Legal

I, Gerry Armstrong, declare:

1. I am over the age of eighteen and a citizen of Canada. I have personal knowledge of the matter set forth herein and, if called upon to do so, could and would competently testify thereto.
2. At this time, I am alive.

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of God and all his countries, that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed by my own hand this 16th day of December 2018, at Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada.

[Signed]

Gerry Armstrong

Notes

This document in PDF format.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. First hint of the defamatory materials
3. My background
4. Dr. Beverley
5. The 2015 Tyndale Seminar
6. More background
7. Tyndale cancels
8. Venue shifts to the Sheraton
9. Beverley posts about meeting Smith and Felske
10. First glance at the defamatory materials
11. Receipt of the defamatory materials
    1. The Scientologists say I’m a notorious liar
    2. The Scientologists say I’m Atack’s primary source for false claims
    3. The Scientologists say I have a campaign
    4. The Scientologists say I’m a former clerk and stole Hubbard’s papers
    5. The Scientologists say I claim to see things never there
    6. The Scientologists say my credibility is at issue
    7. The Scientologists say they settled theft litigation, and I generated false media and fomented groundless litigation
    8. The Scientologists say settlement provision was to cease harassing campaign
    9. The Scientologists say investigation was police-sanctioned
    10. The Scientologists say I thought their agents were accomplices
    11. The Scientologists say aiding their adverse litigants, providing interviews and addressing conventions are harassing actions
    12. The Scientologists say there are monetary damages, fines and jail sentences against me
    13. The Scientologists say they have an injunction I have violated, huge fees and costs awards, contempt of court citations, a fine and jail time against me
    14. The Scientologists say I posted a letter to Saddam
    15. The Scientologists say the Saddam letter and a dream illustrate my mental state
    16. The Scientologists say I’m out of touch with reality, demonstrated by having myself photographed naked in a newspaper
    17. The Scientologists say they have documents
    18. The Scientologists say a 1997 Italian Supreme Court decision identifies Atack and me as not credible witnesses who made inflammatory and scurrilous allegations that were dismissed
12. Other people targeted by the black PR pack
13. Legal context for defamation claim
14. Notice of libel
15. Hill v. Scientology

Introduction

This is an explanation and analysis from my perspective of defamatory and threatening statements about me in materials distributed by Church of Scientology of Toronto, Ontario and Canada representatives Earl Smith and Patricia Felske. It has been established that Smith and Felske handed a set, or pack, of these materials to Dr. James A. Beverley during a meeting in the Pickle Barrel Restaurant on Leslie Street in Toronto on June 16, 2015. Dr. Beverley is a Professor of Christian Thought and Ethics at Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto. The defamatory statements about me are in a document entitled, “A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack,” which is one of five documents in the pack.

It is obvious from reading these materials that Scientologists other than Smith and Felske created them, and also disseminated them at other times to other people. The materials, which comprise what Scientologists refer to as a “pack of black propaganda,” a “pack of black PR,” or a “dead agent pack,” are available at: gerryarmstrong.ca/…/Toronto-Scientology-Black-PR-2015-06-26.pdf

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First hint of the defamatory materials

I learned on June 18 of Beverley’s meeting with Smith and Felske from a post by “TorontoANON2” to the Internet forum “Why We Protest” (“WWP”). The post included a photo of the three of them, and stated:

I was at the Pickle Barrel in Toronto yesterday and while I was having lunch I noticed a female with white hair with two other men. Well what do you know two OSA minions, Pat Felske and Earl Smith ,and James Beverly were having lunch. I couldn’t hear everything as I didn’t want to get seen (I was concerned they would recognized me when I picked them at Yonge Street). Beverly was passing information to OSA about the upcoming conference. OSA fed James Beverly with documents to which he will specifically report back to his people he got from OSA in order to draw away any suspicions about him if they were seen together. Beverly told OSA that he will give them the footage of the conference. It seems that Beverly is working for OSA after all. See pic. ¹

I do not know who TorontoANON2 is.

“OSA” is the Scientology organization’s “Office of Special Affairs,” which contains the functions and personnel that deal with certain, key wog publics and agencies. In their scripture and day-to-day communications, the Scientologists call us “wogs,” a derogatory term referring to “Homo sapiens” or “human being,” and sometimes used to mean “nigger.” The Scientologists call our civilization, where we live, the “wog world.” The Scientologists denigrate “wog justice,” but use and pervert it to the extent allowed by law and beyond. OSA’s core functions are Public Relations, Legal and Intelligence.

There is considerable information online supporting TorontoANON2’s identification of Felske and Smith as OSA personnel or agents. Felske has been the Toronto Director of Special Affairs (DSA), which is the local head of OSA, plus official spokesperson, and Smith has been “President” and spokesperson, which are all OSA functions. Regardless, in their meeting with Beverely, they were authorized and instructed Scientology corporation representatives.

“OSA” has acquired a reputation for aggressing, overtly and covertly, legally and extralegally, but always destructively, against persons Scientology leaders declare “enemies.” To control, bully, threaten or destroy their enemies, the leaders use organization units and personnel beyond OSA, plus collaborating wog agents such as attorneys and private investigators. In their scriptures and practices, the Scientologists label and classify such enemy individuals as “Suppressive Persons” or “SPs,” and organizations or entities that the leaders want targeted, “Suppressive Groups.”

In practical terms and in fact, SPs comprise the class of citizens who stand up, speak out and tell the truth about Scientology, its inventor L. Ron Hubbard, and Scientologists. SPs are a religious class created in religious scripture and populated by persons the ecclesiastical hierarchy declared “Suppressive.” The criterion for such declaration is the commission of “High Crimes” or “Suppressive Acts,” which are statements or actions considered ecclesiastic anathema. For a time, Hubbard euphemized what was to be done to SPs—organized antisocial and criminal acts against their rights and persons — as “fair game,” meaning that attacking and pursuing such Suppressives, or truth-tellers, was legitimate, indeed ethical, commendable and necessary. Hubbard ordered that the term “fair game” stop being used because “it causes bad public relations,” but the antisocial, criminal treatment of SPs was to continue.

The fact is that at no time were the Scientologists’ criminal conspiracies and actions against citizens and the SP class legitimate, or defensible by law, human rights charters or human morality. It is understandable that Hubbard would be threatened by people who told the truth about him and his religious cult, and would target them for destruction, because, until he died, he told lies and ordered and committed fraud on a massive scale, and ordered countless crimes, torts or other antisocial acts against persons, groups and citizen classes. The Scientologists have deceived and defrauded people, and committed the crimes and evils Hubbard intended, as long as there has been Scientology. Thus there is a plethora of unpleasant truths about Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists for SPs to communicate. This is not the SPs’ fault.

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My background

I was a Scientologist for several years. The Scientologists declared me an SP in 1982, and have fair gamed me ever since. I have written and spoken publicly about my life and history with Hubbard, Scientology and the Scientologists, and have testified for many days in Scientology-related legal proceedings. I have three web sites that contain documents and information necessary to understand my legal and other relationships with the Scientologists: gerryarmstrong.org, gerryarmstrong.ca and armstrong-op.gerryarmstrong.ca

My wife Caroline Letkeman is, like me, an Exscientologist and a declared and fair gamed SP. Since leaving Scientology, she has researched and written about the psychological and social effects and dangers of that cultic system, and she has her own site: carolineletkeman.org

In part because of being declared SPs, and the Scientologists’ longtime enemy targets and fair game, we created a site for the Suppressive Person Defense League (SPDL) dedicated to the defense of Scientology’s victims, who include importantly the SP class. suppressiveperson.org We are both Canadian citizens, residing in Chilliwack, BC.

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Dr. Beverley

Dr. Beverley first contacted me in 2004 by phone. In 2007, at his request, I spoke by phone for about an hour to a class of his students at Tyndale University about my experiences and knowledge relating to Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists. In May, 2011 he traveled to Chilliwack, and I spent several hours with him discussing my experiences and knowledge. We stayed in touch, sometimes he would call to get my information or opinion on something, and he sent me a copy of his book Nelson’s Illustrated Guide to Religions, which contains a “Scientology” section.

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The 2015 Tyndale Seminar

In November 2014, Jon Atack, a UK citizen and Exscientologist longtime SP like me, emailed me to announce a plan he had with Beverley to put on a week-long seminar at Tyndale about Scientology for theology students. Atack and I had been friends since 1984, and I had participated with him in various ways in exposing and opposing Scientologists’ lying and aggression. He wrote that Beverley had permission to go ahead at Tyndale in June 2015, and invited me to participate in the seminar. Atack named some other people that I knew, whom he said he had also invited or was thinking of inviting to speak. I emailed him back, thanked him for considering me, and asked him to ask me again as the time drew nearer and seminar plans firmed up.

In March this year, Beverley called and spoke with me about the course he planned to teach at Tyndale, which would include presentations by people who are knowledgeable about Scientology, etc. and are willing to talk. He listed a number of such people, and asked if I could say if he had missed any I thought he should invite. We spoke two or three more times about the course format, his funding of the participants’ travel and lodging costs, and other related matters.

On April 10, Atack emailed me more details about the seminar, saying that he wanted to have two presentations a day, with a panel discussion in the evening, and the main audience would be theology students. He included in his email an invitation he was just then sending out:

An Invitation from Jon Atack

From June 22 through 26^th Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto will host a course and conference on Scientology, planned and directed by Professor James Beverley and me. Jim and I have been friends for four years and have worked toward this event for some time. Our course and conference promises to be the most in-depth and wide-ranging course or conference ever held on Scientology.

We will cover all aspects of the cult with the help of some of the leading experts – former members, academics and investigative journalists. It will be the first time that the international influence of the cult has been properly scrutinised. Sessions will consist of presentations by the various participants, interviews with luminaries, question and answer sessions and panel discussions. We will bring together activists from around the globe.

We are about to make the course and conference public, and it would be wonderful if we could count on your presence (whether in person or by skype), so that we can add your name to the bill. Here are some key aspects of the course/conference:

We already have confirmation or serious interest in participation from celebrated biographer Russell Miller, Arnaud Palisson, PhD (criminologist and advisor to the French government), Andreas Hedal-Lund (creator of Operation Clambake at www.xenu.net), Tory Christman, Tony Ortega, Professor Alexander Dvorkin, from Russia, Gerry Armstrong, FACTNet’s David Pike, Larry Anderson, Chuck Beatty, Nancy Many, Jesse Prince and Hana Whitfield, among others.

The whole course/conference will be professionally filmed and edited and made available as a course for schools and universities around the world. Several companies are interested in creating a TV documentary out of the course/conference, because of the availability of so many luminaries in one place.

The course/conference will cover Hubbard’s true biography, the beliefs and practices of Scientology, fair game and the intelligence agency (GO and OSA), the RPF, Narconon, finance and the IRS, the celebrity connection, Scientology under Miscavige, violence inside the cult and the exploitative techniques of hard-selling and auditing.

Tony Ortega will introduce his new book The Unbreakable Miss Lovely (on Paulette Cooper and Scientology’s intelligence agency).

Steve Hassan will work with me to deconstruct the hypnotic techniques of Scientology ‘processing’, hard-selling and indoctrination.

We are inviting Professor Stephen Kent to talk about his work on the RPF and the Crowleyite sex magick rituals performed by Hubbard, and the profound influence of Crowley’s teachings on Scientology.

We are also inviting many other ex-members to participate.

We will hear reports from experts on the situation of Scientology in France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, Greece, Australia, Ireland, the UK and other countries. We will also have presentations and panel participation from leading former members, scholars and media investigators.

We will be finalizing our program, speakers and participants very soon. Then we will announce details on location, registration, housing and ticket costs.  Students from Tyndale Seminary will be taking in the event through audit or course credit. The course will include the conference from June 22-26.

If you feel that there is anyone else who should be invited, please contact us.

Professor Beverley and I extend an invitation for you to join us, whether in person or on skype. Please respond immediately.

kind regards, Jon Atack
[address]

Jim Beverley
[address]

It is reasonable to assume that the Scientologists knew about the course/conference, and knew about my at least serious interest in participating, no later than April 10, 2015.

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More background

The “GO,” the “Guardian’s Office,” was Scientology’s department that preceded and was renamed the “Office of Special Affairs,” “OSA,” in 1983. The FBI raided the GO’s Intelligence Bureaus in Washington, DC and Los Angeles, CA in 1977, and eleven GO intelligence personnel, including Hubbard’s wife Mary Sue were convicted of crimes relating to espionage activities against the US and sent to Federal Prison. The FBI’s raids also brought to light a number of the Scientologists’ myriad criminal conspiracies against private organizations and individuals. Although Hubbard directed the GO and was ultimately responsible for these crimes, he remained an unindicted coconspirator because the convicted Scientologists refused to implicate him, and scapegoated themselves.

The “RPF,” the “Rehabilitation Project Force,” is Scientology’s system of penal and reprogramming camps, which are operated by the “Sea Organization,” or “Sea Org” or “SO.” The Sea Org, which has a military structure and naval ranks and ratings, is a subcult of Scientologists used for controlling and managing Scientology, including OSA, around the world. I was in the Sea Org for almost eleven years, attained a rank of “Ensign,” and was twice assigned by Hubbard to the RPF for a total of twenty-five months.

“Narconon” is a Scientology “feeder group” that operates as a “drug rehabilitation” program and feeds people with or without drug problems into the cult. Narconon also provides the Scientologists with certain obvious PR benefits.

“Miscavige” is David Miscavige, Scientology’s current head, who succeeded Hubbard after he died in 1986. Miscavige’s official position is “Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology Center,” “RTC,” a corporation which is described as the “holder of Scientology and Dianetics trademarks.” Miscavige is also head of the SO, which is an unincorporated entity.

“Crowley” is Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), famous occultist, founder of the religion of Thelema, and Hubbard’s source for much of his Scientology religion.

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I confirm for the course/conference

I continued to discuss the course/conference with Beverley, and on April 25, I emailed him and Atack and confirmed my participation and certain conditions we had agreed on.

Dear Jim and Jon:

I can now confirm for the conference.

This is what Jim and I agreed to in our last communication:

The conference will pay my airfare, and provide lodging and meals at Tyndale.

I will fly from Vancouver to Toronto on Sunday, June 21 and leave on Saturday, June 27, unless there is a desire for me to stay a day longer.

You wish me to tell my story, and will schedule a two hour period of time for this purpose. You said that there would be a break between two one-hour periods.

After the conference, you will provide me with a copy of the recordings of my complete presentation.

It will be possible for me to attend all presentations (unless, of course, there are multiple presentations at the same time).

I have agreed to sign a release regarding my participation in the conference. You said the film maker will be preparing releases, or otherwise taking care of the legal niceties.

This is my information for airline reservations, etc.:

Name: Gerald David Armstrong
DOB: October 18, 1946
POB: Chilliwack, BC, Canada
ID: Canada passport No. [ ]
Issued: [ ]
Valid Until: : [ ]
Address:     2-46298 Yale Road
Chilliwack, BC V2P 2P6
Tel: 604-703-1373
Email: gerry@gerryarmstrong.org

It is my understanding that Jim’s executive secretary [Bekka] will be in touch for arranging flights, etc.

I live a local bus ride, a 100 KM bus ride, and two train rides from the Vancouver airport, so have to do my traveling while the buses and trains are running. I should arrive in Toronto at a time that makes airport pickup sensible. There are morning flights from Vancouver that will work, and I look forward to hearing from [Bekka], or the person making flight arrangements.

Here’s to a successful venture.

Gerry

Also on April 25, blogger Tony Ortega posted an announcement:

Jon Atack announces a five-day Toronto conference on Scientology to take place in June

Jon Atack is the author of A Piece of Blue Sky, one of the very best books on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. He has a new edition of the book for sale, and for more than a year on Saturdays he helped us sift through the legends, myths, and contested facts about Scientology that tend to get hashed and rehashed in books, articles, and especially on the Internet. He was kind enough to send us a new post.

Actually, Jon, it’s not a new post you’ve sent us but an announcement and an invitation?

JON: That’s right. From June 22 through 26th, Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto will host a course and conference on Scientology, planned and directed by Professor James Beverley and me. Jim and I have been friends for four years and have worked toward this event for some time. Our course and conference promises to be the most in-depth and wide-ranging course or conference ever held on Scientology. I intend to withdraw from Scientology related work after this event.

We will cover all aspects of the cult with the help of some of the leading experts — former members, academics and investigative journalists. It will be the first time that the global influence of the cult has been properly scrutinised. Sessions will consist of presentations by the various participants, interviews with luminaries, videos, question and answer sessions and panel discussions. We will bring together activists from around the globe.

The following stars of the counter-Scientology firmament have already confirmed that they will be available in person, by Skype or on video:

Paulette Cooper, author of The Scandal of Scientology and target of the infamous Operation Freakout.

Steven Hassan, the best known cult expert in the world, author of three books, including the best-selling Combating Cult Mind Control.

Tony Ortega, proprietor of the Underground Bunker, to speak about his remarkable new book The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.

Russell Miller, eminent biographer of L. Ron Hubbard and author of Bare-Faced Messiah.

