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The Unbreakable Miss Lovely and me

Tony Ortega’s book is intriguing, both in content and composition, and will be useful for all of us who stand against the Scientologists for all their victims. Paulette Cooper’s history with the Scientologists intersects with mine at a number of points, and we shared the fortune of being clients of the same almost famous Boston attorney at the same time, Michael Flynn. I read her book The Scandal of Scientology inside and outside the cult, and over the years I’ve learned a lot about the woman and the story. Unbreakable, (or Miss Lovely, or TUML, or however the book’s title will be abbreviated) has added a wealth of details that for me have led to a new and better understanding.

Although Ortega includes me in his acknowledgements, as a former Scientologist who “risked harassment and worse by merely picking up the phone,” I didn’t actually get a call from him or a fact-checker to check his facts about me. Because of the gargantuan, well known campaign by the Scientologists, and their wog collaborators, to rewrite my life and smear me around the world, I would think checking fact statements about me with me, as long as I have a phone or an e-address, would be de rigueur. If I can’t check facts about me before they’re published, I do what I sensibly can to correct any errors that I sensibly should. There is a book of these fact error messages by now. But then there are a lot of facts.

Ortega did contact me when I posted a letter to Cooper in February 2014, which was mainly about an affidavit she had executed for the Scientologists in March 1985.1 The affidavit has been the subject of considerable discussion over these thirty years, and Ortega has now provided more information concerning the circumstances when Cooper signed it. Perhaps I will write something separately about his treatment of the affidavit in the book, and about how the Scientologists used it against me, and against a lot of other people. Here I’m only commenting on the statements that are specifically about my history.

(Quoting from The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, pp. 330-338):

Two weeks after Barbara’s death, on July 24, 1984, a press conference in Los Angeles was held by the Church of Scientology in order to make a rather astounding claim. In charge of the conference were the president of the church— a man named Heber Jentzsch— a church attorney named John Peterson, the church’s spokesman, Robert Vaughn Young, and a private investigator named Eugene Ingram.

Ingram had been hired the year before to gather evidence about the forged L. Ron Hubbard $ 2 million check made out to “Aquil Abdulamiar” that two men had tried to cash at a bank in New York in 1982.

In January, Ingram had taken out ads in the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Boston Globe offering a reward of $100,000 for information that would lead to the conviction of the people who had tried to pass the bogus check. And now, the church was ready to reveal the results of its investigation. The culprit, they announced, was Paulette Cooper’s attorney, Mike Flynn.

Their evidence for this was a legal declaration signed by a forger serving time in a prison in Naples, Italy. Ingram, the church’s private eye, had gone to Naples to get the declaration from the man, Ala Fadili Al Tamimi, who claimed he had created the bogus check and had gone to the bank with his brother, pretending to be Aquil Abdulamiar.

This remains a problem for the Scientologists because Ingram, under Marty Rathbun’s direction, paid Tamimi to sign this sworn statement that all of them knew was false. The Scientologists paid the person actually guilty of the crime against their leader, which they claimed they were investigating, just to frame a person they all knew had nothing to do with that crime. They framed Flynn out of their hatred for him and their intention to destroy him. And he was simply a smart attorney who happened to have crossed paths with them, divined their number, and wasn’t shuddered into silence.

The Flynn frame is still a problem because it was committed by the supposed new breed of Sea Organs like Rathbun, after the Guardian’s Office had been taken over, and after the practice of framing Scientology opponents, as the GO did to Cooper, had supposedly been ended. Rathbun and his coconspirators did the same with me, framing me with crimes. He continues both frame-ups in his 2013 book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] But the scheme, he claimed, had been masterminded by Flynn. Al Tamimi said that Flynn used connections he had at the Bank of New England to get a legitimate check out of the bank for Al Tamimi to create a counterfeit version of it. And now, the church had the lawyer dead to rights. It called for the arrest and conviction of Flynn.

But that didn’t happen.

Eventually, Al Tamimi would recant his story. Ingram, meanwhile, turned out to be a disgraced Los Angeles cop who had been fired for, among other things, being accused of running a prostitution ring on the side.

A few days after the press conference, a judge in Los Angeles, Paul Breckenridge, called the allegations against Flynn “garbage” as he dressed down Peterson, the church attorney, for even being involved in such a transparently bogus attempt to smear Flynn. It was desperate behavior, even by the standards of the Church of Scientology.

Breckenridge, of course, was the LA Superior Court Judge who presided at the Scientology v. Armstrong trial that had ended on June 8, 1984.2 On June 20, the judge issued his Memorandum of Intended Decision.3 This was converted into a Statement of Decision on July 20. Judgment was entered August 10, 1984.

Following the decision, my attorneys filed a motion for attorney fees, and the Scientologists filed an opposition, which they supported with, among other things, a declaration executed July 30 by cult attorney John Peterson. Exhibits Peterson attached to his declaration included: B., C. and D., the Scientologists’ standard dead agent documents on FAMCO (Flynn Associates Management Corporation); E. the May 5, 1984 declaration of Ala Fadili Al Tamimi; F. the March 5, 1984 declaration of George Edgerly.4

It was these exhibits, and, of course, Peterson’s declaration “authenticating” them, that Breckenridge called “garbage,” both because they constituted black propaganda and because of Peterson and the Scientologists’ gratuitous insertion of this crap into the record to smear and prejudice Flynn. Breckenridge specifically distinguished between Peterson’s comments to media or others and what he put in a declaration, which, of course, is made under penalty of perjury.

[Judge Breckenridge:] There is one last thing I want to mention, and that has to do with the declaration of John G. Peterson on this opposition to motion for attorneys’ fees.

As Mr. Peterson has indicated, he has become emotionally involved in this case, and it is rather abundantly clear. So some of his comments which have been reported in the newspapers — he can make whatever comments he wants to about the case or the court or anybody else. It doesn’t bother me, but when he puts in a declaration what really is just an argument as to why the motion should not be granted, it seems to me that it is totally unprofessional.

[…]

This attaching of these exhibits relating to Mr. Flynn, to me, is the worst kind of tactic. It is an effort to smear Mr. Flynn. For what purpose I don’t really know, gratuitous insults to inject into the file of this case some dirt, I suppose, for the obvious purpose of prejudicing Mr. Flynn or any court or any person who might review the record.

[…]

I read some of the exhibits dealing with Black Propaganda.

I got a letter from some woman about dead agenting. Said I was probably the subject of now being a dead agent myself, and I really couldn’t care less. But I think it is unfortunate that the flle has to be cluttered up with, I am going to say it right here, garbage of this type. I don’t think this should be a part of the public record.

I am going to order that the documents which purport to be exhibit B through F be separated from this declaration, be enclosed in a sealed envelope, and be ordered sealed and not to be opened except upon further order of any court that wants to review this matter. Nothing to do with this lawsuit. Nothing to do with these motions, and I think it is offensive and I am quite surprised. — Reporter’s Transcript of Proceedings, August 2, 19845

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] But by the summer of 1984, Scientology was frantic about Flynn. He had filed 20 lawsuits, and the church had filed 13 against him. Flynn had spent $ 400,000 of his own money in litigation, and it was beginning to pay off in greater press coverage and successes in court. Scientology was doing whatever it could to distract public attention from what was happening in courtrooms in Los Angeles and London.

A month before the press conference, on June 22, 1984, Judge Breckenridge announced a decision that Mike Flynn and many others thought might signal the beginning of the end of Scientology. That court decision was in the favor of a man named Gerry Armstrong, who was quickly supplanting Paulette Cooper as Scientology’s most feared and hated enemy.

I believe Breckenridge announced the Scientology v. Armstrong decision on June 20, 1984, and it was filed on June 22.3

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] Armstrong had grown up in Chilliwack, British Columbia and had first learned about Scientology from a friend in 1969, when he was 22. In 1971, he moved to Los Angeles to join the Sea Org. Before long, he was sailing with L. Ron Hubbard on the Apollo, and became a trusted aide to the “Commodore.”

After Hubbard moved back to land in Florida and then ended up in California, Armstrong was part of his “Household Unit,” making sure Hubbard’s quarters were up to his standards. While renovating one home at a 500-acre compound the church had purchased near Hemet, Armstrong discovered a collection of boxes that contained a huge trove of Hubbard’s original documents.

Although I was head of Hubbard’s Household Unit at Gilman Hot Springs (“D/CO HU SU”) at the time I discovered the boxes of his documents, the discovery was unrelated to renovating his house. The discovery was a result of a raid threat and a document shredding order at Gilman. I have written, spoken or testified about this, and it is described in the Armstrong 1 decision/judgment.

[Judge Breckenridge:] In January of 1980 there was an announcement of a possible raid to be made by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies of the property. Everyone on the property was required by Hubbard’s representatives, the Commodore’s Messengers, to go through all documents located on the property and “vet” or destroy anything which showed that Hubbard controlled Scientology organizations, retained financial control, or was issuing orders to people at Gilman Hot Springs.

