Tl;dr Thanks Paulette. [WWP post.] Can you please tell the truth about your false affidavits and how you came to sign them.
WRONG — While Mike and I are not on good terms, we did not sue each other (please, 19 lawsuits against me from Scientology were enough). I think we both understand where the other was coming from and were sympathetic about what the other went through and had no wish to add to each other’s burdens or bad feelings.
Paulette
Thanks, Paulette.
I had not heard that Flynn had sued you, so I am grateful to have you confirm that he had not. I, of course, had worked in Boston as his paralegal from September 1985 to January 1987, so have something of an understanding and memory of his cases, and did not recall any Flynn v. Cooper cases.
The other thing that Muldrake alleged was that before suing you, Flynn first betrayed you. The nature or form of the claimed betrayal has not been further described, other than being a factor in reaching the conclusion that as a human being Flynn is a genuine scumbag.
As I’ve probably said, I do not consider Flynn as a human being a genuine scumbag. I’ve written and talked about our relationship, and the December 1986 settlement with the Scientologists, which has affected every day of my life since. So there is really no secret about my feelings toward him.
I knew some details about your 1985 settlement with the Scientologists right at the time it was happening. I registered it in a February 28, 1985 note as a shocking betrayal, and I was memorably emotionally altered. You signed a set of affidavits for the Scientologists on March 4, which I didn’t see right away. At this time, I was in Portland, Oregon where the Julie Christofferson v. Scientology case was about to start, and where Hubbard’s control was an issue.
There is only one of those affidavits I know of that has been published on the Internet. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/related/5173.php
Because of the way this matter has developed and relates to current actions, I will try to locate the other affidavits. If you have them, or anyone else has them, please post or email them because they would be helpful for my legal purposes.
I realize that when this affidavit was discussed on a.r.s., at least in 1996, you wrote that you believe that your settlement helped those on other suits who settled later and that no one got shafted. But I believe that the affidavit was intended to deliver a blow to the Scientologists’ litigant enemies, and was used to hurt or shaft a lot of people.
I’m writing you in the hope that you would correct the facts and record. This would take care of the hurt. I really do not think you would be damaged if you just examined your statements as a writer can and fix any false statements or wrong impressions.
Here’s the relevant text from the one affidavit I’ve found:
I allowed Mr. Flynn to file the Boston case, and replaced my counsel in Los Angeles with an attorney selected by Mr. Flynn, because Mr. Flynn explained to me that he had devised a strategy for quickly and easily winning my litigation against Scientology and collecting money on a judgment. He explained that his whole strategy was based upon conducting an attack against Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard by naming Mr. Hubbard as a defendant in my lawsuits. Mr. Flynn said that he believed that Mr. Hubbard would never appear in any of the lawsuits in which he was named, for any one of a number of possible reasons. Mr. Flynn told me that it was his belief that by approximately 1979, Mr. Hubbard had severed his ties with the church. The litigation, said Mr. Flynn, would be quickly terminated, either by obtaining a default judgment against Mr. Hubbard, or by having the Church of Scientology settle the litigation in order to protect Mr. Hubbard.
— In pursuit of this strategy of winning by seeking default judgments, my attorney filed in my lawsuits sworn statements alleging that Mr. Hubbard was in control of Scientology’s activities, and that he directed a campaign against me. However, I never had any real evidence or reason (other than the word of my lawyers) to believe that Mr. Hubbard was in control of the activities of the Church of Scientology, and my attorneys never presented me with any evidence that such was the case. It is clear to me, on the basis of my conversation with Mr. Flynn on this subject, that the allegations concerning Mr. Hubbard’s control over day-to-day Scientology activities had no basis in fact, but were being made solely for strategic reasons in pursuit of a default judgment.
To say that you had no real evidence or reason to believe Hubbard was in control of the cult and its activities cannot but be untrue.
You knew from John McLean that Hubbard was in control of the cult’s activities when McLean was inside, and you had to have known this years before you hired Flynn. See, e.g., http://www.xenu-directory.net/documents/mcleanj19730515.html
I knew Hubbard controlled Scientology when I left in December 1981, and I made that fact known to anyone who desired to know.
