TO: Mosey Rathbun files multi-million dollar lawsuit against CoS for harassment

Crap = Destroyed evidence of voluntary manslaughter and practicing medicine without a license.

this whole thing is such a head scratcher

Podcast - Bert Leahy (former Squirrel Buster videographer turned Sci critic) discusses Monique's lawsuit and his relationship with Marty in some detail with the podcast host ("Chris C") in detail.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cgshere/2017/01/12/come-get-some-day-51-extra-scientology-bert-leahy


Berty Leahy appeared in an earlier podcast for the show, but the lawsuit isn't discussed nearly as much; they talk Marty and the Squirrel Busters, though -

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cgshere/2017/01/06/come-get-some-extra-scientology-bert-leahy


These links were posted in another thread by CommunicatorIC here - https://whyweprotest.net/threads/le...ps-families-apart.131933/page-12#post-2600630

and here - https://whyweprotest.net/goto/post?id=2600285#post-2600285

This was posted in another thread:

As Louis Theroux’s ‘My Scientology Movie’ hits U.S., troubling news of co-star Marty Rathbun

By Tony Ortega, March 9, 2017

Excerpt:

...now, there’s another new development that may stun Marty Rathbun’s many former readers.

It took place in, of all places, a courtroom in Tel Aviv, Israel.

A trial has been taking place there that we expect to tell you much more about in the coming days. The two sides are reportedly in settlement talks and will soon bring to an end what has been a running battle between Dani and Tami Lemberger and the Church of Scientology.

<snipped>

Those who speculated that Rathbun had secretly settled will be feeling justifiably smug today.

More at http://tonyortega.org/2017/03/09/as...s-troubling-news-about-co-star-marty-rathbun/

I wonder what contacted means? Did he really talk to Marty on the phone, or just send and receive email with an account that he assumed was Marty's?

I'd figured that as part of the Marty-surrender, OSA did a complete vacuum of his computers and online stuff, maybe installed spyware on his computer, has his email accounts, but if Marty was in the loop for this, then they've really got him on a leash.

Damn. I don't know whether my jaw or my stomach hit the ground first.

I was just thinking about the amount of information Marty has. Very likely a shit ton on people like Ortega, Rinder, De La Carriere, Childs, Sweeney, Luis Garcia and his legal team, the Indys, posters to his blog, etc. It makes my head spin on what the cult might be able to do with it.

I was always with the side that said to never trust Rinderburn. Well it looks like we were right about Marty. TBH, I still don't totally trust Rinder or any other exes either, no matter how much they seem to be coming around. There's just too much long-term damage to overcome.

Plus there's always the possibility that if an ex run into hard times, they'll cut a deal to shut up and turn over their info in exchange for cash. Even if it seems like it's good that they get a payoff from the cult, how good is it actually if the cult uses their info to take down their vocal former friends and supporters?
However you cut it, this sucks.
Just watch your back.

Dani Lemberger on Rathbun’s turn

By Tony Ortega, March 11, 2017

Quote:

Thursday we told you about a February 20 courtroom scene in Tel Aviv when the partner in a major law firm there, Mattan Ben Shaul, said in open court that he had contacted Marty Rathbun on behalf of the Church of Scientology and obtained from him an email that Dani Lemberger sent in private to the former church official in 2013. Lemberger was unable to comment for that story because his lawsuit was still in settlement negotiations. Yesterday, those negotiations were completed (the terms of which are not being disclosed), and Lemberger sent us this message about Rathbun turning over his private message for the church to use against him.

Continued at http://tonyortega.org/2017/03/11/so...m-b-search-past-lives-to-explain-being-raped/

by any chance could this have been over hurt feeling about not being in Leah's show -- or was he not in Leah's show because of his actions? just guessing

Memories of a Scientology warrior: Marty Rathbun’s curious career as church rebel

By Tony Ortega, March 14, 2017

Quote:

Last week, we caused a bit of an uproar in the Scientology Watching community when we reported evidence that Mark “Marty” Rathbun gave a Church of Scientology attorney in Israel a copy of an email that independent Scientologist Dani Lemberger sent to Rathbun in 2013, and which contained private information about Lemberger’s Scientology auditing.

The church used the contents of that email during a cross-examination of Lemberger in a court hearing last month, including the detail that Lemberger had said during auditing he thought about putting a bullet in the head of Scientology leader David Miscavige. Lemberger tells us the email’s use had little effect on the trial, which ended with a settlement last week. But he wrote to Rathbun that it was upsetting to him that Rathbun would turn over an email to the church, and he received no reply. When we asked Rathbun about it, he denigrated us without answering our question or denying that he, in fact, gave Lemberger’s private email to the church for its use in court. While some readers are still arguing whether the email proves that Rathbun is actually cooperating with Scientology under some kind of agreement with church leader David Miscavige, and whether or not that agreement involves some kind of secret financial settlement, there’s one thing that seems pretty certain: Marty Rathbun’s career as one of Miscavige’s most effective critics is over.

