afraid; he wasn’t concerned; he wasn’t depressed.
THE COURT: Okay. Well, then, how he responded — we don’t need to have Mr. Prince relate what Mr. Minton has already related.
MR. DANDAR: Okay. All right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q How did Mr. Minton respond —
THE COURT: At least I don’t think. Now, obviously, you can bring in hearsay for impeachment if Mr. Minton told him something different from what he said in court.
MR. DANDAR: That’s what —
THE COURT: But I think much of what we’ve gone
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over here is stuff that Mr. Minton has said the same thing.
MR. DANDAR: My intention is to see if there’s something different, what he told Mr. Prince compared to what he told you.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. DANDAR: And I’m trying to — I’ll do it quicker, though.
THE COURT: Well, I hope you know — and if, you know, you don’t really have to let me hear it all. Just let me hear what’s different if there is anything different.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Okay. Did Mr. Minton express to you that he was concerned when his one daughter was followed to a girlfriend’s house in Long Island?
MR. WEINBERG: It’s the same objection.
A Yes, he did.
MR. WEINBERG: He’s testifying again. You know, “When — such — such and such happened.” I mean, that’s just testifying.
MR. DANDAR: I’m trying to make it a little faster.
THE COURT: Yeah. I’m going to —
MR. WEINBERG: He can ask him what his reaction
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was to whatever it was that he told you.
MR. DANDAR: All right. Well, then, I’ll ask more questions so this will go longer. But okay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Did Mr. Minton tell you about his daughter being followed to Long Island?
A Yes, he did.
Q And how did Mr. Minton — did he tell you how — what he thought about that?
A He — he called me on the phone and he said, “Jesse, you won’t believe what they’re doing now. They’re going after my daughters.” “Oh. What happened?” “Well, she was followed,” or, “They papered the neighborhood,” or, you know, “They’re passing leaflets out. They’re talking to their friends,” his daughter’s associates, parents, or different people, you know, and just kind of doing their noisy investigation. And this was apparently quite upsetting to his wife, Therese, who would always — Bob said she would ask, “Well, what are you going to do about it? Well, this can’t happen. How do you make this stop?”
Q So —
A So he had a lot of pressure.
Q Okay. Did he ever — after all of these noisy investigations, did Bob Minton ever appear to you to be a tough guy about it or not a tough guy?
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A Well, in the beginning he seemed to be quite a tough guy. But as it — as it progressed — I mean, that — that time track that was submitted as an — as an exhibit, those were instances where we actually could find some type of documentation that proved what the time track said.
There are many instances where things happened where we couldn’t have or find the documentation. So for anyone to — to have that much done to them, I mean, even in my time I have never seen such a concerted effort to destroy an individual.
Q That time line, did you help put it together?
A I — I have — yes, I did.
Q Okay. And have you read the entire time line?
A I’m sure I have at some point.
Q And when you read the time line, was it accurate?
A Yes, it was.
Q Now, go back to Exhibit 109 —
MR. WEINBERG: Objection to that. Accurate based on conversations with somebody? He just said this time line, which we all know was —
THE COURT: Very, very thick.
MR. WEINBERG: — exaggerated —
THE COURT: Yeah. Most of that would have been through hearsay information.
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BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Was it — was it accurate through what Mr. Minton told you?
A Well — well, again, I will just state for the record that the information that was put in that time line was information that could be substantiated in other ways. So there is many things that couldn’t be substantiated. Therefore, it’s not there. But everything that was there, the intent was to be able to substantiate everything there with documentation.
Q So Mr. Minton told you there are more things that happened to him that are not in the time line?
A Sure. I mean, and I’ve witnessed it myself.
Q Like what?
A One time he invited me to New Hampshire — I think it was maybe the 4th of July. The 4th of July. We were up there; myself, Mr. Minton, his wife, Therese, his children. We were having a barbecue in the back. Scientologists came in their cars, started picketing and screaming from the road, “Where’s Stacy?” You know, this is one thing that they really liked to do; tell — make sure that Bob’s wife knew that he was having an affair with Stacy Brooks.
