Is Scientology breaking the law?

Allegations of extortion by Scientology

Excerpted from DejaNews . Please see that page for the full text.

Emphasis added in red . Editorial comments, when added, are in purple .


Bob Penny had to do auditing to regain control of his software company, SSD, and describes demands for money during that auditing

Early in 1986 Bob went to Santa Fe to visit a friend. Bob had just finished writing the documentation for Version 4.0 and was burned out. He desperately needed a vacation. In Santa Fe he received a telephone call from Ann. She told him that the OT Committee had seized control of SSD. They had fired Ron Kaufman, the president, and replaced him with Susan.

Bob hurried back to Boulder. His first stop was in Denver at Stu Gelb's Scientology mission to find out what was going on. Stu gave Bob an ultimatum: control of the company would be returned to him if he would agree to go to Flag in Clearwater, Florida to do the OT package auditing that had been paid for in 1975.

Bob agreed to go. Then he went to SSD and confronted Susan. The decision was reached that Ron Kaufman would be rehired to run the company and Bob would go to Flag to do his auditing.

Bob proceeded to Flag and did his Solo Course and the OT Levels I through V. Susan had great hopes for this auditing. She thought that Bob would come back from Clearwater a committed Scientologist and that he would become the Case Supervisor for all of Colorado.

Instead, Bob found the OT levels a total disappointment. And one day a recruiter for the International Association of Scientologists stormed into the courseroom and demanded $2000 from everyone, which was the price of an IAS lifetime membership. The money was to go into a war chest to be used in litigation against opponents of Scientology. Bob thought the recruiter's tactics were completely inappropriate. This violation of the courseroom turned him off. He considered this to be extortion.

This page was last updated on May 8, 1999.