Category Archives: legal threats

Motion to Dissolve Restraining Order

Here is an objective factual, albeit partial, account of today’s proceedings published in the San Antonio Express News.

And here is the rest of the story.

In San Antonio, each motion in a case gets assigned to a random judge.  The one assigned to Ray Jeffrey’s motion to dissolve the temporary injunction today was not too keen on listening to Ray’s constitutional arguments when the full hearing with evidence on the injunction is set to be tried next Thursday 9 Feb. The one issue that did catch Judge Littlejohn’s attention was the potential effect of the overbroad temporary injunction being used to prevent Debbie and Wayne from properly preparing their defense for 9 Feb.

Miscavige’s (FSO’s) counsel claimed not to have any intention of using the temporary injunction to hinder Debbie and Wayne’s defense.  Then Mr Jeffrey pulled out the letter Miscavige’s boys faxed to Jeffrey the day before last.  The letter threatened the Baumgartens with a motion to have the court hold them in contempt.  For what?  Allegedly conferring with her legal team consultants and witnesses, namely yours truly and Mike Rinder.

The judge denied the motion to dissolve only after being assured by Miscavige’s boys that they would drop their attempts to use the court’s order to obstruct Debbie and Wayne’s defense preparation.  Back to the salt mines in preparation for the main event – Feb 9.

“Beyond The Pale Of What A Human Being Should Endure”

That is how Debbie Cook and Wayne Baumgarten’s attorney characterizes what Debbie was put through by Scientology Inc.

Tony Ortega at the Village Voice published the first interview with the Baumgarten’s San Antonio litigation attorney Ray Jeffrey.   As I think you will see from the article, Ray has the right attitude going into what may be the biggest legal war of his long career.

Ray has bent over backward to stretch his firm’s pricing standards to make his quality, aggressive representation available to Debbie and Wayne.  And while their defense will likely continue to cost 1/2oth of what Miscavige’s Death Star is pouring into this unprecedented assault on constitutional and human rights, Debbie and Wayne are going to need a huge support base to wage this battle with the beast toe to toe.

Mike Rinder and I both attest that Ray Jeffrey is the best possible man to have in Debbie and Wayne’s corner.  In fact, I don’t think there is anyone in San Antonio, or anywhere else for that matter, who better fits the bill.

For those who have made contributions to Debbie and Wayne’s defense, your donations are well invested.  You are very much appreciated by all of us.  To those who haven’t and wish to contribute, you can do so at Debbie’s personal webpage (see donate to legal defense fund notice in upper right hand margin): Debbie’s legal defense fund.

This is not going to be easy, but the line in the sand had to be drawn in San Antonio.

 

 

Hypocrisy

Friday’s edition of the Tampa Bay Times includes an editorial on the issue of Corporate Scientology hypocrisy.   It is a well reasoned piece.

Let’s take a closer look at the issue.  Miscavige spent the first 26 days of January directing a full blown espionage campaign designed to destroy the business of Debbie Cook and Wayne Baumgarten.  Their sin?  Asking that Scientologists follow Scientology published policy. On the 27th day of Miscavige carpet bombing, Miscavige paid one of the priciest law firms in San Antonio Texas to slink through the back door of the Bexar county courthouse to obtain a temporary restraining order against the Baumgartens.  There was no prior notice given to the Baumgartens.  The order was a prior restraint on any communication by any means by either of them concerning David Miscavige and his empire of hypocrisy.   The order was based solely upon Debbie’s email of 1 January that took exception to Miscavige’s Fraudulent Idle Orgs program, and other financial scams.

Having used state court process to muzzle Debbie’s clarion call for Scientologists to cease violating Scientology policy by ceasing to comply or support Miscavige’s off-policy, fraudulent financial scams, including the Idle Org scam, Miscavige flew to Sacramento this weekend to serve as the Howdy-Doody MC for yet another Idle org scam grand opening.  Per local media reports the Sacramento Idle org cost 10 million dollars.  10 Million dollars for an org that I guarantee you hasn’t made anywhere near 10 million dollars gross income  in its several decade history.  An org, like most others to date, already driven by Miscavige into a lifeless morgue.

