Marty Rathbun has been ambushed by odd Scientologists asking strange questions yet again, and this time Marty not only managed to catch them in his short video of the encounter, but filmmaker Louis Theroux can also be seen in it.
In October, Rathbun posted video of three top Scientology officials ambushing him at the gate of a terminal in Los Angeles International airport. He managed to capture a blurry video of the three executives telling him to get a life while carrying cameras of their own.
Last week, former church official Marc Headley got the treatment outside Scientology’s secretive International Base.
And now, Marty has posted video from a recent trip to Los Angeles. At his blog, Rathbun says it’s from a “second wave” of attempted intimidation of a documentary being filmed in LA, but we’re not sure whether this video was shot during the same October trip or at a more recent date. UPDATE: This video was shot yesterday, on Saturday Dec. 13.
Rathbun indicates that the action is taking place outside a movie studio, and at the 1:00 mark you can just make out BBC broadcaster Louis Theroux filming with his own smartphone…
At his blog, Rathbun asked for help identifying the two men who are seen asking him questions (there’s a third man operating a camera). Are these Scientologists, or private investigators hired by the church?
The principal man keeps asking about how much Marty is being paid for “fostering” a child and for working on Theroux’s film.
Actually, Marty and Monique Rathbun adopted a child last year, but it’s just like Scientology to try to make something like that sound unseemly.
We’d like to know if you recognize either of the men.
As we indicated previously, HBO isn’t the only outfit planning a major film about Scientology. HBO’s documentary, “Going Clear,” directed by Alex Gibney, will open at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25.
But another major film, aimed at theatrical release, is in the works, produced by Oscar winner Simon Chinn, directed by John Dower, and starring BBC broadcaster Louis Theroux.
Marty has been hinting at big things in 2015. He was apparently talking about the two films. And now we learn what he was doing in Los Angeles when he was ambushed at LAX — shooting scenes for the Theroux movie.
Judging by the reactions of Scientologists to Rathbun and Headley (who has also been involved in the films), Scientology is very worried about these two movies.
UPDATE: Is Scientologist #2, the one by the wall, CCHR filmmaker Randy Stith? Here’s the man on the video…
And here’s Randy Stith, from his website…
UPDATE: We just talked to Marty Rathbun, who tells us this video was shot yesterday in Los Angeles.
We told him that we might have ID’d the second man in the video. And Marty tells us he eventually remembered the man doing most of the talking.
“For the last day I’ve tried to imagine him without glasses or a beard. I couldn’t remember him. But then it turns out I had met him before. This is the guy who ambushed us at the Corpus Christi airport in 2010,” Rathbun says. “Tony, this guy did the same stunt four years ago and I didn’t recognize him, he’s aged so much.”
Rathbun says the man’s name is Chris Smith, and he’s a public Scientologist (non-staff) who works on scripts for events.
We asked him how he felt about his adopted son being the subject of this intimidation attempt.
“I really took that as sending a message. There was no reason to mention that except to say, he [Marty’s son] is now in the mix.”
We told him that these ambushes appear to be related to the two films being made.
“I think they ought to be, because they couldn’t have more credible filmmakers on both teams,” Marty says.
Christopher Smith, from his Facebook page…
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Posted by Tony Ortega on December 14, 2014 at 17:45
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