Amended complaint filed against Scientology & Danny Masterson with new stalking allegations

 
With less than two weeks to go before a series of crucial hearings are scheduled that will include serious challenges to their lawsuit, four women suing the Church of Scientology, its leader David Miscavige, and Scientologist actor Danny Masterson have filed an updated complaint which includes new allegations of stalking, invasion of privacy, and even the poisoning of pets.

Chrissie Carnell Bixler, Bobette Riales, and two women going by the names Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 came forward to the Los Angeles Police Department more than three years ago with allegations that they had been violently raped by Masterson in incidents between 2001 and 2004. The LAPD investigation of those allegations continues, and in recent months we’ve reported that three additional women have come forward to the police. The LAPD initially forwarded its findings to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office in April 2017 for prosecution, but DA Jackie Lacey (who is up for re-election Tuesday) has still not said anything about whether she plans to file charges.

Last August, the four women and Carnell Bixler’s husband, rocker Cedric Bixler-Zavala, filed their lawsuit against the church and Masterson over what they claim was the intense Scientology “Fair Game” campaigns they’d been subjected to because the women had come forward to the police. So while the women continue to wait for the criminal investigation to come up with rape charges, they are suing over the harassment they say they’ve been put through in a coordinated effort by Scientology, Miscavige, and Masterson.

Beginning on March 11, their lawsuit will face a series of serious challenges. On that day, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Steven Kleifield will hear motions from Scientology, which is complaining that it wasn’t served the lawsuit properly, wants the service quashed, and has asked for sanctions. Then, nine days later the court will hear “demurrers” (a kind of legal response) from Masterson, who denies the lawsuit’s allegations and wants to be dismissed from it, and from Scientology against Riales, who was never a Scientologist. On March 27, the court will hear motions from Scientology against the other plaintiffs, who are all former Scientologists, that the church wants their claims forced into “religious arbitration” based on contracts they signed while members of the organization.

But before that set of hurdles arrive, the plaintiffs have doubled down on their allegations of stalking and harassment in a new amended complaint filed yesterday by their attorney Bobby Thompson that says the Fair Game surveillance and harm is still going on in the months after their lawsuit was filed.

As is common with amended complaints, the new one also has an opportunity to fix some issues with the lawsuit that have come up since it was originally filed. We noticed, for example, that instead of calling Masterson a Scientology “staff member,” he’s now referred to as a “field staff member,” which is actually a pretty important difference in the arcane world of Scientology and its byzantine hierarchies. As a field staff member or FSM, Masterson is paid a commission for bringing in new members (such as Chrissie Bixler, whom he dated), and therefore acts as an agent of the church itself.

At all relevant times, Defendant Masterson served and continues to serve as an FSM and therefore was and is an agent of the Institutional Defendants. Masterson served as the FSM for Plaintiff Chrissie Bixler and for hundreds of other individuals…

Also, we noted that after the griping by Scientology about the attempt to serve David Miscavige at his office in Hollywood, the new complaint is more specific about where the Scientology leader is reputed to live and work: “Mr. Miscavige is believed to reside at 6331 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 1100, Los Angeles, California 90028 and his principal place of business is located at 1710 Ivar Avenue, Suite 1100, Los Angeles California 90028.” (Both of those addresses are actually locations in the same building, a fact that Scientology has tried to use in order to create confusion about which entrance properly represents Miscavige’s location.)

The new complaint is also more precise about the criminal investigation of Masterson, and that description includes a couple of bombshells…

In March 2017, it was revealed that the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office were conducting a renewed investigation into Masterson. The investigation remains ongoing and now involves additional law enforcement agencies. The investigation was reinitiated when Plaintiff Chrissie Bixler reported to law enforcement that Masterson sexually assaulted her and includes a re-examination of the report filed by Jane Doe #1 as well as the allegations by Plaintiff Riales, Jane Doe #2 and others.

Did the Bixler legal team just drop a hint that federal law enforcement agencies are also looking into the Masterson matter? Um, we think they did. But we’ll continue to pretend we don’t know anything about that.

It’s also nice for someone (besides the Underground Bunker) to note that additional victims have come forward.

As for the specific allegations of rape and stalking alleged by each of the women, most of the material is repeated from the earlier complaint, with some key updates.