A commercial paper shredder was rented and operated day and night for two weeks to destroy hundreds of thousands of pages of documents.

During the period of shredding, Brenda Black, the individual responsible for storage of Hubbard’s personal belongings at Gilman Hot Sprints, came to Defendant Armstrong with a box of documents and asked whether they were to be shredded. Defendant Armstrong reviewed the documents and found that they consisted of a wide variety of documents including Hubbard’s personal papers, diaries, and other writings from a time before he started Dianetics in 1950, together with documents belonging to third persons which had apparently been stolen by Hubbard or his agents. Defendant Armstrong took the documents from Ms. Black and placed them in a safe location on the property. He then searched for and located another twenty or more boxes containing similar materials, which were poorly maintained.

On January 8, 1980, Defendant Armstrong wrote a petition to Hubbard requesting his permission to perform the research for a biography to be done about his life. The petition states that Defendant Armstrong had located the subject materials and lists of a number of activities he wished to perform in connection with the biography research.

Hubbard approved the petition, and Defendant Armstrong became the L. Ron Hubbard Personal Relations Officer Researcher (PPRO Res) 7

In affirming the judgment, the California Court of Appeal also described how I discovered and came into possession of Hubbard’s documents:

In January 1980, fearing a raid by law enforcement agencies, Hubbard’s representatives ordered the shredding of all documents showing that Hubbard controlled Scientology organizations, finances, personnel, or the […] property at Gilman Hot Springs. In a two-week period, approximately one million pages were shredded pursuant to this order.

In the course of the inspection of documents for potential shredding, Armstrong reviewed a box containing Hubbard’s early personal letters, diaries, and other writings, which Armstrong preserved.

Thereafter, Armstrong petitioned for permission to conduct research for a planned biography of Hubbard, using his discovery of the boxed materials. Hubbard approved the petition, and Armstrong, who had discovered and preserved approximately 16 more boxes of similar materials, became the senior personal relations officer researcher. He subsequently moved the materials to the Church of Scientology Cedars Complex in Los Angeles.8

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] Everything from Hubbard’s baby booties to his teenage journals to some of his most private, intimate writing about his sex life were in the stacks of documents. Until Armstrong saved them, the boxes were going to be discarded in the renovation.

No. Until I saved them, Hubbard’s documents were at risk of being destroyed in the shredding party.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] On January 8, 1980, Armstrong wrote to Hubbard, asking permission to create a biographical archive from the papers. Hubbard agreed, and then the next month he went permanently into hiding.

Later that year, a professional writer named Omar Garrison was hired by the church to author a biography of Hubbard, and Armstrong began working with him closely, cataloging the documents for Garrison’s use.

I didn’t do much cataloging of Hubbard’s documents for Garrison, as in listing or enumerating them for him. There might have been some cataloging, but what I really and importantly did was copy the documents for Garrison and provide them to him.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] But as he did so, Armstrong was shocked to see how much Hubbard’s actual records contradicted the things Hubbard and the church said about his life and exploits. To his followers, Hubbard had been born an adventurer – he’d grown up on a massive Montana ranch owned by his grandfather and by four years old had become the blood brother to a local Indian tribe. He was the youngest Eagle Scout in the history of the Boy Scouts, he had traded ideas with eastern shamans and mystics during extensive travels to Asia in his teens, he was one of the first atomic scientists in the country after his distinguished college career, he’d set records as a daring glider aviator, he’d been a war hero who had survived being machine-gunned as the first casualty in the Pacific theater of World War II. He’d captained “corvettes” that had engaged and sunk Japanese submarines, and after the war he’d healed his serious combat wounds with a new method that became Dianetics. It was a heroic, larger-than-life account of a man who had lived enough for a dozen men.

And Gerry Armstrong knew that all of it was, to one extent or another, a fabrication. Hubbard’s own documents showed that he had lived a fascinating, varied life, and with many accomplishments to be proud of. But that’s not the story he told or the one promoted by the church. That worried Armstrong. He knew that Scientology made itself vulnerable by putting out claims about Hubbard that could be debunked by official records. In late 1981 and into 1982, he repeatedly went to his superiors, urging them to correct the record and to begin putting out information about Hubbard that actually matched what was in the documents.

Actually, I blew the cult on December 12, 1981. So I had no Scientology superiors after that date. In late 1981, I did communicate with several superiors multiple times about correcting Hubbard’s false claims and putting out documentable information. The last of these communications was a report on November 25, 1981 to Cirrus Slevin, the HCO Cope Officer CMO Int at Gilman. I also copied David Miscavige, who was then Special Project Project Ops, Terri Gamboa, who was Special Project In-Charge, and Norman Starkey, Special Project 2nd. Judge Breckenridge included an excerpt from this report in his decision. 9

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] Instead of acting on his advice, the organization excommunicated him, “declaring” him a “suppressive person” on February 18, 1982.

Not really.

I’ve written and spoken a great deal about the Scientologists’ reactions to what, back in 1981, I told them I was wishing or hoping they’d do. From my perspective, the first seriously disconcerting thing that happened, after I suggested to the Special Project personnel that we correct our BS and tell the truth about Hubbard, was Miscavige sending Starkey to bully that idea out of me. This was in November 1981, and led to my meeting with Slevin and my report to her. Since then, the Scientologists and their collaborators have done decades more bullying and antisocial and criminal reacting, which included issuing SP Declares.

Marty Rathbun wrote about the Starkey incident in Memoirs:

After Miscavige busted Gerry’s direct superior, Laurel, Armstrong formally brought the matter of the potentially false representations to the attention of authorities in CMO International. Armstrong respectfully recommended that the church cease issuing any representations that it could not back up with documentation. The matter was referred to Miscavige, since he was responsible for L. Ron Hubbard’s defense. Rather than investigate Armstrong’s concerns, Miscavige sent Starkey to intimidate Armstrong into line, treating him as if he was imagining his concerns because his mind had been “infected” by the GO.

Rathbun also blogged about this in 2012:

Armstrong pointed out to L Ron Hubbard’s messengers that something had better be done about the representations the church was making. He based that concern on having worked tirelessly to provide David Miscavige’s Special Project (of which I was then the files man for) with material to prove the claims about Hubbard to be true, and coming up empty handed on many counts.  David Miscavige’s handling for Armstrong’s origination was to send Norman F Starkey down to the Commodores Messenger Org International to give Armstrong a Severe Reality Adjustment (SRA – loud verbal brow beating) for being “disaffected.”

As was Miscavige’s habit, he continued to pursue Armstrong as the devil incarnate while at the same time taking Armstrong’s advice, just ignoring the source of it communicating as if it were his own.  No more representations about LRH went out without my authorization – which was backed by an extensive fact-checking process.10

It could be said that instead of acting on my advice, Miscavige sent Norman Starkey to brow beat me into my place. But really, as Rathbun acknowledges, Miscavige did take my advice. Or at least Miscavige acted on some of what I had been specifically advising him and his staff about before I left the cult. The fact that I was right about something, and he had to take my advice for his own survival, however, almost certainly drove him more apoplectic that if I had been wrong in whatever he considered I was saying, or advising. This is a Scientology-wide condition that still drives Scientologists, and, naturally, their collaborators.

Hubbard, of course, was still running Scientology in 1981 and 1982. Miscavige probably did not report to him in November 1981about getting Starkey after me, or even report the concern among the Special Projectors about what I had provided Garrison. Miscavige also probably did not forward Hubbard my report to Slevin. Once I blew, however, Miscavige would have had to report to Hubbard because of the sensitivity of what I knew about Hubbard personally. Hubbard would have either ordered or approved issuing my SP Declare. He ordered the Scientologists’ war on me that still continues, and he directed it until his death.

So the truth is that:  While to some extent having to act on [my] advice, the Scientologists under Hubbard made [me] an enemy, which they publicly announced by “declaring” [me] a “suppressive person” on February 18, 1982.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] In April, when he learned about the declaration, Armstrong knew what he was probably in for. Investigations, harassment, maybe even something worse. He trusted Garrison, and turned over boxes of the Hubbard documents to him.

This doesn’t sound right.

The Scientologists’ war on me is long, and scientists tell us attention spans are growing ever shorter. On the legal front, there are thirty-three years of litigation, multiple Scientology v. Armstrong v. Scientology cases, dozens of related cases, and sweeping judicial, government (IRS, DOJ, etc.) and human rights issues. There are clearly also parallel psychological issues in the Scientologists and their collaborators who have participated or supported the war over the years. The Scientologists and their collaborators have done their vertical worst to make the truth confusing beyond wog comprehension, and, by reduction, reinterpretation, willful lying, etc., to “create” a new reality, rewrite history.

Fortunately, the sequence of events is described in the Breckenridge decision.

1.     I provide Hubbard documents to Omar Garrison pursuant to contract beginning in October 1980;

2.     I leave the cult on December 12, 1981. I deliver the last of whatever documents I provided Garrison. I have no documents.

