Category Archives: PI reports

Joel Sappell – Los Angeles Magazine

Joel Sappell was co-author of one of the most extensive newspaper series on Scientology in the nineteen eighties.   He visited me a couple months ago to investigate the inside story of Scientology Inc.’s reaction to his 1980’s investigation.

While he obsesses with attempting to exact a confession for something that simply did not happen, the story does contribute an interesting perspective on the history of corporate Scientology.

The Tip of the Spear, Los Angeles Magazine.

Miscavige Pays P.I.’s for Silence…But

David Miscavige holds the distinction of paying more money in one year (2012) to silence critics than perhaps any other criminal, white collar or otherwise, in the world.  He began the year by paying seven figures to former Scientology executive Debbie Cook Baumgarten who countersued Miscavige’s Religious Technology Center in Bexar County (San Antonio) Texas.  He bookended 2012 with another seven figure pay off to former Scientology Private Eyes Paul Marrick and Greg Arnold.

Mark Collette of the Corpus Christi Caller Times reported tonight on the latter settlement.

As we all now know Miscavige’s pay off to Ms Baumgarten was a tad late, after she spent nearly an entire day under oath testifying about what Miscavige wanted to suppress.

Well, it would seem he made the same error with Marrick and Arnold.  Tony Ortega has published a comprehensive article on the Marrick/Arnold saga on his blog, Scientology’s Master Spies.   Read that one carefully, it is a masterpiece.

 

 

$30 Million Cover Up

Apparently a simple, hour-long deposition taken of me last week is beginning to create quite the tempest in Tampa, Florida.  Click headline below for link:

Federal suit: Scientologist spent $30 mil to cover up death of Lisa McPherson

FULL DEPOSITION TRANSCRIPT OF MARK ‘MARTY’ RATHBUN:

deposition of marty rathbun

UPDATE: 11/17/12 A.M.  Tony Ortega weighs in, Scientology Accused of Spending Millions To Influence Florida Judges

UPDATE: 11/17/12 P.M. Radar Online Coverage.

UPDATE: 11/17/12 P.M. : Scientology Inc Motion to Strike including Bizarre Whining about being an alleged victim of extortion:  Motion to Strike by Scientology Inc

Four More Years

Last year I regularly referred to the 199 day siege upon our home in Ingleside on the Bay Texas by David Miscavige and Scientology Inc.   Last month we discovered what we thought was evidence that extended that siege to two years, see David Miscavige – Cowardice and Paranoia.    We reckoned the siege at two years because a Scientology Inc. agent responsible for the operation of the surveillance outpost at 201 Bayshore Drive (the green house noted in the linked post above) let slip that Scientology Inc. PI Monte Drake had leased the outpost since November 1, 2010 (the day we moved into Casablanca across the street).  Well, further research determined that, in fact, Drake has been leasing 201 Bayshore since November 1, 2009 – one year to the day before we moved into Casablanca.   This revelation was discovered while an employee of the cult was being interrogated about the November 1 2010 date coincident.   “No, Drake moved in a year before you moved into your current home”, was the plea in defense of David Miscavige’s domestic terrorist squads.   And proof of the November 1, 2009 move-in date was produced to divert attention from the domestic terror operations.   However, the defense turned out to be a further admission; in fact, proof that the domestic terror siege has been in place since at least November 1, 2009.   Further inspection of 201 Bayshore Drive, Ingleside on the Bay Texas proved that out.   If you wish to follow all this, you will need to read all the posts linked above, and then carefully watch and listen to the following video:

Additionally, former Scientology private investigators Paul Marrick and Greg Arnold disclosed that they arrived to Ingleside on the Bay in February 2009 to ‘case’ the place in order to  up the ante on the operation that Monte Drake had already begun several months before, (See, The Rest of the Story – Scientology Inc. Spies.)  That brings us back to late 2008 – Four Years.   Since Drake has put in writing another three year Scientology Inc. financial commitment to 201 Bayshore, we are looking at three (and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to then extrapolate from that commitment, Four) more years.