At one time, “Moving On Up a Little Higher,” the blog that Rathbun started in 2009 to criticize his former boss, was, with no exaggeration, a serious threat to Miscavige’s very control of the church itself.

So we thought, given how much Rathbun’s work has been a part of our reporting the last several years, we should take a long look at his contributions, regardless of where he ended up. And also to understand what we can about his personal rise and fall — were there clues early on that Rathbun was on a crash course? Take a look at our summary, and let us know.

Continued at http://tonyortega.org/2017/03/14/me...arty-rathbuns-curious-career-as-church-rebel/

I think he was already out of it (settled or surrendered) before Leah's show, from shortly before they pulled the plug on the legal case January 28 2016. I think CoS has been calling his shots since then.

Understanding Marty Rathbun: For the first time, his full deposition of 2014

By Tony Ortega, March 16, 2017

Quote:

On Tuesday, we examined the complete history of Mark “Marty” Rathbun’s website, “Moving On Up a Little Higher,” looking for some clues for what led the former top Church of Scientology official to go from one of church leader David Miscavige’s most vocal and effective critics to give up that role so completely.

Today, we have another piece of that puzzle which shows Rathbun in full “warrior” mode as he battled Scientology attorney Bert Deixler during a deposition taken in San Antonio on December 22, 2014.

If you read our article Tuesday, you know that December 2014 was a very interesting time in Rathbun’s journey. Earlier that month, he had been filming with Louis Theroux in Los Angeles when they were ambushed by Scientology operatives who tried to intimidate Rathbun about the adoption of a child the year before. That confrontation became the climactic scene in Theroux’s film now playing in theaters, My Scientology Movie.

So just a couple of weeks after that encounter, Rathbun was sitting down with a church attorney that he partly held responsible for that harassment.

We have previously posted two short video segments from the deposition. Today, we finally have the entire transcript of the battle between Rathbun and Deixler, as well as the videos we posted earlier.

Another important thing to keep in mind: This deposition had nothing to do with his wife Monique’s lawsuit, which she had filed in August 2013 over harassment she and her husband had experienced for years at the hands of Scientology private investigators. That lawsuit was on hold at the time because, in May 2014, the church had appealed a lower court decision and so things were in stasis as the Texas Third Court of Appeals took more than a year to reach a decision, in November 2015.

The deposition was being taken for another case — the federal fraud lawsuit filed in January 2013 in Tampa by a California couple, Luis and Rocio Garcia. The Garcias wanted a federal judge to hear their allegations that they’d been lied to and defrauded when they turned over hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations to the church. But Scientology attorneys insisted that the Garcias had signed multiple contracts that required them to submit all grievances to Scientology’s internal arbitration procedures.

Rathbun had filed a declaration in that lawsuit, saying that those contracts and the arbitration procedure itself were shams that he had helped design while he was a church executive in order to keep Scientologists from getting justice.

Continued at http://tonyortega.org/2017/03/16/un...r-the-first-time-his-full-deposition-of-2014/

would seem to be the case Death Hamster

Consider that Smarmy Ragburn never stopped being a scientologist and that his main objection to the organization was the power and person of Davey Miscavige.
Take Miscavige out of the picture and the rest is acceptable.
He fell for Miscavige's conman/street thug talk for decades. Is it any surprise he has fallen for it again?

I think Marty was done with Scientology by the end. He'd moved off enough that he pissed off the Indies. He was still trying to find something to replace it, with a new book of what to think every month.

I think he was either bribed and/or threatened* into a complete surrender.

• Turn over all his emails and files. (Perhaps with a Dennis Erlich style search of his house.)
• Turn over any new email, and let CoS monitor everything he does on the Internet.
• Make the legal case go away. Bad-mouth his lawyers.
• Denounce various Scientology targets on command. (Possibly written for him.)
• Ruin any of his remaining credibility.
• When they use his emails, provide cover when their lawyer says that he "got it from Marty".
• He could try to disavow everything he's done since 2008, but even Scientology might realize that's hopeless.
• Dave still wants to ruin him utterly, but will hold off as long as Marty's useful, and can be humiliated.
• Even if he was forced/bribed into a complete surrender and betrayal, Marty's EGO will rewrite the story so that Marty is still the hero on Planet Marty and it was all justified.