Q Well, she knew, didn’t she?
A Yes, she did.
Q So they’re yelling this in front of the children.
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A Correct.
Q What else would they yell besides, “Where’s Stacy?”
A That he was crazy.
There came a point in time where somehow they were able to get some of his psychiatric information from his psychiatrists and speak to him about that. And I mean at first Mr. Minton was just amazed that these could even happen; that it was even possible for an organization or an individual or any — for this to be able to happen to a citizen in America. But then again, as time went on, he wore down more and more and more, I guess. The threat became — I mean, he was just spending so much money defending himself in, you know, three or four countries at one time.
Q Now, let me — since you mentioned psychiatric records, let me jump — let me jump to August — well, June — August of 2001. Do you recall Mr. Minton being upset about records that were put on the Internet, with his wife, his children and himself?
A Yes.
Q What type of records?
A His counseling records from seeing a psychiatrist; I guess information about what kind of medication he had been taking and this kind of thing.
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Q And did you talk to him about that?
A Yes, I did.
Q And was he scheduled to appear in a deposition in Clearwater the next day?
A I think we’re talking about two separate incidents.
Q Okay. Which one are you talking about?
A Something that preceded the hearing that had to happen in Clearwater.
Q Okay. I’m talking about a deposition —
A Okay.
Q — all right?
Are you aware that he was ordered to appear, in the breach case in Clearwater, for deposition taken by Mr. Rosen?
A Yes.
Q All right. Are you aware that he did — he failed to appear?
A Yes.
Q All right. Did he tell you why he failed to appear?
A Yes, he did.
Q And what did he say?
A Mr. Minton didn’t have a lot of confidence in the justice system as it was being administered in Florida here.
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He felt that as far as discovery was concerned, that they were able to pretty much get away with murder. And he knew that Scientology was not going to stop until he was completely eliminated as an — as an individual. I mean, part of their policy is to, if possible, of course, ruin the person utterly.
THE COURT: Was he concerned —
MR. WEINBERG: Excuse me, your Honor?
THE COURT: — about that or was he concerned about the fact that the discovery was going to uncover the fact that he had illegal — or he had bank accounts outside of this country and money that was coming into this country that he wasn’t paying taxes on?
THE WITNESS: Your Honor, he may have had that as a consideration, but it wasn’t anything that I was personally aware of.
THE COURT: Well, what was it about the fact that the church was going to find this out or that the fact that the — that the courts were allowing the church to pursue discovery based on their allegations in the counterclaim that had Mr. Minton so upset?
THE WITNESS: Mr. Minton said that he felt that if he came to Florida, that he was going to go to
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jail. He had been being told that he was going to jail. He — he —
THE COURT: It was because he was the one that was thumbing his nose at the justice system in the state of Florida, wasn’t it?
THE WITNESS: Yes. Yes, ma’am.
THE COURT: It’s because he was the one coming down here and saying that — he was just acting like a jerk in his discovery depositions, flaunting himself at the justice system, taking the Fifth Amendment when he’d already published it on the Internet, and expecting, I suppose, that we were so stupid that we wouldn’t know enough that he’d waived it. And then, of course, when the judges said that he had indeed waived it and he could no longer hide behind the Fifth Amendment, that he started getting real worried, didn’t he?
THE WITNESS: Correct.
THE COURT: Yeah.
THE WITNESS: He became —
THE COURT: Because the church and therefore the courts were going to get pretty knowledgeable about what he had, moneywise —
THE WITNESS: Correct.
THE COURT: — overseas.
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THE WITNESS: Correct. And here in the United States.
He was concerned that if Scientology was allowed to have access to his different bank accounts, that he would end up fighting another war with Scientology as he did with the John Fashanu fiasco, and he was just tired of it.
