Masterson accusers in court today seek changes to deal with Scientology ‘arbitration’ motions

 
UPDATE: MOTION DENIED. However, there’s some encouraging news. See the update below.

In Los Angeles Superior Court this morning, attorneys for four women accusing actor Danny Masterson of rape have asked for an emergency hearing to convince Judge Steven Kleifield that they should have the right to research the religious contracts that the Church of Scientology is using to try and force their harassment lawsuit into “religious arbitration.”

Just two weeks ago, Scientology won a major victory in another lawsuit being handled by the same attorneys when the church convinced Judge Richard Burdge Jr to grant their motions to compel Leah Remini’s assistant, Valerie Haney, into religious arbitration because she had signed such contracts.

On March 27, the Masterson accusers are scheduled to face similar motions, and we had wondered what their attorneys might do to avoid the same fate.

This morning, their attorneys will be asking for the chance to challenge the facts behind those arbitration agreements, and in order to do that, they want a hearing moved up from April 1 to a sooner date so the judge can consider granting them what’s known as “discovery.” If he does, that will give the Bixler team time to gather more facts about the contracts Scientology submitted as part of their motions to compel arbitration.

We had pointed out earlier that some of those contracts do raise questions — a couple of them aren’t even countersigned by Scientology officials, for example. Bixler’s legal team would no doubt like the opportunity to depose some Scientology officials about those contracts before having to go through another showdown like the one that derailed the Haney suit. But will the judge grant it? We’re not really sure he will.

We’ll have Jeffrey Augustine in the courtroom once again to send us live updates.

The lawsuit was filed by Chrissie Carnell Bixler, Bobette Riales, and two women going by the names Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2, who have all been working with the Los Angeles Police Department in a years-long investigation of Masterson. Chrissie’s husband rocker Cedric Bixler-Zavala is also a plaintiff, and the lawsuit alleges that since the four women came forward to the LAPD they’ve been subjected to an ongoing harasssment campaign. They’re suing Masterson, the Church of Scientology, and its leader David Miscavige.

Yesterday, Scientology attorney William Forman filed a blistering attack on the new move for an emergency hearing, accusing the Bixler legal team of playing fast and loose with schedules and court rules, but mostly pointing out that Judge Burdge, in the Haney case, already denied a similar request for discovery when he granted Scientology’s arbitration motions.

Here’s Scientology’s opposition to today’s proceedings…

Bixler v. Scientology: Scie… by Tony Ortega on Scribd

 
UPDATE: We just talked to Graham Berry, who has been added to the Bixler legal team (whew!). Here’s the result of today’s hearing…

The judge denied the motion, but he said that what they’re actually seeking — discovery for more information about the contracts — they can ask for when they submit their opposition to the arbitration motions. (Which I believe is due on or around March 16).

In that opposition filing, they can request discovery, and do so with some detail — who they want to talk to, why they are seeking that information, and where, etc.

So even though the judge is denying the motion, he isn’t denying the relief that they seek.

“And he pointed out that he has in the past granted limited discovery in those kinds of cases,” Graham added.

 
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Bonus items from our tipsters

Make that eight days…

 
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Source Code

“The matter of communication is a very serious one. People who are wearing glasses have a break in communication — the communication between the outside world and their minds. It is something which makes it hard for them to see. Myopic astigmatism, unless caused by an accident, is a psychosomatic affair caused by the mind. There is a communication break relating to sight. Those breaks culminate in glasses. Statements in engrams like ‘You just can’t see anything’ will cause the command power to shut off vision. Those people who have achieved optimum personality often drop off the need for glasses.” — L. Ron Hubbard, February 14, 1951

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“So there is this static potential we call theta. It has no mass, no motion, no space, no time, no wavelength but it has the ability to postulate and perceive. It is a life potential creator that all things you see have been created out of. So from this theta, pieces broke off and pieces of the pieces broke off these pieces, and they became the spirit beings that created this ‘agreed upon universe.’ It is agree upon because we agreed to the laws that it operates, by like for example gravity. Now imagine creating a block of space the size of a swimming pool. This space is NOT a nothing. It appears to be a nothing but it’s NOT. Some of these UFOs travel from one part of the universe to the other by just swapping space. That means take the coordinates of a block of space here and an identical size of space say 10 light years from here and swap spaces. Whatever is in this block of space, (like a space ship), goes to the other block of space and whatever is in that block of space comes to this block of space. The space will vanish the second time we look at it because looking at it twice violates a law that ‘no two identical objects can occupy the same space.’ So we have to trick it somehow to make it persist. We do this by creating another space in the exact same space in an instant later and DON’t LOOK AT THE ORIGINAL SPACE YOU CREATED. In fact lie about it and say someone else created it. By the continuous creation of new space in a new time we have space that persists, a space time continuum. Now we are creating this from the static called theta so we now have to create a viewpoint from the broken pieces (spirits, thetans) to go into this block of space the size of a swimming pool to create and view what we create. We try many different creations over and over again until we got the idea of creating atoms. These atoms are just a new particle created in each new space that is create and had its position in space moved so it can manifest a particle moving in a circle. Over a period of time we make all these combinations of atoms and give them properties we add so eventually over millions of years of experimentation we have finally got a workable model with suns, moons, planets. That is the most basic simple model I can think of.”

 
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Random Howdy

“The idiots show up like clockwork on a Thursday, leave a couple of barely comprehensible comments and scurry away, and they’ve done their job for the week! I think Miscavige is overpaying them.”

 
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Start making your plans…

 
Head over to the convention website and meet us in St. Louis!

 
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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] Scientology’s street theater in New York: A bid to head off a 4th ‘Aftermath’ season?
[TWO years ago] PROSECUTORS PREPARE CHARGES CARRYING LIFE SENTENCE FOR DANNY MASTERSON
[THREE years ago] Billboard up on Sunset Blvd! Calls attention to Scientology ‘disconnection’ only blocks from HQ
[FOUR years ago] Karen de la Carriere: Scientology is smearing me again, and this time is hitting below the belt
[FIVE years ago] More secrets from Scientology’s vanished entity, Narconon International
[SIX years ago] Scientology’s $100,000 girl records a video promoting a fundraising event in California
[SEVEN years ago] Scientology’s Spiffy Golden Era Studios Has Its Own Dentist!
[EIGHT years ago] Scientology’s Shocking Treatment of Children Held in a Suburban Labor Camp

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on February 14, 2020 at 07:00

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