Leah Remini, Part 6 – Aftermath Season 1, episode 1 – Manufactured Accusations
Transcript:
Mark Rathbun:
It begins with episode one, which is literally from beginning to end a manufactured story. Leah Remini starts off saying that she wrote a book and thought it would all be over; she wrote a book and just wanted to move on. Of course that is contradictory to the whole roll out campaign (see Leah Remini parts 1-5) that Mike Rinder briefed me on she confirmed later. But she presents herself as, “I will just write all the facts down from my experiences, and I’ll be done with…except, there was such an unbelievable demand for me to come protect these poor, innocent people who got harmed by Scientology.”
Phony, acted Amy Scobee Story
And so, episode one is supposed to be that story, Amy Scobee reached out to her. This is 2016. Amy Scobee told her story in 2009, seven years before this. Amy Scobee wasn’t in need of someone who had a platform. She wrote a book in 2009. But, according to episode one Amy came to Leah to resolve this problem of her being disconnected from her mother in 2016. Except, Amy has been connected with her mother since 2010. So, they literally manufactured and made up this story that people (former members) came out of the wood work – beginning with the person they put up front and center, Amy Scobee – so solve this problem that didn’t exist. In actual fact, it did not exist. So, this was planning, scripting, acting and dramatizing as much as her previous reality tv show.
Just look at what these people are saying in real time: Amy literally put on her Facebook page “It’s Showtime!” That was her promotion for the show coming up. It wasn’t, “hey, I’m going to tell my heartfelt story in this documentary search for the truth.” It was, “It’s Showtime!”
Amy Scobee Acting
It’s opportunist. Everybody is scratching everybody else’s back. Amy ends up getting a gig as a personal assistant in Hollywood at the same time. Her husband ends up getting another gig. So, she’s playing it for all she can get. Look, I consider myself friends with these people. I am not trying to put them down or anything. I am just telling you like it is. I got nothing on them. But, it is sort of par for the course for that personality. I mean they plan, script, create these ‘warrior princess’ personalities that do not exist in reality. You see, Amy now tells a new story after nine years after the fact of writing about how there were all these terrible things going on at the international headquarters of Scientology, and that she got in trouble, ethics trouble, because she had a problem because she told things as they were. What is wrong with this picture is, I was there at the time – and I was there for twenty years she was there – Amy Scobee was exactly the opposite of that. The only times she got in trouble was for exactly the opposite. It was for telling things how they weren’t. I mean, you’d have to go to great lengths to get her to knock off the public relations, to knock off the spin, to knock off the false positivity, and just tell it like it is. And yet, she is saying “I got disciplined and I went down in flames for telling it like it is. In other words, she was protesting these terrible things that were happening. Didn’t happen. Literally manufactured. Scripted, acted, played out.
The reason I bring this up is – because I don’t dislike Amy; she’s a very personable person – but what I am pointing out is the reality of it: The story is absolutely invented.
Remini and Rinder Compound the Fake News
Then, like I said earlier (parts 1-5) Rinder and Remini change the stories and change the complexion of it by commenting by introducing, then having the person make a quote, and then interpreting and altering and putting another spin on it so that they alter what the person said. What I am telling you is that in this series it goes a whole step further because the talent, the guest, Amy is literally telling a story that is 180 degrees from the truth. And then it is pumped up and altered and changed and conflated by the producer, director, talent: Rinder and Remini.
So, by the end of it, it bears no resemblance to reality.
Leah took me to school on how unreal reality tv is. Watching the second reality series – the Aftermath series – I see it takes it to a whole different level. It is so obviously scripted, rehearsed, acted and dramatized every step of the way it is a whole new level of false impression. I spoke earlier about how Alex Gibney pirated from Roast Beef Productions in the UK – he pirated this format they used in his documentary. Which is to say they came up with this idea of ‘well get the witnesses to say things, but if they won’t go far enough, we’ll bring in Tony Ortega who will say anything for a handout, and he can make it sound like the previous person said something else.” And so they used him (Ortega) interspersed throughout, and Gibney did the exact same thing. Tony Ortega who didn’t participate in the book – it was supposed to be a documentary about the book – is throughout the documentary because he is going to create the premise. In the Aftermath they compound the felony because they use the exact same technique except that the producer, director, talent, actors Leah and Mike Rinder are doing it throughout. They introduce a concept with a bunch of generalities. Then, they have someone say something. Then Remini and Rinder jump back in and interpret and throw out more generalities. And (what was said by the interviewee) is completely and utterly altered, the reality of what the person’s experience was. In other words, the people who participate do not even have to have a story – and to date through Season One not one of them has a story worthy of news. How do I know? Because I knew these people nine years ago when the news was reporting some of the stuff that was going on during the previous ten to twenty years when the media was interested. They did not make the cut then. But, they make the cut now (on Leah’s show) because they’ll say what they are saying, but as introduced by Leah and Mike and interpreted afterwards, and then bridged to their next comment, it all the sudden becomes this nefarious, scary thing. And that is the technique that is used, episode after episode.