There no way he'd be accepted back into Scientology. After blowing twice and lots of legal actions against CoS, including the unforgivable of trying to get Dave on the stand, he'd be ethics-bait for the rest of his life. Anyone who spoke with him would be ethics-bait. Explaining how he'd come back to the rank and file would be near impossible. The first thing they'd do would be to split him up from Monique and the kid.

If there was any kind of cash involved, eventually CoS will make an anonymous tip to Marty's ex-lawyers to complete the destruction.

It's just their nature.

* They'd been threatening him for years, so it would have had to be something new in his life that they could grab him with.

From Gib on ESMB:

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthre...-gone-silent&p=1135794&viewfull=1#post1135794

* * * * * BEGIN QUOTATION * * * * *

there is this comment at Tony O blog from yesterday:

http://tonyortega.org/2017/03/16/un...me-his-full-deposition-of-2014/#disqus_thread

"Alice Addertounge • 4 hours ago

THE SQUEEZE POINT - As someone who knows Marty slightly behind the scenes I'll forward my observations as to why he is currently acting so weird.

His adoption had a "probationary" period. The church made veiled threats to release information from his time in the church to make him out to be unfit to be a parent.

Monique is pissed. At him, and herself for being in this situation.

Marty has called all the shots, but missed on a few big ones.

They are just trying to keep a family and marriage together in the face of more attention than most people could continue under.

His karma has truly come to fruition. Just when things seemed to be going well, it doesn't. Karma is the great teacher, hopefully Marty is a good student.

Look for a slightly less arrogant Marty if he makes it through."


* * * * * END QUOTATION * * * * *

GUT reaction - wow....
Curveball
Let the speculation commence

Adoption threat? Not so fast, attorney says

By Tony Ortega, March 19, 2017

Quote:

On Thursday, in the comments section of our story about Marty Rathbun’s December 2014 deposition, a comment was left by someone who had created their Disqus account to leave only that remark. They asserted that they had some knowledge of Rathbun and that his 2016 turn against his attorneys had something to do with the November 2013 adoption of a child.

That suggestion was then picked up over at the ESMB website and became a running talking point. Rathbun, the theory assumed, had changed direction so radically because the adoption was secretly being threatened by David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology.

Ray Jeffrey, Rathbun’s former attorney, tells us that’s extremely unlikely.

At the time that they adopted their son, the Rathbuns were each represented by Ray Jeffrey, Marc Wiegand, and Elliott Cappuccio, and the legal team was litigating Monique’s harassment lawsuit against the church. In January 2016, Monique fired the legal team and then, a few months later, dismissed the lawsuit. Marty Rathbun went on to badmouth Jeffrey at his blog.

We asked Jeffrey if this dramatic turnaround could be the result of Scientology threats regarding the adoption.

“It’s so farfetched I just can’t give it any consideration at all,” he tells us. “Remember, David Miscavige and the church were subject to the jurisdiction of a Texas court, somewhere they didn’t want to be. And we had in place an injunction that protected the Rathbuns from the church. Miscavige and Scientology would be taking an extraordinary risk to threaten the Rathbuns’ adoption. In Texas, it’s a crime to make such a threat — it’s called blackmail.”

Ray explained that if the Rathbuns had been threatened at that time, it would have been the best thing possible for their lawsuit, and so the church wouldn’t risk it. “Even if Miscavige had something negative on Marty, or were going to claim that they had something on him — even something they had a legal right to reveal — that’s called blackmail. I can’t think of anything that would have been more helpful to Monique’s case than to have a threat like that made,” he says.

“People must forget that David Miscavige was still trying to get out of the case. Why would the church risk making a criminal threat when the Rathbuns were represented by experienced litigators, with an injunction in place, and before a good and conscientious judge? It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

And yes, Jeffrey understands that the church doesn’t always act rationally: “They might have shot themselves in the foot by suing Debbie [Cook] and Wayne [Baumgarten], but this would have been so much more beyond that. I don’t think Scientology would gamble that Marty would not tell us about such a threat. It’s just not credible.”

Thank you, Ray, for helping out with that point.

Source: http://tonyortega.org/2017/03/19/sc...uy-land-for-hotel-and-well-gussy-up-downtown/

We all know that Miscavige uses fronts and layers to provide cover in all dirty tricks operations. To avoid violating the injunction he could of easily used those channels to get his message across to Rathbun.

Judge: Testimony about Scientology’s abuses so bad, it should get kicked out of the country

By Tony Ortega, March 20, 2017

Quote:

Dani Lemberger is back from a well-deserved weeklong vacation in the country of Jordan and we talked to him briefly yesterday, asking him what he could say about his recently concluded trial in Tel Aviv, Israel.

