Marty and Monique Rathbun
New defendants have been added to the lawsuit, which is heading for a temporary injunction hearing a week from today. But the real fireworks come in responses to a declaration filed last week by Miscavige in his attempt to be let out of the lawsuit.
Miscavige argued that he should be let out of the suit because he has only a limited role in Scientology, has conducted no activities in the state of Texas, and he has never even heard of one of his fellow defendants, a private investigator named Monty Drake.
We predicted that Miscavige might be stepping into some trouble with those statements — in our own reporting, we had talked to two men who said they worked directly for Miscavige and had conducted business for him in Texas.
And now, Monique Rathbun has brought the hammer down on Miscavige in the form of a lengthy affidavit by her husband, Mark “Marty” Rathbun, who worked closely with Miscavige as his top lieutenant for 17 years until 2004, when he left the church after a total of 27 years in Scientology. And in that time, Rathbun says, he carried out numerous operations in Texas for Miscavige, including a couple of schemes in the wake of the 1995 Florida death of Scientologist Lisa McPherson, who was from Dallas.
In his affidavit, Marty Rathbun has provided his most lengthy sworn explanation of his activities working for Scientology and Miscavige, and it is an explosive document. It provides voluminous detail which explains that Miscavige does not have a limited role in the church but in fact rules every aspect of it with an iron fist. And with that complete control, Rathbun says, Miscavige certainly has conducted numerous activities in Texas, contrary to his sworn declaration.
Miscavige, according to the Rathbuns, lied to Comal County, Texas Judge Dib Waldrip. And on September 12 and 13, Judge Waldrip will be asked to decide who’s telling the truth and rule on Miscavige’s special appearance and request to be let out of the suit. It should be very interesting.
Before we get to Marty Rathbun’s lengthy affidavit, we will reveal the two defendants who have been added in an amended complaint Monique Rathbun filed last night.
Now, along with Scientology leader David Miscavige, two Scientology corporate entities — the Church of Scientology International (CSI) and the Religious Technology Center (RTC) — a Dallas private investigator named Monty Drake, and a former U.S. marshal named Steven Gregory Sloat, there are two additional defendants…
— Scientology’s chief private investigator, Dave Lubow, who the Rathbuns allege masterminded the “Squirrel Busters” episode of harassment that lasted nearly 200 days at their previous home.
— And Ed Bryan, a Scientologist who was one of the Squirrel Busters.
The amended complaint reiterates that Monique, who met Marty in 2005 and married him in 2010, was never a member of the church of Scientology. When Marty began criticizing Miscavige publicly in 2009, the Rathbuns say they became the target of years of harassing behavior by the church. Monique is suing on grounds of intentional infliction of emotional distress, tortious interference of her employment contract, and invasion of privacy. She’s asking for more than a million dollars in damages.
Miscavige’s attorney had criticized the previous version of the lawsuit, saying that Monique hadn’t provided very many specifics about her harassment. So in this amended complaint, she provides more detail.
She says that the harassing behavior has been coordinated by Scientology’s intelligence and covert operations division, the Office of Special Affairs (OSA), which is technically under the Church of Scientology International, but which actually reports directly to RTC and Miscavige.
“Mr. Miscavige is the one and only person in the Church of Scientology who may authorize a destructive OSA campaign, such as the one undertaken against the Rathbuns,” the complaint alleges.
As we said on Sunday, when Miscavige claimed in his declaration that he had “conducted no activities” in Texas, we immediately thought of the private investigators Paul Marrick and Greg Arnold, who had told us they worked only on orders of Miscavige or his direct lieutenant, and who in 2009 had worked in Texas to surveil Marty Rathbun.
The amended complaint, as we expected, brings up Marrick and Arnold’s work in Texas. But it also says that Marrick and Arnold were brought in even though the church had been using Dallas private eye Monty Drake since the 1990s.
“Prior to learning of this lawsuit, I had never heard of nor did I have any knowledge of Defendants Mr. Sloat and Mr. Drake,” Miscavige said in his declaration.
The new amended complaint says that’s simply not true: “Mr. Miscavige was well aware of Monty Drake, whose name Mr. Miscavige thought was humorous, and whose investigative reports were handed to Mr. Miscavige for his personal attention.”