Your attorney Michael Flynn presented evidence so compelling that it caused Judge Breckenridge to issue a decision in Scientology v. Armstrong, which became the judgment in August 1984 and states:
Obviously, [L. Ron Hubbard] is and has been a very complex person, and that complexity is further reflected in his alter ego, the Church of Scientology. Notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, this court is satisfied that LRH runs the Church in all ways through the Sea Organization, his role of Commodore, and the Commodore’s Messengers.3 He has, of course, chosen to go into “seclusion,” but he maintains contact and control through the top messengers. Seclusion has its light and dark side too. It adds to his mystique, and yet shields him from accountability and subpoena or service of summons. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/283.php
Making it through a lot of fair game, threat and lawfare abuse, and a rare courageous and smart judge, made that judgment and the alter ego finding possible. So you can sense the betrayal in your false statement that Flynn had presented you with no evidence or reason to believe that Hubbard was in control of the Scientology cult’s activities.
I am positive that Flynn did not withhold that decision from you, because that would not serve his interests nor even be possible. The Breckenridge decision was widely known, and there was a wealth of witness testimony and documentation that Hubbard controlled Scientology that was readily available. I would conclude that if Flynn did not present you with evidence of Hubbard’s control, it was only because Flynn believed you already possessed such knowledge and evidence. I would assume, and I think Flynn knew, that as an investigative journalist you were staying abreast of the burgeoning body of evidence on what was a legal issue in your cases.
After this judgment, and before the March 4, 1985 affidavit, there was Bill Franks. And since then, there has been a progression of ex-Scientology staff who presented evidence, right up to his death, that Hubbard ran the cult through the SO, CMO, etc. He certainly ran it, through the GO and the SO, in the relevant period in which you were fair gamed before his death. Now David Miscavige runs the cult through the SO, RTC, OSA, etc. He is Scientology’s managing agent, and it could be highly professionally irresponsible to not deal with him, subpoena him and sue him as managing agent in cases where his managing agentness is relevant.
I do not know all the cases or places where the Scientologists used your March 4, 1985 affidavits. Obviously they sent out a press release on March 21, which apparently included the one affidavit. UPI received the release and posted its own story: http://www.skeptictank.org/pcsetup.htm
The Clearwater Sun ran a story on March 26, stating that the Scientologists filed your affidavit in US District Court in LA in the defamation case against Flynn.
The Scientologists filed three of your affidavits in the US District Court Scientology v. Elmira case in support of a motion to block Hubbard’s deposition. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/related/5171.php. I hope you can now appreciate the irony of your affidavit being used there to refute the testimony of the very people who actually had the evidence of Hubbard’s control that you say your attorney didn’t present to you: Laurel Sullivan, Kima Douglas, Bill Franks and me, plus John Nelson and Dede Reisdorf for good measure.
Some of your affidavits were also filed in the Scientologists’ case against me in LA Superior Court. I don’t have all these documents, but I will continue to try to obtain them. Your affidavits and a false sworn statement from La Venda Dukoff (Van Schaick) another Flynn ex-client, were used in my case to support a motion to initiate an investigation of Flynn and me for violations the LA Court’s TRO and preliminary injunction.