Now, there is a silver lining in all this sickness.  That has to do with advice that I have regularly imparted on this blog over the past three years.  That advice was predicated upon my prediction, and perception, that David Miscavige had made a terrible misestimation.  That was that Miscavige’s obsession with me was playing right into the expansion and guaranteed survival of the independent Scientology movement.  Miscavige was so obsessed with knocking out whom he had so criminal-mindedly labelled the kingpin (yours truly) that his micro-management compulsion required all available OSA (Office of Special Affairs, the terror and propaganda wing of Scientology Inc.) resources be focused upon me and me alone. My advice was, and is, that given Miscavige’s obsession, the best thing people who were concerned about the future of Scientology could do is to start delivering.  Set up and produce to your heart’s content, knowing that Miscavige and Scientology Inc. are all tied up in a war against an enemy he has conflated, and virtually created, as all-powerful and all-important.   What we have disclosed about the over-the-top, spare-no-expense operations in our little hamlet over the past three years (including the revelations about surveillance outposts over the past month) is  validation of my estimation and advice.  There has not been a single report of OSA harassment or operations against other independents or freezoners for more than a year (but for the perpetual infiltration attempts and whispering campaigns).   The focus of all of Miscavige Scientology Inc war resources is here.  It can safely be assumed it will remain here given recent events and the trends they portend.

So, again, my sincere advice to you is, get busy and build a better Bridge.  The previous one has become a rather sad, cold-war era relic.  It is devoted to fighting an enemy that does not exist – at least, despite Scientology Inc’s unlimited ‘intelligence’ resources, does not exist in any form resembling what Miscavige estimates it does.

Please take advantage of this historic, horrible misestimation and misdirection of Scientology Inc. resources of destruction.

A Talk To OSA Staff

This is a direct appeal to reason addressed to each and every OSA (Office of Special Affairs) staff member:

TRANSCRIPT:

TRANSCRIPT:

Greetings to OSA Staff and Executives,

This is a briefing specifically for you.

I’ve had a little bit of time to start piecing together the magnitude of the operation you’ve had down here on Ingleside on the Bay concerning my wife and myself. It’s beginning to get a price tag that makes the Broeker affair look like a walk in the park by comparison.

I couldn’t help but think about you guys as I was crunching the numbers as I was counting the cameras and counting the numbers of PIs. As you probably know, I don’t really put a lot of attention on it. I don’t really care too much about your prying eyes. I don’t even attempt to evade your people because I know you got so many of them down here, it’s a waste of time anyway. And there’s nothing to hide here, more importantly.
Sometimes you really got to step back and ask yourself: Is all this worth it?

Every once in a while it makes a lot of sense to step back and review the bidding before you just blow all your chips. You guys are doing a magnificent job of carrying out Command Intention and that’s for sure. Because I know Dave, he’s got a prurient interest in Everything Marty.

But you know, step back for a second and ask yourselves: “Why?” and “To what end?”

Is he improving the situation? Am I becoming less influential? Am I becoming less effective? If you answered that “yes”, then you’re either smoking dope, or you are in some kind of parallel universe that really borders on psychosis. Because I am flourishing and prospering. We are flourishing and prospering. And the Scientology independent movement is flourishing and prospering. Take a step back and look at what the net effect of all the millions you’re spending trying to stop me is doing. What is it really doing for Scientology? Think about that.

This is not a personal plea about me personally, this is a bigger thing. This is a third and fourth dynamic argumentation. Think about who is doing more for the third and fourth dynamic. You and your PIs under the orders of David Miscavige, or me? Just think about it. Think about it before you go to bed, think about it when you have any private moments. Or try not to think about it. [smile] Now, when you do that thinking and if you come to your senses and realize what’s going on, let me tell you something.

Do you remember when Daniel Montalvo took off with the harddrives, and you all went down to the sheriff’s department and Rick Moxon went in there and tried to make a case because I had posted an encouragement to people on the inside to take documentary evidence outside with them as they exit? Remember what happened with that? Absolutely nothing.

