Scientology Lies

April 21, 1981: Some of Hollywood's biggest stars have been duped into endorsing a controversial drug rehabilitation program called Narconon, which is actually operated by Scientology. More than 170 celebrities' names have been used as "Friends of Narconon." Although a few are Scientologists - such as Cathy Lee Crosby, Priscilla Presley and Karen Black - others were shocked to learn Narconon was an offshoot of the weird cult.

April 21, 1989: Scientology lost another round in a long-running legal effort to keep religious confessions out of the hands of police and prosecutors. The issue arose when Ontario Provincial Police, acting on warrants alleging possible tax fraud, raided the Toronto premises of the church and the home of one member in 1983, seizing more than 850 boxes of material including files, books, correspondence and other documents.

April 21, 1987: The Supreme Court's decision clears the way for former Scientologist Larry Wollersheim to begin seizing church assets to satisfy a $30-million award he won last year. Wollersheim, who contended that the church harassed him and drove him to the brink of insanity, was awarded $5 million in compensatory damages and $25 million in punitive damages by the Los Angeles Superior Court jury.

April 20, 1984: A judge Thursday denied a motion to bar voluminous personal papers of reclusive Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard from being introduced as evidence at the Los angeles trial of a suit against the sect's former archivist. Judge Breckenridge said he will rule on the admissibility of the papers, which number in the thousands and are contained in 21 boxes, on a document-by-document basis.

April 19, 2000: Scientology continued its fight to keep its worldwide leader out of the legal fight over the 1995 death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson. The church went to court to ask a Hillsborough judge to remove David Miscavige as a defendant in the wrongful death lawsuit. In a separate action, the church filed a lawsuit in Pinellas circuit court alleging McPherson's estate broke a 1997 agreement by including Miscavige in the wrongful death suit in the first place.

April 20, 1973: L. Ron Hubbard writes Guardian Order 732, in which he devises the Snow White Program for Scientology's intelligence agency, the Guardian's Office (GO), in an effort to root out and remove "false files" about the Church and Hubbard held by governments around the world. This becomes a sophisticated worldwide espionage operation targetting 17 governments and three international organisations.

April 17, 1985: Jurors in the Church of Scientology fraud trial Tuesday listened to the last of five hours of surreptitiously-taped conversations in which a former Scientologist talked about a plan to "transform" church leadership by filing suit to take managerial control. In the final two recorded meetings, Armstrong said he "wouldn't touch" an idea posed by his questioner about writing false materials on the letterhead of a private investigator, whom Armstrong believed was pursuing him on behalf of the church. As it turned out, the private investigator was the one making the tapes.

April 18, 1986: Susan and Robert Volenec were out of work and their two children were out of school yesterday after an uproar at a Park Ridge Montessori facility over books designed by Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The parents were among six teachers fired after they refused to use books designed by Hubbard.

April 18, 1996: Saying that the Church of Scientology has been playing "fast and loose with the judicial system," a federal appeals court has ordered the religious organization to pay nearly $3 million in attorneys fees to a former member it sued after he formed his own splinter group.