Jesse Prince, former senior Sea Org member and David Miscavige’s auditor, with revelations from his forthcoming book.

Hana Whitfield, founding member of the Sea Org, captain of the Mission Into Time and former leading exit counsellor.

Ursula Caberta, former Hamburg Minister and driving force behind German legislation concerning Scientology.

Nancy Many, author of My Billion Year Contract, and subject of an episode of Dangerous Persuasions (which will be shown at the seminar).

Andreas Heldal-Lund, creator of xenu.net, a/k/a Operation Clambake.

Arnaud Pallison, criminologist, author and advisor to the French courts.

Tory Christman, former OSA agent (and brilliant speaker).

Professor Alexander Dvorkin, for 21 years head of a counter-cult group in eastern Europe, and the main target for Scientology harassment in Russia.

Karin Spaink, journalist and long term Scientology critic, who won a long legal battle against the cult’s attempt to take down her website.

David Pike, head of FACTNet.

Lawrence Wollersheim, who was paid a nine million dollar judgement by Scientology.

Chuck Beatty, former Sea Org member, privy to Hubbard ‘advices.’

David Barrett, PhD, sociologist and author of several books about ‘new religious movements.’

John Duignan, author of The Complex.

Jonny Jacobsen, journalist, who has reported on Scientology for over two decades. Host of Infinite Complacency.

Chris Shelton, former member and advocate of critical thinking.

Nora Crest, second generation member and Celebrity Center staffer.

Pete Griffiths, leading activist from Ireland and organizer of Flag Down.

Marta Gorna, Polish activist.

Professor Martin Poulter, expert on belief systems.

Steve Cannane, ABC TV presenter, author of a forthcoming history of Scientology in Australia.

The entire conference will be professionally filmed and edited, and made available to schools and universities around the world. Several companies are interested in creating a TV documentary at the conference, because of the availability of so many luminaries in one place.

The conference will cover Hubbard’s true biography, the beliefs and practices of Scientology, fair game and the intelligence agency (GO and OSA), the RPF, Narconon, finance and the IRS, the celebrity connection, Scientology under Miscavige, violence inside the cult and the exploitative techniques of hard-selling and auditing.

Other noteworthy participants have yet to confirm.

Tickets for the five day seminar and conference are priced at $120 per day or $500 for the five days. There will be concessions for those unable to afford this price. Please apply to the organizers at gettingclear2015@gmail.com

UPDATE: Register this week for $75 per day or $350 for the five days.

Be there, or be square!

— Jon Atack

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Tyndale cancels

Some days after the course/conference was announced, I learned that it would not be held at Tyndale University. I spoke to Beverley, who said that the course/conference would be in a Toronto hotel, which had not been selected. Beverley has not explained to me why Tyndale canceled the permission he apparently had to go ahead with the course/seminar, or why it was otherwise not possible to hold it at the university. In a June 11 email, Atack wrote that Tyndale had withdrawn its facilities the day after he and Beverley had announced, which had been on April 25. Atack said that by then he and Beverley had committed, but did not explain what the commitment was or to whom.

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Venue shifts to the Sheraton

On or about May 22, I discovered on the seminar web site that it would be at the Sheraton Toronto Airport Hotel & Conference Centre, and a schedule had been posted that listed me as presenting.

Getting Clear SCHEDULE

The Toronto seminar on Scientology

Hosted by Jon Atack and Professor James Beverley
Sheraton Toronto Airport Hotel & Conference Centre, from 22-26 June.²

There will be morning, afternoon and evening sessions over the five days of the seminar. The evening sessions, unless otherwise indicated, will include panel discussions, open to questions from the audience, as well as special presentations by key individuals.

This is an outline of the programme that we hope to present, certain details may be modified.

Monday 22 June

Morning sessions:

Why Me? Jon Atack’s path from raw recruit to trained auditor and OT V, his departure from Scientology and his work since.

Hubbard’s biography – Jon with Gerry Armstrong and a video from Hubbard’s biographer Russell Miller. We will examine Hubbard’s significant claims: that he was a ‘bloodbrother’ of the Pikuni people; that he broke broncos as an infant; his alleged study with gurus in Tibet, India, China and Mongolia; the Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition; his frequent claims to be a ‘nuclear physicist’ and to have made the first mineralogical survey of Puerto Rico; the Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition; Hubbard’s claims to have been a wounded and decorated war hero and to have worked in Navy Intelligence; Hubbard’s involvement with Aleister Crowley’s Sex Magick; Hubbard’s claims to virtuosity as a hypnotist.

Afternoon sessions:

the history of the cult – Jon Atack on the origins of the cult – Whatever happened to the first 280 Clears, the research pool upon which Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health was based? The withdrawal of Hubbard’s original supporters: publisher Art Ceppos, editor John Campbell, and Dr Joseph Winter; the Shrine Auditorium Clear fiasco; Hubbard’s kidnap of his baby daughter, Alexis, and flight to Cuba; the Wichita Foundation; Hubbard’s loss of Dianetics and creation of ‘Scientology’ (largely based on Aleister Crowley’s ideas); St Hill; Government Inquiries; Heavy Ethics and the Sea Project – with Hana Whitfield, a founder member of the Sea Project;  the Mission into Time – with Hana (who will also talk about Hubbard’s temperament); the Sea Org in the Mediterranean, overboarding, the death of Susan Meister; the Rock Festival and the flight to the US; Hubbard in hiding; the Sea Org in the 70s, with Nancy Many, Chuck Beatty; the CMO take over with Jesse Prince

Evening sessions:

Nancy Many’s Brainwashed; Jesse, Hana, Nancy, Gerry, Q&A

Tuesday 23 June

Morning sessions:

the Guardian’s Office of Special Affairs – Jon Atack introduction – the first criminal activity (James Elliot, in Wichita, in 1952); The Scientologist: a Manual on the Dissemination of Material 1955; the creation of the Guardian’s Office and What is Greatness?; Nancy Many on Hubbard’s direction of the GO.

Tony Ortega on The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, with Miss Lovely herself, Paulette Cooper;  ‘dead-agenting’ and ‘fair game’: the tactics used to ruin critics. The 800-page Information Full Hat, used by the Guardian’s Office and re-issued in 1990, without a single deletion.

Afternoon sessions:

celebrities – Jon Atack introduction, including celebrities who left, such as Aldous Huxley, Gloria Swanson, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison and Nicole Kidman; policy on celebrities; Nora Crest, former staffer at Celebrity Center LA,  Carmen Llewelyn, Hollywood actor, about her experience at CC. The religion angle – how Scientology was transformed from a ‘science of mental health’ into a religion. With contributions from cult expert Christian Szurko, Professor Martin Poulter and Professor James Beverley.

Evening sessions:

Tory Christman, Nancy Many, Nora Crest, Carmen Llewelyn

Wednesday 24 June

Morning sessions:

Jon Atack with Steven Hassan – the hypnotic and social influence techniques of Scientology deconstructed. Demonstrations of training and auditing: Book One, TRs, Objectives, NED, Grades, Clearing Course/OT II; OT III; OT IV-VII; OT VIII ‘Antichrist’ – with Jesse Prince, senior ‘technical terminal’ when OT VIII was released.

Afternoon sessions:

second generation – Nora Crest; former Hamburg State Minister, Ursula Caberta, video on child abuse in Scientology. Jon Atack on problems particular to second generation members. Christian Szurko on counselling ex-members.

Scientology attitudes towards medical treatment – Tory Christman, who was ordered to stop taking epilepsy medication; Lawrence Wollersheim video on Scientology’s attack upon his mental health.

Evening sessions:

Jamie DeWolf will perform his show about his great-grandfather, Ron Hubbard
Gerry Armstrong presentation

Thursday 25 June

Morning sessions:

: the international scene – Professor Alexander Dvorkin on eastern Europe; Pete Griffiths on Ireland and the UK; Andreas Heldal-Lund on Scandinavia; Steve Cannane, author of a new book on the history of the cult in Australia; and Jonny Jacobsen, journalist and long-term Scientology expert based in Paris, on the European scene.

Afternoon sessions:

front groups, including Narconon and the health dangers of the Purification Rundown.

Evening sessions:

we hope to have video reports from Karin Spaink, in Holland; Marta Gorna, in Poland; Simonetta Po, in Italy; criminologist Arnaud Palison, who worked with the French courts; and a video from Lawrence Wollersheim about his successful litigation; Steve Cannane, Professor Dvorkin, Pete Griffiths, Q&A

Friday 26 June

Morning sessions:

recruiting and hard sell; the dissemination drill; the registrar sales course and Big League Sales.

Afternoon sessions:

recovery with Chris Shelton, Nan McLean; Jon Atack’s recommendation that members question the tenets in open discussion. Cult information and the internet – David Pike, of FACTNet, and Brian Collinge, message board moderator.³

On May 22, I emailed Atack and Beverley:

Dear Jim and Jon:

I picked up the schedule and the Sheraton venue info from the seminar site. Thanks.

My name is not mentioned on the participants page. I trust that will not be a problem — for making flight and hotel booking, etc. With your approval, I will now contact Max Rositsan and make arrangements.

Best regards.

Gerry

So at least by May 22, 2015, the public including the Scientologists would have notice of my expected presence and presenting at the Toronto seminar.

Over the next few weeks, I communicated a few times by email with Atack and Beverley about conference-related matters.

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Beverley posts about meeting Smith and Felske

In response to TorontoANON2’s post on WWP (quoted above) about Beverley’s June 16 meeting with Earl Smith and Pat Felske, and in response to other posts, Beverley made a series of posts on June 18 on WWP ⁴

I will be brief.

1. Jon Atack knew and approved that I was meeting with Earl and Pat.
2. Contrary to what is read into the photograph, the conversation was not friendly. Earl and Pat both attacked me and Jon for doing the conference, along with many others. The attacks on me were probably the worst I have ever received in terms of questioning my character and integrity, even worse than some of the attacks in this thread or on ESMB.
3. I am willing to let anyone see the film and told Earl and Pat I would let them see it. If they or anyone point out real errors in the film then I am open to correction. That is my policy on everything I write and say.
4. Earl and Pat gave me material against various speakers at the conference. I told them I would look at the material.
5. My work with Jon Atack on this conference and the list of people speaking should be proof enough of my being not in favor of Scientology.
6. It is disappointing to me that my meeting with Earl and Pat and picture of our lunch would be interpreted without getting my input first and giving me a chance to explain. It is sad that critics of Scientology attack me in the manner I would usually associate with OSA.
7. I am still thinking about Scientology’s status as a religion. Regardless of that issue, the fact that it might or might not be a religion should not stop constant critique of everything in it that is immoral, false, nasty, or criminal.

[…]

…a few further points

1. I do understand how suspicious my meeting with Pat and Earl looked and I understand how critics of Scientology are paranoid about my friendship with Gordon Melton. Both realities (the lunch meeting and my friendship with Gordon) are misunderstood in this thread. Yes, we are friends but I am far more critical of Scientology and new religions in general than Gordon. For the sake of reasoning, it would help if people watched how they use the “guilt by association” fallacy.
2. Anyone who knows my publication history and my speaking should know better than to picture me as some sort of apologetic dummy for new or world religions. I have spoken against and written against many new religions and world religions and have been an expert witness in court against various new religions. I have written a book against Jehovah’s Witnesses, a book against Mormonism, critique many new religions in my Nelson’s Illustrated Guide to Religions, and just wrote a new book against Islam. See www.gettingjesusright.com

My critiques of various new and world religions has led to me being threatened physically, legally and, of course, verbally in print, online and to my face. In one setting, I had security guards to protect me when I was threatened at a Mount Allison University lecture for my critique of Holocaust denial.

[…]

To Why We Protest readers,

I am Jim Beverley. I was at the lunch with the two Scientology leaders. They asked me to come to lunch so they thought it socially proper to pay for lunch. I thought it was reasonable to accept.

So, they bought my salad and a diet coke.

I have received no cash from Scientology, no free trips…I have received a few free books of their literature.
That’s about it in 37 years of studying and teaching about Scientology.

Jim

[…]

Karen de la Carriere misunderstood a couple of things related to me last November and she was concerned for about a day or two about me. I explained things to her in private and apologized for misunderstanding one thing her husband Jeffrey told me. We patched things up quickly and remain friends. I value her work and Jeffrey’s work immensely.

That long ESMB thread will show that concerns about me being pro-OSA died out quite quickly and the posts centered on debate about Scientology’s status as a religion. As people can see as the thread went on, I became more concerned about Scientology leaders, including Hubbard, using the religion issue as a cloak. That is one of the things I raised with Earl and Pat during our lunch.

[…]

Earl and Pat responded to my query about religion as a cloak by saying that quotes from Hubbard in this regard are taken out of context.

Their attack was not written but verbal and mainly centered on how terrible the conference is and how it is about hatred, bigotry, anti-religion, anti-Canadian, etc.

On June 18, I emailed Beverley and Atack:

Dear Jim:

I saw your post to WWP regarding your meeting with Pat Felske and Earl Smith.

I assume they gave you material on me. Will you please have it scanned and forwarded [ ] right away.

What happened with you regarding someone (could be OSA, pretending to be an anon, of course) interpreting your actions, without getting your input and giving you a chance to explain, is why I have asked about the part of your course following the conference. The conference participants are at a disadvantage if we do not get to hear or see what the Scientologists, or you for that matter, say about us after the conference.

I was frankly disgusted that academic David Barrett would meet with OSA operator Graeme Wilson, accept a bunch of black PR on me, and publish it, without informing me or even trying to contact me. As you know I am also disgusted by the dishonest, abominable anti-apostate doctrine your fellow academics promulgate.

The Scientologists know who I am and we are. They have a known policy, practice and long history of attacking the person, not the person’s facts or reason. If they are invited to speak to your students, then the people they will talk about should have the opportunity to respond; in fact it would be right to stream that part of the conference/course so that the opportunity to respond is immediate, same as the opportunity the Scientologists will have.

It is standard legal practice for the accused to be able to confront their accusers or at least confront what their accusers accuse them of.

I am glad this is surfacing now. I don’t think you can logically generalize about “critics” of Scientology, because the “critics” group contains some very dishonest, antisocial persons. For this reason, I have not been part of the critics for many years.

You can expect to be criticized and treated with suspicion because of your connection to Gordon Melton, probably including a financial connection, and to other academics who marginalize the Scientologists’ victims and do not address real issues such as the Suppressive Person doctrine. You would have to take a moral and public stand regarding apostates, the SP doctrine, and the Scientologists’ victims to really end the suspicion. You would, of course, then become a target of the Scientologists, their PIs, lawyers and their academic collaborators.

Gerry

Beverley did not send me scans/copies I requested of the material against conference speakers he had said Smith and Felske had given him. Nor did Beverley or Atack otherwise respond to this email.

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First glance at the defamatory statements

I flew to Toronto on June 21 and obtained a room that had been booked for me at the Sheraton Toronto Airport Hotel. That evening, I met Dr. Beverley in the hotel lounge and asked him to show me the materials Smith and Felske had given him. He took some pages out of a documents case and gave them to me, and let me know they were his only copy and not for me to keep. I looked quickly through the pages, which I estimated at the time were about ten, double-sided, and saw that I was named and there was a bunch of black PR on me.

“Black PR” or “black propaganda” is a Scientology scriptural term for calumnious facts or canards about someone, commonly or usually communicated causatively. Hubbard wrote, “Basically it is an intelligence technique.” He said it is for “covert use in destroying the repute of individuals and groups.” The term “black PR” is also used among Scientologists as a verb, meaning to subject someone to covert or overt slander or libel. The Scientologists bring to their black PR campaigns, intention, organization, creativity, money, force and persistence. The Scientologists hire wog collaborators, both visible and hidden, to generate, disseminate and leverage their black PR.

The Scientologists and their collaborators have black PRed me around the world ever since I left the Scientology cult and religion. Some of their black PR on me that I have so far discovered can be seen here: gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/
Hubbard wrote in scripture that Scientologists were to “degrade the image of the enemy to beast level” and head for “public opinion … in a frenzy of hate against the enemy.”⁵

The “enemy” Hubbard meant, and Scientologists understand, are wogs like me, who tell the truth about Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists. If, by degrading our images to beast level, the Scientologists can bring people or publics to hate us, the Scientologists can, as Hubbard ordered, just go all the way in and obliterate us. Consequently, there is a threat of physical aggression and threats on multiple channels that come with encountering, receiving or knowing about the Scientologists’ black PR. In this case, two Scientology leaders in Canada personally handed blatant libel to a Canadian Christian professor with whom I had a working relationship and who was then organizing a conference at which I had been asked to speak.

The technique seeks to bring a reputation so low that the person, company or nation is denied any rights whatever by “general agreement.” It is then possible to destroy the person, company or nation with a minor attack if the black propaganda itself has not already accomplished this. ⁶

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Receipt of the defamatory materials

I recognized some of the specific black PR smears in the materials Beverley gave me to read as attacks I had seen previously. I had never seen some of it before, however, and the whole set of materials was different from anything I had seen before. I handed the materials back to Beverley and asked him for a copy. The next day he gave me a copy of the document in the materials that concerned me. On the final night of my stay at the Sheraton, June 26, he gave me a copy of the other documents on other conference participants, which, along with the document attacking me specifically, comprised the pack of materials he said he received from Smith and Felske.

