Las Vegas attorney Ryan Hamilton has filed another federal fraud lawsuit against Scientology’s drug rehab network, Narconon. This one involves a New Hampshire family that was convinced to send their son to a Narconon facility in San Diego County.
Also, this case is very recent — Linda Keller was looking for a rehab facility for her son, Christopher, in April 2014.
She found numerous referral websites which appeared to be different from each other, but when she called the numbers they listed, each time she was referred to Narconon. She eventually reached a man named Josh Penn.
“Josh Penn represented that Fresh Start’s program had been scientifically and medically proven to be effective. Penn further falsely represented to Linda: (1) that while undergoing detox at Fresh Start, Christopher would be under the care of a doctor or nurse at all times; (2) that Fresh Start would provide Christopher with extensive drug and addiction counseling; (3) that Fresh Start staff are properly trained to care for and treat persons with addiction,” the complaint says.
Penn also claimed that Narconon had a success rate of between 70 and 80 percent.
Keller paid $33,000 up front, but once her son got to the facility, he realized that he was not being supervised by medical personnel as promised, and he witnessed drug and sexual activity going on at the center.
It also became clear that Narconon’s program is really Scientology training, not drug counseling.
Despite Narconon’s representations that Christopher would receive counseling, at no point did Narconon staff ever speak to Christopher about the specifics of his life or his drug use and its causes. In fact, no one at Fresh Start ever spoke to Christopher about substance abuse at all. Christopher received no education about substance abuse, its causes and effects, or methods to deal with his addiction. Instead, Christopher received instruction only in Scientology. When Christopher contacted his family while he was at Narconon, staff members were physically present in the room where Christopher made his phone calls and monitored what Christopher was communicating to his family. Christopher left the Narconon program early because, inter alia, he did not feel safe, and Fresh Start staff were unfit to treat him.
As in Hamilton’s other lawsuits, he cites evidence from previous cases which question Narconon’s claims about its effectiveness. He also brings up the way a title of an L. Ron Hubbard book is truncated on the Narconon patient contract in order to hide its connection to Scientology, as he has in other lawsuits.
We find it significant that Hamilton can still refer to that deceptive contract for a case that happened in April 2014 — three months after Hamilton began filing his lawsuits against the drug network. Apparently, Narconon has resisted change, despite the threat of these lawsuits proliferating further.
Here’s the complaint…
By our count, that’s twenty lawsuits Hamilton has filed against Narconon in California, Nevada, and Colorado.
Angelo Amato (Warner Springs, CA)
Christy Estrada and Branden Chavez (Warner Springs, CA)
Cathy and Michael Tarr (Nevada)
Harry and Lauren Geanacopulos (Nevada)
David, Stacy, and Jack Welch (Nevada)
Bryan and Nikki Mott (Colorado)
Charles and Tyler Matthys, and Linda Phillips (Colorado)
Kenneth and Jered Mowery (Watsonville, CA)
Robin Jones, James Ramirez Sr. and Jr. (Watsonville, CA)
Charis Yates, Beret and Dean Pugh (Nevada)
Lori, Ryan, and Jilliene Winchell (Nevada)
Ben Levy (Colorado)
Monica and Sean O’Connell (Watsonville, CA)
Ronald and Jason McClure (Nevada)
Michael and David Tino (Nevada)
Jerry and Christy Courson (Colorado)
Terney, Barbara, and Thomas Knoflick (Watsonville, CA)
Claudia and Sarah Buchett (Warner Springs, CA)
Sherri and Emily Brown (Warner Springs, CA)
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Jon Atack on Scientology’s current cycle of action
Historian Jon Atack sent over a brief note for us this week…
L. Ron Hubbard claimed that his “cycle of action” originated in the Vedic literature. He simplified it to “start, change, stop,” but in fuller form gave it as “birth, growth, conservation, decay, and death.”
It is fairly evident that since Miscavige’s takeover, the cult has been in conservation — from the buried caches of material of the early 90s to the overhaul of all previously published material.
The cult now seems to have moved into the decay stage. I hear that a couple of years back, wealthy members were offered free auditing. Some were foolish enough to take it — despite the well known adage that there’s no such thing as a free personality test, leave along free auditing. The auditing proved to be confessional in nature (the technique formerly known as “security checking” and elsewhere called “interrogation”). The question was simple: why weren’t these Patrons’ children in the Sea Org?
Through the despicable abortion policy, the ready pool of new recruits provided by the Cadet Org has dried up. South Park and Anonymous, the Underground Bunker, Xenu.net, Lermanet.com, Infinite Complacency and many other fine internet sites have dried up the recruitment of “dead in the head, raw meat, wogs,” as Hubbard labelled the general public. Instead, the Org will now recruit as many next generation members as possible. Even the staunchest Patrons may baulk at the treatment their own offspring receive in the Sea Org. Roll on the final stage of the cycle of action.
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Video excerpts of Karen de la Carriere’s Daily Mail interview
Our Karen tells it straight about her years in the church…
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Posted by Tony Ortega on September 13, 2014 at 07:00
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