There is a lot more actual first-hand knowledge that Debbie Cook has that Miscavige is even more keen on burying from the light of public scrutiny.  Not a single iota of it has anything to do with business information that in certain cases could be protected from disclosure by state process; such as trade secrets or other proprietary confidential information. What Miscavige wants hidden are facts that could and should wind Miscavige up in a penitentiary for a good long time.

False Imprisonment.  Aggravated Assault.  Torture.

Meanwhile, in order to cover up such atrocities on Miscavige’s part, the gangster has had “church” troops embedding his name within dozens of fraudulent websites about the church’s alleged allegiance to the cause of human rights.

When the Tampa Bay Times sharply calls out Miscavige on hypocrisy it is right on, even if it is only touching the tip of an ugly iceberg.

Miscavige’s Religious Freedom Crusade

Remember the Religious Freedom Crusade in Portland Oregon in May 1985?  When a 39 Million dollar hit for having the temerity to try to help a woman out with a Comm Course got Scientologists’ backs up and they did something about it? Back when Scientology men were men and not mice, and Scientology women weren’t walking down the street dragging their knuckles on the pavement?  After a lot of good folks sacrificed valuable time, energy and resources over several decades, Scientology finally was recognized as a religion and has been provided relative immunity from attacks intended to destroy the right to peaceably practice it.

Well, compare those days to today.  Some may recall that David Miscavige sent down teams of 4 to 6 people at a time to overtly harass my wife and me in our driveway, at restaurants, on the beach, virtually every where we went for 199 days, see His Town by Jason Sheeler.   The publicly stated intent was to prevent me from practicing Scientology. It was doomed from the outset; sheer lunacy to attempt to strip me of a right I fought my entire adult life successfully to exercise, which not so incidentally allowed every Kool Aid drinking Corporate Scientologist the same right.

Well, let us take a look at how David Miscavige is spending that hard fought, religious freedom capital these days.  The letter below, in the name of Norman James Moore III but clearly written by the late William C Drescher III (long time in-house counsel for Corporate Scientology), illustrates just how low the Corporate Scientology machine has come.   Aside from taking on the patented Miscavige characteristic of playing the perpetual victim, take a look at the charges of religious discrimination.  Does it get any sillier or more pathetic than this?

Debbie Cook and Wayne Baumgarten Update

While this group is still a bit amorphous to the liking of some, it is damn effective.  In just about twenty-seven hours you all contributed what I predicted we would likely collect by Friday.  And that figure is what I thought it would take to reverse the vector of attack from Debbie and Wayne and re-direct it back onto her tormentors.

You all acted nearly spontaneously from fourteen different States of the US and six countries.

I estimate that the amount we have to work with is about 1/20th of what Miscavige has already spent in legal fees alone in mounting his attempt to crush Debbie and Wayne.   But that is one major difference between corporate scientology and Independent Scientology.  The business of attempting to kill and bury truth is one heck of a lot more expensive than is the activity of purveying and nurturing truth.

Our first point of strategy is simple, taken from the Tao:

Men are born soft and supple;

dead, they are stiff and hard.

Plants are born tender and pliant;

dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding 

is a disciple of life.

The hard and the stiff will be broken.

The soft and supple will prevail.

 

 

 

Debbie Cook Defense Fund

I have received credible inside information from corporate Scientology sources who have been right on the money in the past.  Here is the word.  Miscavige’s larger firms, with reputations to protect, flat out refused to go after Debbie Cook on David Miscavige’s direct orders to bury her for alleged gag order violations.  Hence, Miscavige was reduced to using  his  safety valve in such circumstances; the perpetually Kool Aid drunk Kendrick (unindicted co-conspirator in US v Mary Sue Hubbard, et al) Moxon.

Moxon has enlisted his ‘arm’s length’ litigation attack dog Gary Soter of Woodland Hills, California.  Soter has been representing a couple of process servers in a suit against Jason Beghe.  Soter has shamelessly been defrauding the court by acting as if he is in there pitching for a couple of hapless, penniless victims who were devastated by some big shot celebrity.  And he is in there pitching every single abusive, expensive legal maneuver known to shysters in an effort to destroy Jason financially.  Of course, Soter does not let the court know that he is taking daily orders from Kendrick (unindicted co-conspirator) Moxon and being paid wheelbarrows of cash to make Jason’s life a living hell.