Beverley also said at that time that Smith and Felske had also black PRed me to him orally during their lunch meeting, and attacked him for his association with me and other SPs. So slander is an element in the Scientologists’ operation. Before I learned that Smith and Felske handed the black PR pack to Beverley and smeared me to him, I had never written or spoken about either of them. They cannot rationally claim that they are defaming me because I defamed them.

The subject black PR on me is in a document entitled “A Piece of Blue Sky by Jon Atack,” a seven page attack on Atack and me jointly in connection with that book. Atack published Blue Sky in 1990, and an updated edition in 2013. In the book, he used bits from my experiences and knowledge in my testimony and documentary evidence in my 1984 trial in Scientology v. Armstrong, Los Angeles Superior Court, no. C 420153. (Armstrong 1).⁷

The date of the last incident in the Scientologists’ black PR document is October 9, 2007, so this document had to have been created and published between then and the June 16, 2015 meeting with Beverley. The identifiable date of the most recently published document in the Toronto black PR pack is June 10, 2015, a “Statement of Church of Scientology International” from Karin Pouw black PRing Tony Ortega and his just-published book The Unbreakable Miss Lovely about Paulette Cooper. Ortega and Cooper would speak at the conference.

I spoke from the stage in four sessions on three different days during the conference. In the evening session on June 25, I read aloud certain paragraphs or allegations about me in the Scientologists’ black PR document, pointed out a number of their falsehoods, and commented about facts underlying some of the matters mentioned in the document. Although in what follows I only deal with statements that are specifically about me, it is expected that the Scientologists’ statements in their pack about other conference participants would be similarly calumnious and libelous. Obviously, association with disreputable or unsavory persons is an important function of the Scientologists’ black PR materials attacking any or all of us.

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The Scientologists say I’m a notorious liar

[Scientology] Atack’s “book” relied exclusively on “stories” dredged up from a handful of fellow apostates, particularly Gerald Armstrong, a notorious liar who boasted about fabricating documents regarding Scientology (see last section).

I say:

Atack’s book really is a book. If it relied exclusively on dredged-up stories, whether dredged up by apostates or not, there would be no reason to libel me as a notorious liar. That is because what is actually dredged up is the truth, facts or evidence; even if what is dredged up is unpleasant or obtained with considerable effort or from remote or obscured sources. Lies cannot be dredged up because they do not exist to be dredged up. Liars can of course lie that someone is dredging up something that is not being dredged up at all.

One of the most significant problems the Scientologists have with me is that I am not a notorious liar. They have postulated and prevaricated to make me a notorious liar, but, thank God, unsuccessfully. The Scientologists have no evidence that I am a notorious liar. Their postulates and prevarications evidence not evidence but malice.

If I really was a notorious liar, it is reasonable to assume that in the thirty-three years I have been talking about Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists, they would have taken legal action to stop me from lying. Because I am not a notorious liar, what I am doing here — some groundwork for a potential legal action to stop the Scientologists in Canada from lying about me, to get them to correct and repair their organized black propaganda campaign, to end their constant threat — is very reasonable. I am being especially prudent because the Scientologists are notorious litigants, and their attorneys notorious litigators.

What the Scientologists actually did is bully and bamboozle me into signing an unlawful contract that prohibits me, not from lying, but from telling the truth, about my religious experiences, knowledge, opinions and beliefs. Such a condition is not only unlawful but impossible. The Scientologists obtained an unlawful California Superior Court injunction prohibiting me, not from lying, but from telling such truth. And the Scientologists obtained a series of court orders jailing and fining me for violating that injunction, not for lying, but telling the truth. The Scientologists unlawfully prevented me from having a trial on the legal enforceability, indeed criminality, of their contractual conditions, because in such a trial I could have found a way to tell the truth to a jury, and the world.

In the judgment after the Armstrong 1 trial, the Court wrote about Hubbard:

The organization clearly is schizophrenic and paranoid, and this bizarre combination seems to be a reflection of its founder LRH. 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.⁸

The judgment also stated about me and the witnesses who testified for me:

As indicated by its factual findings, the court finds the Testimony of Gerald and Jocelyn Armstrong, Laurel Sullivan, Nancy Dincalcis, Edward Walters, Omar Garrison, Kima Douglas, and Howard Schomer to be credible, extremely persuasive, and the defense of privilege or justification established and corroborated by this evidence. Obviously, there are some discrepancies or variations in recollections, but these are the normal problems which arise from lapse of time, or from different people viewing matters or events from different perspectives. In all critical and important matters, their testimony was precise, accurate, and rang true. The picture painted by these former dedicated Scientologists, all of whom were intimately involved with LRH, or Mary Jane Hubbard, or of the Scientology Organization, is on the one hand pathetic, and on the other, outrageous. Each of these persons literally gave years of his or her respective life in support of a man, LRH, and his ideas. Each has manifested a waste and loss or frustration which is incapable of description. Each has broken with the movement for a variety of reasons, but at the same time, each is, still bound by the knowledge that the Church has in its possession his or her most inner thoughts and confessions, all recorded in “pre-clear (P.C.) folders” or other security files of the organization, and that the Church or its minions is fully capable of intimidation or other physical or psychological abuse if it suits their ends. The record is replete with evidence of such abuse.

I have testified over seventy days in trials or depositions in Scientology-related legal cases. In most of those days, I was questioned hostilely by the Scientologists’ clever, deceptive, aggressive and ruthless attorneys. It is clear to me that these attorneys sought through those interrogations to catch me in lies, to make me portrayable as a notorious liar, or even a liar at all. Thanks be to God, I have come through the Scientologists’ interrogations and their investigations, and they can only libel me as a notorious liar, because I will never be one.

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The Scientologists say I’m Atack’s primary source for false claims

[Scientology] False Allegations from Gerald Armstrong
The primary source of the above false claims of Jon Atack, was Gerald Armstrong. Armstrong was Atack’s source for claims about L. Ron Hubbard’s childhood, his education, his military service and his career as an author.

I say:

The Scientologists have not shown that the claims in Blue Sky they say are false are actually false.

I am not the primary source of any of the claims the Scientologists identify in their black PR document. I can state with absolute confidence that Hubbard himself is Atack’s primary source for the claims about himself in Blue Sky. I was a far more unimportant, much lower numbered source.

The Scientologists identify three claims from Blue Sky they aver are false, of which, they say, I am the primary source: “False Allegation about Greenfields School;” “False Allegation about L. Ron Hubbard’s Childhood;” and “False Allegation concerning Mr. Hubbard’s Asian travels.” Regarding Greenfields School, I have had nothing to do with this. I have never, to my recollection, even communicated about Greenfields School before I write this. I have never been in any way a primary source to Atack about Greenfields School, or a source of any denomination.

The Scientologists state in their black PR document about the “False Allegation about L. Ron Hubbard’s Childhood:”

This false statement comes from a UK Daily Mail article, written in December 1955 in which a reporter misquoted Mr. Hubbard.

Whether a Daily Mail reporter misquoted Hubbard I do not know. Certainly Hubbard was an outrageous liar, and easily could have lied to the poor reporter. The Scientologists’ assertion, however, that a Daily Mail reporter misquoting Hubbard was the source of the alleged false statement, must mean that I am not the source of that statement. In December 1955, I was nine years old, in Grade 4 at Chilliwack Elementary School.

Regarding the Scientologists’ “False Allegation concerning Mr. Hubbard’s Asian travels,” it is well known that oral testimony in the trial of the Scientologists’ lawsuit against me in Los Angeles in 1984 (Armstrong 1) included discussion of Hubbard’s Asia experiences and claimed Asia experiences. None of my testimony regarding these matters, however, has been identified to me as false, and, to my knowledge, the testimony of no other witness called by me in Armstrong 1 has been identified to me as false.

It is also well known that the Scientologists, through their own attorneys, introduced into evidence in Armstrong 1 Hubbard’s diaries and other writings from his Asia travels. These, along with other documents comprising the court record in this case, were lawfully copied and distributed by persons other than me. In a short or longer period of time, Atack obtained some or all of these documents and transcripts of court proceedings, and it is clear that he relied on some of them to some extent in the creation of Blue Sky. It is false, however, to claim that I am the primary source of whatever he wrote about Hubbard’s Asia travels, and libelous to claim that I am the primary source of what Atack wrote about those travels that might have been false.

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The Scientologists say I have a campaign

[Scientology] Truth:

Gerald Armstrong has spent nearly three decades campaigning against L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology.

I say:

The truth is that Hubbard when he was alive sought my silence, humiliation and destruction. The Scientologists and their collaborators have sought to silence, humiliate and destroy me for more than three decades, from before and after Hubbard’s death. Pursuant to their scriptures, programs and orders, they have waged war on me, and I have stood up, and fought back. Generally, I have fought back simply by telling the truth about my experiences, knowledge and beliefs.

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The Scientologists say I’m a former clerk and stole Hubbard’s papers

[Scientology] A former clerk in L. Ron Hubbard’s archives, Armstrong abruptly left the Church in December 1981, stealing many of Mr. Hubbard’s private papers. The papers included the diaries of a young L. Ron Hubbard as a travelled in the orient as a teenager, personal letters and journals and other documents.

I say:

Although I was never posted in Scientology as “Clerk,” I did perform many clerical duties, as virtually every Scientology staff member does. The truth is that I held several positions in the organization and on Hubbard’s personal staff, some more august and some less august than “clerk.” The Scientologists have labeled me a “former clerk” many times over many years as putdowns, to degrade the experiences and knowledge I acquired on the actual posts I held. Scientologist Aleksei Danchenkov, e.g., was quoted on a blog in Russia in 2011:

Actually, Gerald Armstrong was a former clerk of the Church of Scientology of California.⁹

In my response to the Danchenkov black PR is a quote from Scientology President Heber Jentzsch in an interview for Penthouse Magazine in 1983:

Mr. Armstrong is my step-son-in-law. I know him quite well. He was a clerk, and he also drove a car. And that’s all he ever did.

In 2012, I discovered an Internet post by Scientology collaborator Joseph K. Grieboski, the head of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy(IRPP), which included the sentence:

Gerald Armstrong is a former clerk in a Scientology organization.¹⁰

The IRPP, a Washington, DC area entity, describes itself as “an international, inter-religious non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring freedom of religion as the foundation for security, stability, and democracy.” In 2015, Grieboski operates Grieboski Global Strategies.¹¹

I did leave Scientology and the religion’s “Sea Org” abruptly in December 1981. When I left, I was posted in the “Personal Office of L. Ron Hubbard” as “L. Ron Hubbard Archivist/Biography Researcher.” I did not, however, steal many, or even any, of Hubbard’s papers, private or otherwise. From 1980 through 1981, with Hubbard, his wife, and the Scientologists’ knowledge, and pursuant to contract, I provided whatever papers I provided from his archive, to a hired Hubbard biographer Omar V. Garrison. See, e.g., Garrison’s declaration of April 18, 1983.¹²

The Scientologists attempted unsuccessfully to have me criminally charged with theft. ¹³

In their lawsuit against me, the Scientologists sought to have the LA Superior Court adjudge that I had stolen Hubbard’s papers; hence the court ruled specifically on this issue.

The court has found the facts essentially as set forth in defendant’s trial brief, which as modified, is attached as an appendix to this memorandum. In addition the court finds that while working for L.R. Hubbard (hereinafter referred to as LRH), the defendant also had an informal employer-employee relationship with plaintiff Church, but had permission and authority from plaintiffs and LRH to provide Omar Garrison with every document or object that was made available to Mr. Garrison, and further, had permission from Omar Garrison to take and deliver to his attorneys the documents and materials which were subsequently delivered to them and thenceforth into the custody of the County Clerk.

[…]

In December of 1981 Defendant Armstrong made the decision to leave the Church of Scientology. In order to continue in his commitment to Hubbard and Mr. Garrison in the biography project, he copied a large quantity of documents, which Mr. Garrison had requested or which would be useful to him for the biography. Defendant Armstrong delivered all of this material to Mr. Garrison the date he left the SEA Organization and kept nothing in his possession.

[…]

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.⁸

In 1991, the California Court of Appeal affirmed the 1984 Armstrong 1 judgment.¹⁵ Despite these judicial rulings and all the testimony and documents on which they are based, the Scientologists have continued, as the Toronto black PR in 2015 shows, to falsely assert that I stole Hubbard’s private papers. I have responded in many instances to correct the record when the Scientologists, their collaborators or persons they have duped have repeated this false charge, which is defamatory per se.

In 2013, for example, Mark Rathbun published a book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior in which he stated that I had “lifted,” meaning stolen, Hubbard’s papers. Rathbun had been responsible under Hubbard and then Miscavige for years of fair gaming me and my attorney Michael Flynn. Rathbun was in charge of the Armstrong 1 litigation at the time of the 1984 judgment and the 1991 appellate decision, and knows, beyond argument, that I did not lift the papers and that this fact was judicially established.

Armstrong became increasingly paranoid under pressure and finally got spooked enough to go to Flynn for help. Armstrong also brought with him several boxes of biography archives he had lifted from the church; documents that demonstrated to him that Hubbard’s personal biography, promoted by the church, was full of holes.

I did not connect the dots until years later, but Miscavige had essentially chased Armstrong right into the enemy camp. In September, 1982, all I knew was that [Scientology intelligence personnel Geoffrey] Shervell had evidence of Armstrong lifting the documents, and I had direct, urgent orders from Miscavige to sue Armstrong back to the stone ages. We sued, and obtained an injunction which impounded the files with the Los Angeles Superior Court pending trial (which would occur years later). But that did not stop Armstrong from – in fact it drove him to – writing long, detailed declarations claiming L. Ron Hubbard was a fraud and that the church would stop at nothing to prevent him from proving so. Flynn now had a fresh, inside witness who knew Hubbard’s personal archives better than anybody on Ron’s side.¹⁶

I addressed Rathbun’s stealing or lifting charge in Memoirs in an article I blogged on December 31, 2014.

For the record, Rathbun could not have known that Shervell had evidence of my lifting Hubbard’s documents. That is because there was no evidence. And there was no evidence because I had not lifted the documents. If I had lifted the subject documents, which were retained by the Clerk of the LA Superior Court, and the Scientologists had evidence of that lifting, they would have presented it at trial, or far earlier. What Rathbun could have known was that Shervell claimed he had such evidence. Rathbun, of course, as the person assigned to sue me back to the stone ages, had a duty to verify that claim. My belief is that when he acted, for the purpose of suing me back to the stone ages, a doubtlessly unlawful purpose, Rathbun knew that I had not lifted Hubbard’s documents. He nevertheless had that and other false claims made in the Armstrong 1 complaint, and in the media, and among Scientologists, in compliance with scripture, to get them in a frenzy of hate for me and in love with the terrorists.

In any event, Rathbun learned no later than September 1982 that I had not lifted Hubbard’s documents, but had been given them by Omar Garrison for the lawful and justified purpose of sending them to my attorneys. Rathbun also knew by the 1984 judgment in his back-to-the-stone-ages suit all about the lawful chain of custody of the subject documents. Although he devotes a whole chapter in Memoirs to the Armstrong 1 case, he ignores this issue, which was so key at trial and in the judgment.

[…]

The reason Rathbun, the Scientologists and their collaborators continue to knowingly lie and get others to lie about my lifting or stealing the subject documents is obvious, even though it has long since been disproven. It is what they have to somehow justify the decades of fair gaming or terrorizing me. For a perpetrator or victimizer, the thought of acknowledging that lie, and being left with no justification whatsoever for all the evil that lie justified, could be terrifying.

I also did not bring with me several boxes when I went to Flynn for help, as Rathbun claims in Memoirs. I went to Flynn for help right after the Scientologists stole a set of photos I had and told me to get an attorney. I already knew I was a fair game target, which Rathbun essentially acknowledges, and blames on Miscavige. It was several weeks after going to Flynn for help that I sent him two boxes of documents, not several.¹⁷

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The Scientologists say I used papers, lies and false info for Atacks book

[Scientology] Armstrong used these papers, coupled with his own lies about them and other false information as the source material for Atack’s book.

I say:

I did not use any of the subject Hubbard papers as source material for Atack’s book. The Scientologists have produced no evidence that I used any document for this purpose. Certainly Atack used some of the documents for his book that were admitted into evidence and made available to the public in my 1984 trial. I used the subject papers to successfully defend myself against the Scientologists’ claims in court and against black PR attacks, and I used the documents to support my own legal claims until I settled these claims with the Scientologists in December 1986. I did not, however, use anything as source material for Atack’s book.

The Scientologists have not identified any lies about the subject papers that they say are my own, which I coupled, they assert, with the subject papers to use as source material for Atack’s book. The Scientologists have not even identified any lies about the subject papers that they say are my own, which I did not couple with anything and did not use as a source for anything.

