Not long ago there were postings on here concerning an investigation
of David Miscavige as well as others connected with the top management
of the Church of Scientology.

For those interested in seeing a link to the criminal investigation
questionnaire, you can find it at:

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?t=468

Since this has been posted at least here on ars, on XSO and on the
ExScn sites many people have contacted me and expressed interest in
this subject. Some have or are giving the information they have but
most who agree with the action want to do something about it but feel
they really can't do much for one of the three following reasons:

I. They have information on abuses, lies and/or crimes not
specifically covered by the questionnaire. They want to help but there
are no questions that cover exactly what they have to say.

To these people I recommend that you just send what information you
have to Factnet as covered by the questionnaire. Those designing the
questionnaire could not think of all possible questions and will
welcome any information you have that is in the spirit of such an
investigation. It is intended to expand the questionnaire and anyone
with specific suggestions for doing so, should email them to the
Factnet email address on the questionnaire.

In the meantime, please feel free to send whatever information you
have.

II. Some people very much want to see the end of crimes and abuses and
want to see justice done for past and/or current misdeeds but feel
nothing will come of this investigation as "the Church" is just "too
powerful" in the legal arena to fight.

To these people I say that is exactly what "the church" wants you to
think so that you will in fact do nothing. They are not an "all
powerful" legal team by any means. The facts are that they have a lot
of money and can tie you up in legal for years. And who of us as
individuals can afford to fight that way, even when we know we are
right?

But you are not being asked to finance any legal action against them.
All you are being asked for is honest information you may want to
share that will help others take specific actions against those
responsible for crimes and abuses. To the extent that class action
suits may come about, I am confident you would be welcomed to join
that class to the extent that your situation is relevant to the action
at hand.  As stated in the questionnaire, the information gathered is
planned to be used as follows:

"It will be used to force Scientology to stop abusing its members,
former members, and critics through ethical use of justice systems
throughout the world.

1) It will be used to assemble summary reports for government agencies
responsible to protect the public safety and mental health. These
summary reports will compel the various government agencies to open
new investigations into Scientology.

2) It will help to file new legal actions in the U.S. and other
countries such as a civil RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt
Organization Act) lawsuit, and an "all past victims" class action
lawsuit. The U.S. Supreme court recently ruled that the RICO statutes
could be used against groups forwarding ideological positions if a
pattern could be shown of threatened violence, harassment, or actual
violence. This ruling in an abortion rights case broadens RICO use
beyond organized crime in the traditional sense to include cases like
Scientology.

3) It will assist ongoing civil or criminal litigation.

4) It will be used to challenge the fraud of Scientology's non profit
or religious tax exempt status with the IRS in the U.S. and with
similar agencies in other countries.

5) It will assist investigative media reporters seeking to call the
public's attention to Scientology's ongoing human rights abuses."

As you can see, there are many ways to fight crimes and abuses than
just some individual civil action. There are group actions that can be
taken, there is the civil RICO case building, etc. And, just like they
have "shuddered" so many into silence so can the real truth be used to
"shudder" governments, press and others into ACTION.

Their "success" in hiding lies and crimes and currently having a
relatively "quiet" legal  front is not only because they will spend a
lot of money to stop opposition. It is also because those who have
real grievances that could be addressed legally often try to fight on
grounds where "the church" can more easily defend itself using statute
of limitation factors and religious cloaking.

I submit that there are plenty of other legal methods to address
wrongs done to you that are very fact intensive and where the facts
relevant to such cases will in fact expose their crimes and abuses.
Such actions can be taken if only as counter suits when they file any
"fair game" legal actions to try to silence you.

But, again, the point here is that all that is asked for in the
questionnaire is information that many people want to share. No one is
being asked to finance anything.

III. The most common "barrier" I see from people who want to help is
that many of them contacting me feel that, while they have first hand
information of crimes, cover-ups and the like, they do not have enough
information to really make a difference.

To them I say that I firmly believe that there is enough information
out right now on the web and that people have and want to share to
bring the criminal elements of this organization down now.

What "the church" depends on is no one bringing all that information
together again and do something that will really expose it to the
light of day.

In times past when people were really impinging on "the church"
legally (be it back in the Flynn days in Boston, or the Wollersheim
actions or others) it was because many people, each with pieces of the
puzzle, came together and were presenting a compelling overall picture
of the truth. Not one individual had enough information in and of
himself/herself to make a huge difference. But, together they had a
very compelling case.