As for Miscavige and RTC conducting no business in Texas, the new complaint counters that assertion with an official report from a law enforcement source. When John Brousseau, a longtime Scientologist, made his 2010 escape from Scientology’s International Base near Hemet, California (see our two-part story about Brousseau for The Village Voice), RTC president Warren McShane reported to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department that Brousseau had stolen equipment when he left. (Brousseau says he was careful to take only his own personal property when he left. He was never charged with a crime.)
McShane told sheriff’s deputies that “RTC had previously contracted with a private security firm in the State of Texas to monitor Mr. Rathbun’s activities.” (Emphasis ours.)
McShane also told the Sheriff’s Office that he sent four RTC employees to Texas to find Brousseau and convince him to return to the base. (One of the four was Tommy Davis, at the time one of the church’s top spokesmen. Davis is no longer a Sea Org employee, and is now living in Austin working for a large real estate fund.)
In RTC’s special appearance filed last week in an attempt to remove RTC from the lawsuit, a declaration from Warren McShane was attached, claiming that RTC did no business in Texas.
Yes, the same Warren McShane who told Sheriff’s deputies in 2010 that RTC had a security detail working in Texas, and had sent Tommy Davis and three other employees to track down John Brousseau.
The amended complaint also includes excerpts from a message written by Squirrel Buster Ed Bryan about the Office of Special Affairs being in control of the Squirrel Busters operation, and an excerpt of an e-mail from OSA to Squirrel Buster Joanne Wheaton, giving her instructions on how to deal with Marty Rathbun.
The complaint also now mentions Bert Leahy, a freelance videographer who, after briefly working for the Squirrel Busters, left in disgust when he realized it was more a harassment operation than an actual documentary crew. He later blew the whistle on the scheme, helping Rathbun prove that Dave Lubow, the Scientology private eye, was behind it.
The complaint also quotes a letter from Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw to a British journalist that we first made public at The Village Voice, showing that the church was connected to anonymous smear websites, some of which made use of footage filmed by the Squirrel Busters in Texas.
As for Monty Drake, the amended complaint alleges that the Dallas private investigator leased a house down the block from the Rathbuns so it could be stocked with high-power cameras to watch their every move and send those images by network to California.
The Rathbuns apparently aim to prove to a jury that from his comfortable bases in California, David Miscavige not only kept crews of employees working in Texas, but even watched it happen over those remote-controlled cameras aimed at the Rathbun home.
“Mr. Miscavige may have been careful to keep his body outside Texas, but he personally directed several OSA operations in Texas,” the complaint says in summation.
Whew — Miscavige’s attorney complained about details, and he sure got them.
And then there’s Marty Rathbun’s affidavit. It’s quite lengthy, but we predict it will quickly become a key historical document in Scientology studies. We’re reproducing it in full here, as well as embedding the entire legal document below. We can’t predict what Judge Waldrip will think of Rathbun’s account, but the former Scientology executive has provided a truly remarkable blueprint to David Miscavige’s power over Scientology, and his extensive operations in the state of Texas…
AFFIDAVIT OF MARK RATHBUN
“My name is Mark Rathbun. I am also known as Marty Rathbun. I am over the age of eighteen (18) years, of sound mind, and otherwise capable of making this affidavit. I have personal knowledge of the facts and statements contained herein, and all are true and correct.”
1. “I served with Mr. Miscavige in Scientology’s Sea Organization for 27 years. From 1982 to 2004, I answered directly to Mr. Miscavige. As Inspector General of Religious Technology Center (“RTC”), I was Mr. Miscavige’s second in command. Mr. Miscavige and I were the only Scientologists ever awarded Scientology’s “Medal of Honor” by its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. In the history of Scientology, no other Church executive worked with Mr. Miscavige more closely, for a longer period of time, than I did.
2. “The complex network of Scientology organizations is run by a shadow organization known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org. It is so named because it was formed originally by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, in 1967 aboard a ship sailing the Mediterranean Sea. The Sea Org is a paramilitary hierarchy. Each Sea Org member holds a naval rank, from Swamper (initiate) to Commodore, the title held by L. Ron Hubbard during his life. Sea Org members vow by contract to serve for a billion years. The Sea Org was organized from the beginning by Hubbard to be amorphous and mobile so as to evade criminal or civil liabilities. The Sea Org was Hubbard’s ultimate answer to his own description of the philosophic bases for Scientology organizations’ legal structure:
‘If anybody tried to attack a Scientology organization and pick it up and move it out of the perimeter or go over the hills with it today — this happened to us once — why, they would find themselves involved in the most confounded weird mass of legal — well, it is just like quicksand. Quicksand. It’s an interesting trick. Every time they shoot at you on the right side of a horse, you’re on the left side of the house; and then they prove conclusively you’re on the left side of the horse, you prove conclusively that you’re on the right side of the horse. They go made after a while. This is what the basic legal structure is.’