Do you want to know why? Because what I said is true. And it’s doubly true for you guys. And it’s triply true for you guys with respect to me. And that is this. Let me spell it out to you.

There are ongoing criminal investigations into your boss David Miscavige. There are ongoing civil matters that are in courts concerning David Miscavige and the Church. And there are a number of legal actions in the process of being prepared concerning David Miscavige and the Church.

YOU are in possession of and are creating on a daily basis evidence of an ongoing criminal conspiracy that’s of relevance to all of these matters. And therefore being evidence of ongoing criminal conspiracies, YOU are not only privileged to, you have a DUTY to gather up all the evidence that you can find that has to do with the operations that you’ve been doing to try to silence and trying to crush and trying to stop me and others around me, you are under a DUTY to gather all that evidence and get it off the premises and into my hands, so that I may finish my work unobstructed. Okay?

Now, the reference here for you is “LRH Talk to WW Ethics Officers”. Remember that one? I put it into all OSA Hats, so you pretty much ought to know it. What is the first thing that the Ethics Officer looks for: Who is trying to stop the Ethics Officer?

Guess what? It’s Your BOSS. Okay?

Get the reports. Get the evidence. Get them to me. And I will guarantee you this. I will guarantee you this. You will absolutely have complete immunity and complete protection of any type of liability. I am telling you right now I am guaranteeing you that protection and I am guaranteeing you that ability, which will be an incredibly important thing for you because it will help you to make good on what you’ve been doing to stop Scientology by forwarding Miscavige’s plans.

So take it from an old vet. The best thing you can do for yourself spiritually and for the group Scientology is to get the evidence. Alright? There’s file cabinets full of it. And there’s disks full of it. Get the evidence copied, and get it out, and get it right here Casablanca Tejas. You all know the address. As a matter of fact, you got a camera on me right now.

Bring it here. Absolute immunity. Instant Ethics Protection. And essentially a cleared ethics file and a clean slate.

Now doesn’t that sound a little more appealing than the crazy thought-stopping hell that you live in?

See you soon.

David Miscavige – Paranoia and Cowardice

Please pass along to all Kool Aid drinkers you might still have on your email lists.  Here is hard, current evidence as to how their donations are being spent by Scientology Inc. supreme ruler David Miscavige.

For the back story, click.

The Best Legal Whore House In Texas

 

Tom Cruise’s pimp is back at it in South Texas.

David Miscavige has been big pimping in the Lone Star State.

Miscavige has hired the most expensive legal mercenaries in this region in an attempt to handle what he directed his spokesperson to tell the Tampa Times were malicious fabrications and complete balderdash.  That was corporate Scientology’s official, initial response to the lawsuit brought against Miscavige, RTC, and CSI in the San Patricio County District courthouse by former cult PI’s Greg Arnold and Paul Marrick.

 It does not take Lamont Jefferson, Esq. out of San Antonio to handle fabrications and balderdash.  But, that is who was brought in to represent Miscavige personally. Jefferson is often hired by the wealthy and plenty guilty because his brother is the Supreme Court of Texas’ Chief Justice. Rich, guilty people reckon that gives them  a leg up in front of local judges.   As you can see Jefferson has no problem making Miscavige out to be the victim (you read that right, victim) of big, bad, real attorney with a conscience Sugar Ray Jeffrey.

Miscavige’s Special Appearance San Pat County

As to RTC, they have chosen Tony Canales of Corpus Christi to represent them.  He is the local horse of choice by the drug dealers and con men of unlimited bread of the region.   He has done more for the South Texas crime industry than perhaps any other man. He is arguing that RTC has never carried out ANY business in Texas.  Prevarication has never been a problem in the past for Canales, and apparently still isn’t.  A year ago, Canales himself was doing plenty of RTC/Miscavige business in San Pat County Texas by unethically lobbying the Sheriff and the office of the County Attorney to have me falsely arrested (a matter that exploded in Miscavige’s face when the false arrest was exposed by the Corpus Christi Caller Times).

