New and Updated Information at Scientology Lies

Scientology Leader Sent to Jail in Spain

November 24, 1988: A judge in Spain ordered the head of the Church of Scientology International jailed Wednesday pending possible indictment on charges of fraud, criminal association and tax evasion. Judge Jose Maria Vazquez Honrubia said it will be at least a week before Heber Jentzsch of Los Angeles sees a second judge about setting bail. He said Jentzsch was being sent to a prison outside Madrid. The judge said authorities had frozen $1.76 million in bank accounts belonging to officials of the U.S.-based Church of Scientology and the church's drug rehabilitation program, Narconon.

State Takes Middle Road Against Scientology

November 23, 1998: The Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization Inc. was charged with abuse and/or neglect of a disabled adult and practicing medicine without a license. Though serious, the lawyers said, the charges carry less emotion than manslaughter and less of a stigma for Scientology than if church members faced individual charges that could put them in prison. Because the Scientology entity was charged corporately, no single person faces prosecution or punishment. "They probably determined that this is the charge that can be best proved, most easily proved, as opposed to manslaughter," said Michael Cheek, a veteran criminal defense lawyer in Clearwater.

Death in the Sunshine State

November 23, 1998: Scientologists share at least one strongly-held belief with mainstream sceptics: they will have no truck with psychiatry. So McPherson was taken instead to the Fort Harrison hotel, owned by the organistion. Seventeen days later, she was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at HCA hospital, New Port Richey. Her family blames Scientology for her death, for her dehydration, the bruises on her arms and legs, the abrasions and lesions, the apparent bug or animal bites. A medical examiner said she had died of a blood clot complicated by dehydration. She also had an infection, which the church blames for all her symptoms.

Fugitive Awaits Fraud Trial

November 23, 1997: Unbeknown to Richard Binet, who was in Miami attending courses in the Church of Scientology, a federal grand jury from the Central District of Illinois had indicted him a month earlier. The sealed indictment charged Binet with conspiracy to defraud Credit Union 1, misapplying funds of a federally insured institution, and making false statements to deceive examiners.

French Scientologist Sentenced After Church Member's Suicide

November 23, 1996: The founder and former head of the Church of Scientology in Lyons was convicted of fraud and involuntary homicide today in the death of a church member who committed suicide after going heavily into debt to pay the sect for counseling sessions. A French tribunal sentenced the defendant, Jean-Jacques Mazier, to serve 18 months in prison, with an additional 18 months suspended, and fined him $100,000. The eight-day trial, in the first week of October, also examined charges of fraud, attempted fraud or aiding and abetting fraud against 22 other church officials or supporters involved in its activities in France.

Scientologists Win Major Court Victory Over Defectors, Documents

November 23, 1985: In a major victory for the Church of Scientology, a federal judge said Friday she will bar breakaway Scientology groups from using confidential church teachings that appear to have been stolen. U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer said she will issue a preliminary injunction until a trial can be held on a lawsuit brought by the Church of Scientology against defectors who have established rival churches and counseling centers. The Church of Scientology contends the teachings are protected by federal trade secrets law.

Scientologists Woo Police With Gifts Worth Thousands

November 22, 2006: Police officers have accepted gifts worth thousands of pounds from the Church of Scientology, it emerged yesterday. The wealthy religious movement has spent the money cultivating contacts in the City of London force. Officers received free invitations to film premieres and a Pounds 500 a head charity dinner where the guest of honour was Tom Cruise. Sources inside the City police have described the church as "grooming" selected officers in the hope of winning powerful influence inside the force.

Of Right, Wrong And A So-Called Church

November 22, 1998: With Thanksgiving coming up later this week, I'd like to suggest that as you baste your turkey with your handy-dandy turkey baster, you imagine for a moment what it would be like if somebody tried to stick one of those gizmos down your throat. While you were being held down, of course. I speak not on behalf of the rights of some noisy, plump bird from Frank Perdue but on behalf of a starved, severely disturbed woman, Lisa McPherson, now quite dead.

Religion Is 'Where The Money Is'

November 22, 1997: Reportedly, John Travolta and a number of his Church of Scientology friends wrote to Channel 4 chief, Michael Jackson, urging him not to broadcast this week's Secret Lives, which focused on Scientology's founder, L. Ron Hubbard. "I'd like to start a religion - that's where the money is," Hubbard said in the late 1940s. So he did ... if a hotch-potch of sci-fi and conveniently twisted Freud can reasonably be described as a religion.