THE COURT: Did he talk to you about — it wasn’t any — it wasn’t any secret, was it, that Mr. Minton was a multi-millionaire?
THE WITNESS: No.
THE COURT: Everybody knew that.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: He doled out millions of dollars to fight Scientology.
THE WITNESS: Correct.
THE COURT: Came into court pretty proud, throwing out over $10 million. And everybody knew that, right?
THE WITNESS: Well, I didn’t know that it had been that much, your Honor, myself.
THE COURT: Okay. But I mean, he had doled out —
THE WITNESS: Millions.
THE COURT: — millions.
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THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: And everybody knew he had doled out millions.
THE WITNESS: Correct.
THE COURT: So the fact that this Church of Scientology was getting ready to find out that he had doled out millions —
THE WITNESS: Well, you know, there’s another aspect to this, your Honor. And the aspect is this: Bob Minton, in his mind, always tried to keep his family separate from his activities. He was ready to exhaust every personal resource that he had for himself to keep the fight going, but he was not willing to risk that for his wife and his children.
And so when the wife and children became a factor I guess something happened.
THE COURT: I don’t have any qualms about your talking about the fact that Mr. Minton was upset about his medical records being put on the Internet; I don’t have any qualms about your saying Mr. Minton was upset about his children being followed, about his business associates being contacted and what have you. I have no doubt that he was upset about that and what have you.
But as far as his being upset with the justice
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system in the state of Florida, the reason I’m upset about that is because Mr. Minton himself is what caused many of his own problems, right?
THE WITNESS: Yes, ma’am.
THE COURT: And then when it looked like they were going to find out some stuff that was really going to get him in a problem, then he had a problem with the justice system.
THE WITNESS: I assume that, yes.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Did he ever —
THE COURT: But before he had problems with the justice system, he was plenty happy to play with it, jerk us around, come when he felt like it, answer what questions he felt like, right?
THE WITNESS: Correct.
THE COURT: Until people in the justice system here in the state of Florida said, “Bob Minton, you’re not going to play with our justice system here. We’re in charge,” right?
THE WITNESS: Correct.
THE COURT: That caused him a great deal of concern.
THE WITNESS: And I guess that he was mainly concerned because he knew that he would not answer
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specific questions. And he felt that if he came into court and he was asked those questions that he had made a conviction that he wasn’t going to answer, that he wasn’t going to answer them anyway, and he was just going to go to jail.
THE COURT: And he could rest assured on that; that if this court or any other court that I’m aware of in my circuit told him to answer a question and he said no, he would have gone to jail until he answered it. And there is no question about that. And I am sure that any inquiry that Mr. Minton asked, he was told that.
THE WITNESS: Correct.
THE COURT: Right.
THE WITNESS: Yes, ma’am.
THE COURT: No wonder he was upset with the justice system here, the way — and the games that he was playing.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Did he talk to you about trying to figure out a way not to come to court when he was ordered to appear for deposition?
A I think I may have had that conversation with Stacy Brooks.
Q Okay. What did she tell you? ‘Cause she’s also a
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witness in this case.
A She told me that —
MR. WEINBERG: Just for the record, I’m objecting to hearsay, but — I understand what the judge’s rulings have been, but at this —
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: All this testimony is hearsay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q What did she tell you?
A She told me that Bob was extremely upset; that he was kind of in a — a state — a mental state like — I don’t know — having a breakdown of some sort, and she wanted him to go see a professional. I guess something had happened at that time where the — again, something happened with the children when he was supposed to come down. I think the neighborhood got leafletted again or something happened with the kids again. And the questions themselves, that he became very distraught. Stacy mentioned having him go see a professional, a psychologist or a psychiatrist or something, and he — he didn’t really want to do that. He didn’t want to do that. So — so that was Stacy’s angle of, like, “Okay, well, we need to get him to a professional and get him excused from coming to the deposition.”