RTC’s Special Appearance

What is worse are the sworn affidavits of Warren McShane in support of both motions (affidavits are attached to motions).  As I have noted before, McShane has been retained as a Director of RTC by Miscavige for one reason and one reason alone, as per Miscavige’s own words:  the only reason I keep Warren around is because he is such a good liar.  In this case McShane is willingly and knowingly committing perjury by swearing RTC has had no NO contacts or operations in the State of Texas.   As those who have followed this blog know, McShane, Miscavige, and RTC have been doing daily business in San Patricio County Texas every single day for four straight years.

To make matters worse, last week on this blog, I shared  a glimpse of a wheelbarrow full of evidence I have demonstrating that those DAILY Texas contacts are of the most unconscionable sort.

Leave it to Miscavige to bring water pistols to put out  a prairie fire.   Leave it to Miscavige to pay $800/hour for the sleaziest con men money can buy to wield those pistols.

I hope he doesn’t, but my bet is that Miscavige pays off Marrick and Arnold before this ever gets to a hearing.

If he doesn’t, I’ll be right in the center of this storm.

Stay tuned to the weather channel.

Update:  Tony Ortega coverage

Scientology Inc – Operation Censorship

references: Busted! Scientology Spies in South Texas and The Rest of the Story – Scientology Spies in Texas

If you really want to understand what it is like defying Scientology Inc. oppression, you need to reach back in history for data of comparable magnitude.   That is because there is no other organization in the age of information that acts quite like Scientology Inc.   The institution is an anachronism.   You would need to look for examples from Cold War CIA, KGB, and STASI (East German state security  intelligence agency) to really get the picture. In the past I have recommended an award-winning movie to people who really want to understand and get a  feel for the experience.  It is called The Lives of Others.  You can order the movie through netflix.   Given current events, it is more relevant than ever.  Here is a trailer:

Compare the trailer, and the movie when you get the chance, to recent events posted on this blog.   To make the parallel even more fitting, one should consider what I am consistently doing between sessions, blogging, dealing with incoming harassment and running an underground railroad.  That is, that which David Miscavige is attempting to derail more than any of that. I am writing books about Scientology.  During the entire spy catching incident playing out in my sleepy town over the past two weeks,  I was reviewing proofs of a new book I am publishing in the next week.  The book may be the definitive piece on ‘What Your Donations to Scientology Inc Buy’.  What those fees buy couldn’t be more at odds with what Scientologists are led to believe that they buy.  Recent events speak to the credibility of what you will read when the book is available.   The magnitude of efforts to silence me speak to the importance of the information I am working on conveying in a meaningful and long lasting context.

Here is what one of the few people who have had a chance to read an advance copy of the book has to say about it:

Marty Rathbun is uniquely qualified to write this book.  He is a rascal, a rogue and a mensch. He is an insider with an exterior point of view.  He is a fine writer and a student of history with a perspective that lends value to his accounting of things that should be of interest to anyone who was ever trapped in a mindset. I found this book absorbing and unsettling and revealing and a little astonishing, and the time reading it well spent.

Shreff

MarkShreffler.wordpress.com

Clearly, Miscavige does not like absorbing, unsettling and especially does not like revealing.  But, his continuing STASI-like conduct only exacerbates and accentuates the truth of it.

The Rest of the Story – Scientology Inc. Spies

reference:  Busted!  Scientology Spies in South Texas

In the third week of September a documentary film crew arrived at our home for a ten day stint.   The crew wanted to know all about Operations of David Miscavige’s Scientology Inc. carried out against Monique and me.   I told them there had been no overt harassment to speak of  going on around here since Nov 2, 2011 when the Miscavige Squirrels left town.  There was only a deep-cover, constant surveillance operation.

