Scientologist removed from L.A. court again after screaming at judge in fraud hearing

It was another strange day at Los Angeles Superior Court yesterday as a long-delayed preliminary hearing went into its second day, and our correspondent Jeffrey Augustine was on the scene.

Defendants Hanan Islam and her son Ronnie “Rizza” Islam had spent the night in county jail after their antics the previous day. When the courtroom opened at 1:30 pm, Augustine tells us, Rizza was brought in from a holding cell in jail blues and was handcuffed to a chair. His mother was also brought in, but besides the dark blue clothes with “LA County Jail” in white letters, she also had on a paper mask. Augustine says she was belligerent, complaining loudly about the way she had been treated.

Judge Michael Pastor was told by sheriff’s deputies that Hanan had refused to submit to a TB test when she was taken to jail, and so she had to be held in isolation. She had also refused a chest X-ray out of concerns about radiation, saying she had cured herself of cancer.

She also complained that her medical situation was private, and she didn’t like that it was being discussed in an open courtroom in front of “a bigoted reporter,” and she stared at Augustine, who has been skillfully giving us detailed and unbiased reporting from the scene. (Hanan’s attorney had waived her HIPAA rights in a previous public court session.)

Hanan also returned to the themes of sovereign citizen conspiracy theories, angrily denying that the court had any jurisdiction over her. In the morning, she had refused to leave her cell to come to the courthouse, and Judge Pastor had to issue an extraction order, which resulted in deputies forcibly removing her from her cell, which she loudly complained about to the judge.

Judge Pastor had heard enough. He ordered Hanan excluded from court, and she was taken back to jail. “Defendant Hanan Islam insists on being the center of attention,” the judge said wearily. The hearing then continued without her present. (Her son Rizza, it should be pointed out, comported himself respectfully during the proceeding.)

Some highlights of the second day of testimony by state prosecutors: Investigator Sam Richardson said that the World Literacy Crusade (Alfreddie Johnson’s infamous Scientology front operation in Compton) and American Health and Education Clinics (the Scientology Narconon rehab Johnson and Islam opened at the WLC facility) were essentially indistinguishable. They shared the facility, they shared literature, they shared personnel.

(“We use the Narconon program developed by L. Ron Hubbard,” World Literacy Crusade’s website stated on a now-defunct page that is preserved on the Internet Archive.)

Between September 2010 and June 2013, the county paid Hanan Islam’s clinic $3.8 million in reimbursements, which prosecutors now say were applied for fraudulently.

Defense attorneys had an opportunity to respond, and Augustine says that each of them began to carve out different approaches for their clients.

Rizza Islam’s attorney questioned the lack of Medi-Cal codes on sign-in sheets that listed the names of high school students who were taught by Rizza. But the state had already explained how the sign-in sheets were used by the scam’s “ghost writers” to produce lengthy (and bogus) progress reports for the students so Medi-Cal could be fraudulently billed. It felt like a fairly inconsequential attack on the state’s case, Augustine says.

The defense for Rizza’s older sister, Nimat Islam, took the line that Nimat was a low-level, inconsequential employee who was never in Suite F with the ghost writers, was not a signatory on bank accounts, and didn’t sign tax returns.

On rebuttal, the prosecution said that Nimat had threatened to fire an employee if they didn’t apply for Medi-Cal, suggesting she too was part of the overall scam.

Hanan’s attorney focused on her daughter Zakiyyah being in charge of billing, and also that Hanan did not teach or counsel any of the high school students, and that she wasn’t seen on any of the high school campuses.

On rebuttal, the prosecution said that Hanan didn’t go to the campuses because she dealt directly with the corrupt educators (two principals and a football coach) who supplied the students for the scheme.

At the end of day’s testimony, Rizza Islam was led away in handcuffs to return to jail to continue to serve his five-day penalty for contempt. Judge Pastor said that his mother Hanan could reappear in court if she abides by the rules. But she’ll be cooling her heels in the county jail until Monday morning, when the hearing resumes with more testimony from the prosecution, this time a witness from the state Franchise Tax Board.