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Q And did Diane Palermo’s name come up in that conversation?
A Yes, it did.
Q And was Diane Palermo, as far as you know, a mental health therapist?
A No, she is not.
Q What is she?
A As far as I knew, a social worker.
Q And was she ever Mr. Minton’s social worker?
A Not that I’m aware of. I kind of doubt it.
Q And are you aware, from speaking with Bob Minton or Stacy Brooks, what Stacy Brooks had tried to get Diane Palermo to do?
A Yes. Stacy Brooks tried to get Diane Palermo to do some kind of an analysis of Bob Minton’s mental state and — and give him advice that would preclude him from coming to the deposition.
Q And did Diane Palermo agree to do that?
A No. Not at all.
Q And so what did Stacy Brooks do next to try to get an excuse —
THE COURT: I know the answer to that and so does everybody in this courtroom. We don’t need to hear it again.
THE WITNESS: Okay.
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MR. DANDAR: All right.
THE COURT: This is in Stacy Brooks’ affidavit?
MR. DANDAR: Pardon me?
THE COURT: Is it in Stacy Brooks’ affidavit?
MR. DANDAR: I don’t think it’s in there. Not this way.
MR. WEINBERG: She testified about it and Mr. Minton testified about it. I think it’s all over the place.
MR. DANDAR: They’re calling her a mental health therapist who told him not to travel.
THE COURT: You already got that out. He said she’s not a mental health therapist.
MR. DANDAR: All right.
THE COURT: But Stacy Brooks filed something before Judge Baird.
MR. DANDAR: Yes, she did. That affidavit.
THE COURT: That affidavit is what I’m talking about. God, I know this case good, don’t I?
MR. DANDAR: Yes, you do.
MR. WEINBERG: Better than —
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And did you see that Stacy Brooks affidavit about trying to make an excuse for Mr. Minton?
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A No, sir. I did not.
Q Okay. Do you know that Stacy Brooks called Steve Hassan?
A Steve Hassan? Yes.
Q And tried to get him to write an excuse letter?
A Yes.
Q Even though he’s never talked to Bob Minton about —
MR. WEINBERG: Excuse me, your Honor. Again, this is all based on conversations with Stacy Brooks. I mean, we’re —
THE COURT: But this is kind of impeachment, so this is what you got to do. In other words, if Stacy Brooks comes in to court and says one thing in front of me and this — she’s told something different to this man —
MR. WEINBERG: I don’t think she told anything different —
THE COURT: Yes, she did, about that.
MR. WEINBERG: About —
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. WEINBERG: All right.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q And did she ask Steve Hassan to write a letter?
A She asked Steve Hassan to become involved, and he
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declined, based on the fact that Bob was not a patient of his. Bob — they had no prior history or discussions about — you know, Bob hadn’t mentioned to him about anything. And of course I think it was kind of obvious that this was a last-ditch effort to — for Bob not to come down for the deposition.
Q But Bob Minton in truth was really, really emotionally upset about what he saw on the Internet.
A Yes. He was crying —
THE COURT: Bob Minton didn’t come down for the deposition, did he?
THE WITNESS: I don’t believe he did. No, he didn’t.
THE COURT: Then I guess —
THE WITNESS: No. He went to the hospital because he —
Okay. Now — okay. I’m remembering this.
THE COURT: Isn’t this what Judge Baird found him in contempt for?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Why Lord have mercy, why a judge, why, imagine that; this justice system, when Mr. Minton flaunted a demand and a command and an order from a court to come here and he didn’t come, I guess he had every right to be upset at our system
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of justice because some judge took great offense and held him in contempt. Dear, dear.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q All right. Let me — let me go and look at Exhibit 109 —
A But you know, Bob ended up going to the hospital. He was — he started having chest pains or something, and he was in the hospital for a couple three days —
Q Okay.
A — under observation by a doctor. And I do believe that on the day that he was supposed to appear for contempt that he was in the hospital.