Let me give a very small example of this:

Here is a little posting I did on ars some time ago to point out one
lie that DM made in a declaration in one court case. Basically, he
said he was not involved in the early 80s corporate sortout. Then my
posting compared it to an RTC website praising DM saying he authored
the corporate sortout:

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.scientology/browse_thread...

Does it show at least one lie?  Yes, it obviously does.

Is it enough to "bring down" the criminal elements in this
organization? No, not at all. If confronted with this fact in court
they will try to show that it is irrelevant to the case at hand. If
they were not successful with that argument, they would try to lie
their way out of it and will likely be successful in doing same. They
can say that the people who wrote that about DM on that website just
innocently "over embellished" the truth or that this one little
"mistake" truly proves nothing.

How about if I combined that lie in the Wollersheim vs. CSC case from
1999 with an example of a lie DM made in another case in another year.
Let's say from the C of S International vs. Fishman/Geertz case from
1994 where DM said this:

"Vaughn Young completely misstates my relationship to the plaintiff
Church of Scientology International. Young claims that I somehow
direct, manage and control every facet of CSI's operations and
activities. This also is ludicrous. CSI has well over a thousand staff
members who deal with international promotion and dissemination
efforts, evaluate situations in Scientology churches around the world,
and provide plans and programs that give guidance to these churches.
This is the activity of international and middle management of CSI,
which has an entirely different purpose and sphere of activity than
RTC. My job as Chairman of the Board involves many functions, but does
not include management of CSI or any other Scientology church. I do
not create corporate strategy nor do I direct or manage the personnel
of CSI. I do not remove CSI's directors or officers. I do not run CSI
or its executives. Anyone who would testify to the contrary is either
uninformed or untrustworthy".

Do you know how completely easy it is to show several points of
perjury in just that one paragraph?

So now let's say we have a lie in a 1999 declaration for one case
combined with a lie in a 1994 declaration in another case. Is this
enough? Not hardly. Yes it shows a person comfortable with lying but,
in and of itself, is not all that much in a civil legal action.

How about the fact that I can point out scores of other lies DM has
made in both of those affidavits? Is that enough to bring about some
form of justice? I doubt it very much.

How about the fact that I can show that DM has consistently made such
lies under penalty of perjury in even more cases? Will take make a
difference? It might. They will have to attack my credibility or
honestly just like they have done to many others who were in fact
being honest.

But here's the real kicker! How about if the information I have is
combined with direct, first hand information from many other credible
sources that show clearly a long term pattern of lies, fraud and cover
ups. And let's say this covers declarations he has filed in court
cases, testimony he has given in different cases and in such things as
throughout many filings done with governmental bodies like the IRS?
And let's say all these things combined show a compelling story of
using such lies to gain tax and other advantages, to silence "critics"
when the critics were right, to destroy the credibility and livelihood
or others, etc.. Well....can you spell "R I C O" ? Can you spell
"governmental investigations"? Can you spell "successful civil suits"?
Can you spell "revocation of tax exemption"?

Here are links to two of DM's declarations in civil suits that contain
many inaccuracies and out right lies:

http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/decl-miscavige-1994-02-08...

http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/50grand/legal/decl-miscavige-1999-09-24...

Shortly, other records of testimonies will be webbed and made
available to you such as testimony DM made in a case with Lilly.

Yet more things will be webbed covering key statements in order to
gain tax exemptions.

All that is asked is if you have first hand information and want to do
something to correct injustices or other wrongs, then share it as part
of the questionnaire matter. Sooner or later all such facts can be
combined to give a truly compelling story that can be used for all
actions listed earlier.

And the above is only a tiny, tiny piece of the puzzle. People are
telling me all kinds of things that relate to lies, fraud, cover-ups,
etc. on much more than what is covered above.

It is my belief that when all possible facts are known, you will see
many huge cover-ups including such things as what they did in the
early 90s with "records" for the likes of RRF, CSC and others to try
to give the IRS a grossly false picture.

But there is so much more. For example, look at this link:

http://www.skeptictank.org/gs/crimtime.htm#ReignOfTerror

It's not at all important whether or not you agree with the writers
about keeping Hubbard tech pure and the like. I respect many of the
people from that camp, as I respect others who want nothing to do with
Hubbard's writings.

What's important is much of what is written in that link.

For example, did DM and Pat Broker really have a power struggle as
covered in this link? You know one reason why that is relevant? It's
because DM did say in a court declaration that he never had a power
struggle with Pat as Pat had no power, not being on any corporate
board. Most of us know that statement of power within organized
scientology having to do with you being on a board is a complete joke.
Is it true that DM was in fact almost busted by Pat and was Jesse
Price truthful in his web filing that DM was in tears when he thought
he was going down and said he was bringing others down with him? If
you know the truth first hand, tell it! It can make a big difference
in the overall compelling story of the truth to expose the lies behind
it.