Now, Soter is being used to threaten Debbie Cook Baumgarten and her husband Wayne into shivering silence.  David Miscavige, who pulls Moxon’s chain, figures he can shudder them into silence by the sheer financial strain of threat of litigation.

Well,  ain’t gonna happen on our watch.

We are already organizing a fearsome legal defense team.  A small group of us are shouldering the initial financial outlay. Whether Debbie and Wayne choose to utilize the formidable array of legal talent we are assembling or not is not completely under my control.

However, ‘constant alertness, constant willingness to fight back’ has served us well these past three years –  and has served Scientology well since the dawn of its discovery.  We know where Miscavige is going and we know what needs to be done to prevent his train from suppressing truths that when shared will save untold numbers of individuals and families from a lot of grief;  and ultimately will even help guarantee the free, peaceful and sane future practice of the religion itself.

If anyone is interested and able to contribute it will be much appreciated by us and I am fairly certain by Debbie and Wayne, and ultimately by a lot of folks who will be saved a lot of grief by the truths Debbie has to share.

As I have done in the past, I will account for every single penny collected for the defense fund.

Something David Miscavige and his corporate Scientology crew just can’t seem to understand is the most fundamental truth upon which Scientology’s workability stems, “truth, though often fought, always in the end prevails”

Donations can be made here, https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/donate/.   Please designate Debbie Cook Defense Fund with any payment.

As Sweden does, a small group using good intelligence tactics, with good technology if well organized can hold back enemies of  great size. 

– L Ron Hubbard 2 December 1969

Denialism

 

In my view, what we are dealing with for the most part with corporate scientologists is denialism.  I came across a very clear description of the phenomenon in a book by Michael Specter, Denialism, Penguin Books 2009:

We have all been in denial at some point in our lives; faced with truths too painful to accept, rejection often seems the only way to cope. Under those circumstances, facts, no matter how detailed or irrefutable, rarely make a difference.  Denialism is denial writ large — when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie…

Unless data fits neatly into an already formed theory, a denialist doesn’t really see it as data at all.  That enables him to dismiss even the most compelling evidence as just another point of view.

It helps to understand the phenomena all of us have run up against – the shock of old friends and associates acting deaf, dumb and blind to hard, cold, documented facts.   No need to fret about it when as you can see it is a phenomena so common that popular thinkers are writing about its prevalence in society at large.

Specter goes on to describe how in an ever increasingly complicated world with steadily declining educational standards, people are desperate for easy answers.    The not-so-bright desire big labels that can easily ‘explain’ complexities that they don’t have the confront, or discipline or inclination to investigate and evaluate for themselves.

Denialism can lead to extremism, a subject well-treated with respect to current American politics in Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America, by John Avlon, Beast Books 2010. Avlon writes that:

Wingnuts [defined as extremists to the far right or left] offer their fellow travelers the false comfort of rigid certainty in a changing world — dividing our country into good versus evil, us against them.  Fundamentalism has a powerful appeal for people who feel powerless, especially when it gets dressed up as ideology or attaches itself to a party label.

But when you pull the curtain back on Wingnut politics, behind the all-or-nothing demands, apocalyptic warnings and the addicition to self righteous anger, you’ll see that fear is the motivating factor: fear of the other; fear wrapped up in the American flag; fear calling itself freedom.

I’m just sharing some food for thought.  I think the parallels to the Scientology world are apparent.  I think we can learn some lessons by understanding denialism and extremism or fundamentalism.  They are isms that are systematically inculcated in corporate Scientology.  I think it behooves us to recognize remnants of them in ourselves so that they are not perpetuated.  I think it also helps to understand that when you are aggressively confronted with this mind set by corporate scientologists, you recognize that you are looking square in the eyes of fear.  Something worth remembering given the tactics of aggression and threat corporate scientologists have become adept at covering their fear with.

 

 

Corporate Scientology Infiltrates Debbie Cook

I am seeing a lot of comments about Debbie’s practice of taking on and removing friends from Facebook; and a lot tea leaf reading along with it.