3.     I drive to Canada and have a holiday. I return to California, get a place in Costa Mesa, get a job in a law firm, stay in touch with Garrison and help him out as sensible. I become aware of Scientology agents contacting friends and relatives, and I pick up surveillance.

4.     In April 1982, the Scientologists steal sets of photos, I demand return, they tell me to get a lawyer.

5.     I contact Mike Flynn. He flies me to meet him during the Clearwater Hearings.

6.     I learn of the Scientologists’ second declare dated April 22.

7.     In the summer, I go to Garrison and ask him for documents to send to Flynn and my California attorneys.

8.     I start writing declarations providing my knowledge and experiences concerning Hubbard and the cult. 11

It wasn’t so much that I trusted Garrison, thus in 1980 and 1981 turned over boxes of Hubbard documents to him. Hubbard’s attorney wrote a contract that made me Garrison’s research assistant and directed me to provide him with Hubbard’s documents.

It could be said, actually, that in the summer of 1982, Garrison trusted [me] and gave boxes of the Hubbard documents to [me] to send to [my] attorneys, which I did.  And then these documents became the subject of the Scientologists’ first lawsuit against me.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] He then copied about 10,000 of the documents for himself, and turned them over for safekeeping to his attorney.

The documents I obtained from Garrison and turned over to my attorneys in the summer of 1982 were a subset of the documents I provided Garrison in 1980 and 1981.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] He’d hired Michael Flynn.

That was at the time of the Clearwater Hearings in the beginning of May 1982.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] On August 2, 1982, Scientology and Mary Sue Hubbard filed suit against Armstrong, accusing him of theft, and asking for the return of the Hubbard archive.

On August 2, the Church of Scientology of California filed suit.

On November 18, 1982, Mary Sue Hubbard filed a complaint in intervention.

The Scientologists and their attorneys found it necessary for Mrs. Hubbard to intervene because I had shown after CSC filed its suit that it was not the owner of Hubbard’s documents and did not have legal standing to claim the documents. My claim to the documents was superior to CSC’s claim, and they needed Mrs. Hubbard to assert a privacy claim as Hubbard’s wife.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] Armstrong argued that he’d had to take the records as a form of insurance to guarantee his safety. Without them, he was afraid for his life.

With or without the documents, I feared the Scientologists and their collaborators. I still fear the Scientologists and their collaborators. Even an idiot can instill fear in a human target if the idiot charges. The Scientologists are not idiots. They willfully, analytically seek to instill fear in their targets. So they charge like clever criminals. They charge to win, and to get the public charging alongside them.

[L. Ron Hubbard:] NEVER BE INTERESTED IN CHARGES. DO, yourself, much MORE CHARGING and you will WIN. And the public, seeing that you won, will then have a communication line to the effect that Scientologists WIN. Don’t ever let them have any other thought than that Scientology takes all of its objectives.12

The Scientologists have given me no evidence that they intend anything but hate, destruction and death, as they have always intended. They are held in check by their own fear of prosecution or fear of an effective defense by their intended victims. They are not restrained by their scripture or consciences.

I went to Garrison and obtained the documents that I thought would prove that what I had been saying about Hubbard was true, and I sent them to my attorneys to make them safe and have them for my defense against the Scientologists’ attacks I knew were being mounted. Judge Breckenridge wrote in his decision:

In determining whether the defendant unreasonably invaded Mrs. Hubbard’s privacy, the court is satisfied the invasion was slight, and the reasons and justification for defendant’s conduct manifest. Defendant was told by Scientology to get an attorney. He was declared an enemy by the Church. He believed, reasonably, that he was subject to “fair game.” The only way he could defend himself, his integrity, and his wife was to take that which was available to him and place it in a safe harbor, to wit, his lawyer’s custody. He may have indulged in overkill, in the sense that he took voluminous materials, some of which appear only marginally relevant to his defense. But he was not a lawyer and cannot be held to that precise standard of judgment. Further, at the time that he was accumulating the material, he was terrified and undergoing severe emotional turmoil.

[…]

From his extensive knowledge of the covert and intelligence operations carried out by the Church of Scientology of California against its enemies (suppressive persons), Defendant Armstrong became terrified and feared that his life and the life of his wife were in danger, and he also feared he would be the target of costly and harassing lawsuits.

In addition, Mr. Garrison became afraid for the security of the documents and believed that the intelligence network of the Church of Scientology would break and enter his home to retrieve them. Thus, Defendant Armstrong made copies of certain documents for Mr. Garrison and maintained them in a separate location.

It was thereafter, in the summer of 1982, that Defendant Armstrong asked Mr. Garrison for copies of documents to use in his defense and sent the documents to his attorneys, Michael Flynn and Contos & Bunch.

Because the Scientologists are governed by command intention, they are always motivated by the cult head’s lust for revenge. Hubbard was a very vengeful man who wrote revenge into Scientology scripture, demanded its application, and apparently carried his vengeance to his death. Miscavige has demonstrated he can be every bit as vengeful. Even if the Hubbard documents I obtained from Garrison proved that Hubbard had lied, and I had told the truth, it did nothing to guarantee my safety, as far as my life went. It certainly helped guarantee my safety in the legal arena. My successes in court, and even in the media, however, only piqued the Scientologists’ vengeful spirits. It is reasonable that I would fear revenge and assassination, and that this fear would reasonably affect my thoughts and actions.

The same is true today. I have no actual defense against the Scientologists or their collaborators assassinating me. But I have made a record that will exist even if they do. Because they haven’t, I am able to communicate with them reasonably to suggest, or advise, that they end their era of revenge and do what is necessary to eliminate the fear they now cause in good wogs. The Scientologists have not acted on that suggestion.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] When Mary Sue filed the suit, she was still appealing her conviction in the Snow White Program prosecutions. But a few months later, those appeals ran out. On January 8, 1983, she was ordered to a federal prison in Kentucky to serve a 40-month sentence, but only a year later she was released.

In May 1984, the Armstrong lawsuit went to trial, and Judge Paul Breckenridge presided over four weeks of testimony. After deliberating for two weeks more, on June 22 he made one of the most devastating assessments of Scientology ever put to paper by a judge.

“The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and the bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The evidence portrays a man who has been virtually a pathological liar when it comes to his history, background, and achievements. The writings and documents in evidence additionally reflect his egoism, greed, avarice, lust for power, and vindictiveness and aggressiveness against persons perceived by him to be disloyal or hostile. At the same time it appears that he is charismatic and highly capable of motivating, organizing, controlling, manipulating, and inspiring his adherents. He has been referred to during this trial as a ‘genius,’ a ‘revered person,’ a man who was ‘viewed by his followers with awe.’ Obviously, he is and has been a very complex person, and that complexity is further reflected in his alter ego, the Church of Scientology. Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, this court is satisfied that LRH runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore’s Messengers. He has, of course, chosen to go into ‘seclusion,’ but he maintains contact and control through the top messengers. Seclusion has its light and dark side too. It adds to his mystique, and yet shields him from accountability and subpoena or service of summons,” the judge wrote.

As for Mary Sue, Breckenridge called her a “pathetic individual” who wanted the court to believe that Armstrong’s possession of her husband’s documents constituted a “mental rape” of her. Breckenridge pointed out that as Scientology’s “Guardian,” she had personally directed members of the Guardian’s Office to cull damaging information about church members from their confessional files for “internal security.” She really wasn’t in a position to complain about collecting private information about other people. And besides, he continued, Hubbard had clearly given Armstrong and Garrison permission to use his documents for the proposed biography.

When Breckenridge wrote about Mrs. Hubbard appearing pathetic, it was because of her treatment by Hubbard and his Messenger underlings. Her credibility or hypocrisy problem as a witness apparently (on the other hand) made her appear less pathetic, or less sympathetic, to the judge. When she had Guardian Order 121669 “Programme: Intelligence: Internal Security” issued, December 16, 1969, she signed as “CS-G,” “Commodore’s Staff Guardian.” It is obvious that Hubbard-the-Commodore authored the GO and had his wife sign it. The Guardian was then Jane Kember. Since January 1969, Mrs. Hubbard also had held the post of “Controller,” which is the post title Breckenridge used. Both as CS-G and Controller, which were the same post but for different organization arms, she was senior to the Guardian.