Q All right. Let me have you look back at 109 again.
A Okay.
Q You identified the first page. What about the second page entitled —
A — Intelligence Actions.
Q Yes.
A Yes.
Q Are you familiar with that?
A Yes, I am.
This is kind of a routine that happens in intelligence in Scientology on any — anything that’s a threat or — or an attack on Scientology. This policy kind
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of comes into play, where you investigate, you do your ODC, overt data collection; CDC, covert data collection. You do your noisy investigation. You find some skeleton. And if you can’t find it, you manufacture something. And you use that to sue for peace.
Q Is there something in here that talks about manufacturing a skeleton if you can’t find it?
A Not in this particular one. But you were — I think the one that you’re referring to, as far as manufacturing information against an individual, would lie in the department of government affairs for which you just have one page of.
Q Yeah. I see we’ve got two pages of the same thing.
A Yeah. But if I turn one — two pages back and I go to what’s listed here —
THE WITNESS: And I think it’s very hard to see, your Honor. It goes from page 484 in this statement packet — two pages away from government affairs —
THE COURT: Okay.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Government affairs —
Wait. Let me just correct it now.
A No, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
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Q All right.
THE COURT: Isn’t this something; they’re just fussing with each other?
MR. DANDAR: You can see we rehearsed all this.
THE WITNESS: See, I’ll show you. Okay. I’ll find it for you.
THE COURT: You find it.
THE WITNESS: I’ll find it for you.
Here’s the department of government affairs.
THE COURT: Okay.
THE WITNESS: And this is page 483. And then this is put in there and this is put in there. But then we get back to page 484, where it says right here,
“If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace.”
THE COURT: Okay. This is page —
This is not in order, Mr. Dandar.
MR. DANDAR: I’m going to fix it. I’d like to fix it now.
THE COURT: Well, maybe you could fix it before you introduce it.
MR. DANDAR: I will.
THE COURT: If there is going to be Exhibit 409
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(sic), you better have this 409-A, B —
MR. DANDAR: 109.
THE COURT: I’m sorry. 109.
MR. DANDAR: That’s what I’ll do. I’ll label them.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. DANDAR: I can see where the extra pages —
MR. WEINBERG: I’m lost.
THE COURT: It’s page 484, which is not after page 483. It’s about four pages back.
MR. WEINBERG: Okay.
THE COURT: It says, if you will look —
Well, where was that?
MR. DANDAR: Exhibit 4 is in there twice.
THE WITNESS: Let me see. It’s in the third paragraph.
THE COURT: Show me where you’re reading from.
MR. WEINBERG: I see it. It’s the third paragraph.
THE COURT: Okay.
“If attacked on some vulnerable point by anyone or anything or any organization, always find or manufacture enough threat against them to cause them to sue for peace.”
What is this?
THE WITNESS: This is a policy letter, your
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Honor. This is a church policy letter that is a policy letter for the department of government affairs, which is a department or a section or a unit within the Scientology organization, that basically talks about — you know, things having to do with tax matters, legal activities, whatever, for an organization.
THE COURT: What does the term “sue for peace” mean?
THE WITNESS: To my knowledge, it means basically that a person just wants to end what’s-ever happening and let’s just settle it and all walk away as happy as possible.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Like a disengagement?
A Yes.
MR. DANDAR: Judge, I’ve marked mine, and I’d like to mark the clerk’s copy with the letters.
THE WITNESS: And you see we — I think — I can help you put this in order here, because you got the pages —
MR. WEINBERG: What I did was I eliminated the — the Intelligence Action, second page, it looked like the same thing that was —
THE COURT: Yeah. The second Intelligence
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Actions, right?
MR. WEINBERG: I threw that one out. They were the same as the first one. And then I reordered, what you did, 483, 484, 485. And I assume everything else is the same.
THE WITNESS: I’ve — so this is the whole document right there, these three pages.