Spain Seizes Scientology Leaders

November 22, 1988: Police arrested 69 people in a raid on a hotel and accused 45 of them of fraud, illegal association and forgery for being members of the Church of Scientology. Among those held was Heber Jentzsch, 53, of Los Angeles, worldwide director of the faith, and two unidentified Americans, judicial sources said. In 1986 and again last June, Spain's Justice Ministry rejected a petition by the Church of Scientology for accreditation as a legitimate religious institution on the ground that the group's activities "negatively affect public health."

Prison Drug Program To Be Studied

November 21, 2002: About 100 female legislators from the United States will visit the state prison in Ensenada today to see firsthand the results of a program for drug-addicted inmates. The state began the program, called Segunda Oportunidad, or Second Opportunity, seven years ago, based on the Church of Scientology's prisoner rehabilitation program, called Narconon. It is based on the philosophies of the late L. Ron Hubbard.

Exempted, Not Vindicated

November 21, 1993: David Miscavige, chairman of the board for Scientology's "Religious Technology Center," said recently that the IRS decision to grant his corporate empire a tax exemption was "a major victory for us." He added: "We were under siege. ... Now we've been vindicated." His smugness aside, the business of Scientology, which is to sell vulnerable people counseling services at rates up to $800 an hour, was not vindicated by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. It was merely exempted from taxation.

40 Scientology Leaders From 7 Countries Detained in Spain

November 21, 1988: Forty leaders of the Church of Scientology from seven countries face charges of extortion, forgery and tax offenses after police raids, a judicial source said today. Police also shut down 26 of the group's offices across Spain on Sunday and seized bundles of documents. Charges against the church include falsification of public documents, extortion, tax evasion and capital flight.

Church Lawyers Get Cold Shoulder At Crown Office

November 21, 1984: Three U.S. lawyers representing the Church of Scientology say they got a chilly reception yesterday when they tried to visit a senior Crown law officer. The lawyers say they wanted to see Archie Campbell, Ontario's deputy attorney-general, because they believe the current investigation of the church's Toronto organization is not impartial. The Ontario Provincial Police raided the headquarters of the Church of Scientology of Toronto in March, 1983, as part of an investigation into allegations of fraudulent activities in connection with courses offered to the public.

Scientologists' New Psych-Out Museum

November 20, 2005: Scientology is taking its fight against psychiatry to the streets - namely Sunset Boulevard. The church will open a "Psychiatry: Industry of Death" museum next month in L.A., complete with vintage instruments of torture, images of electroshock therapy and "rare archival footage of psychiatry's brutal treatments."

Scientology's New Tack

November 20, 1998: When Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe filed two criminal charges against the Church of Scientology last week over Lisa McPherson's death, the reaction of church officials was unusually benign. "We'd like to see how to move forward and put this unfortunate incident behind us," said Mike Rinder, a top Scientology official known more for his attacking style. The church's attitude in January 1997 was very different. It sued Pinellas County Medical Examiner Joan Wood after she said McPherson went without fluids for five to 10 days before her death, and a Scientology attorney called the respected medical examiner a "hateful liar."

Charge Dismissed

November 20, 1986: For the second time, charges brought against the Church of Scientology have been struck down. The church was accused of violating Quebec's Consumer Protection Act in dealings with two prospective members. The indictments, filed by the Consumer Protection Office, alleged that the two were forced to make full payment for personality courses before the lessons began.

What makes Beck tick?

March 18, 2005: Beck is a Scientologist and he believes he owes a lot of his success to following the cult's way of life.

Promotion for Ron Hubbard's book

November 20, 1982: The Church of Scientology is spending more than $3-million in the United States and Canada this year on television advertising to promote the book that forms the keystone of its religious message. The group's first TV commercials have been broadcast 14 to 17 times a week on a Toronto television station since early November.

Scientologists Dish Up Anti-Psych Series DVDs

November 19, 2006: Here's guessing Brooke Shields didn't get the Scientologists' 14- part documentary series - titled "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" - as a wedding favor at TomKat's nuptials yesterday. The DVDs and brochure were produced by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, which was founded in part by the Church of Scientology, and they're getting handed out in the Hub and elsewhere as part of the group's latest campaign against the traditional mental health system.