3. “Since the 1967 formation of the controlling, yet amorphous Sea Org, the corporate structures of Scientology have come and gone, and changed and reformed, many times. The only significant factor that has remained constant through Scientology’s many corporate transformations is that the highest ranking Sea Org member is in complete control.
4. “Until Hubbard’s death in January of 1986, that controlling leader was Hubbard himself, the Commodore of the Sea Org. Since Hubbard’s death, that controlling leader has been David Miscavige. Miscavige has held complete control of all Scientology organizations as the highest ranking Sea Org officer. Since Hubbard’s death, Miscavige has been the Sea Org’s only Captain, and no one holds a higher rank. Over the years, Miscavige has temporarily bestowed a number of brevet (temporary) Captain ranks to other senior Sea org members. He has done so, as he explained to me, for the purpose of obscuring his own unquestioned control of all of Scientology as its Sea org Captain. For several years, I carried the temporary rank of brevet Captain, but Miscavige retained absolute control as the only permanent Captain of the Sea Org.
5. “Until his death, Hubbard controlled all of Scientology. The Scientology organizations shielded him from civil and criminal liabilities by maintaining the fiction that he was merely the “Founder of Scientology.” His position was described as an arm’s length, passive, semi-retired position uninvolved with the management of Scientology operations. All the while, the thousands of Sea Org personnel answered to him as their all-powerful commander. Directions from Sea Org command took precedence over all the corporate charters, bylaws, and articles of incorporation of the myriad Scientology corporations staffed by Sea Org management.
6. “In 1981, I was recruited by Mr. Miscavige from my position in the personal office of L. Ron Hubbard to join a critical Sea Org mission. Mr. Hubbard had been driven into seclusion by federal prosecutors and civil litigants who were making a determined effort to pierce the Scientology corporate veil in order to indict and sue Mr. Hubbard as the effective head of all Scientology operations.
7. “Mr. Hubbard’s wife, Mary Sue Hubbard, and ten other high-level Sea Org members were convicted in federal court of obstruction of justice. They were members of Scientology’s Guardian’s Office. The Guardian’s Office had carried out the largest domestic infiltration of the United States Government in American history, and these co-conspirators went to federal prison. Due to the Guardians Office scandal, Hubbard directed Miscavige to accomplish three major aims: (1) re-create an intelligence, PR and legal network to replace the disgraced Guardians Office in a way that would protect Scientology’s spying and harassment operations by using buffer corporations and new levels of security; (2) by any means necessary, end the multitude of criminal and civil threats pending against Hubbard and Scientology; and (3) create a new corporate structure that would allow the Sea Org to operate as it always had, but with legal buffers in place that would prevent future ‘enemies’ from getting to Hubbard or other top Sea Org officer.
8. “We accomplished the creations of a new intelligence, PR and legal machine by establishing the Office of Special Affairs (OSA). Under Hubbard’s and Miscavige’s close supervision, I organized OSA to effectively continue to silence potential critics and defectors without exposing Hubbard, Miscavige or the Scientology organizations to legal liability. For the next five years, until Hubbard’s death, we worked to extinguish his outstanding criminal and civil liabilities. I was also involved in the corporate re-organization that was intended to buffer Hubbard and Miscavige from liability.
9. “A year after Hubbard’s death, Mr. Miscavige informed me that he needed a defensible corporate position to enjoy the protections of the new corporate structure. To accomplish this goal, Miscavige used his Sea Org rank to seize control of all Scientology corporations. Miscavige and I accomplished this by carrying out a coup at the highest, controlling corporations in the Scientology hierarchy, Religious Technology Center (RTC). Miscavige and I, with two other high-ranking Sea Org members, dressed in fully decorated Sea Org naval officer uniforms, forcibly expelled the officers and directors of RTC and coerced them to relinquish their corporate positions to us. If asked, all the Sea Org members involved, would falsely swear that the changes at RTC were done in the normal course of its corporate business pursuant to long-standing policy that testifying against another Scientologist is a high crime.