Per my friends at Facebook Debbie’s account has been hacked into by Office of Special Affairs (OSA, Corporate Scientology’s dirty tricks department).  The intent of the operation is clear.  They are filling Debbie’s Facebook friends list with dozens of Independents and others who proudly wear their excommunication declares.  OSA is already briefing on-line, non-declared corporate Scientologists that Debbie is “friends” with all of these “notorious” characters.  And that is ALL they need to tell Kool Aid drinkers to get them back in the pen seeing and hearing no evil.  Please do not help OSA do its work.

Please do Debbie Cook a favor and let her get on with the mission she spelled out in her original e-mail.  That is, let Debbie handle the massive e-mail and phone traffic she is receiving from corporate Scientologists.  There is plenty of that to handle.  There are corporate Scientology threats to handle.  There are infiltration attempts to handle.  And there are dozens of kool aid drinkers trying to cave her in.  Don’t supply ammunition to these deployed agents.

If you want to show support say it loud, here and in other on-line forums (everybody who cares about Scientology reads them).   Most importantly, get Debbie’s original e-mail spread as far and wide as possible on the lines of corporate Scientologists.

If you doubt the wisdom of this advice, please carefully read Debbie’s original email and divine the intent.  Debbie doesn’t need to be turned into an Independent.  Whether she ever does or instead continues on a quixotic quest to change the corporate beast’s stripes makes little difference.  There is no more effective action (other than independent delivery) happening for the future of Scientology than what she is doing at the moment.  More corporate Scientologists are being reached and gotten to look and think than by any other single action.  If Debbie becomes an independent it will not be because someone convinces her to; it will be because David Miscavige drives her there.

Like I said in the first post on 1 January, we’d be well served to prepare to deliver to the fall out.  Because no matter what, there will be plenty of that.  Please back it up.

Example of current corporate Scientology think:

References:

Reformation – Division Within Corporate Scientology

Debbie Cook “Blasts Extreme Fundraising”

3 Jan Debbie Cook posting.

Debbie Cook: Beginning of the End of David Miscavige’s Tyranny?

Debbie Cook is not in imminent danger.  Her lines of defense are forming rapidly and efficiently, in depth and multi-dimensional (many she is not even aware of).  This while her  initial communication is becoming international news:

The UK Guardian

USA Today

The Telegraph – London

Daily Mail – London

Village Voice  – the latest

Don’t expect a lot of further significant revelations by Debbie for a while; but do expect significant news about efforts by corporate Scientology to silence her.  Do expect also Miscavige’s efforts opening the door to further revelations.  Mike Rinder and I have on several occasions been vindicated on major cycles over the past couple years by deciding to sit back and let Miscavige do our work for us. His responses to Debbie have thus far been vintage knee-jerk, foot bullets.

First, he directly ordered that the very first response (which many saw filtered down versions of on Debbie’s Facebook page) was to deny the authenticity of Debbie’s email.  Denial is always his first impulse.

When that backfired, he had Karin Pouw deliver this incredibly imbecilic line:

“Ms Cook’s opinions reflect a small, ignorant and unenlightened view of the world today.”

Not only does it sound like Baghdad Bob in its insane (criminal mind) transference of describing the institution she represents, it opens the door to a lot of further revelations seeing the light of day (the legal implications will be spelled out in near future posts on Corporate Scientology Gag Contracts).

The degree to which corporate Scientology seeks to muzzle and attack Debbie monitors the degree to which a number of witnesses to Miscavige’s torture camp will feel safe to communicate.  In other words Miscavige is currently rock slamming between a rock and a hard place.

Now, lest we forget that David Miscavige, while characterized as a lot of things here over the past couple years, at bottom is a human being, see this mini-bio  from Philadelphia News.

references:

Debbie Cook Blasts Extreme Fundraising

Division Within Corporate Scientology

Miscavige Hunkers in Bunker with G.O.

Notes from the bunker

David Miscavige has made much of his role in disbanding Corporate Scientology’s infamous harassment arm called the Guardian’s Office (GO).  In a court declaration of 17 February 2004 Miscavige swore: “When further investigation proved the documents to be authentic, it was made clear that we had no choice but to overthrow the GO and dismiss everyone who had violated Church policy or the law. These activities ultimately led to a complete disband of the GO.”