The Scientologists have not identified any “other false information,” which I used, coupled with the subject papers or not, as source material for Atack’s book. There is no such false information

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The Scientologists say I claim to see things never there

[Scientology] One of Armstrong’s tricks is to claim he saw things in the archives that were never there, trying to force the Church to produce private papers of the Scientology Founder to defend against his claims.

I say:

It has never been a trick of mine to claim I saw things in the Hubbard archive that were never there, whether for the purpose of trying to force the Scientologists to produce Hubbard’s private papers, or for any other purpose. The Scientologists have not identified any claim I have ever made of seeing anything in Hubbard’s archive, or anywhere else, which was not there or had never been there. Anyone, of course, has the ability, and so can perform the trick of claiming to see things in Hubbard’s archive, or anywhere else in the universe and beyond, that were never there. This is the function of imagination. Even though anyone can do it, however, I have never performed that trick with Hubbard’s archive for the purpose the Scientologists specify, or for any other purpose.

The Scientologists’ imply that I have and employ a number of “tricks” that are in addition to, and on a moral par with, claiming in court proceedings to see things that were never there — bearing false witness — to gain some unfair litigation advantage. There is no such set of “tricks” that I employ in my life, thank God.

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The Scientologists say my credibility is at issue

[Scientology] Armstrong made himself such an important pivotal source of information for Atack, his own credibility is at issue.

I say:

It is true, and obvious by the Scientologists’ Toronto black PR pack, that my credibility is at issue. My credibility is not at issue, however, because I made myself a source of information for Atack, whether important or pivotal or not. If he had published or written not one word, my credibility would be just as at issue, in the minds of Scientologists like Smith and Felske, and even as now in the minds of many wogs around the world. I have certain experiences, knowledge and other thoughts, which I have sourced, according to circumstances, my abilities, etc., to all sorts of people over many years. I did not ever, however, make myself a pivotal source of information for Atack for his book.

My credibility is at issue because of the Scientologists’ assaults on it, their black PR campaign over many years. They have a scriptural policy and practice and a long history of intending and seeking the destruction of the credibility of their credible enemies, the repute of their reputable targets.¹⁸ What my credibility is actually at issue regarding is important in the wog world, and worth speaking up about. My credibility is at issue with the persons running Scientology, who direct the black PR and fair game, and also at issue with all their underlings. It is a “High Crime,” a severely punished act among all Scientologists, to “in any way grant credence to such a person” as I. My credibility has been put at issue for decades by the Scientologists’ hatred for me and their “command intention” to degrade my image to beast level and obliterate me.

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The Scientologists say they settled theft litigation, and I generated false media and fomented groundless litigation

[Scientology] In December 1986, several Scientology churches settled outstanding litigation with Gerald Armstrong arising from Armstrong’s December 1981 theft of thousands of personal documents belonging to L. Ron Hubbard, the Founder of the Scientology religion, and Armstrong’s use of those documents to generate false media articles and to foment groundless civil litigation in several venues.

I say:

The litigation that settled in December 1986 did not arise from my theft of anything. There was no theft. The litigation that settled in December 1986 did not even concern the alleged theft of Hubbard’s personal documents. It concerned my claims, my cross-complaint, against the Scientologists for fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress, twelve and a half years wasted on serving in an abusive criminal psychoscam and five years as its fair game victim.¹⁹

The litigation that concerned Hubbard’s personal documents and went to trial in 1984 did not settle in December 1986, and never settled. The Scientologists maintained an appeal from the judgment until 1991 when the Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment.²⁰

I never used the subject Hubbard documents to generate false media articles, and I have never generated false media articles even without using any of those documents. The Scientologists have identified no instance when I used the subject documents to generate false media articles. The Scientologists have identified no false media article I generated at any time.

I never used the subject Hubbard documents to foment groundless civil litigation in several venues, or in any venue. I have never fomented groundless civil litigation in several venues or in any venue, even without using those documents. The Scientologists have identified no instance when I used the subject documents to foment groundless civil litigation in several venues or any venue. The Scientologists have identified no groundless litigation in any venue that I fomented at any time, using the subject documents or not. Certainly my case, the subject documents, the judgment and appellate opinion have been quoted or cited in different civil litigations. And the Scientologists certainly can call any litigation groundless, no matter how solidly grounded in fact and law, because of their common trick of lying. But I have never fomented any litigation that was actually groundless.

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The Scientologists say settlement provision was to cease harassing campaign

[Scientology] That settlement included the provisions that Armstrong would return all of the documents and cease his campaign of harassing Scientology churches and Scientologists.

I say:

The December 1986 contract, or “settlement agreement,” which concerned my cross-complaint, included the provision that I would release to the Church of Scientology International the subject Hubbard documents then held by the Clerk of the LA Superior Court. The “agreement” did not include any provision about ceasing any campaign of harassing Scientology churches and Scientologists. There was no such campaign, and no such contractual condition.

The contract contains a condition that compels my strict silence about my experiences and knowledge concerning Scientology, founder Hubbard, Scientology churches and affiliated entities and their directors, officers, agents, representatives, employees, successors, assigns and legal counsel. That condition is unlawful on its face; as unlawful and antisocial as silencing a citizen about the Christian religion, Christian experiences, Christian knowledge, Jesus Christ, Christian churches, affiliated entities, Christians, their assigns, attorneys, etc. The contract also contains a condition that punishes me US $50,000 in “liquidated damages” per utterance, or per breach of the strict silence condition. The Scientologists and their collaborators also aver that these conditions are one-sided; that they are free to say anything they want about me, as, e.g., the instant, defamatory Toronto black PR, and I am prohibited from responding, and penalized $50,000 if I do.

I signed the Scientologists’ contract, despite knowing that the silence condition was impossible to perform and the penalties diabolical, because of shocking pressure and depraved fraud. I have written and spoken on many occasions about the December 1986 “settlement,” the conditions at the time, and the effect. See, e.g., my February 2004 report to the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Criminal Section.

113. Flynn was for several years a principal guiding spirit and driving force in the legal battle against Scientology in the U.S., and even internationally, and was involved as attorney of record or of counsel on behalf of more than twenty claimants against the organization. During the time he represented me or I worked in his office, he had settled a number of individual Scientology cases, and on various occasions had had discussions with organization lawyers concerning the possible settlement of all the Scientology-related cases in which he was involved. In the fall of 1986, Flynn informed his clients in those cases, including me, that he had reached an agreement with Scientology for a global settlement, and he and I agreed on a monetary figure to settle my case.

114. My cross-complaint was then set for trial in early 1987, and all the organization fraud, internal abuse and external fair game that would come out in a public trial in Los Angeles was certainly a motivating factor in Scientology’s desire to settle with Flynn and all his clients, many of whom would be witnesses for me. He communicated that Scientology’s leaders said they wanted peace, and that they had promised that if a global settlement happened they would end fair game forever. I was happy to settle my case and end the war with Scientology, because it meant, I believed, that there would be no lengthy appellate process, and that I would be able to live in peace. By this time too, much of my potential testimony was already publicly available in trial or deposition transcripts, or in the many declarations I had written since leaving the organization, so I felt that with Scientology’s promise to end fair game I had fulfilled my responsibility to the organization’s victims and had earned the peace promised.

115. I had testified about fifty days in trial or deposition in perhaps ten cases, Scientology’s lawyers usually conducted abusive, threatening examinations, and the end of fair game, I believed, would also end my involvement as a knowledgeable witness to organization fraud, abuse and fair game. In my observation, Scientology used depositions for intelligence gathering and for harassment, and one of the results was to cause friends and associates of an organization litigation target to disassociate from and stop supporting him. In fact, partly in response to Scientology’s use of the law to invade, threaten and destroy relationships, earlier in 1986 I had founded a church, one of the purposes and functions of which was to protect the relationships of the organization’s victims.

116. I have written about the circumstances at the time of the “settlement” in many declarations, and have waived the attorney-client privilege between Flynn and me as to our conversations concerning the “settlement.” See, e.g., gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/decl-1997-01-26.html 12:18-18:14. I was aware of Scientology’s “settlement contracts” by which the organization sought to prevent its litigation opponents and even its own members from disclosing their knowledge of its activities, and I had signed such documents while inside the organization. See, e.g., this “non-disclosure and release bond” that I was required to sign while on the RPF in Clearwater in 1977, and which at my 1984 trial was ruled to be unenforceable. gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/non-dsclsre-rls-bond.html

117. During the period when Flynn was involved in settlement negotiations with Scientology’s lawyers, I had spoken and written memos to him stating that I would not be bound by such a non-disclosure clause. I was willing to not contact the wog media about Scientology because an ending of media involvement would help facilitate the organization’s cessation of fair game; in fact I was glad to not have to respond with media interviews, as I often found them stressful or silly. Since leaving the organization, I had given interviews to several newspapers; major news magazines such as Time, Newsweek, People and Forbes; and television news programs such as 20/20, 60 Minutes and the CBC’s 5th Estate; and I had given in-depth interviews over a number of days to three different authors writing books about Hubbard and Scientology. Having for years made all my Scientology experiences and knowledge available to the media, I was willing to voluntarily stop being available; but I was unwilling to be compelled by “contract” to not discuss my organization knowledge and experiences with anyone because such silence would be nonsensical and impossible.

118. I was not shown the “contract” Scientology wanted me to sign until after I had flown from Boston to LA where Flynn had been arranging the global “settlement” with organization lawyers, and upon reading the document I was shocked and sickened. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/a1/mutual-release-1986.html The “contract’s” language prohibiting any discussion of my experiences or knowledge of Scientology, prohibiting any assistance to the organization’s adversaries including governmental agencies, punishing me with a $50,000 “liquidated damages” penalty per utterance, and requiring that I avoid service of subpoenas, was far worse, and more ludicrous, cruel and impossible than I had ever imagined. See, e.g.:

[Para. 7D] Plaintiff [Armstrong] further agrees that he will maintain strict confidentiality and silence with respect to his experiences with the Church of Scientology and any knowledge or information he may have concerning the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, or any of the organizations, individuals and entities listed in Paragraph 1 above. Plaintiff expressly understands that the non-disclosure provisions of this subparagraph shall apply, inter alia, but not be limited, to the contents or substance of his complaint on file in the action referred to in Paragraph 1 hereinabove or any documents as defined in Appendix “A” to this Agreement, including but not limited to any tapes, films, photographs, recastings, variations or copies of any such materials which concern or relate to the religion of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, or any of the organizations, individuals, or entities listed in Paragraph 1 above. [ ] Plaintiff agrees that if the terms of this paragraph are breached by him, that CSI and the other Releasees would be entitled to liquidated damages in the amount of $50,000 for each such breach. All monies received to induce or in payment for a breach of this Agreement, or any part thereof, shall be held in a constructive trust pending the outcome of any litigation over said breach. The amount of liquidated damages herein is an estimate of the damages that each party would suffer in the event this Agreement is breached. The reasonableness of the amount of such damages, are hereto acknowledged by Plaintiff.

[Para. 7G] Plaintiff agrees that he will not voluntarily assist or cooperate with any person adverse to Scientology in any proceeding against any of the Scientology organizations, individuals, or entities listed in Paragraph 1 above. Plaintiff also agrees that he will not cooperate in any manner with any organizations aligned against Scientology.

[Para. 7H] Plaintiff agrees not to testify or otherwise participate in any other judicial, administrative or legislative proceeding adverse to Scientology or any of the Scientology Churches, individuals or entities listed in Paragraph 1 above unless compelled to do so by lawful subpoena or other lawful process. Plaintiff shall not make himself amenable to service of any such subpoena in a manner which invalidates the intent of this provision.

[Para. 10.] Plaintiff agrees that he will not assist or advise anyone, including individuals, partnerships, associations, corporations, or governmental agencies contemplating any claim or engaged in litigation or involved in or contemplating any activity adverse to the interests of any entity or class of persons listed above in Paragraph 1 of this Agreement.

 119. The entities and individuals listed in Paragraph 1 of the “settlement contract,” who also comprise the “beneficiaries” of the “contract” are:Church of Scientology International, its officers, agents, representatives, employees, volunteers, directors, successors, assigns and legal counsel; Church of Scientology of California, its officers, agents, representatives, employees, volunteers, directors, successors, assigns and legal counsel; Religious Technology Center, its officers, agents, representatives, employees, volunteers, directors, successors, assigns and legal counsel; all Scientology and Scientology affiliated organizations and entities and their officers, agents, representatives, employees, volunteers, directors, successors, assigns and legal counsel; Author Services, Inc., its officers, agents, representatives, employees, volunteers, directors, successors, assigns and legal counsel; L. Ron Hubbard, his heirs, beneficiaries, Estate and its executor; Author’s Family Trust, its beneficiaries and its trustee; and Mary Sue Hubbard.

 120. I protested to Flynn that it was impossible to be silent about my experiences and knowledge, as the “contract” required, because these involved over seventeen years of my life and were a component of my psyche about which I knew I had to communicate for my own health; that the $50,000 per statement liquidated damages clause was outrageous; and that the “contract” called for obstruction of justice. Flynn stated that the conditions I objected to were “not worth the paper they’re printed on,” that they were judicially “unenforceable,” and that I “can’t sign away [my] Constitutional rights.” Because of these assurances from Flynn, I participated in no negotiations whatsoever of the basis or reasonableness of the liquidated damages provision, which is baseless and wholly unreasonable.

121. At the same time, Flynn also reiterated that Scientology’s fair game attacks had ruined his marriage and ruined his life, and that I had to sign to have fair game end against him, and against me and everyone else. Flynn said that he had to get out of all Scientology-related litigation, and had agreed to no longer represent people against the organization, but also reassured me that if Scientology attacked me after the settlement, he would “be there for [me].” When I still protested, and suggested to Flynn that since the conditions I objected to were “unenforceable” why not get Scientology to take those conditions out of the “contract,” another of his clients, who was with us, yelled at me threateningly, obviously with Flynn’s agreement, for ruining the deal for everyone and destroying their lives.

122. Flynn said that what Scientology was paying me for was my dismissal of my cross-complaint then set for trial and my release of the organization from any claims for anything done to me until that time. He made a point of identifying to me and reading the language in the “contract” that spelled out my release of claims.

“[Armstrong] does hereby release, acquit and forever discharge, for himself, his heirs, successors, executors, administrators and assigns, the Releasees [ ] and each of them, of and from any and all claims, including, but not limited to, any claims or causes of action entitled Gerald Armstrong v. Church of Scientology of California, Los Angeles Superior Court, Case No. 420 153 and all demands, damages, actions and causes of actions of every kind and nature, known or unknown, for or because of any act or omission allegedly done by the Releasees, from the beginning of time to and including the date hereof. Therefore, [Armstrong] does hereby authorize and direct his counsel to dismiss with prejudice his claims now pending in the above referenced action.
…
8. [Armstrong] further agrees that he waives and relinquishes any right or claim arising out of the conduct of any [Scientology] defendant in this case to date, including any of the organizations, individuals or entities as set forth in Paragraph 1 above, and the defendants waive and relinquish any right or claim arising out of the conduct of [Armstrong] to date.

 123. The burden of having to sign Scientology’s onerous, indeed impossible, “contract” in order to have the organization stop its fair game attacks on my attorney and his family, on his clients, on my friends, on the rest of humanity, and on myself, was unbearable. In a strange flash of prescience while under this awful pressure, I saw the “contract” as an act of fair game and saw myself as Scientology’s fair game target for years into the future, isolated and fair gamed by the very contract I was being told would end fair game forever – exactly as has happened. Relying on Flynn’s representations that the “contract’s” conditions that I found intolerable were “not worth the paper they’re printed on,” and having no choice but to sign, I submitted to the whole farce, which included playing my fool’s role in Scientology’s videotaping of the “contract” signing spectacle.

See, e.g., this 2003 post to Scientologists on the Usenet group alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.)²¹:

You see, the fact that you and your fellow OSA or Scientology personnel assert that your warrants for my arrest — and the injunction, judgment and contempt orders that lead to the warrants — are lawful, and that therefore I should “take care” of them, shows your participation in a U.S. Federal crime, specifically 18 USC § 242. I have already discussed in a number of places your cult’s and your fellow cultists’ participation in 18 USC § 241, but § 242 requires a little elucidation.

As you know, your cult’s warrants, and the injunction, contempts, etc., are the product of your use of the law to enforce the 1986 “settlement” contract” that you all claim you have with me.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/a1/mutual-release-1986.html
The “contract,” injunction, judgment, contempts and warrants are what millions of dollars of Scientologists’ fees buy, right?

I signed this ridiculous “contract,” as I’ve testified many times, because of three main factors: duress, fraud, and vision. Simply, the duress was the threat that, if I didn’t sign, my lawyer and his family, all the other participants in the “settlement” and their families, countless other wogs, and myself, would continue to be fair gamed by your cult.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/scientology-fair-games-flynn.html
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/a1/flynn-clients-settlement- agreement.html

Simply too, the fraud was the promise that, if I did sign, your cult would end fair game forever against my lawyer and his family, all the other participants in the “settlement” and their families, all other wogs, and myself. Since fair game did not end, your cult’s promise, as an inducement to get me to sign, was fraudulent.