[Judge Breckenridge:] LRH’s wife, Mary Sue Hubbard is also plaintiff herein. On the one hand she certainly appeared to be a pathetic individual. She was forced from her post as Controller, convicted and imprisoned as a felon, and deserted by her husband. On the other hand her credibility leaves much to be desired. She struck the familiar pose of not seeing, hearing, or knowing any evil. Yet she was the head of the Guardian Office for years and among other things, authored the infamous order “GO 121669” [ ] which directed culling of supposedly confidential P.C. files/folders for purposes of internal security. In her testimony she expressed the feeling that defendant by delivering the documents, writings, letters to his attorneys, subjected her to mental rape. The evidence is clear and the court finds that defendant and Omar Garrison had permission to utilize these documents for the purpose of Garrison’s proposed biography. The only other persons who were shown any of the documents were defendant’s attorneys, the Douglasses, the Dincalcis, and apparently some documents specifically affecting LRH’s son “Nibs,” were shown to “Nibs.” The Douglasses and Dincalcises were disaffected Scientologists who had a concern for their own safety and mental security, and were much in the same situation as defendant. They had not been declared as suppressive, but Scientology had their P.C. folders, as well as other confessions, and they were extremely apprehensive. They did not see very many of the documents, and it is not entirely clear which they saw. At any rate Mary Sue Hubbard did not appear to be so much distressed by this fact, as by the fact that Armstrong had given the documents to Michael Flynn, whom the Church considered its foremost lawyer-enemy.  5 However, just as the plaintiffs have First Amendment rights, the defendant has a Constitutional right to an attorney of his own choosing. In legal contemplation the fact that defendant selected Mr. Flynn rather than some other lawyer cannot by itself be tortious. In determining whether the defendant unreasonably invaded Mrs. Hubbard’s privacy, the court is satisfied the invasion was slight, and the reasons and justification for defendant’s conduct manifest. Defendant was told by Scientology to get an attorney. He was declared an enemy by the Church. He believed, reasonably, that he was subject to “fair game.” The only way he could defend himself, his integrity, and his wife was to take that which was available to him and place it in a safe harbor, to wit, his lawyer’s custody. He may have indulged in overkill, in the sense that he took voluminous materials, some of which appear only marginally relevant to his defense. But he was not a lawyer and cannot be held to that precise standard of judgment. Further, at the time that he was accumulating the material, he was terrified and undergoing severe emotional turmoil. The court is satisfied that he did not unreasonably intrude upon Mrs. Hubbard’s privacy under the circumstances by in effect simply making his knowledge that of his attorneys. It is, of course, rather ironic that the person who authorized G.O. order 121669 should complain about an invasion of privacy. The practice of culling supposedly confidential “P.C. folders or files” to obtain information for purposes of intimidation and or harassment is repugnant and outrageous. The Guardian’s Office, which plaintiff headed, was no respector of anyone’s civil rights, particularly that of privacy. Plaintiff Mary Sue Hubbard’s cause of action for conversion must fail for the same reason as plaintiff Church. The documents were all together in Omar Garrison’s possession. There was no rational way the defendant could make any distinction.

I am aware that Ortega got Mary Sue Hubbard’s post title right at other points in the book; e.g., p. 221.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] It was a total victory for Armstrong, and assured that eventually, journalists and authors would have access to the documents that spelled out the uncomfortable realities of L. Ron Hubbard’s life.

Well, some of the documents and some of the uncomfortable realities anyway. There are still millions of words of uncomfortable realities spelled out in Hubbard’s documents that the Scientologists have not produced, but have hidden and lied about.

According to Jesse Prince last year, during the 1983-86 period, there were “banker boxes full” of orders from Hubbard “spewing hate filled vitriol” just about me. Each of those orders spells out an uncomfortable reality; uncomfortable, that is, for the Scientologists. Imagine how uncomfortable reality was for the target of Hubbard’s hate filled orders. That’s another story. Here, it’s enough to know that the uncomfortable realities of Hubbard’s life are far worse than what the biographical documents I possessed showed, far worse than we wogs think.

[The Unbreakable Miss Lovely:] From London, meanwhile, there was more bad news for the church. A child custody suit there had resulted in another judge denouncing Scientology. The case involved a Scientologist couple who had split up and were fighting over custody of their two young children. The mother and her new husband had left the church, the father had not. The mother and stepfather introduced a huge amount of material about Scientology, in part with the help of a man named Jon Atack who had recently left the church himself. Their goal was to convince Sir John Latey, Justice of the Old Bailey, that Scientology and its policies were so damaging, the father should not be awarded custody. After hearing testimony, Justice Latey agreed with them, and awarded the mother her children.

“Scientology is both immoral and socially obnoxious,” Latey wrote in his decision. “In my judgment it is corrupt, sinister and dangerous. It is corrupt because it is based on lies and deceit and has as its real objective money and power for Mr. Hubbard, his wife and those close to him at the top. It is sinister because it indulges in infamous practices both to its adherents who do not toe the line unquestioningly, and to those who criticize or oppose it. It is dangerous because it is out to capture people, especially children and impressionable young people, and indoctrinate and brainwash them so that they become the unquestioning captives and tools of the cult, withdrawn from ordinary thought, living and relationships with others.”

Latey made his decision public on July 23, 1984. The next day, Scientology held its press conference in Los Angeles accusing Mike Flynn of masterminding a fraud scheme against L. Ron Hubbard. Flynn said the timing wasn’t accidental: The church was doing its best to distract attention from the Breckenridge and Latey decisions, which each found Scientology to be rotten to its core.

When the New York Times reported on the church’s claims about Flynn in a September 3, 1984 story, Paulette Cooper denounced the accusations against her attorney. “Now they’re trying to do the same thing they did to me to Michael Flynn,” she told the newspaper.

In fact, Scientology had been trying to ruin Flynn for years, not only with the Al Tamimi declaration, but with multiple bar complaints and investigations and lawsuits. But at the same time, Flynn had not only attracted clients like Paulette Cooper and Gerry Armstrong and Ron DeWolf (L. Ron Hubbard Jr.), but also several others.

With the stunning Armstrong decision, Flynn seemed to have Scientology on the ropes, increasing the chances that Paulette would also benefit as Flynn handled several of her lawsuits from California to Boston. But that’s not how things turned out, because Paulette was becoming increasingly tired of being one of Mike Flynn’s famous clients.

I would have thought that the more famous clients Flynn had the better.

This requires more thought than I can give it right now. Cooper became Flynn’s client in 1981, and perhaps became one of his famous ones at the same time. I became his client in 1982, but I don’t think I have ever thought of myself as one of his famous clients. This does not sound like any real reason for what happened.

 Notes

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Secret Lives interview (1997)

This interview was in Vancouver, BC in 1997. I had left the US earlier that year when I had discovered online a piece of what the Scientologists filed to get their 1993 IRS tax exemption, which included black PR on me. I’ve written about this a number of times.

 

Recently Caroline and I have assembled materials that show that the US Federal Government conspired with the Scientologists to violate public policy in the process of the grant of tax exemption.1

Lawrence Wright did not deal with the public policy issue in Going Clear, nor the content of the Scientologists’ submissions to the IRS that contain false statements and constitute public policy violations. I was not contacted for the Alex Gibney film, but assume per Joe Nocera’s NY Times piece that it follows the Wright plot and does not mention public policy. In his 1997 NY Times article Douglas Frantz provides very useful facts about the conspiracy, but also does not mention the public policy issue. Yet, public policy was central to the IRS’s dealings in and out of court with the Scientologists over decades. It is still central today.

If you are a smart person with a conscience, please study these materials. If you know of smart people with consciences, please tell them about the public policy issue in the Scientologists’ long war with the IRS. 2 This includes smart, conscienceful people in every country, because the Scientologists flourish their unlawfully obtained IRS tax exemption and seek undeserved advantages with this ill-gotten decision in every country.

“After the most thorough invest in IRS history,” my ass.

Anyone who begins to study about the public policy issue in the IRS matter will encounter an almost unfathomable depth of black PR on me, from the most unexpected sources. Please do not be dissuaded from understanding this incredible situation by the assaults on my credibility. In reality, the assaults on my credibility in the Scientologists’ submissions to the IRS are the most blatant examples of public policy violations. The Scientologists and their collaborators committed crimes against me, and a connected set of victims, to be able to commit crimes against everyone. A license from the IRS to criminals to commit crimes against citizens, especially the SP class who expose them as criminals, cannot but be against public policy. The post- submission smears are to reduce my credibility to beast level so no one will grant me an instant of credence.

I wrote Jesse Prince a note recently about the transpersonal factors and effects in my legal relationship with the Scientologists.3This balances the black PR that Scientology v. Armstrong is my personal battle and nobody should do anything about it because nobody is my personal army. Another black PR line is that the Scientology v. Armstrong war is a “grudge match.” Check out how it gets hidden away on ESMB by people presenting as the Scientologists’ opponents. Other common attack lines are that Scientology v. Armstrong is just about me selling out, or just about an injunction I’m sour grapes over, or that the injunction is legal, or that I’m just a scofflaw.

There is no one the Scientologists fair gamed more than me during the period Rathbun ran the fair gaming. If there is someone he had fair gamed more than me, he has never identified that person. The one person Rathbun fair gamed somewhat equivalently was my own attorney Michael Flynn. Yet the Scientology v. Armstrong fair gaming, including majorly the IRS conspiracy, is what Rathbun has done nothing about, except for further black PR and furtherance of his crimes against me, and Flynn, in his 2013 book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior.