Chrissie Bixler’s dog Biscuit was poisoned in January, for example. And Bobette Riales’s dog Jet was poisoned earlier this month. And now we learn that Riales’s Indiana house was intentionally set on fire on Christmas Eve.

On December 24, 2019, Plaintiff Riales was in her home when she discovered the outside of her home had been set on fire. An initial investigation by the Evansville Fire Department revealed that the fire was intentionally set and that there were no human factors on the part of Plaintiff Riales to explain the origin of the fire.

Scientology has responded previously that what the women say they’ve been going through are actually examples of “the price of modern, urban life,” and that they have no evidence Scientology is behind any of the harassment they say is going on. Scientology has also said the lawsuit is improper because it tries to combine such different incidents happening to different people in different places, and shouldn’t make up a single lawsuit.

But with the amended complaint, these five plaintiffs have reasserted that they believe Scientology, Miscavige, and Masterson have been behind a coordinated campaign to shudder them into silence through an ongoing program of intimidation and dirty tricks. We have the document for you below, and we’ll include some key quotes here.

About Masterson’s position in the church…

Once he achieved this celebrity status, Masterson became highly regarded within and by the Church of Scientology and Institutional Defendants and was granted special treatment. Masterson also held prominent roles within Scientology, including being a Commissioner for the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, an organization founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology “to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.” Masterson also has a history of promoting and fundraising for Scientology. The Institutional Defendants closely monitor and protect celebrity members. To that end, upon information and belief, the Institutional Defendants and Defendant Miscavige worked with Defendant Masterson to keep Masterson’s sexual assault victims from reporting their abuse and mobilized an aggressive Fair Game campaign against the victims once the sexual assaults had been disclosed.

Masterson met Chrissie Bixler in 1996, and after they started dating he “forced” her to join the church…

Masterson regularly forced Plaintiff Bixler to have sex with him and became violent when Plaintiff Bixler refused. In one instance, after Plaintiff Bixler refused sex, Masterson dragged Plaintiff Bixler naked across their bedroom floor while berating her appearance. He then threw her, still naked, into the hall and locked the bedroom door. Following this incident, Plaintiff Bixler was directed by the Institutional Defendants and/or Defendant Masterson to do an “ethics program” during which she told an employee of the Institutional Defendants about Masterson’s sexually coercive and abusive treatment of her. The employee advised Plaintiff Bixler that her job as Masterson’s girlfriend was “to give him sex whenever he wants it,” and that if she complied, “these things wouldn’t happen. Defendant Masterson had made the same statements to Plaintiff Bixler.

In 2017 and 2018 Plaintiff Bixler had multiple phone calls with Ryan Gentles, a close friend and associate of Defendant Masterson. Gentles contacted Plaintiff Bixler through Instagram and proceeded to arrange an initial phone call. During one of these calls Gentles reported to Plaintiff Bixler that he had been contacted by Scott Ross, a private investigator for Defendant Masterson’s criminal attorney Thomas Mesereau. Gentles reported to Plaintiff Bixler that Ross told him Masterson had been accused of sexual assault by four different individuals, including a woman who claimed she was assaulted by Masterson when she was a minor. Ross told Gentles this woman later died by suicide.

In June of 2019, an agent of Defendants and friend of Defendant Masterson’s contacted Plaintiff Bixler-Zavala and threatened to leak nude photos of an underaged Plaintiff Bixler. Also in June 2019, Plaintiff Blxier was run off the road by a vehicle that was following her. Defendants and/or their agents fraudulently registered Plaintiff Bixler’s vehicle so that it appeared stolen.

Jane Doe #1 awoke to Defendant Masterson raping her. She attempted to fight him off by shoving a pillow into his face, but he pushed it back down onto her face, making it difficult for her to breathe. Masterson also used his hands to strangle Jane Doe #1 until she lost consciousness. Jane Doe #1 attempted to make noise, but Masterson picked up a gun off of his nightstand, pointed it at her, and told her to be quiet. Defendant Masterson held Jane Doe #1 down and anally assaulted her. Masterson only stopped when he heard a voice at the bedroom door and went to investigate.

Jane Doe #1’s mother has been provided legal counsel through the Institutional Defendants for purposes of the criminal investigation. Jane Doe #1’s mother has not been fully cooperative with law enforcement. Furthermore Jane Doe #1 was told by Scott Ross, a private investigator for Defendant Masterson’s attorney Thomas Mesereau that any Scientologists he wishes to speak to must be contacted through attorneys for the Church, whether they are represented by those attorneys or not.