Leah Remini, Part 4 – Remini and Tony Ortega, Blackmailers
Transcript:
Mark Rathbun:
Remini asks Rathbun to join the Anti Scientology Cult (ASC)
Talking about hypocrisy. After I rejected the producer role where I can write my own ticket with Leah Remini (see Leah Remini, Parts 1-3) several months later Leah gets a hold of me and literally wants me to make a commitment to be in the ASC (Anti Scientology Cult).
Rathbun tells Remini he doesn’t want to join a cult
And told her, “look, I am not a joiner. I’m not a sheep. I’m not a follower. If you haven’t figured that out in the two or three years you have observed me…” And Leah said, “no, no, no it’s if you are against them, we’re together.” And I said, “the problem is, you want me to join a group of people that have experience with who are demonstrably, obviously far more unethical, disloyal, criminal than any Scientologist I ever deal with in 27 years I was within it.”
Rathbun schools Remini projection
I told her, “And, yet as much as you rail about it, you want me to act in the very way you accuse Scientology of acting.” In other words, “forget about all that stuff, if you are against them, you are with us. It’s use vs them. And so if you are not with us, you are for them, basically.” I told her, “no.”
Remini does what she accuses the church of doing
Remember, the narrative that Remini and the troika has been capitalizing on for the past three years, central to the whole thing which they go on and on about, is ‘disconnection.’ In other words, because in Scientology, to the extent that someone acting anti-socially can’t be reformed or lived with people will disconnect from them. That that is such a ‘greivous crime’ to family and humanity that it justifies creating a cult to combat Scientology. So, when I won’t join her group, Leah Remini literally disconnects from me. And I mean in a way they don’t even accuse Scientology of doing. She told me “not only are not to be in communication with me again, you must destroy all my contact information, because I am destroying yours!”
It is not just a command that you are not to communicate with me, it’s “we’re going to make it impossible for us to communicate again.” So, it could not have been a more explicit disconnection. And that was the response to me for refusing to say I will give love, devotion and surrender to this ASC cult of yours.
Worse than Scientology
Now, after Leah Remini disconnects from me after I refuse to join the cult…Here is where the parallels come in with the narrative “Scientology disconnects from you, and then if you keep defying they ruthlessly attack you.” So, I do a couple essays on my blog that are sort of time to time neutral on the subject of Scientology. I always felt it was important that you attained some sort of objectivity about your experience in Scientology. Even if you felt it was negative to have it continually reinforced on you that it is negative, you are going to get sicker and worse. Like Scientology, or virtually any self-help philosophy or like any religion, it is far more healthful to recognize that you are responsible for your own condition and move along and take the positive from your experience. So, I do a few posts and the troika (Remini, Rinder, and Ortega) goes crazy.
Tony Ortega Cult Hatchet Man Attempted Blackmail
Tony Ortega launches this smear campaign and he runs it for six months non-stop, about me and my family. They attempted to infiltrate my family. They attempted to drive wedges between my wife and me. When that failed, they took up a collection to hire a private investigator to spy on and harass us. And when that failed, they attempted to blackmail me. I literally received a blackmail threat. (and it was from the number one source of funding of Tony Ortega’s Underground Bunker operation). “If you keep talking about the ASC, if you keep talking about our side of the story or about our laundry, we are going to expose all the crimes that you failed to disclose about your scientology experience.” And I laughed at that because unlike them, I am the one person whose life has been an open book and there is nothing I ever held back. So, I said “go ahead.” My response was “make my day.”