The Guardian’s Office purge was essential to Miscavige’s power push in the early eighties.  Without it he could not have cut Scientology Founder L Ron Hubbard’s last existing communication line to the last person with sufficient altitude and respect to actually share ideas and perspectives with him, his wife and Scientology Controller (overseer of Guardian’s Office) Mary Sue Hubbard.  In Miscavige’s own words: “It must be noted that Mary Sue Hubbard believed her position as Controller and as the “Founder’s wife” to be unassailable and beyond reproach by anyone but Mr. Hubbard — who was not around at the time, a fact that she was well aware of.”  Hence,  Miscavige assailed both positions, all justified by the alleged crimes of the GO.  Crimes that Miscavige characterized as: “There were also instances in which GO staff used unscrupulous means to deal with people they perceived as enemies of the Church — means that were completely against Scientology tenets and policy, not to mention the law.”

Irony of ironies, now that Miscavige has managed to blow off his latest troika of close advisers, see Miscavige Death Throes, he is surounded in his bunker with nothing but former Guardian’s Office staff who met Miscavige’s sworn standards of “we had no choice but to…dismiss everyone who had violated church policy or the law.”

Miscavige’s last three remaining closest advisers in the bunker are former Guardian’s Office criminals.

During a March 1987 take-over of RTC  in which Miscavige anointed himself as supreme ruler of Corporate Scientology under the invented title Chairman of the Board RTC (COB RTC), approximately half of existing RTC staff were purged for allegedly being “loyal”  to its former head, Deputy Inspector General RTC Vicki Aznaran.   One of Miscavige’s justifications for removing Aznaran and purging the organization was its retention of one Brian Andrus, an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal criminal case United States vs. Mary Sue Hubbard, et al.   And yet, curiously Miscavige inexplicably retained another former Guardian’s Office hit man and quietly imported another.  The two constitute three of his closest most trusted advisors in his ever shrinking bunker roster.

Laurisse Stuckenbrock, Communicator of Chairman of the Board Religious Technology Center (COB Comm RTC).   Laurisse was not even in RTC during the 87 purge and yet Miscavige and his wife Shelly bypassed channels to slip Laurisse into an important executive slot despite reports to them that Laurisse was engaged in unethical (if not illegal)  Guardian’s Office Intelligence Branch activity in Australia and New Zealand .

Warren McShane, D/Inspector General External (or Legal Affairs).  The former Assistant Guardian New York during the late seventies/early eighties when that office was engaged in creepy, criminal operations against perceived enemies.   Over the years Miscavige has referred to Warren repeatedly as a “GO criminal” to Mike Rinder and myself.  On several occasions Miscavige told me that McShane only continued to be retained, despite continuous unethical/illegal actions, because “Warren is a good liar.  He is such an habitual liar he lies with ease.  He is the only guy I trust in deposition as RTC’s corporate rep because of that one ability of his.”

Linda Hamel, Commanding Officer Office of Special Affairs International (CO OSA INT).   Linda was deeply involved in unethical and illegal activity in the Guardian’s Office for years.  She was retained and placed over OSA Int intelligence in the early eighties for two reasons: a) she had the savvy and lines to keep a number of ongoing Guardian’s Office intelligence ops alive during the transition from Guardians Office (the “disband”) to the Office of Special Affairs (the GO’s successor), b) a thorough review of Guardian’s Office documents from the 1977 raids (later made public in court) did not specifically implicate her by name so that Miscavige’s “purge” would not be later discredited.  Linda remained over Intelligence for the next twenty years.  Shortly after I left RTC in 2004 Linda was elevated by Miscavige to the Commanding Officer post.

With Miscavige’s universe progressively shrinking with more public disclosure of his own habitual, continuous felonious behavior and his continuing paranoid purges  – the GO Criminal Troika has become Miscaviges last hope of clinging on to his dying dictatorship.

My guess is that one or more of the GO troika will deliver the final blow from which Miscavige cannot recover. And that blow will consist of a heavy, irrefutable dose of the truth to which Miscavige has proven so allergic.  I know all three of them personally. While they have demonstrated a pathetic weakness of character in continuing to facilitate a sociopath in his war against people they know to be acting in the best interest of Scientology, all three at bottom are basically good.   They know in their heart of hearts they can’t take me down.  They also know deep inside that irrespective of the magnitude of the contra survival acts  they have attempted to commit against me over the past two years, at the end of the day I am going to see that they come through all this ok.