They pressed for particulars on the surveillance apparatus.  I told them I assumed there were at least three safe houses in our town that were devoted to surveillance.  I described how they would situate them so that they could alert tails in such a fashion that we could never spot a tail.   They asked whether I had any suspicions about any of the houses involved. I casually pointed to a green house situated catty-corner to ours, 201 Bayshore Drive, apparently abandoned for the two years we’ve lived in our current locale.  I noted small slits cut in the upstairs bedroom window blinds facing our home.  I told them that if I had the time I could likely blow the whole thing wide open, but with all the other forms of resistance that gets thrown our way, and the importance of our activity, I don’t have the time to investigate it.  So, we live with it.  I told them I wasn’t too interested in fooling with it because it was David Miscavige’s intent to distract me from the more important work we do day in and day out; that the intent of Miscavige’s productions was to get into the target’s head; and that the way to get into Miscavige’s head is not let him get into yours, or as Jason Beghe says “the way to handle bullying is to not be bullied.”

The crew was fascinated and began filming the green house with particular attention to the window.  That was 22 September.

The week before last the following scene was posted on my blog.  Pictured are Paul Marrick, Greg Arnold, Tony Ortega, and three members of the documentary film production crew preparing for a tour of Ingleside on the Bay (IOB).

The film crew recorded my drive through IOB with Paul and Greg narrating the two missions they conducted in the neighborhood in March 2009.  Their mission was to ‘case’ IOB in order to set up what Miscavige ordered to be a surveillance set up ‘ten times what we did for Broeker’, except this time on yours truly.   Greg and Paul were brought in because the PI tailing me up to that time was, in the words of Greg and Paul, an amateur.   He was not keeping David Miscavige sufficiently informed of every last action of my wife and me  and so Miscavige wanted the heavyweights to come set the scene straight.  The ‘amateur’, Monty Drake,  had been Scientology Inc.’s Texas PI since 1988.   In that year he worked on Rick and Vicki Aznaran (former Inspector General who was suing RTC) of Dallas.  During the nineties Drake was assigned to scour every last detail of Lisa McPherson’s life, the woman whose life David Miscavige cut short in 1995.   According the former Director of Special Affairs Scientology Dallas, Drake was also assigned to put the late-heretic Alan Walter to rest.

Arnold and Marrick described their recommendations, which included the purchase or lease of at least three (3) safe houses for surveillance of me and my wife – just as I had long-ago predicted to my wife and several days previous had estimated to the film crew.   Since that time we have moved to the other side of the town of 615 people.    But, Drake was assigned to take Paul and Greg’s recommendations and implement them for our new location.

I pointed out to Greg and Paul the suspicious circumstance in the home catty-corner to ours.  Here is a shot of the home from my living room.

201 Bayshore Drive

The back bedroom window facing our home – with the two blue splotches on it (from tape I have since applied to the window) had three cut outs in the closed blinds that looked as if they could be allowing cameras to surveil our home.

As we completed our IOB tour and were heading down Bayshore Drive to our home, I noticed a grey Crown Victoria backing out of the driveway of 201 Bayshore Drive.  As I pointed it out to the film crew and Arnold and Marrick, the car quickly reversed into forward and sped back into the home’s carport.   In the thirty seconds it took us to arrive at the home, the driver of the car had secreted himself within the house.

I dropped the crew and others off at my home.  The crew wired me up and provided me with a camera as I walked to 201 to confront the mystery visitor.  The car was gone.  I banged on the door for some time.   The home looked unlived in, and the door to the suspicious bedroom was closed shut.   On the way out, I noticed the grey crown victoria had been put into the garage.    So, the mystery visitor was inside, apparently hiding.

Law enforcement officials traced the plates on the car to one Fidel Garcia Jr., of  FNG Security, Corpus Christi and San Antonio. When I returned to my house, the grey crown victoria sped out of the garage and left IOB at at least 80 mph.  Since no human forms had been seen at that house for two years, we all concluded that the Film Crew’s interest and the appearance of Marrick and Arnold (accompanied by three lawyers, including Sugar Ray Jeffrey) must have caused David Miscavige to choke –  sending his PI in in the middle of the day to either attempt to clean out the house of equipment or adjust focuses on the cameras so that DM could make out the corps of media, lawyers and investigators who were congregating at my home.