I wrote a declaration dated August 2, 1986 in opposition to that motion, and stated:
2. Although I have never met LaVenda Dukoff and have only spoken to her on the one occasion she is refering to at paragraph 19 of her affidavit of June 9, 1986, I have known about her and her involvement and litigation with the organization for several years. I had written a couple of affidavits for her on issues about which I had factual knowledge which arose in her litigation. Ms. Dukoff’s case had settled before I started working for Michael Flynn in September 1985, so her name rarely came up in office conversations. The main impression I formed about her up to the time of her call was that she was a victim of Scientology and unstable. I became aware last fall, when the organization filed the original motion to initiate an investigation, of its claim, which it based on one of the many affidavits Paulette Cooper signed for it on March 4, 1985, that in the fall of 1982 Ms. Dukoff had telephoned Ms. Cooper and said “Mike (Flynn) showed me the Armstrong documents that were under seal.” I was aware of the organization’s use of its victims and purchased false testimony in its operations (see declarations of Paulette Cooper, Joseph Flanagan, and Michael Flynn of September 30, 1985 re Ala Fadili Al Tamimi and other paid criminals) and I speculated when I saw the organization’s motion to initiate an investigation that Ms. Dukoff might herself be involved in a Scientology operation. I was, therefore, very alert and very careful when she announced herself on the telephone around the beginning of June. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/850.php
Flynn also wrote a declaration dated July 31, 1986, in which he stated:
17) One Saturday afternoon in June 1986 I received call from Gerry Armstrong, who was working as a paralegal in our office. Mr. Armstrong told me that LaVenda had called and claimed she had Armstrong documents which she was going to expose to the press. LaVenda had left a number and I called her back. She repeated the threats she had made to Mr. Armstrong to me. I told her that the allegations were false, that she never received any Armstrong documents from me under improper circumstances. I told her I suspected the Scientologists had put her up to this and then I told her that I assumed she was being paid for making up these false stories. Indeed, the similarity between the false tales LaVenda was manufacturing and the perjurious claims made by Paulette Cooper in the affadavits Scientology purchased from Cooper made it plain that no mere coincidence was involved. I told LaVenda that she could say whatever she wanted and file whatever she felt she had to file. I also let her know, however, that if I discovered that she had been paid for perjury, I would notify the appropriate law enforcement agencies. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/843.php
On August 18, 1986, Judge Breckenridge issued an order regarding the Scientologists’ motion to initiate an investigation:
The Motion to initiate an investigation is denied.
The contentions made by the Church are without merit. the primary purpose of such an investigation presumably would be to initiate contempt proceedings should there prove to be any violations of the Court’s sealing orders. Bearing in mind the burden of proof in a contempt prosecution and the one year statute of limitations, except as to continuing violations, all that has been presented basically is a conflict between the declarations submitted by both sides concerning events that happened in the past. Cross-defendant relies heavily upon declarations by Ms. Cooper and Mrs. Dukoff. Both of these persons have severe credibility problems. Mr. Flynn and others have submitted contrary declarations. The Court sees no reason to believe either Ms. Cooper or Mrs. Dukoff over the contrary declarations, and is not satisfied by even a preponderance of the evidence that there has been a violation of the sealing order.
Further, the Court believes that considering the fact that the trial is scheduled to begin in January, the attention and efforts of the parties should be directed towards preparing themselves for trial. The proposed investigation would only divert the parties from what should be done between now and January, and inevitably prolong and make more costly what has already been a time consuming and expensive process. In addition, such would inevitably impinge upon the Court’s limited resources and ability to deal with other proper court business, and simply be an exercise in futility. http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/823.php
The same cult attorney John G. Peterson, who used LaVenda’s and your sworn statements in my case to try to get Judge Breckenridge to investigate my attorney and me, had in 1984 used other known false sworn statements to try to get the judge to act against us. The judge’s comments are very pointed, as his August 18, 1986 minute order is.
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50k/legal/a1/818.php
So the Scientologists wanted to use your false affidavit or affidavits, apparently executed after your settlement, to subject Flynn and me to a bogus court investigation, plus delay my upcoming trial, make the process more time-consuming, and subvert the bit of justice then available. Judge Breckenridge’s minute order that references you is very important in the Scientology v. Armstrong war.