We have talked to three people who were in the courtroom during the trial, and we also obtained transcripts of much of the proceedings. We knew that Dani and Tami Lemberger were suing the Church of Scientology for libel and fraud, but that they were asking for only a modest amount in damages — 80,000 shekels, which is about $22,000. The church, for its part, wanted the Lembergers to stop violating church trademarks and copyrights when they offer “independent” Scientology at their “Dror Center” in Haifa. So how did things turn out?

Dani, who sounded very upbeat and satisfied, said he couldn’t divulge the terms of the settlement. But when we asked if Dror Center would still be open for business, he said, “open and thriving.” He says that about 60 people currently are active in auditing and courses at Dror Center, with others taking correspondence courses from overseas, particularly in Latvia, Ukraine, and Russia.

Our observers in court say that there were several stunning moments in the trial, which featured testimony by both Dani and Tami Lemberger, as well as Oregon resident Ronit Charny, who was Tami’s auditor at the Flag Land Base. Charny’s testimony detailed how frustrating it was for Tami to try and finish the expensive auditing level “OT 7” because Dani had become outspoken in his criticisms of Scientology leader David Miscavige.

Charny testified that Tami Lemberger spent thousands of dollars for interrogations, and had to endure pressure from Scientology officials to divorce Dani if she wanted to complete OT 7. At one point on the stand, Charny broke down as she related how Tami was manipulated and lied to by Scientology executives.

Dani Lemberger began his testimony in a January hearing, but our observers tell us that Tel Aviv District Judge Ruth Levhar-Sharon stopped the proceeding, seemingly astonished by what she was hearing about Scientology’s methods. At that point, she complained to Scientology attorneys that they had no representatives present in the courtroom from the organization itself who could make decisions about a settlement to end the lawsuit. She then rescheduled Dani’s remaining testimony and cross-examination for February 20.

It was during Dani’s cross-examination in the Feb 20 hearing that Scientology’s local attorney, Mattan Ben Shaul, told Dani that he had contacted former church official Mark “Marty” Rathbun, who had turned over a damaging email that Dani sent Rathbun in 2013, which we wrote about earlier. After the cross-examination of Dani was over, Judge Levhar-Sharon asked if the church had brought representatives, as she requested. In the courtroom, two of Scientology’s American attorneys were present — Eric Lieberman and William Walsh — and they then brought in two more of Scientology’s familiar faces — attorney Monique Yingling and Sea Org official Marc Yager.

Yes, Scientology’s star attorney who featured in a couple of ABC 20/20 episodes, Monique Yingling, had made the trip to the Tel Aviv courtroom.

Our court observers say that Judge Levhar-Sharon dressed down the large church delegation in English, telling them that she had heard “terrible” testimony about Scientology’s treatment of people, and that if the two sides could not come to some kind of settlement agreement, she would be writing a judgment that she said was so harsh, it would likely end Scientology in the state of Israel — and might, she added, have a global impact on the church.

She asked the church why, if the Lembergers dropped their damages claim, it couldn’t simply agree to leave the Lembergers alone to practice Scientology the way they saw fit. Our observers say Yager replied that if he were to do so, that it would make him a “heretic” in his own church. Wow.

The Church of Scientology and the Lembergers found a way to come to an agreement in the weeks since that remarkable court hearing.

But we can’t help wondering, if Judge Levhar-Sharon felt that the testimony in her court horrified her to such a degree that she had the power to shut down Scientology in the state of Israel, why should it be allowed to continue there simply because it found a way to settle with the Lembergers? Shouldn’t Israeli government officials be made aware of what horrified Judge Levhar-Sharon? We only wish we knew a journalist there who might take this subject as seriously as we do.

Continued at http://tonyortega.org/2017/03/20/ju...-bad-it-should-get-kicked-out-of-the-country/

There's a related post here:

Man who wrote three books about Scientology complains his story isn’t getting out

By Tony Ortega, June 7, 2017

Quote:

We’re not sure there’s a lot to say about Marty Rathbun’s new video, which makes accusations about an “anti-Scientology cult” run by three “farmers” who are leading a bunch of sheep. We’re mostly impressed by how well Marty cleaned up for this thing. “Love his new threads,” Lawrence Wright tells us.



We did want to address his complaint that documentarians always leave his most interesting material on the cutting room floor. Marty Rathbun is a top former Scientology official who, since going public as a critic of church leader David Miscavige in 2009, has self-published three books about Miscavige and Scientology. He’s also authored hundreds of posts at a very well-read blog that for years was watched closely by journalists and former church members.

This is not a guy who was unable to get his story out.

We have previously published an overview of the entire arc of his blog from 2009 to 2017. In that piece we did our best to give Marty his due and explain what were the big themes of his website.

As for his books, we covered those closely as well.