An astonishing recent attack on my credibility came from Chris Shelton, and it was directly on the issue of the IRS tax exemption.4Shelton did not deal with the facts or the content of my evidence or argument, just smeared me in relationship to Rathbun, and then would do nothing to support or correct his smear. Shelton presented as someone who had rejected Scientology, called himself an expert, claimed a high level of logic, had never communicated to me, and cheer-leading “Justice for All.”

One of the black PR lines on me is that,yes, I exposed Hubbard and that was good, but that was then, old history, and then I sold out, and now I’m seeing things, or some such putdown. But the history didn’t stop with me exposing Hubbard. The story became what the Scientologists did to prevent his exposure, which was mainly by destroying my credibility so that no one would listen to me exposing him. He has been exposed for a long time. The story therefore has become what the Scientologists and their collaborators have done to destroy my credibility so that no one would listen to me about what they have done and are doing to destroy my credibility. A key piece of what they did to destroy my credibility, and me, is in their submission to the IRS on which their tax exemption was granted.

The Scientology v. Armstrong conflict is not old, or lost, or unwinnable. Neither is Armstrong v. Scientology, US, et al. The Scientologists’ tax exemption is not irreversible, and in any case the coconspirators should be exposed for that crime.

Thanks for the many kind comments. It’s very encouraging.5

Notes

  1. See, e.g., the introduction to the Armstrong Op site: http://armstrong-op.gerryarmst… ↩
  2. See article Public Policy: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archi… ↩
  3. See “For Jesse Prince: Who gets helped?”  http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archi… ↩
  4. See Chris Shelton: logic and loyalty, on the line: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archi… ↩
  5. Originally posted in the comments section on Tony Ortega’s blog article. ↩

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Request to Jesse Prince

Dear Jesse:

Great to read you’re feeling good.

There are a few fact errors in what you’ve written about the Scientology v. Armstrong litigation and war,1which I will deal with later.

Just now, I am writing to ask from you essentially what I have been asking from Marty Rathbun and Mike Rinder for the past few years:

  1. Communicate to me;
  2. Debrief to me and my legal representatives;
  3. Execute declarations that contain facts elicited in the debrief;
  4. Make themselves available to testify in any legal proceedings to correct the injustices or situations they helped make.

You will recall telling me about Miscavige and Rathbun claiming that they possessed the materials stolen from the trunk of my car by their agents in 1984. There was a briefcase and about 300 pages of original writing and artwork.

I asked you a number of times for a declaration with the facts you knew concerning these materials and you always ignored my requests, and after some point more than a decade ago had treated me quite inimically.

I wrote to Rathbun about these stolen materials, and he too has ignored my communications. See, e.g., http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/archives/3304

You now write that you were present and informed about my legal troubles with Scientology as they were happening. I would like to obtain from you the details you recall from that period.

You write that you were present when the conditions of the Scientology v. Armstrong “settlement agreement” were negotiated. I was not present during that negotiation, and your information could be helpful in correcting the crime this “settlement agreement” and similar ones perpetuate.

To understand what happened prior to and during the “settlement” from my perspective, and its effect since 1986, please see the video of my discussion in Berlin in 2011:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6XCXPx9yoQ

You write that from 1983 through 1986, you would receive on a daily basis intelligence reports generated by ASI staff, OSA and RTC concerning secret and illegal operations by Scientology against me, my lawyer Michael Flynn, and other plaintiffs he represented.

This material is very relevant right now in the issue of the Scientologists’ tax exemption, and in US and international court proceedings. You perhaps were not aware that Rathbun and Rinder continue the frame-ups of Flynn and me in Rathbun’s 2013 book, which Rinder edited, and they continue their black propaganda against their fair game victims, and SPs generally. In that way, they are very much not me, as you say.

Your details about these daily intel reports about ops against Flynn and me, and related knowledge you have about the Scientologists’ war on us could be legally and historically helpful

You write:

The operations against Jerry’s lawyer included having knowledge of someone putting water in the gas tank of an airplane piloted by Michael Flynn with his son on board.

It is not clear exactly what you are saying about the Flynn plane incident being an operation. To my knowledge you have not testified regarding your knowledge of ops or fair game against Flynn or me, and this could be helpful.

I’d have thought I had been clear by now, but I go by Gerry. It’s Gerald, legally, but I’ve gone by Gerry-with-a-G since elementary school.

You write that you attended years of board room meetings at ASI to figure out how to get rid of me, and a few others. You mention that Hubbard sent communications (“advices”) ordering people such as me, and presumably including me, attacked, set up, jailed, annihilated, etc. Your details concerning both Hubbard and Miscavige’s participation in such fair game activities could be helpful.

You write that there were banker boxes full of Hubbard advices “spewing hate filled vitriol about” me. I have known that this must be the case, because I know how Hubbard worked and how his Scientologists still work. This is the first time, however, that someone who actually viewed some of the mass of material about me has described it, even in very general terms. I would like to get from you the details necessary to identify these materials for legal purposes.

Please let me know if you are willing to debrief to me about your experiences and knowledge relating to Mike Flynn and me that you acquired while inside the Scientology cult.

Thanks.

Gerry Armstrong
604-703-1373

Notes

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Russell Miller and me

DamOTclese2 commented on Tony O’s blog:

 Of primary importance — for me, any way — is what Gerry thinks about all this. We all have opinions about wrongs that Scientology people have committed against others, and I would love to hear Gerry comment on the re-release of BFM as well as what he thinks about Marty apologizing and underscoring his efforts in committing rights violations against people who spoke the truth about what Scientology is and what Scientology does.

I have tremendous respect for Gerry, I greatly value his insights and opinions and I would love to hear from him.

Thanks for asking, and for your kind thoughts.

Well. BFM and Russell Miller and I go back to March 1986, in Boston as he says. I was working for Mike Flynn, and I spent several hours over a couple of days with Russell. I doubtlessly copied documents for him that Mike or I had and Russell was interested in.

The Scientologists later claimed these documents were “Armstrong documents,” which had been ordered delivered to the LA Superior Court in 1982, and had been the subject of the Scientology v. Armstrong trial in 1984. Whatever I gave Russell were not “Armstrong documents,” and I have never possessed “Armstrong documents” since they were delivered to the Court.

I have one letter from Russell dated April 15, 1986. We might have communicated a couple of times, and I might have chased up some documents or references for him in the next few months. The settlement of the Flynn clients’ cases was December 1986, and I moved to California in January 1987.

I think the next thing I heard about BFM was when the Scientologists filed the CSC v.Miller and Penguin Books case in London. Mike Flynn relayed a threat from cult attorney Earle Cooley, which I described in a March 15, 1990 declaration I filed in the California Court of Appeal in the Scientologists’ appeal from the 1984 Breckenridge Decision.

20. On October 7, 1987 I received a call from Michael Flynn who relayed to me a message from Earle C. Cooley, one of the organization’s principal attorneys, concerning the then proceeding trial in London, England of a lawsuit the organization had brought against a writer, Russell Miller. Mr. Miller had interviewed me in Boston, Massachusetts in 1986, some months before the December settlement, for a biography of L. Ron Hubbard. According to Mr. Flynn, Mr. Cooley stated that it had been disclosed during the trial that Mr. Miller possessed documents in violation of sealing orders in Armstrong and he threatened that if I talked to any of the attorneys or parties involved in the trial the organization would view it as a breach of the settlement agreement.1

I remember someone, an attorney I think, on Russell’s side did call and told me that the Scientologists were accusing me in court of violating sealing orders, of theft, and other things. I remember being totally choked up, and incapable momentarily of even speaking. I finally said something about how I felt but that nevertheless I wouldn’t say anything about those matters.

I’d already been bummed out for months by what I knew of the Scientologists’ post-settlement black propaganda. At the same time, I knew that the contractual conditions prohibiting me from communicating my Scientology-related experiences or knowledge were lawfully judicially unenforceable. This is what Mike Flynn said when getting me to sign the Scientologists’ contract. It was true then, and truer now with twenty-seven years of effects of the subject conditions for analysis. The repeated psychic shock of confronting the depravity of what the Scientologists intend and what they would do to obtain what they intend is paralyzing and painful, which they intend it to be.

In CSC v. Miller, the Scientologists revealed their intention to use their contract to obstruct justice and perpetrate a fraud upon the court by threatening the witness who knew the truth around the lies they were telling in court. They were using the contract to suppress the truth about Hubbard, the source of their cruelty, and to punish a writer and publisher who really did act in concert with me, publishing a few of my words about my experiences and knowledge.