Is it true that DM's group (ASI)  lost up to $50 million of Hubbard's
money in oil speculation and DM carried out or had carried out many
fraudulent or other awful actions to make up the $50 million before
his losses were found out by Hubbard? How pathetic it would be to find
out that so many were horribly abused so that such things as the $40
million plus funneled to Hubbard by DM in 1982 happened (see Homer
Shomer testimony and Hana declaration) and were simply to cover his
own ass from being busted by Hubbard!!!!  Is it true that the "LRH
properties" sold for millions of dollars were based on lies made up by
DM and never really sanctioned by Hubbard? For example, there was that
special Battlefield Earth book in the wooden case "signed by Hubbard"
as a limited edition "special property". Were the 500 or so copies of
this book really signed by either DM or Norman Starkey and not in fact
by LRH? If so, how many people were defrauded on just this one example
for millions of dollars. I know I forgave $20,000 of one person's debt
for a copy of that book "signed by Hubbard" (how dumb was I then?
lol). If true, I was a victim of clear-cut fraud and so were many
others.

I'm not saying this example is true but someone out there knows and
should speak up if true as it's just another of hundreds of examples
of things that can be written up and put together as that overall
compelling story of truth.

Bottom line here is that whatever one has in this area IS valuable
and, should they wish to share it, they really do have the opportunity
now as per that Factnet questionnaire matter.

I can tell you now that people are taking notice again. There are
attorneys, press, book writers, and soon I believe, governmental
contacts that are taking notice and are going to do something about
this.
It doesn't matter if we all agree on everything here. It only matters
that people who want to be involved want the truth to be out and wish
the lies, the crimes and abuses to end.

/ END OF PLUG ON QUESTIONNAIRE /

/ START OF CONCLUDING PERSONAL NOTE /

I myself, for example, am not focused on the scientology attorneys
like Moxen, etc. and others who I feel not to be behind initiating the
lies and abuses. Also, I've never personally seen, for example, Rinder
beating someone or initiating some major fraud.

This doesn't mean I am correct or right. It's just that I am
personally not focused there based on the facts I personally have.

I know of people there like Ellen who have been stuck with lies and
frauds and desperately has tried to gloss over financial records in
some hope she is "saving the good parts of her religion" by doing so
while she attributes the frauds to others like Vicki P., etc. I just
wish she could realize that things like what Vicki did to get Hubbard
money decades ago PALE in comparison to what DM has done afterwards. I
wish people like Nigel could see that too and remember our days we
spent in horror in the GOWW basement secretly discovering scams others
did like RRF and thinking we were making it right for the future in
the corporate sortout in 81. I wish Nigel could see that what we did
in 81, though well intentioned, was used by DM et al to make things
worse than ever before.

And Lyman, what can I say man? You know as well as I do about the
lies, the perjury, the cover-ups, etc. within and without the
corporate structure. You've seen first hand so much of that carried
out by DM. I know you hated it back in the early 80s and I know for a
fact at least then you were never behind the abuses anyway.
I wish this because it is my firm belief that they are going to be
dragged in to testifying in criminal and/or civil legal actions and
they are going to be in a position of either having to perjure
themselves to "protect" the likes of DM or tell the truth and be
horribly abused. I wish they would wake up and get out now and tell
their stories before it is too late for them.

And I wish this on several current OSA/DSA folks I know from the "old
days" who were never abusive and  who after some 26 years are STILL
waiting for the insanity of DM and his actions to "blow over". They
are not going to "blow over" as long as he is there.

I say to them that if they truly believe in scientology then go to the
freezone or some other such place that may be trying to practice it
without all the abuses and crimes. It's probably less altered there
than in the sanctioned church anyway. I'm not for the technology in
either place but I will support anyone of good heart in the freezone
or otherwise outside current "sanctioned scientology" over "the
church" as run by DM any day.

As, lastly, I say to them that there are those of XSO who are willing
to help out people fleeing the SO. They will give you a place to stay,
relax, some food, money to get by, etc, until you can have some peace.
They will help you get a job as well. It is absolutely never too late
to break free from the lies and get a new start.

"The church" depends on "critics" being disorganized. That is their
only hope to continue to live with the lies.

I say that, no matter what our differences, we can be organized and do
something about it if we want.

SME