Ortega makes good on the blackmail threat
I didn’t hear anything for several months until the very day before Leah Remini’s January 2017 ABC 20/20 Special. I hear from ABC 20/20 asking me, “do you know a guy named Sergio?” I said, “no, I’ve never known a Sergio in my life.” Simultaneously, I receive an email from Tony Ortega, saying “Sergio Lame (or whatever his name is) says that he got raped by an old male when he was a teenager inside Scientology and that you found out about it and covered it up.” So, I got what was going down. This was the payback on the blackmail threat. They literally made it up. So, I looked up this Sergio guy. He’d been going on for 3 or 4 months in the ASC troll farm. The guy was so incredible, he would say some stuff one day that three days later he would absolutely contradict. I mean his lack of credibility was so apparent just on the face of what he was saying without any refutation. It was that bad.
The Tony Ortega Slander Laundry
So, Tony Ortega as he’s waiting for my response, blogs “watch 20/20 tomorrow; there’s going to be explosive, and I mean, explosive stuff.” Then, it was clear to me it was going to be the Segio Lan “cover up.” So, I wrote back to 20/20 and said “I never heard of this guy in my life. But, now that I’ve heard from Tony Ortega I understand what is going on. He’s running the same op he is running all the time. Mike Rinder has explained it to me.” It goes like this, Tony will run anything because he has nothing to lose because he’s a nobody with a blog. Scientology and nobody else is going to waste their time suing a guy who can never make good on whatever damage he does in the first place; and can blog from a shopping cart in an alley as well as he can from whatever apartment he is living in now. So, he’s got immunity in that respect from libel. He’ll put out the sleaziest, most criminal innuendo with little grains of truth mixed in and keep repeating enough, with the intention that a tabloid at some point will start to pick it up. The intention is to keep feeding the tabloid with the intention that ultimately – in this degraded age of infotainment, click-bait news we live in – “legitimate media” will pick up on it. And that is the only reason the blackmail didn’t run, because I called ABC out on it.
Summary
They blackmailed me, I told them bring it, they had nothing to bring so they literally manufactured something. They literally manufactured accusations of criminal conduct that never happened. Accusations that were so unfounded that no media would run with it. But, they came within an inch from broadcasting it nationally.
Now, take my experience and you get a better idea of how the ASC and troika (Remini, Rinder and Ortega) works vis a vis Scientology – they run the same gig as above day in and day out over a seven year period.
So, once I gotten taken to school on the subject of reality TV by Leah Remini.
This was during her AWOL period, where I would call her out on something and then suddenly she couldn’t be found for several months. I texted her after I had watched her reality show. They had this therapist come in and they had this group therapy session with her family.
Family Therapy Session
I texted her that I was really impressed that you guys had the courage to do that and share that with people. She called and let her know, “I mean, that is pretty personal”, I told her “I got one problem with it, though. I think it was really terrible how you just dumped it on your mother and made it look like she was the villain of the piece; and somehow unintelligent and stupid and culpable for getting the whole family involved in Scientology.” I said, “I could literally see it on her, she looks terrible.”
Leah discloses it is all scripted and acted
Leah let’s the first part go, and just addresses the second part, because she is a narcissist. If you say anything that is perceived as anything other than worship for her, Leah’s going to jump on that. “Oh, no, no, no”, she says, “you didn’t get it at all. This wasn’t an actual therapy session. This whole thing was planned and scripted.” I said, “you literally acted?” And she said, “Yeah, we literally acted.” She said, “listen, that’s how it works honey. Doll, that’s how you do it. It’s not reality, I plan out all these episodes and we figure them out all beforehand who is going to do what and who is going to say what. What do you think, I’m just going to put a camera on myself?” I mean, that’s uneducated I am about reality TV, I don’t watch reality TV. I just assumed they put a camera in there and captured how people live their lives. But, she instructed me that that is not what it is all about. It is not reality, it is unreality. It is fake reality.
Leah admits it is all to poke a stick in Scientologists eyes
In fact, in the course of telling me this she told that they had planned and scripted it for purposes of having maximum ‘poke in the eye’ on David Miscavige and Scientology.