In 1988, I think Jon Atack sent me copies of some of the materials concerning me the Scientologists had filed in the CSC v. Miller case. There were five October 1987 affidavits of Ken Long, some exhibits or parts, and an affidavit of Sheila Chaleff.2

In the March 15, 1990 declaration that I filed in the California Court of Appeal1, I countered the charges against me in the Long and Chaleff affidavits. In response, the Scientologists filed a declaration dated March 26 from Ken Long. 4

I filed a declaration in the Court of Appeal dated December 25, 1990 further dealing with the Scientologists’ charges against me in CSC v. Miller.5

Sometime, I didn’t note when, I received the October 10, 1987 Vinelott Judgment, which dismissed the Scientologists’ attempt to enjoin the publication of BFM, and excoriated them to boot for their use of the law to suppress. 6

And the final words in his 16-page judgment:

I do not propose to go into this aspect of the case, save only to observe that one statement of policy to be found in the writings of the Church is in substance that litigation may be resorted to in order to stifle criticism. This litigation to my mind precisely answers the description of oppressive litigation, that is, litigation (which the authors equally clearly had in mind) which is not bona fide launched to protect any legitimate interest of the church in preserving confidentiality in information contained in Mr Miller’s biography.

For these reasons I have reached the conclusion that this application is both mischievous and misconceived and must be dismissed and in my judgment dismissed with costs to be taxed and paid forthwith.7

The Scientologists appealed from the Vinelott Judgment and on October 22, 1987 the Court of Appeal dismissed their appeal.8

Fortunately Mr. Justice Vinelott got the judgment right, and who had the excoriation coming. And fortunately too the Court of Appeal rightly affirmed his judgment. But neither Justice Vinelott or the Court of Appeal got the facts right about the Armstrong documents, the Breckenridge decision, or what documents I’d given Russell Miller.

The Justices were denied the facts because the Scientologists were threatening me into silence, or I suppose torturing me into silence, while they filed their sworn version of the facts, unrebutted. Miscavige, Rathbun, Long, Chaleff, their attorneys, et al. pulled a jurisprudential fast-one right out of a true-crime story. Penguin Books would have flown me to London in a flash. I could have clarified the Scientologists’ mud for very smart old Justice Vinelott. And the Scientologists might not have been so emboldened to keep telling the same lies all the years since.

In 1992, when I was working with Ford Greene in San Anselmo, California, Mishcon de Reya, defendants’ solicitors in CSC v. Miller & Penguin, sent me nice copies of the Long and Chaleff affidavits with very pretty Supreme Court Chancery Chambers stamps. 9

Russell contacted me sometime in the new millennium because he was writing a sort of update to BFM, what had happened since publication, and I think it was for the Telegraph.  An editorial person at the publication wanted to know my legal situation with the Scientologists, and I explained it to him and sent him links for key documents. I didn’t ever see anything published, and I don’t know what happened with the piece Russell was working on. I think the Scientology v. Armstrong war has many times boggled legal and media people with its enormity and complexity, the time needed to understand it, and the beast waiting if it is understood.

Russell next came into my life when The New Yorker published Lawrence Wright’s profile of Paul Haggis in February 2011. Wright falsely accused Russell, Jon Atack and Bent Corydon of all relying on stolen materials for their Hubbard biographies. Wright also falsely accused me of being a former Scientology archivist who cop­ied, without permission, many of the cult’s files on Hubbard. The implication in Wright’s article, which he confirmed, was that the stolen materials that the 3 writers relied on came from me; that is, that I had stolen them. I communicated with Jon and Bent about Wright’s stolen materials charge, but didn’t have Russell’s contact data. Jon might have informed Russell what was going on with The New Yorker, but I don’t know. I thought that the way The New Yorker dealt with me was stunning; that is, it stunned me, and still does. I don’t know if the three musketographers were similarly stunned, or how else they might have felt.

When I read John Sweeney’s book Church of Fear, in January 2013, I contacted Silvertail Books to complain about what he had written about me, and weirdly without contacting me. I think Humfrey Hunter, the editor and publisher, agreed to change the complained-about facts and text at the next opportunity, which should have been any day now. In explaining to Mr. Hunter the provenance of an error in CoF, I mentioned Russell and BFM:

It is true that Russell Miller’s Hubbard biography stated:

Ron did not bother to mention how Mary Sue was making out at the Federal Correctional Institution in Kentucky, neither did he comment on the time-bomb ticking away under the church in the slight form of his disenchanted archivist and biographer Gerry Armstrong, who had taken thousands of documents with him when he left Scientology – documents that proved the founder of Scientology was a charlatan and a liar.

Miller definitely possessed the Breckenridge decision. He quoted from it in Bare-Faced Messiah. I met with him two days in Boston, Massachusetts in 1986, and I am sure I spoke with him freely about my Scientology experiences and knowledge, the Hubbard biography project, and the 1984 trial. Obviously oddly, Miller does not mention Omar Garrison in all of BFM.

Miller quite honestly describes moments and periods in my life, and the quotes he attributes to me throughout BFM sound reasonably accurate. The book, however, does contain some fact errors about me. In the excerpt above, for example, my form was slight, and I was Hubbard’s disenchanted archivist, but not his biographer. That was Omar Garrison.

I had not taken thousands of documents with me when I left Scientology. I left Scientology in December 1981 and went to Canada, with no documents; that is, with none of the documents that became the subject of the Scientologists’ lawsuit, which was filed in August 1982. Those documents I obtained from Garrison, and sent them to my attorneys, with his permission, in June or July of 1982.

The Scientologists have always been running up against God’s ironies.

When Miller’s book was published, and I first obtained a copy, the Scientologists were threatening me with enforcement of their December 1986 silence contract. They had threatened me specifically in the Church of Scientology of California v. Russell Miller & Penguin Books case if I communicated to anyone on the defendants’ side. From a declaration I filed in March 1990 in the appeal the Scientologists had maintained from the 1984 Breckenridge judgment. (Quoted above.)

(This March 1990 declaration was actually my first public statement following the December 1986 settlement, and after the California Court of Appeal granted my petition to respond in the Scientologists’ appeal from Breckenridge.)

With me silenced, the Scientologists filed a bunch of affidavits in CSC v. Miller falsely accusing me of various violations, and repeating the false claim, disproven in my 1984 trial, that I did not have permission to provide Hubbard’s biographical papers to Garrison. E.g.:

25. Mr. Miller, by his own admission, is fully aware that the Church issued legal proceedings against Mr. Armstrong for removal of Mr. Hubbard’s confidential documents from the Church while Mr. Armstrong was employed by the Church.

[…]

31. The Church has spent thousands of man hours and millions of dollars since 1982 in order to uphold the duty it owed to Mr. Hubbard as the bailee for his materials when they were taken by Mr. Armstrong.10

5. It was the theft by Mr. Armstrong of those documents, which included the boyhood diaries and journals of Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, letters between Mr. Hubbard and his family, correspondence between Mr. Hubbard and his friends and associates spanning over forty years, Mr. Hubbard’s military records, and so forth, which formed the basis for the Church’s action against Mr. Armstrong on August 2, 1982.11

I do not know where Miller got the wrong idea that I had taken thousands of documents with me when I left Scientology. Most likely it was the Scientologists relentless repetition of their lie, even under oath, when I was being threatened into not responding to correct the history they were fabricating.

Then last December I read that Silvertail was going to republish BFM, so I contacted Mr. Hunter again, to congratulate Russell and him, and get the couple of easy-to-correct facts corrected. We worked it out, and Mr. Hunter I think even said he’d send me a book, which I asked Russell to sign.

I got the Kindle version and the agreed-on corrections about me have been made. I read Tony Ortega’s interview with Russell and am grateful for the kind thoughts.

So the re-release of BFM is excellent. I’ll perhaps comment on Marty’s apologizing separately. My life with Russell has been a cracking good book.

Notes

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Plea to Paulette Cooper

Tl;dr Thanks Paulette. [WWP post.] Can you please tell the truth about your false affidavits and how you came to sign them.

WRONG — While Mike and I are not on good terms, we did not sue each other (please, 19 lawsuits against me from Scientology were enough). I think we both understand where the other was coming from and were sympathetic about what the other went through and had no wish to add to each other’s burdens or bad feelings.

Paulette

Thanks, Paulette.

I had not heard that Flynn had sued you, so I am grateful to have you confirm that he had not. I, of course, had worked in Boston as his paralegal from September 1985 to January 1987, so have something of an understanding and memory of his cases, and did not recall any Flynn v. Cooper cases.

The other thing that Muldrake alleged was that before suing you, Flynn first betrayed you. The nature or form of the claimed betrayal has not been further described, other than being a factor in reaching the conclusion that as a human being Flynn is a genuine scumbag.

As I’ve probably said, I do not consider Flynn as a human being a genuine scumbag. I’ve written and talked about our relationship, and the December 1986 settlement with the Scientologists, which has affected every day of my life since. So there is really no secret about my feelings toward him.

I knew some details about your 1985 settlement with the Scientologists right at the time it was happening. I registered it in a February 28, 1985 note as a shocking betrayal, and I was memorably emotionally altered. You signed a set of affidavits for the Scientologists on March 4, which I didn’t see right away. At this time, I was in Portland, Oregon where the Julie Christofferson v. Scientology case was about to start, and where Hubbard’s control was an issue.