In 2012, we reviewed Marty’s first book, What is Wrong with Scientology? Healing Through Understanding. And here’s one of the things we said about it:

It’s well written, and, for independent Scientologists, probably an inspiring book that dares to challenge not only Miscavige but also Hubbard himself — a sacrilegious notion that will make it incredibly risky for church members to have a copy in their possession.

Later that year, Rathbun published his second book, The Scientology Reformation: What Every Scientologist Should Know, and again, we gave it a thorough review, praising Rathbun for new revelations about Tom Cruise and Nazanin Boniadi, for example. We found this book to be an effective companion to what Rathbun had been doing on his blog at that time:

For the past three years, Rathbun’s blog has reached deep into Scientology and is finding an audience among longtime members who have reached similar conclusions about Miscavige’s obsession with empty new buildings, a Super Power edifice that never seems to open, and eternal hard-sell fundraising for the IAS. Now, in one hand-held volume, Rathbun is attempting to put that message into something that can be smuggled from church member to church member. It may have a devastating effect.

And then in May 2013, Rathbun came out with Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, and we had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it contained really fascinating material about Rathbun’s personal background, and it also had some of the best material ever about the final years of L. Ron Hubbard’s life. But we found it curious that Rathbun still considered his time as a church enforcer as a righteous project, and he still hadn’t come to grips with the harassment campaigns he had helped the church visit upon its perceived enemies.

Rathbun apparently sees himself as something of a legendary character, from his electro-shock prenatal memory, to his charmed life on the basketball court, to his rise in the Sea Org, to his brilliant fights in the courtroom. It’s David Miscavige, ultimately, who let him down, not Hubbard. But even today, Rathbun is still a “Scientology Warrior,” even if he does anger some of his fellow independent Scientologists by criticizing some of Hubbard’s policies and treating some of Hubbard’s space opera as “metaphor.” As in his first book, Rathbun once again feels compelled to tell us that the genius of L. Ron Hubbard’s notion of a “Clear” is a human being who simply knows his or her “basic personality.” Rathbun is supremely satisfied that this is what Hubbard gave him all along. Rathbun knows himself, and that is enough. But after getting through this book’s 326 pages, it’s even clearer to us that Marty Rathbun hasn’t even begun to understand himself or what he did in the name of Scientology.

He didn’t like that assessment too much, and he told us so. But then, Marty never did have a difficult time speaking his mind. So, complaining today that he’s been ignored doesn’t really reflect that reality.

So what’s really going on? As with all things Rathbun, the speculation will run rampant.

Source: http://tonyortega.org/2017/06/07/le...become-a-lifetime-movie-who-plays-tom-cruise/

Here's one of the comments below the article. Quote:

NOLAGirl (Stephanie) MarcabExpat • 19 minutes ago

Turn that frown upside down Martyr. No one cares if you like them or not. Move on with your life man.

The next segment is up:

Man delivers book critique four years after publication

By Tony Ortega, June 8, 2017

Quote:

Oh man, if Marty Rathbun’s new videos are going to be this boring, this is going to be brutal.

More than four years after Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief hit bookshelves, Rathbun is apparently going to give us a point-by-point critique of it.

If you want a preview of where he’s going, you can see that he already made these exact points — that Wright was supposedly less objective regarding Scientology than he was reporting on Al Qaeda in his book The Looming Tower — in a blog post Rathbun wrote when Going Clear actually did come out back in 2013.

At that time, Rathbun was still nominally promoting the “independent Scientology” viewpoint, and he knew that his followers were going to be highly offended not by Wright’s withering look at David Miscavige and the current church, but by Wright’s portrayal of L. Ron Hubbard, which was the harshest since Russell Miller’s definitive 1987 biography, Bare-Faced Messiah.

Two years later, when Alex Gibney’s documentary version of Wright’s book came out, Rathbun didn’t squawk. Instead, he posted links to all of the favorable coverage the movie was getting. What had changed? Well, Rathbun was no longer peddling the “indie” outlook, and had himself been battering Hubbard at his website.

Apparently, something has convinced Rathbun to go back to his 2013 mindset.

More: http://tonyortega.org/2017/06/08/fe...whining-and-get-on-with-arbitration-disaster/

Thanks for the slick videos, Marty Rathbun. Here’s a not very slick one for you.

By Tony Ortega, June 9, 2017

Quote:

As we write this, Marty Rathbun has put out three segments of a video that he shot recently with professional help. He says in these videos that he is going to expose the “anti-Scientology cult” that uses Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief as its “bible.”

It’s truly fascinating, we’re sure. But as Rathbun emerges after months of silence, he’s avoiding a particularly important question that we’d like to see him answer.