10. “I became a Director and the President of RTC. For weeks Miscavige struggled with creating a position for himself that would afford the full autocratic control befitting his Captain rank while shielding him from corporate and legal responsibility for the consequences of his tight control. Mr. Miscavige finally settled on the title ‘Chairman of the Board, Religious Technology Center.’ While never holding a corporate officer’s position, Miscavige could legally claim he simply passively passed upon the proposals of the corporate and ecclesiastical officers of RTC in the same manner as in an legitimate corporation. According to RTC’s articles and bylaws, its only authorized function is to police the ‘proper use of the trademarks of Dianetics and Scientology.’
11. “As the all-powerful head of the Sea Organization, David Miscavige operated in much the same manner as Hubbard. Miscavige created for himself the public appearance of an arm’s length title for the outside world to see. Beneath the appearance, he exercised total control over all Scientology organizations through his supreme rank as Captain of the Sea Org.
12. “In fact, from the day our forced corporate takeover began in March of 1987, Miscavige ran the entire Scientology corporate network with no regard for corporate separateness or controls. He managed with an obsessive, micro-managing style. For the next 17 years that I worked as Miscavige’s direct aide, he ran the Scientology network as tightly as a naval captain runs a military vessel. All the while we communicated to the world at large, including through our own false declarations, that Miscavige’s role was the same as that of any corporate board chairman. We claimed that he operates through the RTC board of directors to oversee the operational management of RTC’s corporate and ecclesiastical officers. We also falsely denied that Miscavige was in any way involved in the management of any Scientology corporation.
13. “Meanwhile, Miscavige set up a mechanism to control Church of Scientology International (CSI), Scientology’s primary management corporation. Miscavige created an Authorization, Verification and Correction (AVC) department in RTC. Miscavige required that no strategy, program, project, or order of any kind could leave CSI to any SCientology unit anywhere without going through RTC’s AVC department. AVC’s original mandate was that nothing could issue from CSI unless it was consistent with and designed to implement the policies of Commodore L. Ron Hubbard. Soon, however, Miscavige changed the rules so that nothing could issue from CSI except orders or programs implementing Miscavige’s own commands.
14. “Over the next few years, the entire Scientology corporate and ecclesiastical (Sea Org) organization came to equate ‘COB,’ as Miscavige became known, with “Commodore,” as L. Ron Hubbard was known. COB’s orders could not be questioned or disobeyed. Through his AVC department’s control of every communication emanating from CSI, Miscavige exercised complete control of CSI, Scientology’s main operating entity. I witnessed Miscavige’s control enforced without question from anyone in RTC, CSI, or any other Scientolgoy corporation for the next 17 years.
15. “By the mid-1990’s, Miscavige’s every utterance was ruthlessly enforced throughout all Scientology corporations. He regularly strode through Church of Scientology International’s California headquarters while barking verbal orders to anyone and everyone, from the janitors to managers responsible for Scientology management across the world.
16. “Miscavige was always accompanied by an entourage of personal staff. A staff member always carried a tape recorder to memorialize every word he spoke. Just before any audio tape would run out, another recorder would be started and held by an assistant inches from his mouth so as not to miss a single word when the first tape was replaced. Runners were on hand to rush every completed audio tape to COB’s secretarial unit. There, several typists were employed, 24 hours per day, typing every word from Miscavige’s mouth, from the moment he awoke to the moment he laid his head to rest at night. The secretarial unit culled almost every sentence from the transcripts that contained a direction or order Miscavige issued during his daily tours though the offices of Scientology corporations. Thoe excerpts were issued as written orders to the people Miscavige had directed his comments or orders to during his tours. The orders were so frequent and voluminous that massive rows of high-density files were filled with binders of Miscavige’s orders to RTC, CSI, and other Scientology corporations. The orders were tracked by computers, generating automatic nudges to the recipients to send evidence of compliance. Escalating levels of punishment were devised and enforced for non-compliance over time.
17. “The Office of Special Affairs (OSA) is the legal, public relations, and intelligence network of CSI. One or more network representatives are employed by every Scientology organization across the world. Each of them is operated and managed by OSA International (OSA INT) which is housed within CSI. Although OSA is formally answerable to CSI’s management, from OSA’s inception in the early 1980s, until my departure in December 2004, the formal management structure was a sham. OSA was carefully micromanaged by David Miscavige. he exercised his control through me, Inspector General of RTC, and Mike Rinder, Commanding Officer of OSA International.
