Kiosk-Gate: LAPD told Masterson accuser its Hollywood site was compromised by Scientology

You probably saw the story that hit yesterday, reporting that American Atheists had convinced the LAPD to remove a Scientology kiosk from its Hollywood Division station house, but the police department refused to turn over any information about what it was doing there in the first place.

What the stories about that kiosk didn’t mention was something we reported back in March 2017 when we first broke the story that Scientologist actor Danny Masterson was being investigated by the LAPD over allegations that he had violently raped multiple women.

In that initial story, we revealed that one of the three women who had come forward (a fourth came forward later) wrote a scathing letter to the LAPD’s then-chief, Charlie Beck, complaining about the shabby way the investigation was going. She made numerous complaints about how she and the other accusers were being treated, but she also specifically referred to being told by LAPD Detective Esther Reyes that they needed to take her case out of the Hollywood station house on Wilcox Avenue because it was a conduit to the Church of Scientology…

“I was told that my report was transferred out of the Wilcox location into downtown due to known leaks within the Hollywood division when I received a phone call from Detective Reyes later that day…She warned me that I am not to speak to any other officer or anyone claiming to be an officer,” Victim A wrote to the LAPD chief.

We also learned later from reporting by the Huffington Post that another of the victims, who had come forward to the LAPD initially in 2004, was told that the entire contents of her file from that time had gone missing after Scientology overwhelmed that investigation with affidavits calling the accuser a liar.

Now, the cozy relationship between the LAPD and the Church of Scientology has been illustrated in an absolutely stunning way, with the church placing one of its kiosks — the kind that you normally have to go to a Scientology “Ideal Org” to see — placed right inside the Hollywood Community Police Station on Wilcox Avenue.

The LAPD isn’t talking, but we imagine that Scientology assured the police department that the kiosk was not religious in nature but instead promoted its “social betterment” front groups, which Scientology claims are secular. A close look at the kiosk shows that it was promoting three Scientology initiatives: Its “The Way to Happiness” moral code booklet, its Drug-Free World initiative, and its “human rights” campaigns.

Scientology would no doubt disagree with American Atheists lawyer Geoffrey T. Blackwell, who wrote in his August 13 complaint letter to the LAPD that the kiosk was “promoting the tenets of a particular religion,” but that letter was enough to convince the police department to remove the kiosk.

It’s especially galling that the LAPD would demonstrate its chummy relationship to Scientology at exactly the time that it’s been under some fire for how slowly the Masterson investigation has dragged on, and with reports that Masterson’s accusers have been subjected to bizarre incidents of intimidation and harassment.

On Saturday one of the accusers, Chrissie Carnell, confronted a man in a pickup truck who had been parked for more than an hour outside her Los Angeles house. He responded by calling her a “bitch” and spitting his gum at her. Chrissie also told us that he referred to Chrissie’s husband, At the Drive In frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala, with the word “enemy.” But what most seemed to distress Chrissie was that the LAPD officer who responded to her call was rude and, in her words, “aggressive,” and refused to take a report, even after seeing the video of the man spitting at her. (His supervisor arrived and did take the report.)

Since then, we left a voicemail with the man in the pickup truck, but he has not called us back. Another Masterson accuser is claiming that the same man was seen outside her house, and the man was also recognized by one of the key witnesses in the rape investigation.

Carnell tweeted that the LAPD is taking the case seriously, but the lead detective on the case is reportedly on vacation until September 10.

The LAPD also didn’t respond at all yesterday when another Masterson victim reported being followed in a local home improvement store by a man she recognized not only as a Scientology official, but he was wearing a full Sea Org uniform and was not trying to conceal that he was following her.

It’s now been almost two years since Chrissie Carnell and the other accusers came forward with their allegations to the LAPD, and 16 months since the case went to the LA District Attorney’s Office.

We previously reported that the managers of that office have already signed off on charging Masterson under a harsh law that could see him facing 25-years to life in prison — which Carnell later confirmed in a tweet — but a final decision whether to charge Masterson has still not been made by DA Jackie Lacey herself.

Scientology has not shied away from trying to influence Lacey as well. Lacey was targeted in a public relations stunt by Scientology when it had Mike Rinder’s estranged daughter, Taryn Teutsch, pose with the DA at a women’s rights event in May.

We sent a records request to the DA’s office for copies of any correspondence between Jackie Lacey and Teutsch or the Church of Scientology.

We haven’t received any response.

 
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Chris Shelton talks to rocker Geoff Levin, part 3

Says Chris: “This week I am continuing my long-form interview with former Scientologist and recording professional Geoffrey Levin. We talk this time a lot about the fallout from the Dianetics marketing campaign and his continuing involvement with Scientology after that, as well as his second big project with the Church, the United for Human Rights song and video which the Church has been using to promote human rights education via the UN. Turns out they might not own this song after all because of their usual sneaky nonsense.”

 
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Note to the sleuths at ESMB

Last year, we worked with Clay Irwin to look into solving the mystery of who placed a spy camera outside his Clearwater home. On the camera, besides images of his own house, Clay also found numerous images of another house that the camera had been used to surveil. With some help from a clever Internet researcher we managed to figure out which house that was, and it led us to direct evidence that the private investigator using the camera had been employed by Wally Pope’s law firm — Scientology’s primary litigator in Florida. We reported this to Clay. However, we removed most of the photos of the secondary house from our website because they included images of people who were unrelated to the story and unrelated to Scientology.

We wanted you to know that Clay was apprised of the situation, and he is still considering his options about what to do with that information.

 
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MEANWHILE, AT FACEBOOK…

 
Please join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on August 30, 2018 at 07:00

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