There is only one of those affidavits I know of that has been published on the Internet. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/related/5173.php

Because of the way this matter has developed and relates to current actions, I will try to locate the other affidavits. If you have them, or anyone else has them, please post or email them because they would be helpful for my legal purposes.

I realize that when this affidavit was discussed on a.r.s., at least in 1996, you wrote that you believe that your settlement helped those on other suits who settled later and that no one got shafted. But I believe that the affidavit was intended to deliver a blow to the Scientologists’ litigant enemies, and was used to hurt or shaft a lot of people.

I’m writing you in the hope that you would correct the facts and record. This would take care of the hurt.  I really do not think you would be damaged if you just examined your statements as a writer can and fix any false statements or wrong impressions.

Here’s the relevant text from the one affidavit I’ve found:

I allowed Mr. Flynn to file the Boston case, and replaced my counsel in Los Angeles with an attorney selected by Mr. Flynn, because Mr. Flynn explained to me that he had devised a strategy for quickly and easily winning my litigation against Scientology and collecting money on a judgment. He explained that his whole strategy was based upon conducting an attack against Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard by naming Mr. Hubbard as a defendant in my lawsuits. Mr. Flynn said that he believed that Mr. Hubbard would never appear in any of the lawsuits in which he was named, for any one of a number of possible reasons. Mr. Flynn told me that it was his belief that by approximately 1979, Mr. Hubbard had severed his ties with the church. The litigation, said Mr. Flynn, would be quickly terminated, either by obtaining a default judgment against Mr. Hubbard, or by having the Church of Scientology settle the litigation in order to protect Mr. Hubbard.

— In pursuit of this strategy of winning by seeking default judgments, my attorney filed in my lawsuits sworn statements alleging that Mr. Hubbard was in control of Scientology’s activities, and that he directed a campaign against me. However, I never had any real evidence or reason (other than the word of my lawyers) to believe that Mr. Hubbard was in control of the activities of the Church of Scientology, and my attorneys never presented me with any evidence that such was the case. It is clear to me, on the basis of my conversation with Mr. Flynn on this subject, that the allegations concerning Mr. Hubbard’s control over day-to-day Scientology activities had no basis in fact, but were being made solely for strategic reasons in pursuit of a default judgment.

To say that you had no real evidence or reason to believe Hubbard was in control of the cult and its activities cannot but be untrue.

You knew from John McLean that Hubbard was in control of the cult’s activities when McLean was inside, and you had to have known this years before you hired Flynn. See, e.g., http://www.xenu-directory.net/documents/mcleanj19730515.html

I knew Hubbard controlled Scientology when I left in December 1981, and I made that fact known to anyone who desired to know.

Your attorney Michael Flynn presented evidence so compelling that it caused Judge Breckenridge to issue a decision in Scientology v. Armstrong, which became the judgment in August 1984 and states:

Obviously, [L. Ron Hubbard] is and has been a very complex person, and that complexity is further reflected in his alter ego, the Church of Scientology. Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, this court is satisfied that LRH runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore’s Messengers.3 He has, of course, chosen to go into “seclusion,” but he maintains contact and control through the top messengers. Seclusion has its light and dark side too. It adds to his mystique, and yet shields him from accountability and subpoena or service of summons. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/283.php

Making it through a lot of fair game, threat and lawfare abuse, and a rare courageous and smart judge, made that judgment and the alter ego finding possible. So you can sense the betrayal in your false statement that Flynn had presented you with no evidence or reason to believe that Hubbard was in control of the Scientology cult’s activities.

I am positive that Flynn did not withhold that decision from you, because that would not serve his interests nor even be possible. The Breckenridge decision was widely known, and there was a wealth of witness testimony and documentation that Hubbard controlled Scientology that was readily available. I would conclude that if Flynn did not present you with evidence of Hubbard’s control, it was only because Flynn believed you already possessed such knowledge and evidence. I would assume, and I think Flynn knew, that as an investigative journalist you were staying abreast of the burgeoning body of evidence on what was a legal issue in your cases.

After this judgment, and before the March 4, 1985 affidavit, there was Bill Franks. And since then, there has been a progression of ex-Scientology staff who presented evidence, right up to his death, that Hubbard ran the cult through the SO, CMO, etc. He certainly ran it, through the GO and the SO, in the relevant period in which you were fair gamed before his death. Now David Miscavige runs the cult through the SO, RTC, OSA, etc. He is Scientology’s managing agent, and it could be highly professionally irresponsible to not deal with him, subpoena him and sue him as managing agent in cases where his managing agentness is relevant.

I do not know all the cases or places where the Scientologists used your March 4, 1985 affidavits. Obviously they sent out a press release on March 21, which apparently included the one affidavit. UPI received the release and posted its own story: http://www.skeptictank.org/pcsetup.htm

The Clearwater Sun ran a story on March 26, stating that the Scientologists filed your affidavit in US District Court in LA in the defamation case against Flynn.

The Scientologists filed three of your affidavits in the US District Court Scientology v. Elmira case in support of a motion to block Hubbard’s deposition.  http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/related/5171.php. I hope you can now appreciate the irony of your affidavit being used there to refute the testimony of the very people who actually had the evidence of Hubbard’s control that you say your attorney didn’t present to you: Laurel Sullivan, Kima Douglas, Bill Franks and me, plus John Nelson and Dede Reisdorf for good measure.

Some of your affidavits were also filed in the Scientologists’ case against me in LA Superior Court. I don’t have all these documents, but I will continue to try to obtain them. Your affidavits and a false sworn statement from La Venda Dukoff (Van Schaick) another Flynn ex-client, were used in my case to support a motion to initiate an investigation of Flynn and me for violations the LA Court’s TRO and preliminary injunction.

I wrote a declaration dated August 2, 1986 in opposition to that motion, and stated:

2. Although I have never met LaVenda Dukoff and have only spoken to her on the one occasion she is refering to at paragraph 19 of her affidavit of June 9, 1986, I have known about her and her involvement and litigation with the organization for several years. I had written a couple of affidavits for her on issues about which I had factual knowledge which arose in her litigation. Ms. Dukoff’s case had settled before I started working for Michael Flynn in September 1985, so her name rarely came up in office conversations. The main impression I formed about her up to the time of her call was that she was a victim of Scientology and unstable. I became aware last fall, when the organization filed the original motion to initiate an  investigation, of its claim, which it based on one of the many affidavits Paulette Cooper signed for it on March 4, 1985, that in the fall of 1982 Ms. Dukoff had telephoned Ms. Cooper and said “Mike (Flynn) showed me the Armstrong documents that were under seal.” I was aware of the organization’s use of its victims and purchased false testimony in its operations (see declarations of Paulette Cooper, Joseph Flanagan, and Michael Flynn of September 30, 1985 re Ala Fadili Al Tamimi and other paid criminals) and I speculated when I saw the organization’s motion to initiate an investigation that Ms. Dukoff might herself be involved in a Scientology operation. I was, therefore, very alert and very careful when she announced herself on the telephone around the beginning of June. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/850.php

Flynn also wrote a declaration dated July 31, 1986, in which he stated:

17) One Saturday afternoon in June 1986 I received call from Gerry Armstrong, who was working as a paralegal in our office. Mr. Armstrong told me that LaVenda had called and claimed she had Armstrong documents which she was going to expose to the press. LaVenda had left a number and I called her back. She repeated the threats she had made to Mr. Armstrong to me. I told her that the allegations were false, that she never received any Armstrong documents from me under improper circumstances. I told her I suspected the Scientologists had put her up to this and then I told her that I assumed she was being paid for making up these false stories. Indeed, the similarity between the false tales LaVenda was manufacturing and the perjurious claims made by Paulette Cooper in the affadavits Scientology purchased from Cooper made it plain that no mere coincidence was involved. I told LaVenda that she could say whatever she wanted and file whatever she felt she had to file. I also let her know, however, that if I discovered that she had been paid for perjury, I would notify the appropriate law enforcement agencies. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/843.php

On August 18, 1986, Judge Breckenridge issued an order regarding the Scientologists’ motion to initiate an investigation:

The Motion to initiate an investigation is denied.

The contentions made by the Church are without merit. the primary purpose of such an investigation presumably would be to initiate contempt proceedings should there prove to be any violations of the Court’s sealing orders. Bearing in mind the burden of proof in a contempt prosecution and the one year statute of limitations, except as to continuing violations, all that has been presented basically is a conflict between the declarations submitted by both sides concerning events that happened in the past. Cross-defendant relies heavily upon declarations by Ms. Cooper and Mrs. Dukoff. Both of these persons have severe credibility problems. Mr. Flynn and others have submitted contrary declarations. The Court sees no reason to believe either Ms. Cooper or Mrs. Dukoff over the contrary declarations, and is not satisfied by even a preponderance of the evidence that there has been a violation of the sealing order.