18. “Between 1982 and 2004, it was my job to act as a go-between for Miscavige and OSA. The manner in which we shielded Miscavige was elaborate. Much of Miscavige’s control of OSA was done “off the record.” Every evening I would receive an intelligence briefing in writing from OSA. The briefing was usually several pages summarizing reports from private investigators and Scientologists serving as undercover spies watching and interacting with Scientology critics. The written briefing, contrary to established corporate policy, had no routing information on it. That is, the daily briefing had no indication who wrote the report or who it was directed to. If a report ever got out of the Church, it could not, on its face, be used to incriminate any of its author or recipients.
19. “After I read the report each day, I was instructed by Miscavige to put it into a fresh envelope with no routing information on it. I then personally carried the envelope into Miscavige’s office and set it on his desk. I was the only person in Scientology, aside from his wife and secretary, ever authorized such access to his desk. When Mr. Miscavige read the reports, he would enter my office with the report in hand. He would say ‘beat it’ to my secretary or anyone else who happened to be in my office. Once any visitors had left, Mr. Miscavige would discuss the contents of the report. Often, he would instruct me to order OSA to direct an operative or private investigator to find out something to do concerning the target of infiltration or investigation. On other occasions, Mr. Miscavige would joke about what was reported about a particular target, or rant about the target’s activity. When Miscavige was done discussing the daily OSA briefing with me, he would throw the report on my desk. That was my cue to pick it up and shred it after he left the office and before anyone was permitted to return to my office.
20. “For 22 years, my schedule was to wake up at least an hour before David Miscavige’s scheduled wake up time so that I could collect all important information on any matter of concern to him being handled by the OSA network. Every morning, I was required to brief Miscavige verbally on any major developments on matters handled by the OSA network around the world or matters concerning security. My briefing to him would begin with major problems which he insisted he know about. My briefing included reports about handling the media stories, investigations, legal cases, security breaches, and potential security situations. That briefing would last anywhere from a few minutes on a quiet day with no major developments, to all day when something was afoot that riveted Miscavige’s attention. Miscavige would issue orders to OSA that I had to accurately note on paper.
21. “After the conference with Miscavige, there were a number of options available for issuing his orders, depending on their scope and the level of security required. Most often, I would call Mike Rinder, into my office and I would brief him verbally on Miscavige’s directives. Mr. Rinder would then return to his own office and type up the orders as written directives to OSA. Those directives would be worded as if the orders were originated by him, with no reference to me or RTC, and especially not to Mr. Miscavige. On many occasions, Mr. Miscavige would require Mr. Rinder’s presence during briefings in which he wanted more detail than usual, or wanted to issue more detailed orders than usual. In such cases, it would be my responsibility to follow up to verify that Mr. Rinder relayed Mr. Miscavige’s orders to OSA as Rinder’s own orders.
22. “Mr. Rinder and I were ordered by Mr. Miscavige to keep secret virtually all of our communications, and to specifically keep them secret from any other managers or staff with CSI and RTC. All other CSI managers had little to no knowledge of any matters affecting Scientology from the world outside of the Church. Except for OSA staff, Sea Org members have little contact with the media or the world outside of their corporate duties.
23. “The highest priority OSA matters that I had to monitor and report on several times a day to Mr. Miscavige were ones that involved his name. If a staff member left unannounced from the Scientology corporate headquarters, and the person had any personal knowledge of Mr. Miscavige by way of regular contact with him, I was required to personally direct a massive dragnet utilizing Sea Org staff from RTC and CSI, and private investigators, to hunt down that staff member. This occurred on average a couple of times per year. I was micromanaged on such manhunts by Mr. Miscavige personally. I would make sure the person was contacted, and put under control and sometimes order ongoing surveillance through OSA that could last up to several years.
24. “If a journalist mentioned anything about interest in Mr. Miscavige, I directed and monitored every conversation between a church representative and that journalist. I prepared the staff member in advance and debriefed him afterward, all of which I reported directly to Miscavige.