We’re letting Dani Lemberger himself ask that question, from the old harbor at Caesarea, the Roman port built by Herod the Great which today is a charming place in Israel to have a glass of wine and catch up with old friends. Here’s Dani’s question, asked in our very unprofessional, not shot by Golden Era Productions video.

Continued at http://tonyortega.org/2017/06/09/th...y-rathbun-heres-a-not-very-slick-one-for-you/

Hey, is Tony implying that Golden Era is helping Marty these days?

Quite possibly the work of the SO slaves over at golden era

Hardly worth putting the nice shirt on for, that rambling, inarticulate, torturous piece of pretzel logic.

The wife-beater with the 17 green volume backdrop vid was much more entertaining than this rubbish.

Why Marty persists in the belief that he has something worth saying, despite all evidence to the contrary escapes me. He's definitely not getting a TV series out of it, as Any Major Dude Will Tell You.

I'll say it. It's not a blog video.

Staged room, lighting, wardrobe, camera, makeup, editing and a crew to do it.

I don't know if it would be at Golden Era. Marty might react badly to bunking down in his old room in The Hole.

Could be Scientology Media Productions -- SMP.

In the old video, he's shifty, but he's alive. The Marty in the new videos is a dead thing.

At least they'd be getting some use out of that place.

Scientology and kids: L. Ron Hubbard talks about small children as ancient beings

By Tony Ortega, June 12, 2017

Excerpt:

...what, at this point, is Rathbun expecting that his criticisms are going to produce? In our comments, we’ve seen real experts — longtime former Scientology members — take apart Rathbun’s criticisms one by one.

And we’re reminded of a couple of things Rathbun posted on his blog in the past. In 2011, under siege from the Squirrel Busters, a Church of Scientology goon squad that was hounding him at his south Texas home, Rathbun wrote:

The cult has two weapons and two weapons only: a) harassment to a degree unprecedented in a civilized society, and b) money to buy the victim of “a” when he is put into an amenable frame of mind. Just so everybody knows, as Miscavige just won’t seem to get it through his head, I will never fold to any pressure no matter how intense, and I am not for sale – at any price.

And in February 2015, after years of trying to separate what was good and usable in Scientology from what was toxic, he decided that he’d wasted his time. He wrote that Hubbard had produced a “pop psychology and hypnotism” that ” never achieved even the scientifically recognized 20 to 30 percent placebo effect in terms of long-term satisfaction.” In order to hide that ineffectiveness, he says, the rest of Scientology’s superstructure was constructed, which church members were “led to believe” — Xenu, body thetans, that Earth was a prison planet, and that Hubbard was Earth’s only salvation.

Rathbun seemed pretty dismissive of Hubbard and his ideas at that point.

But now, what a turnaround.

While Rathbun throws weak jabs at a terrific book, he’s avoiding the only question that really matters. How about answering the question, Marty?

More at http://tonyortega.org/2017/06/12/sc...talks-about-small-children-as-ancient-beings/

Marty Rathbun tries to rewrite the record on Scientology spying. But we have the dox.

By Tony Ortega, June 14, 2017

Quote:

We truly did not want to pay any more attention to Marty Rathbun’s lame swipes at Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear, but in his latest video (“Going Clear, Part 9”) he is making some claims that are staggeringly dishonest. We felt we had to respond.

Let us tell you about Gary “Jackson” Morehead. He is a gentle giant, and one of the most pleasant and forthright former Scientologists we have ever met. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gary had a remarkable job — head of security at Int Base, Scientology’s secretive 500-acre compound near Hemet, California. Gary has a lot of very fun stories about those days — including a great one that we not only got from Gary but confirmed in all its details with several other former church members.

What we found from that experience is that Gary Morehead is a solid source, even if his stories about Scientology are mindblowing. One of the things Gary was in charge of was the “blow drill.” When a Sea Org member “blew” — escaped — from the base, it was his job to use whatever means at his disposal to bring that person back.

In one memorable episode he told us about (which yes, has been confirmed by other people), a young woman named Jan Simms made a break for freedom in the late 1980s. She did so by getting a doctor’s appointment in town, and then bolting when she got there. Ever after, Gary tells us, this became known as “the Jan Simms method,” and it was one that was also used by Claire Headley to make her break for freedom in 2005.

When Simms ran, Morehead says he got to fly on an airplane for the first time. He went to Tallahassee, where Jan’s parents lived.

“I was set up in a Holiday Inn and provided equipment by Ben Shaw,” Gary told us last night by telephone. “I sat there all day. That’s all I did for a solid week.”

And what was he doing there? “I had scanners provided by OSA. I was listening for Jan Simms talking to her parents.”