Jane Doe #1 retained an attorney to obtain a copy of the non-disclosure agreement she had signed under duress and coercion. That attorney contacted Marty Singer, who still represents Defendant Masterson. Singer informed counsel for Jane Doe #1 that she was violating the terms of agreement by cooperating with law enforcement and that she could not have a copy as “only the lawyers” got copies.

In January of 2019, Jane Doe #1 was at an appointment with an accountant. When she left the appointment and was walking to her car, she was accosted by two agents of the Defendants, a male and female. They were yelling at her and threatening her life. The male spat on Jane Doe #1’s windshield as she fled the parking lot. Jane Doe #1 later found out that a major tenant that shares the building with her accountant is a company run by a Scientologist. She was able to use the company website to identify the two individuals that accosted her and threatened her life. Both are Scientologists. In addition, one of the individuals that works at the company is a friend of Masterson who gave a statement in favor of Masterson during the course of the criminal investigation.

From the time Jane Doe #2 disclosed the assault to law enforcement through the present, Jane Doe #2 has been stalked, harassed, and intimidated by Defendants and their agents who seek to silence her in retalation for reporting her abuse. This includes but is not limited to Jane Doe #2 seeing a former case supervisor who provided her services while she was still a Church member menacing her in a store and, separately, another individual following and photographing her in public all within the last several months. As a result of the harassment she has suffered, Jane Doe #2 has rarely left the house in the three years since reporting the sexual assault to law enforcement.

 
Here’s the document itself…

Bixler et al. v. Scientolog… by Tony Ortega on Scribd

 
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Jon Atack on the last straw

From the video’s description: “Why did Jon abandon the ‘technology’ of Scientology? How useful does Jon think Hubbard’s ideas are?”

 
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Source Code

“Bad programs and clumsy projects develop useless traffic (Dev-T) and tie people up all over the place, pull them off normal needful actions and send the existing scene even further from the Ideal Scene. They make people very busy but nothing beneficial is gained and as the useless actions distract from normal duties, the whole place is at risk. Staffs subjected to programs that are not based on sound observation Evaluation, a REAL WHY and the points in Data Series 23, become apathetic as they see no result, So programs that are bad and programs that are right but don’t get fully done are alike deadly. THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR CORRECTLY DONE DATA ANALYSIS. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR NOT GETTING CORRECT PROGRAMS DONE. In this way and only in this way can one raise the Existing Scene toward an Ideal Scene. Data Analysis is a powerful tool. YOU CAN USE IT.” — L. Ron Hubbard, February 29, 1972

 
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Overheard in the FreeZone

“Usually the first thing I run out in sessions is myself as the effect point or victim. Interacted with Hubbard last life and came back to finish the job and successfully ‘killed the Buddha,’ metaphorically speaking. In Freezone ran Whole Track fixated Hubbard interactions back to cause point, no more fixed postulates re Hubbard. Very appreciative though, very appreciative. He kept me pointed to ‘static’.”

 
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Random Howdy

“I’ve met or known Rastafarians, Wiccans and Satanists but I’ve never met a Scientologist in real life except my sister, which doesn’t count seeing as how that’s an accident of birth. Oh the shame.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:
— Jay Spina: Sentencing set for April 3 in White Plains
— Hanan and Rizza Islam and other family members: Trial set for April 14 in Los Angeles

Civil litigation:
— Luis and Rocio Garcia v. Scientology: Waiting for an appellate decision from the Eleventh Circuit
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ (Valerie’s options.)
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology: March 11 (plaintiff attorneys pro hac vice, defense motions to quash), March 20 (demurrers by Masterson and Scientology), March 27 (motions to compel arbitration)
— Jane Doe v. Scientology (in Miami): Jane Doe’s attorneys have asked for discovery, April 20 hearing set (motion to compel arbitration)
— Matt and Kathy Feschbach bankruptcy appeal: Oral arguments on March 11 in Jacksonville
— Brian Statler Sr v. City of Inglewood: Complaint filed.

 
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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

[FOUR years ago] Billboard decrying Scientology ‘disconnection’ will be going up on Hollywood Blvd
[EIGHT years ago] DEBBIE COOK COUNTERSUES SCIENTOLOGY: We Have Her Counterclaim

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on February 29, 2020 at 07:00

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