The vision was that your cult’s promise to end fair game was false; that the “contract” was itself an instrument of fair game; that by fair gaming my lawyer, your cult had in essence made him an agent of fair game against me; and that sooner or later I would again find myself in a pitched battle with your cult.

I possessed, of course, a great amount of knowledge and experience that — to me at least — made my vision at the time of the “settlement,” not even minutely preposterous. I had been in your cult for over twelve years, worked with Hubbard, been in legal and intel, done the RPF twice, done the research for Hubbard’s biography, and discovered the lies he told in such profusion and prodigiousness that he was judicially and properly pronounced a pathological liar.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/a1/breckenridge- decision.html#fairgame

I had been fair gamed for five years after leaving your cult, which included being assaulted, terrorized on the freeway, framed with “crimes,” and threatened with assassination. And, very significantly, when presented with this obscene and impossible “settlement” “contract,” I was told by my lawyer that the very conditions your cult has now spent millions trying to enforce were not worth the paper they were printed on, and that I couldn’t sign away my Constitutional rights. All of this, and more, provided grounding for my vision.

As you well know, it was a vision that was borne out almost as soon as the ink was dry on your “contract.” Your fellow cultists immediately began to fair game me in clear violation of the spirit, and, I would argue, the letter of the “contract.” In fact they fair gamed me before the ink was dry because, as my vision showed me, the “contract” was itself a fair game mechanism, and getting me to sign it was a fair game act.

That the “contract” is an instrument of fair game is also demonstrated by the interpretation you and every other “beneficiary” give to it. You all claim that it is a license to fair game me. You all claim that by your “contract” each of you can fair game me, and that I am prohibited, by your fair game license, from responding. If I do respond, you all claim, your “contract” licenses you to further fair game me, including by having me hunted down, fined and jailed.

See, also, e.g., this video made in Berlin, Germany in September 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aRAEyhkyHo. My discussion of the 1986 “settlement” starts at about 57:00.

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The Scientologists say investigation was police-sanctioned

At one point in a police-sanctioned investigation, Armstrong was recorded seeking original Church documents he could use as templates for documents to be planted in Church files.

I say:

There was no police-sanctioned investigation. The recordings the Scientologists made were unlawful. The recordings also do not show what the Scientologists claim they show. At no time did I seek documents to be used as templates for documents to be planted in Scientology files. I have written and spoken many times about this covert and criminal Scientology operation; e.g., this February 20, 1994 declaration that was filed in the case of Scientology v. Fishman & Geertz, US District Court for the Central District of California, No. CV 91-6425 HLH(Tx)²²:

22. During my cross-examination in the spring, 1985 trial of Julie Christofferson v. Scientology, Circuit Court of the State of Oregon, Multnomah County, No. A7704-05184, the organization broke the fact that [Dan] Sherman, [David] Kluge and [Mike] Rinder had been covert operatives, the Loyalists were invented, and that my meetings with Kluge and Rinder had been videotaped. The organization called the whole more than two year affair the “Armstrong Operation.” Organization lawyers, Earle Cooley and John Peterson, claimed the Armstrong operation had been authorized by the Los Angeles Police Department, and they produced a letter dated November 7, 1984, a copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit [B], signed by an officer Phillip Rodriguez, directing organization private investigator Eugene M.Ingram to electronically eavesdrop on me and Michael Flynn.

23. On April 23, 1985, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates issued a public statement, a copy of which is appended hereto as Exhibit [C], denying that the Rodriguez letter was a correspondence from the Los Angeles Police Department, denying that the Los Angeles Police Department had cooperated with Ingram, and stating emphatically that all purported authorizations directed to Ingram by any member of the Los Angeles Police Department are invalid and unauthorized. On information and belief, the officer, Phillip Rodriguez, who signed Ingram’s letter was paid $10,000.00 for his signature. Also on information and belief, following a Los Angeles Police Department Internal Affairs Division investigation and a Police Department Board of Rights, Officer Rodriguez was suspended from the Los Angeles Police Force. Eugene Ingram had himself some years before been drummed out of the Los Angeles Police Department. He is reputed to have been busted for pandering and taking payoffs from drug dealers. He is a liar and a bully who has been involved in organization intelligence operations against its perceived enemies for many years. During the period I was involved with the Loyalists Ingram called me at my home and threatened to put a bullet between my eyes.

24. Initially the presiding judge in the Christofferson trial Donald F. Londer refused to admit the tapes because they had been obtained illegally. Then he viewed them in chambers and when he returned to the bench stated that “the tapes are devastating, very devastating to the church.” Then he admitted them into evidence.

25. Despite Judge Londer’s ruling and comments, and despite Chief Gates’ repudiation of the Rodriguez “authorization,” the organization has continued in press and courts around the world to claim that the videotape operation was “police- sanctioned.” The organization has continued to claim that I originated the “plot to overthrow ” church” management” and that I initiated the contact with the organization members, who merely played along with my plan while remaining “loyal” to the organization. It also has continued to claim that the videotapes show me plotting to forge documents and seed them in organization files to be found in a raid, show me creating “sham lawsuits,” show me urging the Loyalists to not prove anything but “just allege it,” and show me seeking to take control of the organization. The videotapes show none of those things. The tapes show that in the fall of 1984, during the reign of the organization’s present supreme leader David Miscavige (DM), the fair game doctrine was alive and as unfair as ever. The tapes show a mean-spirited, mendacious and malevolent organization using well-drilled operatives and electronic gadgetry to attempt, unsuccessfully, to set up an unwitting, funny, sometimes silly, clearly helpful, at times foul-mouthed, but otherwise ordinary human male.

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The Scientologists say I thought their agents were accomplices

He told an individual he thought was an accomplice, “I think that during part of this, we can simply create these, I can create documents with relative ease (laughter), you know, I did it for a living!”

I say:

An accomplice is a person who knowingly helps another in a crime or wrongdoing. There was no crime. The crime here is the Scientologists framing me for a crime that never happened. At no time did I think that any of the Scientology agents the Scientologists used to lure me into their “Armstrong Operation” and try to set me up — Dan Sherman, David Kluge and Mike Rinder, or any other of the “Loyalists” — were my accomplices. Indeed, I refused these agents’ efforts to entrap me in the commission of a crime. Nevertheless, the Scientologists accuse me of crimes I never committed.

I thought, or hoped, that the “Loyalists,” the Scientology agents with whom I communicated and was recorded, were, in relation to me, Scientologists who granted me credence. This was a reasonable thought or hope; whereas the organization-wide policy and practice of not granting me and people like me credence was diabolical. It is diabolical as a policy and practice to not grant any human being or child of God credence. The Loyalists’ seeming granting of credence to me was key to drawing me into their operation. They presented as understanding that I was credible and deserving of credence. Inherent in how they presented themselves was their recognition of the evil and insanity of the policy and reason that made it a High Crime to in any way grant credence to me.

In relation to the Scientology entity and the philosophy, Sherman, Kluge and Rinder presented themselves as reformers, and presented their Loyalist like-thinkers as reformers. I proceeded in my relationship with them, which was over a period of about six months, on that basis. My relationship with Sherman was much longer than that, but it was around six months from when he first told me about the “Loyalists” and my last communication with them. My acceptance of them as reformers who viewed me as credible was based on their communications with me, largely in conversations with Sherman. Right after I left the cult, the Scientologists’ intelligence operators had started using him to get close to me, by seemingly granting me credence. Through the development of a phony friendship, Sherman and his operators ultimately to lead me into their videotape trap.²³

The Scientologist agents in their videotape operation all came to me with the confidence and concern that Miscavige and his regime were criminals who should be in prison. The Loyalists claimed they wanted my help to reach out to wog world officials involved in Scientology criminal matters, and they wanted my input to reform the organization. The Loyalists claimed to be afraid for their lives, so had to meet me in secret and had to keep me in the dark about their identities and reform efforts. The Loyalists “proved” their sincerity by communicating in a credence-granting way, thus violating their Suppressive Person doctrine, which is what in Scientology must be reformed.

A compelling enticement the Loyalists used on me was their claim that Miscavige and his regime were framing my attorney Michael Flynn. The Loyalists knew it, they said, and aimed to prove it. Miscavige, Rathbun, Ingram, Peterson, Cooley, et al. were indeed framing Flynn with the forgery of a $2 million check on a Hubbard bank account; so it was quite logical that the Loyalists knew this. It was also quite reasonable, and seemingly honorable, that the Loyalists, who said they wanted to get rid of the criminals and reform the organization, would want to prove Flynn’s innocence, which they had the ability to do. As it turned out, of course, the people running the operation professing to be clearing Flynn of the forgery charge were the same people who were framing him. I have written and spoken about this part of the Armstrong operation many times; e.g., my February 2004 report to the US DOJ²⁴:

86. After I returned to the U.S., Sherman and Kluge reestablished contact with me, and we met a number of times over the next five months. In late July 1984, Scientology commenced a media and legal attack on Michael Flynn falsely accusing him of masterminding a plot to cash a forged check for $2,000,000.00 on one of Hubbard’s bank accounts. Sherman and Kluge communicated that the “Loyalists” knew that it was a frame-up and that organization leaders were behind it, and the “Loyalists” were working to prove it was a frame-up. I was certain Flynn was innocent, and of course he was my attorney and friend, so I was grateful for the “Loyalists’” help in clearing his name, and I was willing to help them as I could.

87. Over the next few months, the “Loyalists” sent me a number of messages via Sherman relating to the Flynn frame-up, including what they claimed was documentary evidence to be passed on to Flynn and the Assistant U.S. Attorney in Boston who was investigating the case. Because of their claimed fear of being discovered by organization leaders and murdered, I met with “Loyalists” Kluge and Mike Rinder in “secret” prearranged locations in Griffith Park and a Los Angeles area cemetery. Kluge also took me to a meeting with a woman he identified as “Rene,” a “rich Scientologist who had been abused by the organization and who might back the “Loyalists” financially,” and a meeting with an “attorney” “named” “Thomas Janeway.” Kluge also attempted to get me to fly to Las Vegas to meet another “financial backer,” but on my attorney’s advice because of the risk I didn’t make the trip. Knowing what I now know, there is no doubt that each of these meetings was recorded, and was set up to entrap me.

88. During this period, agents of the FBI who were involved in an investigation of the organization contacted me, and I met with them and discussed my Scientology experiences and knowledge. Justice Department attorneys who were litigating Scientology-related cases contacted me, and I communicated with them and provided them with declarations concerning my experiences and knowledge. Officers in the Ontario Provincial Police and the Clearwater, Florida Police Department who were investigating Scientology also contacted me, and I provided them with testimony about Hubbard, the organization and my experiences.

Also see the materials I have assembled on the Armstrong Op site relating to the check forgery frame-up of Michael Flynn.²⁵

Obviously I recognized throughout the Loyalist setup that Miscavige and his regimers would view me as the “enemy” to be hated and destroyed, and would hate me enough to even have their agents feign credence-granting to ultimately achieve my humiliation and destruction. I put aside such fears to accept that these “Loyalists,” who sought me out for my help at what they claimed was great risk to themselves, actually were granting me credence, actually did understand me, and actually were on my side. I was, of course, wrong, and a fool to have trusted them.

My quip about creating documents “for a living” referred to my years in Scientology where I was on the Sea Organization ship “Apollo” with Hubbard. I was at different times the Legal Officer, Public Relations Officer and Intelligence Officer, and had to deal with various kinds of documents, including create them. During my conversation with the Scientology covert operative, I was just reminded of this period of my life, which was ironic at the time, and, in future retrospect, would be pretty funny.

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The Scientologists say aiding their adverse litigants, providing interviews and addressing conventions are harassing actions

Armstrong remained quiet until 1990 when he gave away his assets and embarked on a new round of harassing actions that have continued to this day. These have included voluntarily aiding adverse litigants and potential litigants, providing interviews to media in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Russia, addressing conventions and harassing individual Scientologists and Scientology churches.

I say:

I did not remain quiet until 1990. I spoke to many people about many things. I even spoke about my religious experiences and the knowledge I acquired in the Scientology religion. I did not then consider Scientology a religion in the same way I do now. I saw it as a duplicitous, dangerous, voracious, irreligious cult, which could not possibly be religious. I have since then, because of the US Federal Government’s decisions and other world events, had to accept that although the cult is still all those antisocial things, it is a religion organized for religious purposes and its activities are religious. Scientology is religious even if completely irreligious. My experiences and knowledge concerning Scientology and Scientologists were clearly just as religious when I might have thought they only concerned a criminal cult as now when I know that while they only concern a criminal cult they are completely religious.

Although my experiences and knowledge concerning Scientology and the Scientologists certainly affected my mind, relationships and life at the time, giving away my assets did not relate to my remaining quiet or not. Giving away my assets was motivated in human terms by events in the Middle East that affected the whole world. There had been continuing attacks from the Scientologists and their collaborators since the 1986 “settlement.” Operation Desert Shield happened during these attacks in 1990 and during my responses in that year. I never envisaged, however, that any US courts would ever enforce, or even countenance, the Scientologists’ silence and liquidated damages conditions. The Scientologists have for many years claimed a connection between my giving away my assets and my speaking in violation of their contract, and there was no connection. They even sued me in 1993 based on my divestment.²⁶

I have written or spoken about this matter many times; e.g., this declaration of January 13, 1994, filed in Scientology v. Armstrong, Marin County California Superior Court, Case No. 157680 (Armstrong 4).

33. Even though I was aware of Jesus’s admonition to his disciples to not be troubled by wars and rumors of wars (Mark 13, 7; Luke 21,9), I was undeniably affected by the media images of Desert Shield as it built into Desert Storm and the international diplomatic drama that accompanied the military operations. I had already been moved, I felt, to enter the political and sociological landscapes, as I believe is shown by the letter to the captors, “Crash Course” and their recipients lists. I had also considered and argued in these other political matters – the hostages, the economy – that something could be done about them, and that what I thought could be done was, at least on paper, a better idea. It was not out of the ordinary or out of character, therefore, for me to consider that I could do something about Desert Shield, Desert Storm or the whole blessed Middle East. It was at that time that the idea came to me to give away my worldly possessions and to give myself to the cause of peace. After some thought, I transferred my interest in Fawn to Mr. Walton, divided my one hundred percent ownership of TGAC equally between my friends Nancy Rodes, Michael Douglas, Lorien and Mr. Walton, and forgave all debts owed to me. I knew by this time that our Source is also the source of everything, including money, and that He would provide for me all that I would need to carry out His work. I also was fully aware that I was engaged with the organization on the legal battlefield, and although I was confident of the outcome, I had no idea what would happen on the road toward that day. I recognized that the organization’s ruling clique was motivated by the same forces of money, greed and power that made men war against each other and that my renunciation was spiritually directed at bringing peace for the organization no less than the rest of the world. And, as I stated above, I accepted the fact that should my legal battle with the organization continue I would more likely than conceivably litigate indeed in forma pauperis. I communicated my decisions to everyone directly affected by them, took care of the paperwork needed to make the decisions legally effective, and tied up various loose ends. It became clear to me that the renunciation had left me unattached and free to travel wherever I was called should I be. I gave my car to Lorien, but she returned it, and we took a trip together during September through the western states and British Columbia to develop a sociological concept that had come to me. When we returned to California, Lorien moved to Santa Cruz and I, not then being called to go elsewhere, stayed at Fawn where I worked on some house and grounds projects, continued to maintain TGAC’s office, and kept picking up trash. I also came up with what I thought was a good plan for resolving the Middle East crisis and I communicated this plan to various media and certain leaders or envoys I thought were in positions to do something about it. In my letter to Saddam Hussein of November 1, 1990 I offered, as I had with the Lebanese captors in 1987, to exchange myself for the hostages then being held in Iraq; but I did not sweeten the deal with my interest in a house, as I had done in the earlier offer, because I had already conveyed it to Mr. Walton. Copies of this letter, my November 7, 1990 letter and list of addressees to which they went, my December 10, 1990 and January 10, 1991 letters are appended hereto as Exhibit [S].

There was no new round of harassing actions that started when I gave away my assets. The Scientologists make it clear that they consider my providing interviews and addressing conventions as harassing actions. Aiding adverse litigants or potential litigants would be largely aiding the Scientologists’ victims, which, to the Scientologists, is also a harassing action. The way in which I could aid the Scientologists’ victims is the same whether voluntary or involuntary, because it is simply telling the truth about my Scientology-related experiences and knowledge. So the Scientologists must consider that even if I was compelled by subpoena to testify in Scientology-related cases it would be a harassing action. Suing people, even suing people back to the stone ages, is a religious activity in Scientology, dictated in scripture and directed by the highest ecclesiastical authority. Telling the truth about experiences and knowledge is basic to the defense against the Scientologists’ litigation lies and aggression, and, of course, is what is sought in media interviews or expected in addresses at conventions.