And how would you do that, Gary?

“I knew the frequencies for cordless phones and cell phones,” he says. He sat there, listening in on phone conversations, for days and days.

Marty Rathbun, in his latest video, says this never happened. After calling Morehead “goofy,” he quotes from Lawrence Wright’s book about Gary spying on phone calls.

“He says in here that they were using scanners to listen to cell phone calls,” Marty says. “I got news. A scanner will not net you the content of a telephone call. Either Gary is into this embellishment for fame or Wright has invented this.”

“Marty doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Gary tells us. “First of all, OSA had a closet full of equipment for listening in on conversations. That’s where I learned how to do it. I saw the closet and I saw the equipment, and Ben Shaw and I learned how to do it. I was listening to cordless phones and cell phones. Just like we could call an airport and get information on a passenger, the technology had got ahead of the security.”

Gary explains that for a limited number of years, the scanners were more sophisticated than the phones they were eavesdropping on. And he says that Marty knew full well what they were capable of at that time, in the late 1980s.

“I’m surprised he would even say something like that. And he called me goofy? Wow. Well I guess that ain’t too bad, huh?” Gary says with a laugh. (We’ve never heard Gary Morehead sound angry about anything, ever.)

Gary explained that US scanners had restrictions in some frequencies, so as part of his job with Scientology, he purchased a Uniden Bearcat 3000 XLT in Canada, where those frequencies weren’t restricted.

“I still have it!” he said, and then photographed the scanner and sent it to us, as you can see above.

That, in the business, is what we call “dox,” for documented proof. And in his videos, Marty repeatedly proves that he has none.

Let’s take another example. Marty repeatedly says that Lawrence Wright invented things out of whole cloth for his book, which is a scurrilous accusation to make. Here’s one that Marty makes in the video, and let’s please keep in mind that he’s not speaking under oath:

Continued at http://tonyortega.org/2017/06/14/ma...ord-on-scientolog-spying-but-we-have-the-dox/

Marty Rathbun, Victoria Britton has a question for you about Scientology and judges

By Tony Ortega, June 15, 2017

Quote:

We’re traveling again today and we don’t have time for a long story. And we also know that you’re probably sick of reading about Marty Rathbun. But we wanted to give Victoria Britton recognition for raising one of the best questions we’ve seen about Rathbun’s new tune.

Here’s what Victoria said at Facebook after watching Rathbun’s “Going Clear, Part 9” video:

I just finished watching the ninth video in Marty Rathbun’s series and I would appreciate any feedback to my query. In the video Rathbun claims that the harassment of Judge Ronald Swearinger who presided over the Wollersheim case did not occur. According to Marty this is because of the purging of the Guardians Office that occurred five years prior. He continues in saying (not verbatim) “measures were tight - you couldn’t get involved in a lawsuit without an okay from H.Q. - no one would do something as stupid as mess with a judge.” In November of 2012, Marty while “under oath” described in detail how he set up a meeting to influence a Hillsborough County judge in the Lisa McPherson case. If what Marty says in his video is truthful, did he commit perjury in 2012?

That’s an excellent question, Victoria. Let’s go to the tape.

Continued at http://tonyortega.org/2017/06/15/ma...uestion-for-you-about-scientology-and-judges/

Interesting, in a weird way.

Marty Rathbun’s project becomes clear: Someone’s worried about Scientology & the IRS

By Tony Ortega, June 16, 2017

Quote:

Well, the project is becoming clear. Someone is apparently worried about losing his precious tax exemption.

In Marty Rathbun’s most recent video segments in his remarkable turnaround from one of the Church of Scientology’s biggest defectors and critics of all time into an apologist who is aping church talking points, Rathbun tries to rewrite history regarding the church and its long battles with the IRS.

But Rathbun is going to have a difficult time refuting an earlier, detailed explanation of how that battle went down: His own.

The Church of Scientology has always maintained that it was entitled to the tax exemption it received from the IRS in 1993, and it was just a matter of passing through a rigorous two-year audit and had nothing to do with decades of harassment and thousands of lawsuits it had filed against the agency. Marty Rathbun was one of the key people who ran that harassment operation and who was involved with the ultimate victory over the IRS. And now, he’s parroting the church’s position, that this was simply a matter of the IRS granting the church what it deserved.

But that’s not what Rathbun said in the past — and under oath.

In 2010, Marty Rathbun provided a detailed court declaration about his involvement in Scientology for a lawsuit brought against the church by Claire Headley. We think it’s probably pretty useful to excerpt some key portions of it to remind everyone what a different tune Rathbun was singing just a few years ago.