25. “If a lawsuit named or sought discovery that involved Miscavige, I oversaw every aspect of that litigation until Miscavige was no longer subject to inquiry. During my tenure of more than 20 years, Miscavige micromanaged every single action that was taken by any OSA staff member, intelligence officer, private investigator or attorney related to that matter. No OSA operation, whether or not it involved outside professionals, could be undertaken on any matter potentially involving the name ‘David Miscavige,’ without Miscavige’s fully-informed and direct authorization and direction. That rule included even the potential defection of a staff member with only tangential information about Mr. Miscavige. OSA was founded on this policy, and I instituted it and carried it out painstakingly for 22 years, from 1982 to 2004, when I departed RTC.
26. “For more than 20 years, the Office of Special Affairs (“OSA”) of the Church of Scientology International answered to me. Under the close supervision of Mr. Miscavige, I directed OSA’s extensive, ongoing security, intelligence, “black ops,” public relations, and criminal and civil legal matters. Mr. Miscavige obsessively micromanaged OSA’s handling of perceived threats, including the threat of former Scientologists who complained of abuses occurring in the Church.
27. “I have read the Declaration of David Miscavige in Support of Special Appearance in this case. Mr. Miscavige’s Declaration is false, for the factual reasons stated above and below:
A. Miscavige’s false statement: “Prior to learning of this lawsuit, I had never heard of nor did I have any knowledge of Defendants Mr. Sloat and Mr. Drake.”
28. “Mr. Miscavige has known of the Church’s employment of Monty Drake since the 1990’s. Mr. Drake became Scientology’s primary private investigator for Texas matters in the early 1990’s. In 1996, Miscavige asked me whether we had any private detectives in the State of Texas. I told him that we retained Monty Drake, a private investigator in the Dallas area, who we used to investigate a former RTC executive living in Dallas. Miscavige expressed amusement at Mr. Drake’s name, and questioned me whether “Monty Drake” was a real name or an undercover name. I informed him that Monty Drake was a real name.
29. “David Miscavige ordered me on several occasions between 1996 and 2004, to have Mr. Drake obtain both specific and general information on the family of Lisa McPherson. Lisa McPherson was a young Scientologist who died while in the care of the Church of Scientology. I relayed Mr. Miscavige’s orders to Ben Shaw of Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization and Linda Hamel of OSA. Both Ms. Hamel and Mr. Shaw sent me several reports of Mr. Drake’s investigations. I personally handed each of Mr. Drake’s reports to Mr. Miscavige, during the criminal and civil litigation concerning Ms. McPherson and her family.
30. “In the 1990’s, I also personally delivered to Mr. Miscavige a number of Mr. Drake’s reports concerning the Church’s multiyear investigation of Alan Walters, a former Scientologists in Texas. Mr. Miscavige read these reports of the Texas investigation and used the information to direct OSA’s activities in Texas against Mr. Walters.
B. Miscavige’s false statements: “I have never availed myself of the privilege of conducting activities within the State of Texas.” & “I have not made any purposeful contacts with the State of Texas seeking any benefit, advantage, or profit.” & “I have not otherwise availed myself of the benefits and protection of Texas law.”
31. “In addition to the facts stated above, the following facts demonstrate the falsity of Mr. Miscavige’s Declaration. Mr. Miscavige was intensely involved with the handling of the fallout from the death of Lisa McPherson in Florida. He devised a strategy to bring legal action in Texas, rather than Florida, against the executor of Ms. McPherson’s estate. Mr. Miscavige said that he did not want to litigate in the most obvious venue, Pinellas County, Florida, because he believed it would be hostile to Scientology. He ordered me to execute his Texas litigation plan.
32. “As I carried out Mr. Miscavige’s Texas strategy, he repeatedly stressed to me that no Texas suit could be filed unless I found Texas legal counsel so connected to the local judiciary as to assure victory to the Church.
33. “During the several weeks that I implemented Mr. Miscavige’s orders in Texas, I reported to him daily. After researching the issue of which Texas attorneys to retain, I recommended the Dallas law firm of Jenkins & Gilchrist. Mr. Miscavige ordered me to bring the attorneys to the Church’s facilities in the Tampa, Florida area for a two-day tour, briefing, and indoctrination.
34. “Mr. Miscavige ordered me to gain the Texas attorneys’ confidence so they would reveal to me the extent of their connections in the U.S. District Court in the Tyler Division of the Eastern District of Texas. After my discussions with them, the attorneys agreed to return to Texas and thoroughly investigate to find the Tyler attorney with the strongest ties to the three federal judges in U.s. District Court there.