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The Scientologists say there are monetary damages, fines and jail sentences against me

On April 9, 2004, the Marin County Superior Court again upheld the 1986 settlement agreement and found Armstrong liable for breaching it by publishing 131 documents on the Internet. The court awarded the Church $500,000 in damages. Having been a fugitive since 1997, Armstrong finally appeared for his contempt sentencing. The contempt orders were discharged with a sentence of five days in jail and a fine of $1,000. The Court of Appeal reversed this ruling holding that the contempt citations were improperly discharged. Thus, on October 9, 2007, the Court reinstated sentences of 28 days incarceration, and a fine of $1,000. The Court issued a bench warrant for Armstrong’s arrest the same day.

I say:

The case the Scientologists are referring to here is Scientology v. Armstrong, Robert Minton and the Lisa McPherson Trust, Marin County California Superior Court No. CV 021632 (Armstrong 7).²⁷

A number of the Scientologists’ facts are basically accurate. Even if they were all true, however, they do not logically support or provide a defense for the Scientologists’ defamatory statements, and they contribute to the overall defamatory image of me the whole Toronto black PR document creates. These facts are also interpretable very differently from the way the Scientologists present and interpret them. I had indeed, for example, been a fugitive between 1997 and 2004, and I am still a fugitive; but I was, and am, a fugitive from ridiculous but cruel and ruinous religious persecution. This organized religious persecution by the Scientologists is wicked almost beyond comprehension, and criminal, even by US law.

I am, of course, a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, and living in Canada, openly, with publicly posted contact information. I was in the same condition or status from 1997 to 2004, except for a brief period in Nevada and twenty months in Germany. The Canadian Scientology leaders Smith and Felske, who disseminated this Toronto black propaganda pack, are, to my knowledge, Canadian citizens representing the Canadian corporate branches of the International Church or cult. Smith and Felske could not but have known that, by Canadian laws and global standards, I was not and am not a fugitive. They made no attempt that I am aware of to contact me before disseminating the Toronto black PR. I am not a fugitive from the law or legal process any more than a Swiss Jew was who escaped from Nazi Germany to Switzerland. The fortunate Jew would have been a fugitive from religio-racial persecution, the same as I am.

I have breached the Scientologists’ silence condition hundreds of thousands of times. The Scientologists’ Toronto black PR shows how impossible it would be for any sane, responsible citizen to be silent about such an evil and criminal defamation and fair game campaign. The vileness of the Scientologists’ campaign renders their parallel judicial campaign of silencing the target of their black PR also vile. I have written or spoken many times on the ludicrousness of the Scientologists’ liquidated damages condition, and its even more ridiculous and cruel application on a per-recipient basis for any utterance or expression. See, e.g., my letter of December 5, 2005 to the US Ambassador to Canada David H. Wilkins²⁸:

Scientology sued me again while we were in Germany, seeking over $10,000,000 in “liquidated damages” for a few more than 200 religious expressions I had expressed after 1998. Scientology’s position is that every time I express my religious experiences or beliefs about the religion, or any Scientology related entity, and any of their directors, officers, employees, agents, lawyers or volunteers I must pay $50,000, because each such expression “damages” the religion and its corporations and people in that amount. This letter to you, Scientology claims, has a value of $50,000, times the number of recipients, which I believe will be nine, or $450,000.

The IRFA defines the term “violations of religious freedom” as:

violations of the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion and religious belief and practice, as set forth in the international instruments referred to in section 6401 (a)(2) of this title and as described in section 6401 (a)(3) of this title, including violations such as—
(A) arbitrary prohibitions on, restrictions of, or punishment for—
(i) assembling for peaceful religious activities such as worship, preaching, and prayer, including arbitrary registration requirements;
(ii) speaking freely about one’s religious beliefs;
(iii) changing one’s religious beliefs and affiliation;
(iv) possession and distribution of religious literature, including Bibles; or
(v) raising one’s children in the religious teachings and practices of one’s choice; or
(B) any of the following acts if committed on account of an individual’s religious belief or practice: detention, interrogation, imposition of an onerous financial penalty, forced labor, forced mass resettlement, imprisonment, forced religious conversion, beating, torture, mutilation, rape, enslavement, murder, and execution.
22 U.S.C. § 6402 (13)

The financial penalty Scientology is imposing on me, with the abetment of the U.S. Courts, and which the organization can now impose in Canada because of that abetment, is clearly onerous. This unconscionable $50,000 penalty per recipient of what cannot but be my religious expressions about religion in exercise of my religious freedom cannot but be on account of my religious beliefs and practices.

Obviously too, Scientology’s efforts to have me punished with jailing and fines for my speaking freely about my religious beliefs about the Scientology religion also constitute violations of religious freedom. I am at this moment facing twenty-eight days in jail for fourteen expressions of my religious beliefs expressed over seven years ago. Since, however, I have expressed tens or hundreds of thousands of expressions of my religious beliefs even more recently, I am actually threatened with imprisonment for the rest of my life for these expressions.

Also see, e.g., this January 23, 2004 declaration filed in Armstrong 7²⁹:

10. Although Scientology seeks in this case $10,050,000.00 in damages, making this certainly one of Marin County’s larger cases monetarily, this amount is but a tiny fraction of the actual monetary amount at stake. As Scientology states in its Separate Statement: “I have violated Scientology’s Injunction thousands of times.” (Scientology’s Separate Statement, 7:5-7) I have, of course, violated the Injunction, and, naturally, the subject “contract,” thousands of times, because it would be both impossible and a U.S. Federal crime not to violate the Injunction and the “contract.”

11. Essentially, what Scientology is seeking is $50,000 in liquidated damages for every utterance I make of my religious beliefs or my religious experiences concerning Scientology, which, clearly, claims to be a religion. Additionally, Scientology got former Marin County Judge Gary Thomas to agree with its interpretation of the “contract” whereby the $50,000 per utterance is for each recipient of each utterance of my religious beliefs or my religious experiences concerning Scientology. Thus for every Internet posting I make about my religious beliefs concerning Scientology or my religious experiences in Scientology, there are thousands of recipients. And thus the actual monetary amount involved in this lawsuit is thousands times thousands times $50,000 per utterance about my religious beliefs or experiences, or between $5,000,000,000,000.00 and $15,000,000,000,000.00. This certainly must be then the biggest case monetarily ever in Marin County, and the defense of this case, for money reasons alone, deserves every opportunity. I recognize, of course, that the “liquidated damages” condition of the “contract” has no relation whatsoever to reality, or to actual damages now or at the time of the signing of the “contract,” but reality has never stopped Scientology, and that is not what the organization is claiming in this case, and does not have to be considered by this Court in order recognize the huge monetary amount involved and to grant my request for an extension.

The Marin Court discharged the jail sentences and fines against me on the basis that punishing me beyond what the benefit was that was conferred on me in the December 1986 “settlement” would be unconscionable. The Court awarded the “benefit” of “$500,000 in damages.” The Scientologists filed an application for a writ of certiorari in the California Court of Appeal, which reinstated the jail sentences and fines. Thus the Scientologists achieved, by whatever means – and I certainly believe their means were improper or unlawful — something already judicially ruled unconscionable. They still flaunt their unconscionable achievement of the unconscionable as somehow reflecting admirably on themselves. It is actually evidence of their malice.³⁰

All of these ordered days of incarceration, and many thousands in fines, plus the $500,000 in liquidated damages, are for telling the truth about my experiences and knowledge concerning Scientology, a certified religion. The instant Toronto black PR, and the decades of the Scientologists’ black PR that preceded it, are revenge for the same “High Crimes,” telling the truth about my religious experiences, knowledge and beliefs, white collar terrorism to shudder me and other like me into silence.

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The Scientologists say they have an injunction I have violated, huge fees and costs awards, contempt of court citations, a fine and jail time against me

In total, since 1992, Armstrong has been found by judges in two separate courts to have breached his settlement agreement 188 times and to have violated court orders enforcing the terms of the settlement 145 times. The Church has obtained a permanent injunction; two awards for damages, attorneys’ fees and costs totaling $1,150,000; and three contempt of court citations, for which Armstrong was fined $1,000 and ordered to spend a total of 28 days in jail.

I say:

My position, supported by law, by US, State and Canadian Constitutions, and international human rights charters, and by human logic and compassion, is that the Scientologists’ permanent injunction is unlawful, indeed actionable. I have written and spoken about this injunction’s unlawfulness many times.
See, e.g., my January 12, 2012 analysis of Joseph Grieboski’s black PR³¹:

The injunction’s prohibitions are in clear violation of international human rights charters, and unlawful by US and international law. The Scientologists obtained the injunction by unlawful means, and their actions, the prohibitions, and the beneficiaries’ efforts to enforce these unlawful prohibitions constitute violations of federal criminal statutes, specifically 18 U.S.C. §241 “Conspiracy against rights,” and 18 U.S.C. §242 “Deprivation of rights under color of law.” See, e.g., my 2004 complaint report to U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. ³²

Also see, e.g., my March 17, 2015 blog article: The awful unlawfulness of it all³³

The only orders that a citizen has a duty to obey are lawful orders. The injunction is unlawful, so I have no concern that I am violating either a duty or a lawful order – and am in no way a scofflaw as the people hating me say — when I openly communicate my experiences or knowledge about L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, Scientologists, etc. and openly refuse to be unlawfully jailed or unlawfully fined.

[…]

The contractual conditions for which I have been sued, bankrupted, enjoined and punished are unlawful – and not just a bit, but disgustingly, evilly unlawful.

It would not matter if there was no duress whatsoever, and I had been the person pressuring everyone else to sign; these contractual conditions are unlawful. They unlawfully, needlessly, and cruelly violate the First Amendment’s religion clause and international human rights charters, and they are elements in a very long and ongoing criminal conspiracy against rights.

Nevertheless, the duress was profound and psyche-altering. It is another element in the Scientologists’ conspiracy. There can be no doubt that the evidence of duress presented to the trial court was sufficient to demonstrate a triable issue. To deny me a trial on the evidence supporting a multitude of defenses, including duress, to the Scientologists’ contract claims, was the kind of judicial malfeasance one grows up thinking is only on TV. If you have an interest in knowing what happened in the Armstrong 4 case where the Scientologists were granted summary judgment in 1995 please see the documents we have available here: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a4/index.php

Also see, e.g., my Petition for Review in the California Supreme Court, filed November 28, 2007³⁴:

Before Scientology brought him to America, and consequently submitted him to U.S. laws, Armstrong never conceived that any U.S. courts, especially California courts, would ever prostrate themselves to abet the jailing, fining and financial ruin of a citizen for expressing his religious experiences and thoughts and for protecting himself, his family and citizen class from religious persecution. He also never conceived of the religion he joined and his co-religionists being so diabolical that they would create contracts to get wog courts to do exactly that and then force their victims to sign these contracts. Armstrong’s position, however, in alignment with law, logic and his own theology, is that the right of religious freedom is always maximal, cannot lawfully be decreased by contract, and therefore cannot be increased.

Armstrong is not claiming that he has some inalienable right to express his religious expressions everywhere and at all times, if a stupid straw man interpretation is given to such a concept. He is claiming that he has a right that cannot lawfully be taken away by contract, at least in any reasonably free and sane society, to express his religious expressions somewhere and sometime, and certainly as called by God.

There is no question of anything Armstrong is saying or doing depriving anyone else of any of their lawful rights, or being a threat to anyone’s safety, or to the public order. In fact, he believes that he is seeing to and increasing everyone’s safety, and arguably even good order, by expressing the expressions he has been called to express. He contends that the record in this case and available to this Court shows that from the day he left Scientology, almost 24 years ago,

Armstrong has not done anything that was a threat to safety, order, morality or national security. Although Armstrong’s, and everyone’s, right to religious freedom is always maximal, because no California court so far has been willing to address the religious liberty issue and because Armstrong has continued to study and address the issue, his certainty of the correctness of his position has increased.

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The Scientologists say I posted a letter to Saddam

Armstrong once posted a message on the Internet concerning a letter he sent to Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. In the letter, he offered himself to Hussein as a hostage in the Iraqi war. “If either side failed to perform any part of the agreement, the other side could execute me,” he concluded.

I say:

The Scientologists include this detail to somehow impeach my mental state. They have been doing this for many years, and I have responded when I could and it was sensible. See, e.g., this from a Scientology statement attacking the 1984 judgment in Re: B and G, Wards, in the Royal Courts of Justice in London in the UK³⁵:

Armstrong recently posted a message on the Internet concerning a letter he sent to Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. In the letter, he offered himself to Hussein as a hostage in the Iraqi war. “If either side failed to perform any part of the agreement, the other side could execute me,” he concluded. Armstrong makes clear in his posting that he did not think the letter to Hussein was a joke. He is deadly serious, and quite proudly republishes it and other similar writings.

To further demonstrate how out of touch he is with reality, Armstrong had himself photographed by a newspaper naked in a newspaper while holding a globe to promote his theories of destroying all money.

See also, e.g., this February 27, 2014 letter to Dan Sherman, who is now posted as Miscavige’s speech writer: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/1082 Sherman had written to the Boston Herald about me:

The facts are these: that defector is none other than Gerald Armstrong – former Scientology clerk, former paid agent of a renegade government intelligence service and, frankly, a certifiable nut. After failing to seize Church assets in a truly bizarre scheme involving the forging of incriminating evidence and the secret planting of that evidence on Church premises, he next appears in the public eye as the would-be masochist for Saddam Hussein. That is, he actually proposed Hussein accept him as a willing hostage for the release of prisoners, significantly adding: “I will be available for torture.” Needless to say, even those within Hussein’s camp had sense enough not to reply.

I responded:

My letter to Saddam was a simple effort to present an alternative to the Gulf War that would bring death to hundreds of thousands of people and wreak untold destruction on the region. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/saddam-bill-wgert-and-me.html
What did you do, Dan? Cower in your cult employing your God-given mind and skills to victimize good people. I am sure that there were other people in the world who didn’t lust for the Gulf War and didn’t want those hundreds of thousands killed. Some of the good citizens who didn’t want all the unnecessary killing doubtlessly communicated in some way in the hope that it wouldn’t happen. Yet I am the only person you black PR for my simple, serious, cordial, literary attempt to do something about it. It’s as if you Scientologists and your collaborators would rather have limitless evil happen than tell the truth about me or even have someone grant me the slightest credence.

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The Scientologists say the Saddam letter and a dream illustrate my mental state

His mental state is further illustrated by his rendition of a bizarre dream he had that involved a talking pig.

I say:

The Scientologists have used my one-page recounting of a dream I had in 1985 to malign my mental state around the world ever since. This and many more such statements constitutue defamation per se, because it all imputes to me some kind of mental illness. The Scientologists’ attacks on my mental state reach into court cases, media, Internet wars, and governments. They have used the dream in legal proceedings to try to improperly prejudice judges against me, used it or threatened to use it to try to embarrass me into silence, or for sadism’s sake. See, e.g., this November 18, 1986 declaration filed in Armstrong 1³⁶

Attached hereto as Exhibit C is a copy of a recitation of a dream I had in March 1985. I have blacked out for this purpose, anything which could be considered offensive. Donald Randolph has, in furtherance of the organization’s goals, defined the recitation of the dream a “sickening work” demonstrating my “extremely aberrated activities.” The dream was a dream. The recitation was true, and as artistically tight as I was capable of. To the organization, if it suits its purposes, however, dreams are reality, and truth is whatever can be twisted therefrom. The only thing “sickening” about the dream is how the organization acquired it and went about its degradation.

This is from a March 15, 1990 declaration filed in the Scientologists’ appeal from the 1984 judgment in Armstrong 1³⁷:

40. On December 21, 1988 I received a call from Michael Flynn who relayed a message from Michael Lee Hertzberg, one of the organization’s leading lawyers. Paul Morantz, Bent Corydon’s attorney in one or another case, filed a motion to unseal the Armstrong court file. Judge Geernaert, who had inherited the Armstrong file after Judge Breckenridge retired, allowed the unsealing. The organization had 30 days to appeal. They wanted me to file a pleading to keep the court file sealed. They said that otherwise the “pig document” would come out. (This document, which was specifically sealed by Judge Breckenridge, was a recitation of a dream I had in 1985.) They also stated that if I didn’t file something it would unsettle the settlement. They said they have a case on point. They said it would be bad for me. I could have to give the (settlement) money back. Mr. Flynn translated the facts to me: “It’s a veiled threat.” I said my decision at that time was to do nothing.

The following mentions are from a November 13, 1997 post to a.r.s.³⁸:

Because of the Scientology war, March 1985 was a stressful enough time for me to excuse my dreaming any sort of dream. But the pig dream doesn’t really relate to anything then going on, and, being a dream, it doesn’t need excusing. Only years later did I come to understand, aside from its immediate and very obvious message, what it meant in my life.