As Inspector General Ethics I directed and coordinated a broad-based attack on the Internal Revenue Service. The purpose of the campaign was to put the IRS into a more amenable frame of mind so that they would relent in their own decades long refusal to grant tax exempt status to the churches. In late summer 1991, when sufficient pressure was accomplished, Miscavige and I directly approached then-IRS Commissioner Fred Goldberg to open settlement negotiations. Those negotiations were initiated and conducted over the next two years. Miscavige and I traveled across the country together to meet with the IRS regularly until October 1993 when the IRS granted tax exempt status to all churches of Scientology and related organizations.

Miscavige directed large bonuses be paid to Religious Technology Center executives during the first several years of his reign as COB RTC. He justified it based on policy within the church and the Sea Org by the founder L. Ron Hubbard which stated he wished to see the day when Scientology staff were well paid. Accordingly, the fact was not hidden that CSI and RTC executives were well paid in the late eighties and early nineties. Of course, Miscavige’s pay was consistently higher than anyone’s. In fact, he had to have other executives being paid something in the neighborhood of his own pay until tax exemption was attained as the IRS required detailed reports on the pay of RTC highest executives. The IRS record reflects that during the years 89-91 RTC executives received salaries ranging from the low tens of thousands to mid tens of thousands per years. Miscavige reported salaries from the mid tens of thousands to the high tens of thousands. When that issue seemed to be settled to the IRS’ satisfaction, Miscavige canceled bonuses for all RTC and CSI executives. At one point when the IRS wanted some more current information on executive salaries, Miscavige’s wife and Assistant Shelly severely rebuked me for having refused a bonus as I considered it unearned. Under pressure I relented and went ahead and received the bonus so as to “protect COB.” Once exemption was attained, high bonuses for CSI and RTC executives were virtually wiped out. With one glaring exception, David Miscavige and his wife continued to be paid a combined salary upwards of one hundred thousand dollars for years to come. Other RTC and CSI staff executives were for the most part paid fifty dollars per week.

Shortly after tax exemption was obtained and announced and the record of the negotiated settlement became public, reporters began focusing on David Miscavige’s and Shelly Miscavige’s combined six figure salary. I was fielding calls from the New York Times, LA Times, and St. Petersburg Times on that narrow subject. Miscavige began making insane demands that I spike the stories. He became abusive and violent toward me as if I could make the cold, hard facts go away. Because of that, combined with Miscavige’s increasingly lavish lifestyle, his unnatural obsession with actor Tom Cruise, and his increasingly abusive behavior toward staff and myself, I began to question whether the long, hard fight with the IRS was about protecting the religion or instead about protecting Miscavige’s personal power and lifestyle choices…

Between approximately 1993 when IRS tax exempt status was obtained and the present, David Miscavige has been executing a program of his own design that has transformed the church of Scientology from a recognized religious organization into a commercial operation devoted almost exclusively toward increasing his own wealth, entertainment, comfort, and power.

So, let’s go through the bullet points:

— Scientology battled the IRS until it was softened up enough to consider a settlement.
— Salaries were paid to Scientology executives just long enough to fool the IRS and complete the settlement.
— Scientology is actually a commercial enterprise aimed at benefiting one person, David Miscavige.

This is what Marty Rathbun testified to in 2010, and it’s consistent with decades of reporting on the Church of Scientology and the IRS by journalists, spelled out in documents, and said by other former insiders.

But now, Rathbun wants you to believe that journalists, including Larry Wright, have been inventing stories in order to make the Church of Scientology look bad. And that there’s a conspiracy to create a false impression about the church in order to convince the IRS to review its 1993 decision.

We think it would be just grand if the IRS took a new look at Scientology. Why? Because of what Marty Rathbun and others have said about it, that’s why.

Instead of attacking Wright and others, Rathbun is going to have to deal with the fact that it’s his own previous statements that he is contradicting.

We’ll leave you with a few memes that we hope make it crystal clear just how dishonest his project is. Feel free to disseminate them.


Here’s another example of Rathbun blaming Lawrence Wright for inventing something that was, in fact, pretty conclusively the actual situation…


And here’s Rathbun claiming that it was a conspiracy between Lawrence Wright (book Going Clear, 2013), Alex Gibney (film Going Clear, 2015), Mike Rinder (blog starting 2013), and Tony Ortega (blog starting 2012), to say that Scientology’s tax exempt status was now fraudulent and should be reviewed. Oh, what was it Rathbun said, under oath, in 2010?


And again, it’s not that Rathbun is simply saying he’s changed his mind. He’s accusing Lawrence Wright of dishonesty, when it’s easily shown that Wright was reporting what Rathbun himself had said…



Source, and open comments:
http://tonyortega.org/2017/06/16/ma...meones-worried-about-scientology-and-the-irs/