 
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Introducing ‘The Lowdown’

Late last night, the cats threw the switch on some changes to the website. We’ve added a new blog, The Lowdown, and touched up the home page. On some of our browsers, the update worked immediately. But on Chrome, the changes were taking longer to propagate. So bear with us if things look a bit janky for you this morning.

Several months ago, we wanted to add more subjects to the Bunker, where we’ve been covering Scientology as a daily news beat since 2012. We added new blogs about Jehovah’s Witnesses and Nxivm, and we were fortunate to have Dianne Lipson provide killer eyewitness coverage for the Nxivm trial.

But we realized that it was very difficult to add blogs with such narrow focuses on top of the major Scientology site we were already operating. So we’ve retooled. We’ve emphasized our Scientology coverage on the home page, and we’ve added The Lowdown, a blog that will allow us to dip into as many different topics as we want to — sure, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Nxivm, but also culture, science, and even some politics: We’re thrilled that attorney Scott Pilutik will be featured regularly at The Lowdown. His lawyerly observations about national news have been extremely helpful to keep us calm as everything seems to be burning down around us.

Writing about Scientology every day is a full time job, and we don’t plan to attenuate our coverage. So items on The Lowdown are often just attempts at conversation starters and may not be much more than a link to a controversial new press article and a comment by us to get the discussion going. We hope you’ll give these items a look and help us grow the Bunker into entertaining new areas of conversation. — The Proprietor

 
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Source Code

“The Roman Catholic Church, somewhere along the line, through watching the dramatizations of people, picked up some little fragments of R6, and they make it look like it’s continued forward into present time. But the truth of the matter is that the loyal officers were not all killed. Xenu missed. And they were not all killed. Not by a long way…Somebody, somewhere on this planet, back about 600 BC, found some piece of R6. And I don t know how they found it, either by watching mad men or something, but since that time they have used it and it became what is known as Christianity. The man on the cross. There was no Christ, but the man on the cross is shown as every man so of course each person seeing a crucified man has an immediate feeling of sympathy for this man. Therefore you get many PCs who say they are Christ.” — L. Ron Hubbard, October 3, 1968

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“‘Love and Freedom’ is the tool the 1.1s use to win (our own wrong-headed) support, as like, as our government that promotes and talks about freedom and service to all, while taking away freedoms and taking away our prosperity. Homosexuality and related acts are not freedom, theta, or logical in this universe, at least in the part that I live in — instead they are just another extension of the alien deep-state cabal push-and-pull and complete trap to hold us in the lower tones so we can be controlled and eliminated.”

 
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Scientology’s celebrities, ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and more!

We’ve been building landing pages about David Miscavige’s favorite playthings, including celebrities and ‘Ideal Orgs,’ and we’re hoping you’ll join in and help us gather as much information as we can about them. Head on over and help us with links and photos and comments.

Scientology’s celebrities, from A to Z! Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

Scientology’s ‘Ideal Orgs,’ from one end of the planet to the other! Help us build up pages about each these worldwide locations!

Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society!

Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in our weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Jesse Prince talks about the grieving after L. Ron Hubbard’s death — and the partying
[TWO years ago] Rerun Tuesday: ‘Leah Remini’ participants tell us what the series has meant to them
[THREE years ago] L. Ron Hubbard in exile: When Scientology’s leader ran things while on the lam
[FOUR years ago] ‘Going Clear’ Q&A: Mike Rinder and Sara Goldberg take heat from Scientologists
[FIVE years ago] What VICE magazine got wrong about Scientology in the UK
[SIX years ago] LIVE FROM TAMPA: The Garcia v. Scientology Federal Fraud Lawsuit Mini-Trial!
[SEVEN years ago] Scientology’s Meltdown: A Story Told in Pictures

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on October 3, 2019 at 07:00

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