35. “I reported to Mr. Miscavige the details of my conversations with the Jenkins & Gilchrist attorneys. Mr. Miscavige expressed mistrust of the attorneys’ representations. He ordered me to tell them that their continued retainer was conditioned on finding local counsel with such connections that he could walk unannounced into the chambers of any of the three federal judges.
36. “The Jenkins and Gilchrist lawyers reported to me that they had found the most connected lawyer in the Tyler Federal Courts and they provided me with many relevant details about the attorney’s connections. I reported these favorable details to Mr. Miscavige. He expressed disgust, however, with my failure to find a Texas lawyer whose connections would guarantee victory to the Church.
37. “Mr. Miscavige threw a tantrum and called me a “f—‘ing loser.” He lectured me that he was the only Scientologist with the dedication to stick his neck out and guarantee victory. He said he would have to be the one to personally handle this flap, as he had handled every other major problem of CSI’s Office of Special Affairs. After more ranting and raving at me, he ordered me to hire the local counsel selected by Jenkins & Gilchrist, with the warning that “if they don’t win, you are dead!”
38. “In December, 1995, David Miscavige ordered me to send Scientologist, Bennetta Slaughter, a former Texan living in Florida, to the funeral of Lisa McPherson in Dallas, Texas. His orders were for Ms. Slaughter to “handle” Lisa McPherson’s grieving mother and convince her not to investigate the circumstances of her daughter’s death. Miscavige instructed that if Ms. Slaughter had to resort to paying the mother to forget the loss of her daughter, we were willing to ‘lose a couple hundred grand for this to go away.’ Ms. Slaughter carried out the mission to Dallas, while reporting to me. Ms. Slaughter reported that, in spite of her family connections, her efforts to cozy up to Mrs. McPherson were rebuffed and she never established enough communication to suggest paying her. I reported all the details to Mr. Miscavige. Mr. Miscavige cursed harshly about Ms. Slaughter and then issued a number of orders about covering up the circumstances of Lisa McPherson’s death.
39. “In early 1996, Mr. Miscavige ordered me to send an OSA staff member, Brian Anderson, to approach Mrs. McPherson in Texas to accomplish the same purpose as the Slaughter mission. Mr. Miscavige briefed me in detail on how Mr. Anderson was to act so that he could gain Mrs. McPherson’s trust without betraying any details of her daughter’s death. I carried out Mr. Miscavige’s orders and sent Mr. Anderson to Dallas, Texas. In Dallas, Mr. Anderson asked to meet with Mrs. McPherson, but she rebuffed him. I reported all the details to Mr. Miscavige. In response, Mr. Miscavige cursed about the incompetence of Mr. Anderson and me.
40. “It is important to understand that Mr. Miscavige’s consistent custom and practice for more than 20 years was to closely monitor and micromanage every OSA operation dealing with Scientologists who dared to leave the Church. His involvement intensified if the person had been at a high level in the Church hierarchy and had personal knowledge of Mr. Miscavige’s activities. As noted above, I was the highest level officer in the Church after Mr. Miscavige, and I worked directly with him for 27 years.
41. “No Scientologist or groups of Scientologists, including OSA, have authority to undertake any intelligence operation or destructive campaign against a high-ranking defector without specific approval from David Miscavige. Furthermore, if he orders any such activities to proceed or to cease, his orders are carried out to the letter without question. He has total and absolute authority in all branches and all functions of the Scientology corporations.”
“Further affiant sayeth not.”
Mark Rathbun
There are many fascinating things in this document, not the least of which are the efforts expended to influence Lisa McPherson’s family, to monitor ex-Scientologist Alan Walter, and to make sure all of Scientology catered to Miscavige’s every whim. Just Saturday, we quoted Denise Brennan saying largely the same thing that Rathbun does here, that Scientology’s corporate structure is a sham, and that the Sea Organization — which is not a legal, corporate entity — actually rules the entire organization. If the IRS actually showed any interest, it might just be interested to know that this extra-legal control of Scientology by the Sea Org is in direct violation of the 1993 agreement that gave Scientology tax-exempt status in the United States.
But while the IRS sleeps, Monique Rathbun carries on. We can hardly wait to see what happens at next week’s hearing.
Here’s the document itself…
Monique Rathbun vs Scientology, First Amended Complaint
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Posted by Tony Ortega on September 5, 2013 at 07:00
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