Further, the Court believes that considering the fact that the trial is scheduled to begin in January, the attention and efforts of the parties should be directed towards preparing themselves for trial. The proposed investigation would only divert the parties from what should be done between now and January, and inevitably prolong and make more costly what has already been a time consuming and expensive process. In addition, such would inevitably impinge upon the Court’s limited resources and ability to deal with other proper court business, and simply be an exercise in futility. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/823.php

The same cult attorney John G. Peterson, who used LaVenda’s and your sworn statements in my case to try to get Judge Breckenridge to investigate my attorney and me, had in 1984 used other known false sworn statements to try to get the judge to act against us. The judge’s comments are very pointed, as his August 18, 1986 minute order is.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/818.php

So the Scientologists wanted to use your false affidavit or affidavits, apparently executed after your settlement, to subject Flynn and me to a bogus court investigation, plus delay my upcoming trial, make the process more time-consuming, and subvert the bit of justice then available. Judge Breckenridge’s minute order that references you is very important in the Scientology v. Armstrong war.

Stewart Lamont wrote about your affidavit in Religion, Inc., which was published in 1986:

PAULETTE COOPER, as we saw in Chapter 4, was up there among the chief enemies of Scientology and was high in the damages stakes with a suit for $55 million when Flynn became her attorney.  In 1982 she participated as one of his star witnesses in the Clearwater hearings (at which the Church of Scientology declined to testify since it could only put its case at the conclusion). Flynn, she now says, persuaded her that she should name Hubbard in her suit since he would not appear and therefore she would win by default or because the Church of Scientology would pay up rather than produce Hubbard. But in a dramatic reconciliation with its old enemy in 1985 the Church of Scientology proudly announced that it had settled all cases for an against Ms Cooper and brandished an affidavit in which she says Flynn misled her into thinking Hubbard was still in charge of the Church of Scientology and had used her in a strategic campaign. In the elaborate game of bluff and counter-bluff, accusation and recusal, perhaps nothing should surprise the observer of  Scientology.  It would be nice to think this was a story of reconciliation, a truly religious story with a happy ending, but judging by the tactics adopted by the Church of Scientology to discredit Ms. Cooper, I am inclined to think it is more likely the case of a psychologically battered woman throwing her towel into the ring. Religion Inc. pp 142-3

In or about 1993, the Scientologists included this statement in the submission to the IRS on which the cult’s tax exemption, and religious basis, was granted:

One of Flynn’s clients, Paulette Cooper, graphically described in an affidavit how Flynn detailed to her his strategy to “quickly and easily win” cases by “conducting an attack against Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard” by naming him as a defendant in her pending lawsuits. Flynn specifically told Cooper that he believed that “Hubbard would never appear” in those suits because “by approximately 1979, Mr. Hubbard had severed his ties with the Church.” Flynn boasted that such a ploy would result in quick money judgments because the litigation could be “quickly terminated, either by obtaining a default judgment against Mr. Hubbard,” or by forcing  “settle[ment] in order to protect Mr. Hubbard.” Cooper further affirmed that Flynn filed sworn statements by Cooper in her cases alleging Mr. Hubbard’s control when Cooper lacked any evidence whatsoever of the claim, “solely for strategic reasons in pursuit of default judgment.”
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/irs/csi-prod-1993-11-04-152077-152094.html

So that March 4, 1985 affidavit has been used to attack people courageous enough to tell the truth about Hubbard, to black PR the attorney standing up for them in the legal arena, and to defraud the US Government and every US citizen. The affidavit helped the Scientologists obtain what amounts to a license from the US Federal Government to victimize Scientologists and persecute genuinely decent human beings who oppose the victimization.

Finally, although Mark Rathbun still serves David Miscavige’s command intention toward wog fair game enemies, he gives a lot away in his Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior published last year about Hubbard’s control of Scientology and even Hubbard’s issuance of strategy orders into ongoing litigations. E.g.,

Hubbard outlined our strategy for All Clear as follows. First, we were to get Hubbard extracted from the suits. We were to make a case, by affidavits and documentation, that Hubbard did not run the church and was by no means its managing agent. (p.158)

Breckenridge’s Armstrong case decision, bolstered by a dozen declarations by former Hubbard messengers and aides, made the allegation of Hubbard’s “managing agent” status virtually uncontestable. Miscavige and Broeker were clearly established as the last links to Hubbard, but they could not provide countering declarations because it would subject them to depositions — which would lead Hubbard’s enemies directly to him. (p. 256)

Flynn’s allegation concerning Hubbard’s control were accurate, and the strategy of naming Hubbard in the cult’s cases and serving him with summonses and subpoenas as managing agent was prudent and based on evidence and reason.

I ask that you correct the record. I’m sure that because of its importance, you can’t lawfully be prohibited by some contract, but I am not a lawyer.

The Scientologists’ engineering of betrayals and false statements as solutions to problems are issues coming into focus because of the depth of the data base. These are actually acts in an ongoing criminal conspiracy against rights; in your case the right to be free to tell the truth.

I don’t believe that Rathbun mentions using your affidavits in his Memoirs. In fact, I believe he deliberately avoids mentioning any of the many betrayals he or his agents engineered. Too hot a topic to handle.

You are a heroic victim of fair game to everyone. You will not be diminished in anyone’s eyes if you now correct the record.

If you could write a declaration stating the details, including the conditions that led you to sign these false statements, I think it would soothe a lot of hurt.

I have written declarations about the conditions at the time of the Scientologists’ “settlement” with me and what I went through to sign their documents and since I signed. I’ve spoken and written to correct the record and do my part to end the injustices the Scientologists’ “legal” documents are perpetrating.

I think an end can be put to these practices, and your example could be very helpful.

Thanks.

by

SCHUMCO’s Defense Tech

Rathbun does use the Shaggy Defense – “a strategy of flatly denying guilt and refusing to engage with the evidence against you, no matter how overwhelming.”

Rathbun uses pretty well all the defenses out of Fe Lon Hubbard’s psycho-playbook. I think Hubbard stated the all-time classic Shaggy in HCO PL January 31, 1983, “The Reason for Orgs.”

The evidence against him, that he had been lying to and conning Scientologists and wogs alike for decades by then, was overwhelming. A mass of evidence, from his own personal archive and much of it in his own handwriting, was then sitting in the Clerk’s Office in the LA Superior Court, the subject of the Scientology v. Armstrong case.

Three days after writing (or dating) “The Reason for Orgs,” Hubbard wrote (or dated) this letter to the LA Superior Court: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/1726.php

What Hubbard wanted was the evidence of his lying hidden or destroyed. He wanted warrior Rathbun and his troops to destroy the people who told the truth about his lying, and destroy anyone else who came to their rescue, such as Mike Flynn.

More than the Shaggy Defense, however, Rathbun employs the Great Warrior Defense, in his book, and out of his book: “You did lots of things, but they were necessary, in fact laudable, because the enemies (the APA, the AMA, the DOJ, the IRS, FAMCO) were so evil and threatened so great a man with so great a cause.”

The Great Warrior Defense is a variation of the Robin Hood Defense: “Sure you committed crimes, but they were against the suppressive Sheriff of Famcoham and his illicit campaign to destroy religion, so you’re actually a hero.”

The Great Warrior Defense is the same justification Rathbun used during all his years inside the cult when he was committing the criminal acts he, being still the Great Warrior, now still defends.

Rathbun claims for Hubbard the same Great Warrior defense throughout Memoirs. Hubbard instituted the SP doctrine and the fair game the policy because of all the evil entities arrayed against him, preventing him and his tech from being accepted — the US Navy, the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover and his boys, the AMA, the APA, the IRS, the DOJ, the CIA, Interpol, vested interests, communists, monopolies, and FAMCO.

What, to not pay admission? Those bastards!

Most importantly, Rathbun did all he did, including crimes against the SP class, in service of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard and David Miscavige, the originators, purveyors and enforcers of Command Intention. Call it SCHUMCO ®

When you support one corner of the SCHUMCO triangle, you support all corners. When you increase one corner of the SCHUMCO triangle, you increase the whole triangle. When you gain acceptance for one corner of the SCHUMCO triangle, you gain acceptance for all of SCHUMCO.

In that Rathbun continues to use the same defenses for the same antisocial or criminal actions as he used to justify those actions during earlier periods in SCHUMCO’s service, it can be assumed that he is still in service of SCHUMCO and that he will continue to commit and such justified actions according to SCHUMCO’s command intention.

If he saw his fair game actions against SCHUMCO’s “enemies” as justified and laudable in the 1980’s, 1990’s and 2000’s, and if he sees these fair game actions as justified and laudable in 2014, it can be expected that he would continue those actions, to, among other reasons, generate the appearance of his sincere belief in their laudability.

In addition to other benefits from his service to SCHUMCO, Rathbun also profits personally by selling his black PR of SCHUMCO’s avowed “enemies” as his Memoirs. Pretty schummy.