Stewart Lamont wrote about your affidavit in Religion, Inc., which was published in 1986:
PAULETTE COOPER, as we saw in Chapter 4, was up there among the chief enemies of Scientology and was high in the damages stakes with a suit for $55 million when Flynn became her attorney. In 1982 she participated as one of his star witnesses in the Clearwater hearings (at which the Church of Scientology declined to testify since it could only put its case at the conclusion). Flynn, she now says, persuaded her that she should name Hubbard in her suit since he would not appear and therefore she would win by default or because the Church of Scientology would pay up rather than produce Hubbard. But in a dramatic reconciliation with its old enemy in 1985 the Church of Scientology proudly announced that it had settled all cases for an against Ms Cooper and brandished an affidavit in which she says Flynn misled her into thinking Hubbard was still in charge of the Church of Scientology and had used her in a strategic campaign. In the elaborate game of bluff and counter-bluff, accusation and recusal, perhaps nothing should surprise the observer of Scientology. It would be nice to think this was a story of reconciliation, a truly religious story with a happy ending, but judging by the tactics adopted by the Church of Scientology to discredit Ms. Cooper, I am inclined to think it is more likely the case of a psychologically battered woman throwing her towel into the ring. Religion Inc. pp 142-3
In or about 1993, the Scientologists included this statement in the submission to the IRS on which the cult’s tax exemption, and religious basis, was granted:
One of Flynn’s clients, Paulette Cooper, graphically described in an affidavit how Flynn detailed to her his strategy to “quickly and easily win” cases by “conducting an attack against Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard” by naming him as a defendant in her pending lawsuits. Flynn specifically told Cooper that he believed that “Hubbard would never appear” in those suits because “by approximately 1979, Mr. Hubbard had severed his ties with the Church.” Flynn boasted that such a ploy would result in quick money judgments because the litigation could be “quickly terminated, either by obtaining a default judgment against Mr. Hubbard,” or by forcing “settle[ment] in order to protect Mr. Hubbard.” Cooper further affirmed that Flynn filed sworn statements by Cooper in her cases alleging Mr. Hubbard’s control when Cooper lacked any evidence whatsoever of the claim, “solely for strategic reasons in pursuit of default judgment.”
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/cult/irs/csi-prod-1993-11-04-152077-152094.html
So that March 4, 1985 affidavit has been used to attack people courageous enough to tell the truth about Hubbard, to black PR the attorney standing up for them in the legal arena, and to defraud the US Government and every US citizen. The affidavit helped the Scientologists obtain what amounts to a license from the US Federal Government to victimize Scientologists and persecute genuinely decent human beings who oppose the victimization.
Finally, although Mark Rathbun still serves David Miscavige’s command intention toward wog fair game enemies, he gives a lot away in his Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior published last year about Hubbard’s control of Scientology and even Hubbard’s issuance of strategy orders into ongoing litigations. E.g.,
Hubbard outlined our strategy for All Clear as follows. First, we were to get Hubbard extracted from the suits. We were to make a case, by affidavits and documentation, that Hubbard did not run the church and was by no means its managing agent. (p.158)
Breckenridge’s Armstrong case decision, bolstered by a dozen declarations by former Hubbard messengers and aides, made the allegation of Hubbard’s “managing agent” status virtually uncontestable. Miscavige and Broeker were clearly established as the last links to Hubbard, but they could not provide countering declarations because it would subject them to depositions — which would lead Hubbard’s enemies directly to him. (p. 256)
Flynn’s allegation concerning Hubbard’s control were accurate, and the strategy of naming Hubbard in the cult’s cases and serving him with summonses and subpoenas as managing agent was prudent and based on evidence and reason.
I ask that you correct the record. I’m sure that because of its importance, you can’t lawfully be prohibited by some contract, but I am not a lawyer.
The Scientologists’ engineering of betrayals and false statements as solutions to problems are issues coming into focus because of the depth of the data base. These are actually acts in an ongoing criminal conspiracy against rights; in your case the right to be free to tell the truth.
I don’t believe that Rathbun mentions using your affidavits in his Memoirs. In fact, I believe he deliberately avoids mentioning any of the many betrayals he or his agents engineered. Too hot a topic to handle.
You are a heroic victim of fair game to everyone. You will not be diminished in anyone’s eyes if you now correct the record.
If you could write a declaration stating the details, including the conditions that led you to sign these false statements, I think it would soothe a lot of hurt.
I have written declarations about the conditions at the time of the Scientologists’ “settlement” with me and what I went through to sign their documents and since I signed. I’ve spoken and written to correct the record and do my part to end the injustices the Scientologists’ “legal” documents are perpetrating.
I think an end can be put to these practices, and your example could be very helpful.
Thanks.