BY MR. DANDAR:
Q Okay. Look at the next part, where it’s previously marked in another deposition, as Exhibit 6, about “make sure that’s all in order.”
A Okay.
Q First of all, do you identify that document?
A Yes. This is also a document that’s relevant to PR, legal intelligence.
Q And what is that called?
A Public Investigations Section.
Q Public investigation.
A Correct.
Q What’s that?
A This would be investigating individuals outside of Scientology using outside agencies. I have to take a moment to look at this.
Q All right.
THE COURT: I’ll tell you what. This looks
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like something too long to read here to have any meaningful talk. Let’s quit for the day. I’m tired.
MR. WEINBERG: I’m tired.
MR. DANDAR: Okay.
THE COURT: It’s quarter to 5. If you will read this over tonight, and we’ll continue on. In the meantime, have these marked by the clerk as 109-A, B, C, D, so we know what you’re referring to.
THE WITNESS: Okay. And I have — I have the clerk’s copies here.
THE COURT: Okay. If you’ll — do you have a copy for your witness to look at?
MR. DANDAR: Yes.
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Prince, while you are on the witness stand, you are in rather a unique position. You not only are under the rule, which means that you can’t talk to any other witness about your testimony —
THE WITNESS: Right.
THE COURT: — nor can they talk to you about theirs, but while you are on the witness stand, you are not permitted to speak to anyone about the case, including Mr. Dandar or counsel for the other side,
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all right?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
THE COURT: Now, I may, if I’m gone and Mr. Prince isn’t done and I’m gone for two weeks, let him out from under that, just like I did other people when it was going to be, like, long weekends or what have you. But not for tonight.
THE WITNESS: Yes, ma’am.
THE COURT: And I really think, Mr. Dandar, that you ought to be able to get through this a little faster. We don’t need — you can go quickly through those things that your experts have already testified to. And I presume his testimony would be the same.
MR. DANDAR: Yes.
I’m going to go through the PC folders and –which is I gave him that affidavit that you haven’t seen apparently before.
THE WITNESS: But this is the clerk’s. This has to go back to her.
MR. DANDAR: And I’ll show him that as well.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. DANDAR: Exhibit 108.
And then we’re going to talk about Mr. Minton, the LMT, and what transpired in 2002.
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THE COURT: You’re never going to finish tomorrow, I’ll bet you, but —
MR. WEINBERG: Plus he’s got Mr. Haney set in the morning.
MR. DANDAR: I have Mr. Haney in the morning.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. WEINBERG: So we’re obviously not going to.
MR. DANDAR: And he should be short.
MR. WEINBERG: But I will not necessarily be brief with Mr. Prince, but I don’t know yet.
THE COURT: Well, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t think he’s going to be brief either.
MR. WEINBERG: Right.
THE COURT: Because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover with Mr. Prince. And frankly, we’re not to any of the issues.
MR. WEINBERG: No.
THE COURT: But thank you, sir. You may step down, remembering the rule I just gave you about while you’re a witness on the stand.
THE WITNESS: Yes, your Honor.
THE COURT: If you will remind me Wednesday afternoon when we break for over two weeks, Mr. Dandar, better yet — I shouldn’t have to rely on this witness — if you will remind me, since he
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is an expert of yours or a consulting witness or whatever he is, I may allow you to have some discussions with him since we’re going to be in recess on this hearing for two weeks.
MR. DANDAR: Thank you, Judge.
THE COURT: But you’re going to have to remind me so I can decide that.
MR. WEINBERG: We would like to speak to that particular issue.
THE COURT: Okay.
(An overnight recess was taken at 4:50 p.m.)
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REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE
STATE OF FLORIDA )
COUNTY OF PINELLAS )
I, Donna M. Kanabay, RMR, CRR, 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.
WITNESS my hand and official seal this 19th day of June, 2002.
______________________________
DONNA M. KANABAY, RMR, CRR