Rinder explained to me that they had literally had it worked out that – they, the three of them, the troika (Rinder, Remini and Ortega) – an operation, where Leah’s departure from Scientology would be orchestrated and be reported in a way that they would manipulate people into reporting it. It was an act. In other words, this is an active troll job. Leah would act as if she were being persecuted by Scientology for disagreeing with it and having all this “scandalous” information about it. All the while, she was having her agents create the story of her leaving. And it was done in such a way as to try to create a reaction on the part of Scientology. It was a string operation to try to get Scientology to reach out to try to salvage her, to get Scientology to have people disconnect from her. All it would be part of an ongoing story. It was all going to be a roll out to increase her profile and create this mystery and create this figure – this ‘warrior princess’, his innocent warrior princess. She’d be this innocent princess who was turned into a warrior because she was hunted down and persecuted by Scientology. That was the story.
As it rolled out Scientology never played its part. And they just acted like it did. She never did get persecuted, she never did get hunted down, she never did get people begging her to come back. None of that stuff happened. But, Rinder and Ortega just keep spinning the ball giving the impression that it did. The reason I refer to Rinder, Remini and Ortega as a ‘troika’ – this cluster at the top of this thing (the Anti Scientology Cult, ASC) – is they have this penchant for having one of them act like ‘Mickey the Dunce’ when something happens. That is how they rolled out Leah Remini in the first place. Tony Ortega literally reported as if he were onto a hot tip from a “tipster.” The ‘tipster’ was Leah Remini. Ortega made it look like someone else, like an insider who was leaking. And Ortega literally quoted Leah’s husband – he reported that he called Leah’s husband and said “hey, we heard your having a big break up with the church of Scientology,” and her husband was reported as saying, “oh, no, not at all, we get along just peachy keen. And if we ever did, we would resolve it with the church.” And Ortega goes as far as writing, “and we thanked him for being so candid.”
News is created
Well, the whole thing was scripted by Leah Remini, her husband, and Mike Rinder and Tony Ortega. So he literally made up this ‘news.’ That is how the whole thing rolled out and started. They continue that who op until today where one of them does something and the other one says “I don’t know anything about that.” Example. In the last episode of Remini’s first year of her series on Scientology, they spent the entire episode over Scientology accusing Leah of disaffecting and inspiring this kid Brandon Reisdorf to commit a hate crime by throwing a brick through a window of a Church of Scientology. She was like, “hah, can you believe they have accused me?” She is literally next to Mike Rinder as she says it. Rinder did in fact orchestrate the kid’s disaffection and inspired him into hating David Miscavige and Scientology so much that he was willing to maim somebody. And Remini spent the entire episode railing about how she was falsely accused and yet her partner Mike Rinder is sitting right next to her; the guy who executed the whole thing. And I know first-hand that he did.
So, I refer to them as a troika, cluster for a reason. If you do not consider them as an inseparable group, it is like a chimera, you don’t know where anything is coming from. Because it is planned and executed that way.
Ethics of the Anti Scientology Cult
Another example. They rail about ethics. “Scientology has this utilitarian ethics system, us v. them, good v. evil.” The funny thing is that literally is the ASC (Anti Scientology Cult) system of ethics. It literally consists of ‘if it harms scientology, it is good. If it helps scientology, it is evil.” Period! Mike Rinder literally said on a podcast that Scientology is ‘fair game’ and you can literally can say and do anything you want against Scientology and get away with it. Literally promoting that idea.
Rank Propaganda
Ortega puts it in many ways, day after day, on his blog. One incident really encapsulates what happens here. A woman took her car and rammed it through the front door of the Austin, Texas Church of Scientology, sped through the lobby and crashed into the Church’s nursery where there were toddlers. When the police arrived the woman said she was disappointed when she was told she hadn’t hit anybody; that she had failed to kill anybody. And that was her only regret, that she didn’t. It subsequently came out that she was primarily inspired to do this by Leah Remini. She had been reading her book or watching her show or listening to her ramblings or her productions. And of course, Leah Remini just never says anything about it. Instead, Tony Ortega comes in and Tony Ortega flanks for her by trying to euphemize the whole thing. He literally characterized the admitted attempted murder as delinquency. Ortega’s got about a couple hundred people in his sheep farm (troll farm) and they generate thousands of comments a day because that is all they do all day, sit there and comment. Just as an exercise went through the comment section that day. Out of two thousand comments, not a single person objected to his characterization or called him out on it. And they are all just frothing these attempted memes of hatred against Scientology, based on a woman attempting to kill somebody with her car.