The next day I caused Garcia to meet me in a coffee shop in downtown Corpus Christi.  When we met I told him that I knew what he was doing in the house on the corner across from mine. I told him about the people that he works for.  I let him know that I could handle what he had been doing but I that I thought that he ought to search his conscience about what he was putting my wife through.  Garcia, the 6′ 5″ sniveling coward denied knowledge of Scientology.  Instead he claimed to be working on a confidential project for Kiewit Offshore Services (largest San Pat county employer, constructs and repairs oil rigs).   He said it was a Security Department program that require a number of random investigators to come to the house in question periodically to take readings from a computer stationed there.  He denied that there were any cameras in the house.  I told Garcia that I would check on his story and if he was telling the truth, I would take him out to dinner and apologize for wasting his time; but that if I found he was lying he would take me out to dinner and sort out how he would make good with our family.  Garcia agreed.  The entire conversation was recorded by the documentary  film crew; I bet you’ll see substantial portions of it sometime around Spring or Summer next year.

I visited the head of security at Kiewit who told me that Mr. Garcia was lying through his teeth.  He was not employed by Kiewit and Kiewit had no operations whatsoever off their own plant premises.

In the meantime, I found out that the lessee of the home in question (201 Bayshore Drive) was one Monty Drake.

Mark Collette of the Corpus Christi Caller Times then phoned Fidel Garcia to confront him with his lies to me.  Garcia held to his Kiewit story.   Collette then called Monty Drake.  Drake denied any connection to Scientology, but did admit to ‘doing business’ at 201 Bayshore.

I then phoned Mr. Garcia to call in the promise he had made to me at the coffee shop several days before.

You can hear that conversation here:

Fidel Garcia Jr. 4 Oct 2012 conversation

I then phoned Monty Drake to give him an opportunity to make good for the crimes he had committed against my family.   Drake confirmed he had been at 201 for ‘longer’ than I had lived in my current home.

You can hear my discussion with Drake here:

Monty Drake conversation 4 Oct 2012

Drake hung up the phone while I was clarifying his admission that he had been at 201 Bayshore for longer than I had been in my current home.  I knew Drake was lying even about that.

In fact, Drake leased 201 Bayshore drive, the very same day that Monique and I moved into our current home.   November 1, 2010.   Drake knew that I was moving into my home a couple weeks before that date, because Scientology Inc. was surveilling me visiting our new home two weeks in advance when I was making improvements in preparation for our Nov 1 move in.

I also learned that shortly after the film documentary crew began taking overt interest in 201 Bayshore, 22 Sept, Drake re-signed a THREE YEAR lease on 201 Bayshore, more than a month before his current leased expired.  David Miscavige has committed to pay 1,500/month for the next three years to be next to me when he was alarmed that I might force him to leave me and my wife alone.   All told, in lease payments alone, Miscavige has committed to spending $90,000 in church of Scientology parishioner donations for 201 Bayshore Drive in IOB, 40% of which has already been spent.

Now, for the photos the Caller Times did not publish.   First, there was more than one video camera.   There are TWO, in addition to the still camera.

Third camera

Incidentally, the still camera’s telephoto lens appears to be about a foot and one half long.  As Monique put it, “strong enough to read the ingredients from the containers of the food we eat”, particularly since it is trained on our living room, dining room, and kitchen.

In addition to the three cameras, the Miscavige bedroom was outfitted with a desktop computer and a laptop computer on a desk with a chair.   All three cameras were connected by wiring to the computer set up.  Clearly, David Miscavige had it all set up so that he personally could watch my wife and me 24/7/365 from the comfort of his bunker near Hemet, California.

Scientology Spies Caught in South Texas

 

Breaking News from the Corpus Christi Caller Times:

Surveillance Cameras Watch Rathbun

Stayed tuned here for the main story when it is available.