[…]

During my cross-examination in the Christofferson trial in the spring of 1985 cult lawyer Earle Cooley revealed that Sherman had been working for Scientology, that I had been set up, that they had four hours of illegally taken videotapes of me during parts of which I swear like a logger, and that they had a number of writings they’d tricked from me, plus the dream. My recollection is that Multnomah County Judge Londer didn’t allow the cult to admit it into evidence. On July 3, 1986 cult lawyer Donald Randolph of the LA law firmOverland, Berke, Wesley, Gits, Randolph and Levanas signed andfiled in Armstrong I (LASC No, 420153) the cult’s “Objection of Cross-Defendant Church of Scientology of California to Release of Pre-Clear Files,” supported by, among other exhibits, the pig dream.

[…]

When I was in Johannesburg, South Africa in August, 1991 at the request of Malcolm Nothling to testify in his case against Scientology, one of the cult’s local attorneys smirked to Malcolm’s attorney that he had the “pig dream.” Various cult black PR packs on me obtained in discovery in my Marin County litigation contain a statement parroting this one:          “Armstrong’s state of mind is illustrated by various “literary” writings authored by him, none of which more clearly demonstrated it than a document now known as the “pig letter,” in which Armstrong purported to describe a dream. [Attachment]”

[…]

At the 1993 Nonscam CAN Convention in Minneapolis, a cult heavy (I think named something like Bratchi, and a sometimes sidekick of Gene Ingram) hassled me about the dream. Last month OSA mean guy Lynn Farny sent the dream and a bunch of other black PR on me to Channel 4 in the UK to try to stop the Hubbard documentary. In Edmonton, Alberta, Yvette Shank, OSA mean woman, sent the dream and another set of black PR to CHED Radio. I suppose the cult will soon be sending it to Congress, if they haven’t already.

The Scientologists even mentioned my dream in their submission to the US Internal Revenue Service on which their 1993 grant of tax exemption was based; although they falsely call it a “love poem to a pig.”

None of the witnesses had a single thing to say about Christofferson. They were simply summonsed to rant about the “evil” Church for days on end. Gerald Armstrong, an IRS informant whose love poem to a pig was written at plaintiff attorney Gary McMurry’s farm-home between days of testimony, spent several days denigrating the Church and its beliefs.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/writings/ars/ars-2004-10-10.html

In the last year, Caroline and I have assembled an archive of materials showing that the Scientologists obtained their IRS tax exemption by violation of public policy, including criminal actions against me and false, defamatory statements about me in their submissions.³⁹

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The Scientologists say I’m out of touch with reality, demonstrated by having myself photographed naked by a newspaper

To further demonstrate how out of touch he is with reality, Armstrong had himself photographed by a newspaper naked while holding a globe to promote his theories of destroying all money.

I say:

I never had myself photographed naked by a newspaper, while holding a globe or not. The Scientologists’ charge is false, and they know it is false. The Scientologists have been making this false charge against me for many years. See, e.g., this May 9, 1994 letter from Mike Rinder, then the top person in Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs, to Mirror Group Newspapers in the UK⁴⁰:

However, your client would be advised not to rely on information from Mr. Armstrong. He has now distinguished himself by posing naked in a newspaper claiming that the solution to the national debt is for everyone in the United States to simply renounce money.

I confronted Rinder personally about this specific lie about me posing naked in a newspaper. He let me know that the Scientologists knew it was false, but they were going to continue, which meant lying about me and black PRing me, until I “shut up.”

See, e.g., my June 2, 2011 response to Russian Scientologist Aleksei Danchenko http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/archives/5011

He is quoted saying:

Armstrong had himself photographed by a newspaper naked while covering himself with a globe, which, according to him, symbolizes the idea of refusing any money.

I wrote:

This is false, and Scientologists know it’s false. They know I was wearing running shorts, which was completely appropriate apparel for the occasion.

President Jentzsch’s 1993 letter to Entertainment Television: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/jentzsch-ltr-1993-08-05.html

[…]

Current international chief spokesperson Tommy Davis recently made the same naked claim as reported in Lawrence Wright’s profile of Paul Haggis, “Apostate,” in the February 14, 2011 issue of The New Yorker.

Davis passed around a photograph of Armstrong, which, he said, showed Armstrong “sitting naked” with a giant globe in his lap. “This was a photo that was in a newspaper article he did where he said that all people should give up money,” Davis said. “He’s not a very sane person.”

Armstrong told me that, in the photo, he is actually wearing running shorts under the globe. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-apostate-lawrence-wright

This photo, which was published in Runners World in the February 1995 edition, shows me wearing the same pair of shorts while running. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/rat/runners-world-1995-02.html

I do not have any theories of destroying money. My idea is for society to move off the money standard, to achieve a peaceful transformation that leads to addressing planetary or social destruction. Money’s destruction is not my goal.[ 1. Gerry’s ideas for society to move off the money standard: http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/our/index.html]

This is the newspaper article the Scientologists are referring to:  http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/media/marin-independent-journal-1992-11-11.html

At one time, society, transportation-wise, was on the horse system. Along came the automobile and, shortly, society moved off the horse system. This was not achieved with theories or goals of destroying all the horses. And it was achieved without all the horses being destroyed. Society, economy-wise, is on the money system. That needs, for everyone’s survival, to be changed.

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The Scientologists say they have documents

Documents:

7. Excerpts from Armstrong video tapes.

8. Final Judgment against Armstrong.

9. Sentencing Order against Armstrong.

10. Armstrong letter.

11. Armstrong newspaper article.

These documents were not included in the materials Beverley gave me in Toronto on June 26.

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The Scientologists say a 1997 Italian Supreme Court decision identifies Atack and me as not credible witnesses who made inflammatory and scurrilous allegations that were dismissed

1. Credibility finding against Armstrong and Atack

In October, 1997, the Italian Supreme Court the Court of Cassation) issued, a landmark decision recognizing the religious bona fides of Scientology and ending years of harassing police investigations. The Court thoroughly analyzed the criteria for defining a religion, stressed the government’s duty not to restrict religious freedom and concluded that Scientology has in common with other faiths the criteria necessary for it to be considered a religion (Page 32). As part of its analysis, the Supreme Court specifically dismissed inflammatory and scurrilous allegations by Armstrong and Atack on the grounds that they are not credible witnesses. The Court criticized the Court of Appeals for its failure to verify the information from these individuals, to ascertain the reasons for their estrangement from Scientology and to determine whether their statements were gathered in a judicial proceeding where their veracity could be examined and tested (pages 34 – 35).
Document:

12. Italian Supreme Court Decision of October 1997

I say:

I was not aware of this decision before receiving the Scientologists’ document in Toronto. The document itself was not included in the materials Beverley gave me by June 26. I have never possessed this decision, and I have so far been unable to find or obtain it. ⁴¹

I submitted or made no allegations or statements of any kind to this Italian case or court, or any other case or court in Italy. I have never testified in any manner in any Italian case. I have never, to my knowledge, ever been contacted by anyone involved in litigation in Italy to provide allegations, statements or testimony of any kind, or for any other reason. I have never been to Italy. Although I do not know what the facts are concerning Jon Atack, I have so far understood from him that he had, as I had, nothing to do with this Italian case.

I have been in contact with a native Italian speaker who has communicated to me that the Court of Cassation does not state in any way that Atack’s or my allegations, whatever are in the court record, were inflammatory and scurrilous; nor were our allegations dismissed on the grounds that we are not credible witnesses. We were not witnesses at all, and our credibility was never adjudicated. The key issue for the Scientologists in their black PR over decades and now into 2015 in Canada is my credibility, and, thank God, I am a credible witness.

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Other people targeted in the black PR pack:

The other people the Scientologists target in their Toronto black PR pack are US journalist Tony Ortega; former Scientologist and now activist in Ireland Pete Griffiths; Hamburg, Germany official Ursula Caberta; Russian Professor of Theology and Vice Chairman of the Religious Expert Council in the Russian Ministry of Justice Dr. Alexander L. Dvorkin; and UK writer Jon Atack, whom I have already mentioned. All of these people presented at the Toronto conference, except for Ms. Caberta, who did not attend or participate. The Scientologists’ clear intent is to smear us all by association with each other.

The Scientologists black PR Ortega as “a self-promoter on the fringe of the Internet who has used bigotry and false allegations about the Church of Scientology to create a cottage industry of hate… nothing more than a parasite.”

The Scientologists black PR Atack as “an apostate who was expelled from the Church;” a “deprogrammer … paid to forcibly remove family members from a religion in violation of the criminal law;” whose book A Piece of Blue Sky” relied exclusively on “stories” dredged up from a handful of fellow apostates, particularly Gerald Armstrong, a notorious liar;” whose “dishonesty and complete lack of credibility … resulted in judicial orders making it crystal clear that his book was so dishonest that it was not worth the paper it was printed on;” who “had been denied a staff position in the Church because of his background using and selling illegal drugs and his drug-related criminal convictions;” whose “repeated lies under oath and the damning judicial comments about his honesty and integrity completely discredit [him] as a source of any information on Mr. Hubbard or Scientology.”

The Scientologists black PR Griffiths as “a member of the hate group Anonymous,” who has bounced a check, “organized hate conferences” at which others “spew their anti-religious bigotry” and is “under investigation” for “welfare fraud.”

The Scientologists black PR Caberta as “a driving force behind this anti-religious movement in Germany” that caused the US State Department “to formally admonish the German Government,” and whose behavior a US Federal Court condemned and sanctioned.

The Scientologists black PR Dr. Dvorkin as, among other villainous things, “nothing more than a propagandist against non-Russian Orthodox faiths,” whose “sole occupation” for decades has been “to generate hostility against minority faiths in Russia;” whose “unfounded accusations against targeted religious faiths are rife with falsehoods;” who “regularly accuses members of religions he disfavors of horrible crimes, yet he cannot back up his statements with any facts;” who “is an enemy of freedom of religion and freedom of speech” and “an anti-religious propagandist and hater.”

For some years, the Scientologists have also been black PRing and defaming Dr. Dvorkin and me together as “anti-religious extremists,” and I have responded a number of times to try to correct this threatening calumny. See, e.g. this November 23, 2006 letter to Scientology head Miscavige, where I defended Dr. Dvorkin⁴²:

4. “At a meeting of hate groups in Russia, Armstrong met with deprogramming proponent Alexander Dvorkin.”

I have never attended any meeting of hate groups in Russia at any time, nor have I attended any meeting of any hate groups in any other country. I have met Dr. Dvorkin several times in Russia and in other countries, he has translated for me on several occasions, and I have been able to observe him for several hours at a time on many occasions. At no time did I observe him attend a meeting of hate groups, discuss attending any meeting of hate groups, or suggest that I or anyone else attend any meeting of hate groups. At no time did he propose deprogramming me or anyone else, as you define “deprogramming” on your hate sites; i.e., activities involving kidnapping and assaults or such stupidities. He is a Doctor of Theology, a religious man in the sincerest rational meaning of the word, and a teacher in religious studies and in religious organizations. He is one of the people identified on your hate sites as an anti-religious extremist that I know with complete certainly is not an anti-religious extremist.

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Legal context for defamation claim

Smith and Felske’s handing of a Scientology black propaganda pack containing multiple statements libeling me to Dr. Beverley, and their concurrent slandering me to him, is an incident in the Scientologists’ decades-long conspiracy and campaign against my rights and person. The Smith and Felske incident is important because it is the latest instance I have confirmed in this conspiracy and campaign, which operates largely covertly or cloaked. This incident shows the Canadian Scientologists’ adoption and promulgation of the US-sourced black propaganda in Canada where I live and where I am a citizen. This instance in the Scientology-wide conspiracy and campaign against my rights and person, while hurtful and threatening, is an opportunity to bring attention to this unlawful religious persecution and to the policies or doctrines that underlie such an absurdity, to take significant action in ending that conspiracy and campaign, and to champion justice along the way where its championing is greatly needed.

The Scientologists’ conspiracy and campaign is directed and controlled by David Miscavige through Religious Technology Center and the Sea Organization, which are headquartered in California. Miscavige, RTC and the SO also direct and control Scientology operations and personnel in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada through Church of Scientology International (CSI), which is also headquartered in California.

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Notice of libel

On September 16, I emailed a “Notice of Libel and Slander” to Scientology corporations RTC, CSI and Church of Scientology Toronto (CSTO). I mailed my notice by Canada Post to RTC, CSI, CSTO, David Miscavige C/O RTC, Earl Smith C/O CSTO and Patricia Felske C/O CSTO. Earlier, I had confirmed by a call to CSTO, where I spoke to a woman who identified herself as Helena the receptionist, that mail addressed to Smith and Felske in care of CSTO would be received by them. My notice of libel and slander is posted at: http://gerryarmstrong.ca/archives/1541

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Hill v. Scientology

The case of S. Casey Hill, Crown attorney, versus Church of Scientology of Toronto and its attorney Morris Manning for defamation, one of the most extraordinary and cited cases with one of the largest defamation awards in Canada, has a number of useful overlaps and historical connections with my defamation claim. The quotes  below come from the 1995 Supreme Court of Canada decision in CSTO and Manning’s appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario which affirmed the damning defamation judgment. ⁴³

[Hill] The appellant M[anning], accompanied by representatives of the appellant Church of Scientology, held a press conference on the courthouse steps.  M, who was wearing his barrister’s gown, read from and commented upon allegations contained in a notice of motion by which Scientology intended to commence criminal contempt proceedings against the respondent, a Crown attorney.  The notice of motion alleged that the respondent had misled a judge and had breached orders sealing certain documents belonging to Scientology.  The remedy sought was the imposition of a fine or his imprisonment.  At the contempt proceedings, the allegations against the respondent were found to be untrue and without foundation.  He thereupon commenced an action for damages in libel against the appellants.  Both appellants were found jointly liable for general damages in the amount of $300,000 and Scientology alone was found liable for aggravated damages of $500,000 and punitive damages of $800,000.  This judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeal.  The major issues raised in this appeal are whether the common law of defamation is consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and whether the jury’s award of damages can stand.

Held:  The appeal should be dismissed.

There are attorneys of the Scientologists who participate in the conspiracy and campaign against me, including in press conferences. The Smith and Felske black PR document makes much of the imposition of fines and jail sentences they achieved against me, but did not achieve against Hill. Although not mentioned in the subject document, the Scientologists and their attorneys have on multiple occasions also falsely charged that I had breached court orders sealing certain documents, and have attempted to have my attorney and me prosecuted on the basis of their false charges of court order violations.

[Hill] Per La Forest, Gonthier, Cory, McLachlin, Iacobucci and Major JJ.:

Reputation is an integral and fundamentally important aspect of every individual; it exists for everyone quite apart from employment.  The appellants impugned the character, competence and integrity of the respondent

That is the most basic statement in Hill. It is the basis of Armstrong v. Church of Scientology of Toronto, et al. (Armstrong 9) twenty years later. I recognize that while I am alive, my reputation is an integral and important aspect of me. I have demonstrated its importance to me by the sincere efforts I have made over much time to correct false and defamatory statements and reasonably provide the relevant underlying facts and truth. The Scientologists impugn my credibility, character and mental competence.

[Hill] The protection of reputation is of vital importance, and consideration must be given to the particular significance reputation has for a lawyer.  Although it is not specifically mentioned in the Charter, the good reputation of the individual represents and reflects the innate dignity of the individual, a concept which underlies all the Charter rights.  Further, reputation is intimately related to the right to privacy, which has been accorded constitutional protection.  The “actual malice” rule should not be adopted in Canada in an action between private litigants.  The law of defamation is not unduly restrictive or inhibiting.  Freedom of speech, like any other freedom, is subject to the law and must be balanced against the essential need of individuals to protect their reputation.

I am not a lawyer, but the particular significance reputation has for me is for a person who is called upon to testify in legal proceedings and whose reputation has been assailed for decades by black propagandists, and whose class is subjected to extreme and unjustified prejudice by the Scientologists and their collaborators. Hill demonstrates that defamation is not a protected religious duty or sacrament, as the Scientologists might claim.

[Hill] Malice is commonly understood, in the popular sense, as spite or ill‑will.  However, it also includes any indirect motive or ulterior purpose that conflicts with the sense of duty or the mutual interest which the occasion created.  Malice may also be established by showing that the defendant spoke dishonestly, or in knowing or reckless disregard for the truth.

Malice is present and oppressive in the Smith and Felske incident and black PR, and in the long conspiracy and campaign against me. It is clear that the Scientologist participants and their agents knowingly and recklessly disregard the truth because the truth has been easily available, as have I, for many years.

[Hill] General damages in defamation cases are presumed from the very publication of the false statement and are awarded at large.  It is members of the community in which the defamed person lives who will be best able to assess the damages.  The jury as representative of that community should be free to make an assessment of damages which will provide the plaintiff with a sum of money that clearly demonstrates to the community the vindication of the plaintiff’s reputation.  No cap should be placed on general damages for defamation.  First, the injury suffered by a plaintiff as a result of injurious false statements is entirely different from the non‑pecuniary damages suffered by a plaintiff in a personal injury case.  Second, at the time the cap was placed on non‑pecuniary damages in personal injury cases, their assessment had become a very real problem for the courts and for society as a whole, which is not the case with libel actions.  The award of $300,000 by way of general damages was justified in this case.  Both appellants published the notice of motion.  All persons who are involved in the commission of a joint tort are jointly and severally liable for the damages caused by that tort, and it would thus be wrong in law to have a jury attempt to apportion liability for general damages between the joint tortfeasors.  The reports in the press were widely circulated and the television broadcast had a wide coverage.  The setting and the persons involved gave the coverage an aura of credibility and significance that must have influenced all who saw and read the accounts.

