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SPECIAL EPISODE ADDED: Leah Remini series adds Monday hour featuring Paulette Cooper

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A special one-hour episode has been added to A&E’s hit series, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, and it will air this Monday night at 10 pm.

Titled “Ask Me Anything,” the show was quickly put together after the series, which debuted on November 29, turned out to be A&E’s most-watched in two years. Filming for the special episode took place last week, and we know that Leah interviewed journalist Paulette Cooper and former Scientologists Karen de la Carriere and Chris Shelton, and perhaps others.

In 1971, Paulette published The Scandal of Scientology, one of the first books to expose L. Ron Hubbard, after she first wrote about Scientology in a 1969 magazine article. From the day that article appeared until 1985, Paulette was under constant surveillance and bullying by Scientology’s sophisticated “Guardian’s Office” spy corps, and the church’s various entities filed 19 different lawsuits against her. It’s such an outrageous example of what Scientology can do when it is determined to destroy someone, we wrote a whole book about it.

At one point, in 1973, the Guardian’s Office framed Paulette for the crime of sending bomb threats to the New York Scientology org (even lifting her fingerprints to put on a piece of stationery), and she was indicted and faced 15 years in federal prison. She came close to killing herself that summer, but she managed to avoid prosecution and was eventually exonerated by the FBI. But Scientology’s complex schemes against her continued — we even found that a reporter on Scientology’s payroll was keeping tabs on her until at least 2010!

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Paulette’s phone was tapped, her friends and family were targeted, and Scientology even sent in spies to live in her apartment building and to befriend her. And, incredibly, from May to September 1973, she even took in a roommate not realizing that he was a Guardian’s Office operative. The total amount of resources that L. Ron Hubbard threw at this single woman in Manhattan over several decades is truly staggering. But she survived it all, and she thrived. And she still keeps an active interest in what’s happening in the world of Scientology and supports the people who continue to investigate it.

Paulette and Leah met for the first time last year on our book tour, when we took the photo above. And we had a feeling we might have been witnessing a torch being passed. We can hardly wait to see what the two of them talk about on Monday night’s special episode.

The fourth regular episode in the series will air Tuesday night at 10 pm in its regular spot. This week’s regular episode focuses on Scientology leader David Miscavige, and will feature David’s father, Ron, who escaped from the organization’s “Int Base” in March 2012. (You can see a sneak peek of the episode here.)

Last year, we learned that after Ron’s escape, he was being followed by a father-son private investigator duo who, after being arrested in Wisconsin, admitted to being paid $10,000 a week by David Miscavige to surveil his own father. Ron wrote about being stalked and a lot more in his 2016 memoir, Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David Miscavige, and Me.

We reported earlier that Leah also found herself being tailed as she filmed scenes for her series this summer, specifically in Denver and by a prominent former Denver cop, Daril Cinquanta.

And now that the series has been airing, more people associated with it are finding themselves being followed. Leah says that producer Alex Weresow has found himself being tailed, as has the show’s makeup artist. And earlier this week, Amy Scobee, the subject of Leah’s first episode, found that someone was sitting in a car outside her house, filming…

 
“I went outside and saw that there was someone sitting in the red zone,” Amy tells us. “I went back several hours later and he was still there, and he had a camera mounted on the steering wheel. So I went around and took a picture of his license plate, and he pretended to be combing his hair while looking into his cell phone. But then, when I came back around, he was overtly filming me.”

Over the years, Amy has been targeted repeatedly by Scientology’s private eyes, and unflattering photos of her have been posted on websites, most of them operated anonymously.

Will Paulette Cooper find herself being stalked again for appearing on Leah’s show? They wouldn’t dare, would they?

Apparently, we’re going to find out. And just three days from now, on Monday night at 10 pm on the A&E network.

 
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3D-UnbreakablePosted by Tony Ortega on December 16, 2016 at 14:15

E-mail tips and story ideas to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our book, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information about the book, and our 2015 book tour, can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts

Other links: Shelly Miscavige, ten years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | Scientology boasts about assistance from Google | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana Whitfield

 

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