The Scientologists attempt to give their black PR actions in Armstrong 9 an aura of credibility and significance. They selected longtime public relations-trained representatives to black PR me to Beverley and beyond. I imagine they might find themselves someday insisting how ineffective their tech is, but what they intended in this incident, as shown by their black PR pack, was to adversely influence Dr. Beverley and others against me.

[Hill] Aggravated damages may be awarded in circumstances where the defendant’s conduct has been particularly high‑handed or oppressive, thereby increasing the plaintiff’s humiliation and anxiety arising from the libellous statement.  If aggravated damages are to be awarded, there must be a finding that the defendant was motivated by actual malice, which increased the injury to the plaintiff, either by spreading further afield the damage to the reputation of the plaintiff, or by increasing the mental distress and humiliation of the plaintiff.  The factors that a jury may properly take into account in assessing aggravated damages include whether there was a withdrawal of the libellous statement made by the defendant and an apology tendered, whether there was a repetition of the libel, conduct that was calculated to deter the plaintiff from proceeding with the libel action, a prolonged and hostile cross‑examination of the plaintiff or a plea of justification which the defendant knew was bound to fail.  The general manner in which the defendant presented its case is also relevant.  Further, it is appropriate for a jury to consider the conduct of the defendant at the time the libel was published.  In this case, there was ample evidence upon which the jury could properly base their finding of aggravated damages.  Every aspect of this case demonstrates the very real and persistent malice of Scientology.

Aggravated damages are also clearly a part of Armstrong 9. The very real and persistent malice of Scientology that Casey Hill experienced is the same as what I experience with the Smith and Felske black PR in Toronto and the Scientologists whole conspiracy and campaign against me around the world.

[Hill] Punitive damages may be awarded in situations where the defendant’s misconduct is so malicious, oppressive and high‑handed that it offends the court’s sense of decency.  They should only be awarded in those circumstances where the combined award of general and aggravated damages would be insufficient to achieve the goal of punishment and deterrence.  Unlike compensatory damages, punitive damages are not at large, and consequently courts have a much greater scope and discretion on appeal.  The appellate review should be based upon the court’s estimation as to whether the punitive damages serve a rational purpose, as they did in this case.  Further, the circumstances presented in this exceptional case demonstrate that there was such insidious, pernicious and persistent malice that the award for punitive damages cannot be said to be excessive.

There is no doubt that the Scientologists’ misconduct is malicious, oppressive and high‑handed enough to offend a decent court’s sense of decency. Casey Hill was awarded $300,000 for general damages, $500,000 for aggravated damages, and $800,000 for punitive damages. The purpose of punitive damages, as the Supreme Court says, is punishment and deterrence, to deter the tort-feasors, and others, from committing such torts. It is obvious that the punitive damages awarded in Hill were insufficient to deter the Scientologists from willfully defaming citizens for malevolent ends.

[Hill] The judgment of La Forest, Gonthier, Cory, McLachlin, Iacobucci and Major JJ.

[…]

I. Factual Background

3. As in all actions for libel, the factual background is extremely important and must be set out in some detail.  At the time the defamatory statements were made, Casey Hill was employed as counsel with the Crown Law Office, Criminal Division of the Ministry of the Attorney General for the Province of Ontario.  He had given advice to the Ontario Provincial Police (“OPP”) regarding a warrant obtained on March 1, 1983 which authorized a search of the premises occupied by Scientology.  During the execution of the search warrant on March 3 and 4, 1983, approximately 250,000 documents, comprising over 2 million pages of material, were seized.  These documents were stored in some 900 boxes at an OPP building in Toronto.

The OPP apparently used two of my affidavits, dated June 25, 1982 and August 11, 1982, in their “Information to Obtain a Search Warrant” for the 1983 search and seizure in Toronto. ⁴⁴

[Hill]

   4. Immediately following the seizure, Scientology retained Clayton Ruby to bring a motion to quash the search warrant and to seek the return of the seized documents.  Casey Hill, who had gained experience and special skill in the area of search and seizure, acted as counsel for the Crown.
[…]

The Scientologists also used Clayton Ruby in the effort to impugn Hill’s character and integrity. I discovered last year that Ruby had libeled me to the US Internal Revenue Service for the Scientologists in 1992 to help them improperly to obtain their undeserved IRS tax exemption. ⁴⁵

[Hill] The “Enemy Canada” File

21. Long before he gave advice to the OPP in connection with the search and seizure of documents which took place on March 3 and 4, 1983, Casey Hill had become a target of Scientology’s enmity. Over the years, he had been involved in a number of matters concerning Scientology’s affairs.  As a result, it kept a file on him.  This was only discovered when the production of the file was ordered during the course of this action.  The file disclosed that from approximately 1977 until at least 1981, Scientology closely monitored and tracked Casey Hill and had labelled him an “Enemy Canada”.  Casey Hill testified that from his experience, persons viewed by Scientology as its enemies were “subject to being neutralized”.

The same with me, and from my experience. The Scientologists have cabinets and computers of files on me. I am an “Enemy/traitor Canada,” and still subject to being neutralized after all these years.

[Hill] The press conference was organized by Earl Smith. He contacted a number of media organizations, including CFTO‑TV, CBC television and The Globe and Mail and invited them to the event which was to be held in front of Osgoode Hall.

And Smith was there in the Pickle Barrel in June 2015, organizing a double-team handling with Felske.

[Hill] (C)  The Felske Memorandum

27. Patricia Felske is a Scientologist who had attended at the offices of the OPP on a regular basis since March 1983 for the purpose of reviewing the seized materials and ensuring that the privileged documents were sealed.  Between August 29, 1984, and September 27, 1984, she, along with other representatives from Scientology, opened the sealed envelopes and verified their contents against photocopies of the documents that Rosemarie Drapkin had examined.  Their purpose was to determine whether Ms. Drapkin had been granted access to the restricted materials.

28. On September 17, 1984, the day of the press conference, the Scientology investigation was well advanced and neither then nor later was there any indication that Drapkin gained access to sealed documents. Scientology and Manning nevertheless proceeded with the press conference before any conclusive findings had been made on this issue.

29. On November 2, 1984, Patricia Felske prepared a brief summary of her findings, entitled “Time Track Re: Solicitor and Client Privileged Documents”, which she sent to Clayton Ruby, Charles Campbell, Morris Manning and Diane Martin, another of Scientology’s lawyers. In it she concluded that “[t]here was no evidence to support any allegation that the sealed envelopes had been tampered with by the OPP” (emphasis added).

Felske is capable of examining evidence, coming to a supportable conclusion, and communicating such a conclusion. So is Smith. Neither did so with the black PR about me that they provided to Beverley. They cannot but be aware of Scientologists’ reputation, and especially their leaders’ reputation, for untruths and false allegations, so they had a particular duty to investigate the truth of the allegations they, their organization and their fellow Scientologists were making in their black PR pack.

[Hill]

 58. With respect to aggravated damages, the Court of Appeal examined the circumstances existing prior to, at the time of and following the publication of the libel. It concluded that the jury was entitled to find that its award for general damages was not large enough to provide adequate solatium to Casey Hill for the aggravation of his injury which was caused by Scientology’s malicious libel and reprehensible conduct.

59. The court then turned its attention to the issue of punitive damages and concluded as follows at p. 459:What the circumstances of this case demonstrated beyond peradventure to the jury was that Scientology was engaged in an unceasing and apparently unstoppable campaign to destroy Casey Hill and his reputation. It must have been apparent to the jury that a very substantial penalty was required because Scientology had not been deterred from its course of conduct by a previous judicial determination that its allegations were unfounded nor by its own knowledge that its principal allegation [that the sealed documents had been opened] was false.

60. The court also observed that it would not interfere with the award of punitive damages on the ground that Scientology persisted in its attack on Casey Hill’s reputation even after the jury’s verdict.

The circumstances of Armstrong 9 demonstrate that the Scientologists are engaged in an unceasing and apparently unstoppable campaign to destroy me and my reputation. Similar to their actions in Hill, the Scientologists were not deterred by a judgment in the case in which they were suing me that what they were alleging was false, nor by the California Court of Appeal’s affirming of the judgment, nor by the Scientologists’ own knowledge that their allegations were false. They have persisted in their attack on my reputation thirty-one years after the verdict in LA Superior Court that their allegations were false.

[Hill]

99. With that background, let us first consider the common law of defamation in light of the values underlying the Charter.

(b)  The Nature of Actions for Defamation:  The Values to Be Balanced

[…]

(ii)   The Reputation of the Individual

 107. The other value to be balanced in a defamation action is the protection of the reputation of the individual.  Although much has very properly been said and written about the importance of freedom of expression, little has been written of the importance of reputation.  Yet, to most people, their good reputation is to be cherished above all.  A good reputation is closely related to the innate worthiness and dignity of the individual.  It is an attribute that must, just as much as freedom of expression, be protected by society’s laws.  In order to undertake the balancing required by this case, something must be said about the value of reputation.

108. Democracy has always recognized and cherished the fundamental importance of an individual.  That importance must, in turn, be based upon the good repute of a person.  It is that good repute which enhances an individual’s sense of worth and value.  False allegations can so very quickly and completely destroy a good reputation.  A reputation tarnished by libel can seldom regain its former lustre.  A democratic society, therefore, has an interest in ensuring that its members can enjoy and protect their good reputation so long as it is merited.

109. From the earliest times, society has recognized the potential for tragic damage that can be occasioned by a false statement made about a person.  This is evident in the Bible, the Mosaic Code and the Talmud.  As the author Carter‑Ruck, in Carter‑Ruck on Libel and Slander (4th ed. 1992), explains at p. 17:The earliest evidence in recorded history of any sanction for defamatory statements is in the Mosaic code.  In Exodus XXII 28 we find `Thou shalt not revile the gods nor curse the ruler of thy people’ and in Exodus XXIII 1 `Thou shalt not raise a false report:  put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness’.  There is also a condemnation of rumourmongers in Leviticus XIX 16 `Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people’.

110. To make false statements which are likely to injure the reputation of another has always been regarded as a serious offence.  During the Roman era, the punishment for libel varied from the loss of the right to make a will, to imprisonment, exile for life, or forfeiture of property.  In the case of slander, a person could be made liable for payment of damages.

All the concerned Scientologists have known from the Hill decision, if not much earlier, the tragic damage their falsehoods occasion on their targets. They have known that their false allegations can quickly destroy their targets’ good reputations. They know that they tarnish the lustrous with libels, to kill their God-given lustre. The Scientologists keep telling falsehoods about their “enemies” like me just because they know the damage they’re causing. As shown above, the Scientologists even know by their own scriptures the terrible evil their black PR does.

[Hill] (e)  Conclusion:  Should the Law of Defamation be Modified by Incorporating the Sullivan Principle?

 137. The New York Times v. Sullivan decision has been criticized by judges and academic writers in the United States and elsewhere.  It has not been followed in the United Kingdom or Australia.  I can see no reason for adopting it in Canada in an action between private litigants.  The law of defamation is essentially aimed at the prohibition of the publication of injurious false statements.  It is the means by which the individual may protect his or her reputation which may well be the most distinguishing feature of his or her character, personality and, perhaps, identity.  I simply cannot see that the law of defamation is unduly restrictive or inhibiting.  Surely it is not requiring too much of individuals that they ascertain the truth of the allegations they publish.  The law of defamation provides for the defences of fair comment and of qualified privilege in appropriate cases.  Those who publish statements should assume a reasonable level of responsibility.

That is the issue for the Scientologists: to assume a reasonable level of responsibility for their injurious false statements, their black propaganda. Since the Scientologists are motivated by libel’s destructive benefits, their targets must depend on the justice system to obtain from the Scientologists such a reasonable level of responsibility.

[Hill]

 176. […] It is a well‑established principle that all persons who are involved in the commission of a joint tort are jointly and severally liable for the damages caused by that tort.  If one person writes a libel, another repeats it, and a third approves what is written, they all have made the defamatory libel.  Both the person who originally utters the defamatory statement, and the individual who expresses agreement with it, are liable for the injury.

The joint tort-feasors in Armstrong 9 are, minimally, Miscavige, RTC, CSI, CSTO, Smith and Felske.

[Hill]

 177.  […] It matters not that subsequent to the publication of the libel, Casey Hill received promotions, was elected a bencher and eventually appointed a trial judge in the General Division of the Court of Ontario. As a lawyer, Hill would have no way of knowing what members of the public, colleagues, other lawyers and judges may have been affected by the dramatic presentation of the allegation that he had been instrumental in breaching an order of the court and that he was guilty of criminal contempt.

178. This nagging doubt and sense of hurt must have affected him in every telephone call he made and received in the course of his daily work, in every letter that he sent and received and in every appearance that he made before the courts of the province of Ontario. He would never know who, as a result of the libellous statement, had some lingering suspicion that he was guilty of misconduct which was criminal in nature. He would never know who might have believed that he was a person without integrity who would act criminally in the performance of his duties as a Crown counsel. He could never be certain who would accept the allegation that he was guilty of a criminal breach of trust which was the essential thrust of the libel.

It matters not that I continued standing up, speaking out and telling the truth about Hubbard, Scientology and Scientologists, or that some people at least were not turned against me despite the Scientologists’ black PR campaign. I have no way of knowing what members of the public, colleagues, media, lawyers and judges may have been affected by the Scientologists’ false allegations, including that I was guilty of theft. I have Hill’s nagging doubt and sense of hurt that affects me in telephone calls, in letters sent and received, and in every public appearance I make. Like Hill, I never know who has some lingering suspicion that I am guilty of the criminal misconduct the Scientologists allege. I never know who might have believed that I was a person without integrity who would act criminally as the Scientologists portray me. I can never be certain who would accept the Scientologists’ allegations that comprise the libel.

[Hill]

181. Hill movingly described the effect the reading of the press reports of the press conference had upon him and of viewing the television broadcast. He put it in this way:

I was sick. I was shocked.

[…]

I was horrified when I saw it. I had had a long history of dealing with counsel for the Church of Scientology.

[…]

When I saw the newscast, I realized that there was really nothing I could do to stop the information from getting out.

[…]

For me, in seeing it, it was equivalent to saying I was a cheat and that I had obstructed the course of justice. It was an attack on my professional reputation and I had no way of stopping it.

The same is true for me. I was and am sick, shocked and horrified. Even though I am not an attorney, the Scientologists’ willful libel is an attack on my reputation, which is as vital to me as Casey Hill’s reputation is to him. I have no way of stopping the attack, but can only seek the remedies the justice system provides.

[Hill]

194. In summary, every aspect of this case demonstrates the very real and persistent malice of Scientology. Their actions preceding the publication of the libel, the circumstances of its publication and their subsequent actions in relation to both the search warrant proceedings and this action amply confirm and emphasize the insidious malice of Scientology. Much was made of their apology tendered at the time of the hearing in the Court of Appeal. There is a hollow ring to that submission when it is remembered that it was not until the fifth day of oral argument before the Court of Appeal that the apology was tendered. Scientology can gain little comfort from such a late and meaningless apology.

In almost thirty-four years in which the Scientologists under Hubbard and then Miscavige have subjected me to multiple assaults, multiple lawsuits, malicious prosecution, religious persecution and a river of black propaganda, not one Scientologist has ever apologized. Because any apology now is so late and so meaningless, it has long since become demeaning to ask for one. Correction and justice are what I seek.

[Hill]

195. […] Scientology’s behaviour throughout can only be characterized as recklessly high‑handed, supremely arrogant and contumacious. There seems to have been a continuing conscious effort on Scientology’s part to intensify and perpetuate its attack on Casey Hill without any regard for the truth of its allegations.

The same treatment from the Scientologists can be expected now in 2015. Their continuing practice and pattern has been to intensify and perpetuate their attack on me without any regard for the truth of their allegations.

[Hill]

199. Punitive damages can and do serve a useful purpose. But for them, it would be all too easy for the large, wealthy and powerful to persist in libelling vulnerable victims. Awards of general and aggravated damages alone might simply be regarded as a licence fee for continuing a character assassination. The protection of a person’s reputation arising from the publication of false and injurious statements must be effective. The most effective means of protection will be supplied by the knowledge that fines in the form of punitive damages may be awarded in cases where the defendant’s conduct is truly outrageous.

Scientology’s entities are large, wealthy and powerful, and they clearly persist in libeling vulnerable victims. The Scientologists act as if they regard the significant general and aggravated damage awards, and even the punitive damage award against them in Hill, as the licence fee for continuing character assassination that the Supreme Court of Canada warned about. The only available means of protection is significantly increased punitive damages, beyond what the Scientologists can regard as a mere licence fee.

Gerry Armstrong

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Notes